Apparently my house is the place where crickets come to die. Over the past few weeks, I have found their dead bodies by the dozen, clustered around my front doorstoop, outside the back door, inside the garage, etc. I sweep them away, but new ones kept appearing every day. I tried leaving their little cricket corpses for a while, thinking, you know, that they might "serve as a warning to others." Apparently crickets don't communicate that way.
What could be the cause of this strange phenomenon? Is it the weather turning colder? Is it some strange instinct that draws them to this particular plot of land? Is it the copious amounts of spider poison that I have spread around every door and window of the house? It's hard to say, really. One of nature's little mysteries, I guess...
Within the past week or two, Oxford has gone into a full-blown Southern "fall" with leaves changing color and fluttering down (both usually within the span of a week - this is one of the few processes that moves pretty quickly in The South). The oak, gum, and magnolia trees are all shedding their respective acorns, gumballs, and empty seedpods as well, which makes walking around Ole Miss a continuous exercise in testing my reaction time and reflexes. A "beautiful scenic campus" is all well and good until it's dropping down on your head (especially the magnolia pods, which are about the size of a fist).
I will give the Mid-Atlantic/Northeast credit for this: they do "fall" much better there than we do down here. It's almost as if God gave that part of the country the deluxe Crayola "Fall Foliage" 64-pack (complete with special edition glitter crayons) and then handed the standard 8-pack to Mississippi, mumbling, "Um... you can make do with these. Just blend a lot."
But that's okay because in absence of a wide spectrum of colors, we've had a lovely range of temperatures mostly in the 60s and 70s. And given a choice between scenery and temperature, I think we all know which takes priority in my world. (If you don't know, please consult any of my coworkers who had to go to Ottawa with me in February of 2006.) You could put me in a plastic bubble with a constant temperature of about 75 degrees, and I can guarantee that I'd be much happier than if I were out in a gorgeous landscape where it was 40 and windy. I'm not saying I'd want to live in the bubble forever... just maybe 'til it warmed up a bit outside.
I head into finals over the next few weeks, so I don't think there will be anything noteworthy to share there. But then I begin my Christmas Break tour of Maryland, Virginia, Mississippi, and California; and I always have adventures when I travel. What will it be this time? Will the battery in my hotel door lock die, trapping me (and all other hotel personnel) outside of my room again? Will my airplane seatbelt strap mysteriously end up in the lap of the gentleman next to me, forcing me to wake him up and ask him to hand the strap to me rather than make a disastrous reach for it myself? Will I charm another celebrity into waiting for me after we disembark? (Hey, Bill Nye the Science Guy - remember me? ;] How you doin'?)
I just never know...
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
Who's going to point out Bill Nye to you, or keep you company while you're waiting to get back into your room this time??
(And it wasn't that cold in Ottawa.)
Every adventuress needs a good sidekick (or "Swiftkick", as the case may be). That's why I keep you around, you know. Plus, you were the one who coined the phrase "The Last Temptation of Nye" - I gotta' keep genius like that on my team! :]
Post a Comment