Birthdays. Because I am a bad sister, I forgot to call my brother and tell him happy birthday yesterday. Happy Birthday Jeff!! I will be calling you today. :)

The weekend. The weekend was filled with bridal showers and bachelorette parties in celebration of Cris and Jason's upcoming wedding. There were late night preparations and celebrations, lots of singing, dancing, and general merriment. Oh, and FOOD like you've never seen before. At our largest there were 12 ladies who came out to celebrate with Cris, and we had a blast. :) So much of a blast, actually, that I spent most of Sunday sleeping and recovering. On Monday we met up at Sinplicity for lunch, where we had a good time retelling all of our weekend's antics to the boys once they returned from Jason's bachelor weekend in Atlantic City.

5k Training. My weekly training session was cancelled last night due to a tornado watch that never delivered. I wish I could say I came home and worked out anyways, but I can't. :) Instead I cozied up on my couch and caught up on all the sleep I missed this weekend.

Gardening. My plants are still alive! I know you were all curious to see if I'd killed any of them yet. There's one plant that seems to continually attract the tiny little claws of the area chipmunks, and I always have to dump abuot a third of the dirt back into the container when I get home from work every day. The plant hasn't really taken notice of this yet, thankfully. I'm also now the proud parent of a sweet potato plant that decided to sprout while I was away in North Carolina. That sucker can grow.

Alison Krauss. Tomorrow Adam is taking me to see the Great High Mountain Tour 2004 at Wolftrap. Alison Krauss and Union Station are the headliners on the ticket, and I couldn't be more excited!! There are also some heavy-hitting bluegrass legends on the line-up, so it should be an entertaining night. They'll be performing music from Cold Mountain and O Brother Where Art Thou, as well as many others. Fun fun!

Cicadas. The cicadas have reached what seems to be their peak in my area. I've even been hearing them in my apartment comlex! I'd forgotten about all the small patches of old growth forest that the developers left alone when building the complex. I walk through such a grove on my way to Adam's apartment, and the pathways are littered with little cicada shells and bodies. I've noticed that the periodical cicadas make a different set of sounds than the ones I am used to. The humming is sharper, and the rhythmn is faster. When they are not humming, there is an eerie ring in the air. It took me several days to realize that it was the cicadas. Its a bit like the sound that subway rails make when a train is approaching, and when you're near a large population of them, the sound is breathtaking. Even though I really enjoy the sound, I quickly learned that driving through a densely populated area with the car windows down was not a good idea. While most of the bugs can be seen swarming around the treetops, a lot of them make their way towards your car, where they make great big splats on your windshield. So I enjoy at a distance. :)

Baseball. The scoobies ventured into Baltimore last Thursday to take in the last of the Yankees-Orioles series. Traffic was hellish, and even leaving two hours in advance didn't get us to the game in time, so we missed the first three and a half innings. By that time the Orioles had pulled ahead 3-0. The euphoria didn't last long, as the Yankees spent the rest of the game steadily pounding the Orioles faces into their own finely-packed red dirt. But we had a good time cheering and scarfing down ballpark hot dogs and beer. Several fans in our section were catching cicadas as they flew near the lights and eating them live. This elicited much fascination and disgust from the crowd, but we cheered them on anyways. It seemed the fun thing to do. :) At the bottom of the 8th inning we decided to call it quits. The Orioles were down by 11 runs, so we figured it was time to head home. But it was a great night for baseball, and I hope to go back soon!