An actual conversation.

"What street were you on, Zav?"

"Um, I forget. It had a stop sign, and a street sign..."

...And did it have perhaps trees, and houses as well?

My life is one big adventure.

Yesterday I drove back home from Ithaca and brought Andy with me, whom I had to drop off in Allston. For those of you who don't know, Allston is a part of Boston. And if you know me, you know the direction in which this is headed.

Of course, I got off the wrong exit when I was leaving the Pike. I had to turn around and go to exit 20, which was back the other way, so I needed to find a way back on the Pike. Imagine my horror when I realized I was headed for Copley Square. Oh by the way, I had never driven in Boston before.

I called my dad in a panic, but luckily it was pretty easy to find my way back on the highway. I ended up paying an extra toll, which led to my next problem.

After dropping Andy off and spending a little while at Bill's house (where he was staying), I remembered to ask for toll money because I didn't have enough to get home. Let it be known that I am never allowed to give money back to someone if they give it to me for tolls. I thought a dollar would be enough. Stupid me, forgetting I needed to pay two tolls and not one.

So I'm back on the Pike when I realize, hey, I bet there's going to be another toll coming up. I once again called my dad, who told me to pull off at Watertown since they wouldn't have a toll at that exit. I counted up my money, and had a dollar in change--we thought this would be enough.

Then as I'm back on the road, another brilliant realization hit me: the toll would probably be the same as the first FOUR tolls I paid, which was $1.25. Brilliant. What would I do?

I knew those pennies in my cupholder would come in handy one day. You should have seen the look on the toll collector's face when I handed them over. She was not pleased.

AND of course, I missed the exit into Burlington. But this wasn't as big a deal, since I was now on 128 and would come across at least two more exits into Burlington. I took the one at Winn Street.

And suddenly, I was on another on ramp. How did this happen? I'm an idiot who doesn't pay attention, of course.

Finally I got home after all of these crazy shenanigans. But my exciting life just got better when my housemate Nicki woke me up at 9:30 the next morning with this text message:

"Someone broke into our house last night."

Oh wonderful.

I called her to find out what happened. Apparently, someone on her side opened up a window and climbed through into their kitchen. She woke up when they tried to open her door, which was locked, thank God. She had watched Bones earlier and got freaked out, so she locked her bedroom door. And did I mention she was in the house all by herself, excepting the intruders? Yeah. She was.

After calling the police, the list of items missing was short: two bottles of alcohol, and--this is the best part--a single trash tag. This was all before we realized they had broken into my side of the house though--walking right through our open back door.

Erica realized afterward that $17 was missing from her wallet, and a couple of bottles of alcohol were missing from our side as well.

So let's review: four bottles of alcohol, $17, and a trash tag the night before trash day. I think it's pretty obvious what type of person it was--stupid, drunk college student perhaps?

Aaaand this is my life.

What dreams are made of.

Just to make this clear, this is my second blog post that mentions the Food Network show Unwrapped.

He is telling me about a cereal bar near UPenn. No, not like a cereal bar you eat. A bar where people go to eat cereal. With comfy chairs and countertops in a kitchen-like room.

It's called Cereality. You start with a Chinese food-like carton, in which you can put whatever types of cereal and toppings you want. AND they have their own mixtures that you can follow for deliciousness.

To cap it all off, they play cartoons and '80s music. It's like the perfect place. All my dreams have just come true. Marc Summers, if you're listening, please tell them to bring one to Ithaca.

Don't hate on the kid lit.

I'm rereading Holes by Louis Sachar for one of my classes (guess which one), and I asked both of my housemates if they'd read it. Neither have. I told them they should, but one answered with this: "If I was going to read books, I always thought I'd read adult books."

These books have so much to them, so much literary merit, that it's a damn shame that people won't read them simply because it's labeled as a children's book. People are missing such wonderful stories for the reason that they think it's beneath them.

Maybe this is just me talking as a person who wants to devote at least part of her life to children's literature, I don't know. I just think it's sad that people won't give books like Holes a chance.

Quick update.

Hi everyone, sorry I've been MIA lately. It's about that time: midterms. So I've been stressing hardcore. Anyway, I have two sets of essays plus a paper on witchcraft in Europe during the 1600s (which I didn't do much of the reading for) to do. A note for those of you in Burlington: I'll be home late Wednesday night. So if you're there, give me a call and we'll do something :)

SNAKESSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!!!

Today was Snake Day in my naturalist class!

Zach brought in one of his black milk snakes, and our professor (Elizabeth Lawson) brought in her son's ball python.

I have always loved holding snakes. I love the way they feel; smooth, soft and cool scales, slightly squishy, and underneath extremely powerful muscle. I love it!!

Zach's snake was beautiful. It was black, with a purple irridescent sheen. So gorgeous. And it was a fiesty one, too. He was climbing ALL over the place. I got to hold it, and it was climbing all over me, it's tongue flicking out. I think it licked me a couple of times. It got close to my face once too.

Elizabeth's was much more reserved. He was coiled up in a ball the whole time, even when we were passing him around. He fit into our cupped hands pretty perfectly. This snake was green with a brown pattern, kind of like how you'd picture a python. His head poked out now and then, but we had to look down into the coil in order to see it otherwise.

I'm getting a snake for a pet, Mom.