The "Witching Hour"

This past Saturday night, I found myself in the extraordinary position of an early departure from work. As those who know me are completely aware, I work pretty much every weekend, unless I request off, and usually am closing (meaning I don't finish work until 10 or 11 PM). This Saturday, however, I was only scheduled to work until 6 PM. Since my parents were in Baltimore (Happy Birthday Tiffy!), I had the house to myself. So I got myself something to eat for dinner and proceeded to head home through the torrential downpours.

After arriving at home and making myself cozy, I sat down to watch the Penn State game. (We Are!!!) As usual, I got bored real fast (I don't really understand football and no one made a single point until there were only a couple minutes left in the first half). So I looked through the movie channels and chose a film called (The Exorcism of Emily Rose). It's about a girl who gets possessed by demons and doesn't really know what's wrong. When the doctors suggest epilepsy (the movements the demons cause her to make resemble seizures), the medication doesn't work, so she tries religious treatment. The story is told around the trial of the priest who exorcises her.

Well this movie was incredibly scary. Yet I found myself intrigued and decided to finish watching it until the end. When it was over I was wide awake and couldn't get myself to fall asleep. In the movie, all of the weird stuff that happens to Emily happens at exactly 3:00 in the morning. This is explained as "the witching hour, which demons use to mock the Holy Trinity."

So I kept trying to get myself to fall asleep and finally was able to at around 1:30 AM. But I didn't stay asleep for long. At exactly 3:00, I heard this really loud BANG, and was scared to the point of no return. I ran out of my room, only to find that the stupid cat had been drinking from a bowl in the sink, and her incredibly strong tail had knocked a pan out of the dish rack.

Might she be possessed? I'll keep you posted, readers.

Leaping into Leaves

Today as I was driving to school, I found myself looking out my window at the beautiful foliage on the trees. It is officially fall. Although the calendar said "First day of Autumn" about a month ago, I only began to feel its effects this week. It's getting colder, the days are getting shorter, and the smell of fall finally hits me when I walk out the door. I've always said they should bottle that smell up and it would be available all the time, however when I put my nose up to the "autumn leaves" Yankee Candle the other day, I told my mom, "this doesn't smell like leaves at all!" But then it occurred to me, that leaves don't really have a smell- they're dead. They smell more like dirt than anything else.
When I relayed this observation to my mother, she said they do smell like dirt, but that is a comfort to me. Living in such a rural area all my life, driving through the "fresh country air!" (manure), playing outside, and yard work were familiar pastimes that all happened quite often. The most comforting smells to me are of nature: the smell of flowers in the springtime, the smell of burning wood in the winter, the smell of trees and campfires in the fall, and the smell of mushrooms and cow manure in the summer. Although most people would consider these to be undesirable smells (or stenches), I find comfort in them.
As a child, I only remember raking leaves into a pile and then jumping into that pile one time. It actually hurt quite a bit. I learned that day that the leaves, however high you pile them, are not very cushiony. To make a long story short, I ended up with a bruised tush, and had to rake the leaves up again anyway.
When I saw all the beautiful changing colors on the way to school, I decided to take pictures of them while I still can, so tomorrow I will give myself extra time and go on a photo-taking excursion.

Save the Best for Last

I remember being a child, sitting around a campfire at Girl Scout Camp, making s'mores. It was one of the best parts of Girl Scout Camp. The only problem was, I didn't want to set my marshmallow on fire (the thought scared me, in fact). Alas, I was the last to smush my marshmallow with the two graham cracker halves, the last to get a piece of chocolate for the middle, and the last to enjoy my creation. I remember always loving the s'more despite the delay in enjoyment, however, looking back, the thing that pops into my head first is the fact that my piece of chocolate was always smaller than my graham crackers (there were a lot of Girl Scouts and only a six-pack of Hershey bars).

So to solve this problem, I shoved the chocolate to the back of the s'more, and started from the chocolate-free end. This proved to be a good decision, because when I took the last several bites, they were the parts I enjoyed the most. "Save the best for last," I always say!

Tonight, however, I was spoiled. My friend Christine and I were at work (the deli in Redner's) and a customer told her son that they would make s'mores on the grill that night. Well, once I heard that, I craved the campfire-treat like I hadn't had one in years. Which is because I hadn't. So I told Christine about my trip back to Memory Lane, and she suggested we make some on our stove. So she went on her break and bought the necessary supplies, while I stayed behind and worked (Work, shmerk!).

Later, when she returned, we turned on the stove and watched the flame ignite, thinking this was fairly close to a real campfire. We each placed a marshmallow on the tip of a knife and held it over the flame. Thinking I better finish this fast, I stuck my marshmallow right into the flames and watched it catch fire.

The blackened marshmallow didn't look quite as appealing as my lightly browned ones of the past did, but I wasn't going to let that stop me from enjoying my first s'more in about five years. I placed the marshmallow on top of a graham cracker and anxiously waited for my piece of chocolate. Surprised at having received an entire half of a bar, I wondered if they would be as good as I remembered.

Well, no... They were better! There was no saving the best for last, because the entire thing was good. Like I said... spoiled!