This morning, I mentioned on Twitter that UPS had delivered a lovely package to my house, addressed to Sexy Pirate Princess. I immediately knew that it had to be from my beloved friend, Sexy Beast. He's in the Marines now, so I should probably be the one sending him care packages and stuff. But no, my friends apparently like to spoil me exactly when I need it the most.

This weekend, I'm printing and folding and stuffing 600 bulletins for the church, printing and cutting 600 inserts for the bulletin, assembling 400 CDs and jewel cases, doing other miscellaneous jobs for some other bosses, leading two group projects for school, studying for a microeconomics test, doing four loads of laundry, paying bills, sending in my rebate for my phone, and trying not to catch my mother's cold. Oh right, and somewhere in there, I'll be crying myself to sleep.

That's what I thought, anyway. But there are no tears now. I opened my belated birthday present and my early Christmas present to find all this stuff:

Chocolate, chocolate, a cute little mug with an R on it, chocolate pirate coins, four CDs of his favorite band (Anberlin), and an adorable card. Plus! A light pink USMC sweatshirt, sprayed with his favorite cologne. This man is great-looking, great-smelling, and (as you can see) a great gift-giver. Ladies, if you aren't fighting over him already, you should be. Drop whatever you are doing and start sobbing because you are not dating this fine young gentleman. I'd be joining you, but I'm too busy inhaling the smell of the cologne.

Gosh dang. I have the best friends ever.

Birds instinctively know to fly south for the winter and to get the hell out of there in spring. Humans, on the other hand, instinctively know:

• how to draw stick figures
• how to make a finger gun
• that farts and burps are funny
• that pirates are totally better than ninjas
• that peas were created to be launched by spoons
• that spoons were perhaps created to launch peas
• that woodchips or other ground cover at a playground should be referred to as "hot lava" and avoided at all costs
• and much, much more.

So would you give all that up in order to know how to fly and/or migrate? I just can't make up my mind.

My grandmother gave me this tree to plant when I was five or six years old. I was taller than it at the time, and we raced to new heights together. Unfortunately, I stopped at 5' 5.5", but this sucker just kept growing.

It got struck by lightning one year, and a huge portion of the tree was left lying in the road. My dad was supposed to patch up the tree, but he never did. "It's too late now, honey," he said when I shrieked at him. "The tree is going to die."

But here we are, three years later. I hope it outlives us all.

P.S. Really, I just wanted an excuse to post a picture of the leaves and the sky. I mean, the story is true and all, but who cares, right? Autumn is just too darn beautiful for its own good.