it drove the women of my family insane

BEST quote without context from today: "I experienced only one hour of menopause. It's a good thing, too, because historically it drove the women of my family insane."
everyone else in the room: "..."
reply: "No, really."

BEST thing to wear on July 31st, 2008: RADISH SKIRT! I hadn't worn it in forever, and it cracked me up all day! It also seemed cheering to other people, which made it even better. "Are those radishes?" (this picture is weirdly distorting -- the skirt comes just below my knees, which is not two inches above my ankles like it looks in the photo.)

BEST place to eat lunch today, even though the trees were having some sort of tree pollen confetti party: Laurelhurst park, where I noticed that someone has started a bizarre collection of lawn creatures on the little island in the middle of the pond. There is a plastic chicken, a flamingo and an assortment of garden gnomes. Where do they come from? How do they get there? Do they move around at night when nobody's looking? Are the turtles that live on the log in the pond somehow involved? (I feel certain that they are...)

BEST bicycle seen today: one of those crazy welded together two-story bicycles ridden by a guy who I'm pretty sure walks around in stilts when he's not on his bike. Someone who eats fire for breakfast and swallows swords for snacks. In my imagination he would be a charming but tedious neighbor: "I get it! you're a fire eater! Yes, you've mentioned you're going to ride your weird tall bike all the way to Burning Man. Neat. Do you think you could you maybe stop with the arc welder and carnival techno after midnight? THANK YOU. p.s. your chickens got loose and crapped in my rain barrel again." (in imaginary reality he probably works in a bank, is still going to ride his weird tall bike to Burning Man, but doesn't weld after 10pm out of thoughtfulness for me, his imaginary neighbor. his imaginary chickens are too well behaved to crap in my imaginary rain barrel.)

BEST change in weather: this morning it was overcast and hazy, but after about 10AM it started getting sunny, sunnier, sunniest. Then it took a turn back to clouds and will probably rain tomorrow, but those 8 hours of sun were really sweet!

and now I'd BEST get to bed because I'm really freaking tired! I was going to have some blah la la about how this month went (mostly good, with a few pinches of misery for old times sake), but I'm tired and well aware that it's not exactly breaking news.

... and because I uploaded it so why not, here's a picture of what my unfinished project I found in a box looks like when I lay it out on the floor: