cimorene

at a time when very little makes me happy because the weather and my life are gross and my back hurts and we don't have anything i want to eat or any ingredients for making cookies... i am happy with chaya the potted livistona rotundifolia. chaya is cute and perky and i'm sure that she loves chiffon in a way that at the moment i can't find it in myself to do. my affection for chaya is even weirder because generally i'm irritated by houseplants--occasionally indifferent to them. the summer of dad's accident i killed a majestic and venerable monstera which lived on our porch. i'm not sure that i ever remembered to water it. (not to say that i would remember to water chaya if it were my responsibility, because i probably wouldn't.)

my parents seem to have picked up a sixteen-year-old german exchange student for the year, when the last i'd heard from them was that they couldn't manage it this year, but maybe next. her name is anna-lena, which of course means that (a) dad's dictation program thought it was "one" (led to a few amusing minutes of guessing on this end) and (b) her nickname is lena, the same as my ~~better~~ worse half's youngest brother's fiancée.