Church bells

I managed to time the drive home to be outside a church at 6, when the bells began to toll. It's a lovely sound. Wind blowing through windows, music in the air. I like it.

Pineapples

I had a late meeting today and ended up walking back to my car from a direction I don't usually come from. As I headed past a gated parking lot, I noticed that the fence posts were topped with pineapples.

Psych always has pineapples, too.

Often, it's the little things.

From scratch

I came home one day last week to a new oven, which is enough to put a smile on anyone's face in and of itself. I had company, and we inaugurated it with brownies-from-a-box. Which were good. But for some reason, I was feeling slightly more ambitious today.

I'm going out of town (again) and have been trying to eliminate some of the perishable things from the fridge before they, you know, perish. So I had one egg left in a dozen. Since I've also avoided going to the store to add more things to the list of items I must consume, I ran out of junk food to pack in my lunch. Baking chocolate chip cookies, then, was the perfect solution to both of those problems.

This certainly isn't the first time I've made cookies from scratch, but it has been a while. And they turned out well, if I may say so. If you see me in the next week, ask for one -- they're chocolate chip-pecan, and most delectable.

Better than a mullet

I was distracted from the Indians game I went to tonight (we lost) by the man who sat down in front of me late in the game.

He was in his late 50s or 60s with glasses and a grey mustache -- unremarkable. But his hair... oh, his hair. It was solid grey, bordering on white. It was buzzed to the crown of his head and on the sides. But from the top of his head to the nape of his neck, there were long, flowing grey locks. It was scraggly and ended midway down his back. And it was the most bizarre haircut I have ever seen.

I was at the game with my grandfather, and had to point it out. He was also confounded.

Funny story

My parents are vacationing in the Seattle area (at least that's where they started out) and called to ask for help finding a hotel in.... Forks, Washington.

Sadly, the significance of the location was not lost on me. Although I don't think they'll be making use of any of the themed tours. God, I hope not.

Movies under the stars

Atlanta has this event, Screen on the Green, that I looked forward to every summer. It's just as it sounds -- a giant movie screen on Piedmont Park, a picnic dinner with your friends and thousands of people screaming, "Don't open that door!"

Tonight, I went to a Cleveland event called Wade Oval Wednesdays (both of these happen multiple times throughout the summer) -- and despite the amount of fun I always had at Screen on the Green, I think WOW has Atlanta beat.

From 6 to 9 p.m., there was an Irish band. There were falafel, pizza, popcorn, gyros, fresh-sliced watermelon and odd-flavored (but tasty) ice-cream sandwiches to eat. They sold beer and other beverages, alcoholic and non- (and my blueberry beer had a handful of blueberries tossed into the glass!). There were local vendors selling jewelry and t-shirts. The sky was a gorgeous shade of purple. The air was warm.

Then, right as it was getting dark, The Goonies. Everybody laughed in all the right spots, booed in all the right spots. But it wasn't as crowded (we're losing population, after all!) and the city provided chairs. Less to lug and better traffic when you left.

I didn't like The Goonies the first time I saw it (before you start throwing things at me, appalled, remember that this was just two or three years ago -- I didn't grow up with it as a child), but it was lovely under the stars.

Free money

Technically, I earned it. But the check was still unexpected.

Every once in a while, money falls from the sky. It's nice when that happens.

If only they weren't gelatinous

My brother, walking into the room with a bag of them: "Marshmallows always make me feel happy when I'm feeling bad."

Job well done

I'm pretty psyched because now I can say I'm an award-winning journalist. I won several awards -- jointly, individually and as part of my paper's staff -- for coverage of a big story on my beat last year. And since I took over in the middle and was still learning the ropes, it's all very cool. Not that it wouldn't be cool if I'd been doing it a while.

But I was also excited because the awards -- and the subsequent story the paper wrote about them -- garnered me a few e-mails and one note of congratulations. The notice is nice, of course, but what was even cooler was the sentiment expressed. The CEO of a company I write about sent me a letter that said, "It's nice to know (my company) is being covered by someone with your talent." Pretty rocking.

Also, I'm really pleased with some digging I did on a story this week. It's been a little while since I got to break news.

Huzzah!