About six months ago, I stood in high school at the end of the day, staring listlessly out the window waiting for the bus to arrive and get me the hell out of there- pretty much the same thing I did every day. However, I was interrupted, which didn’t happen every day. (Only most days.) My sister was standing beside me, and her best friend, Sami (who’s kind of well-known for the ideas that stem from her lack of sanity) had come up behind us. She looked at both of us, and promptly informed us “Fifteen days ’till the Great Shalom, guys.” To which I promptly responded, “What on Earth is the Great Shalom?” And to which my sister promptly responded, “Oh, we made up a holiday.”

I didn’t think much about it until the next day when they came back the next day. “Fourteen days ’till the Great Shalom!” Sami cheerfully informed me. After about a week of this, I finally caved. “Okay, guys, you made up a holiday. What do we DO?” Sami stared. “I… hadn’t really gotten that far…” What the Great Shalom turned out to be (after fifteen days of listening to “X days until the Great Shalom!”) was that everyone on our street (well, everyone we liked, which is actually a very small percentage of the people in our street- even if you just look at students) walking to our house and making waffles and watching “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince” (and pointing out how Dumbledore looks like he’s giving birth during the scene where he fights off the Inferi). And, on just about every month since then, we’ve had grand adventures on the Great Shalom, which is to be celebrated on the fifteenth of every month.

Of course, I said just about every month. We skipped three months between May and August. And I think the awesomeness was just building up, because a week or so ago, we had our greatest Shalom ever. The theme this time? The theme was Victor. But we didn’t know that when we started out. In fact, Victor happened entirely by accident. Sami and Fuzz and I were all outside, doing stupid stuff and waiting for the rest of our Shalom party to arrive when Fuzz (my sister, just as an FYI for anyone who hasn’t figured it out) suddenly froze and announced that she heard a noise. I didn’t hear it, but I played along and followed her to the woods. Suddenly, I knew what she was hearing.

“It sounds like a CAT, Fuzz,” I pointed out. It seemed like there was a very distressed cat yowling about twenty feet away from us. So, naturally, we followed the sound- telling ourselves (or at least I was) that we had to make sure it wasn’t hurt, whatever it was. Almost as soon as we turned the corner into the woods, I saw it. There was a gray kitten sitting in MY tree branch. And when IT saw US, it got even more excited. It rubbed against the tree branch, the same way my cats to on the carpet if they feel that they’ve gone too long without a belly rub. We didn’t touch it (what if it had RABIES? or FLEAS? or SWINE FLU?!!!), but the kitten quickly made up our minds for us on that one- it jumped out of the tree and laid across our feet. When I left the woods to get my mother, it FOLLOWED me. Or, tried to. Fuzz and Sami kept it in the woods. Yeah, a cat we’d met all of five minutes ago.

When I came back, Sami announced that they’d christened the poor thing Victor (it’s a very Sami sort of name, just go with it) and that it wouldn’t stop following them. And it’s true- when the rest of our party showed up, we grouped together, and whenever any of us tried to leave the circle, Victor would follow us. We played with him all night, and planned to take him to the shelter in the morning, since none of us could keep him. Unfortunately, something had to be done with him until then- my house isn’t a good place for kittens; they get run over with an alarming frequency. (I live on a rather dangerous curve.) As it turns out, nobody could take him on a nightly basis, either. We had to put him in our old rabbit cage for the night.

This story does have a happy ending, however. I had to take Victor to work with me in the morning, because the shelter opens late. Naturally, the little kitten was very, very popular- everyone who saw him fell in love with him (of course, the fact that he’s so sweet and bonds with people pretty much instantly helped him a lot). Someone my mom and I work with offered to take Victor- she’d just adopted another kitten around Victor’s age, and she thought they’d be happy together. It seemed like Victor had taken a particular liking to her, as well. So Victor found himself a home, and didn’t get run over by a car in front of my house, or have to go to the animal shelter. All was well, and the Victor Shalom will be remembered as one of our greatest adventures ever. The End.

P.S. This is Victor. He’s the gray one, and the orange one is his new friend named Simba. Also, his new family re-named him Berlioz. (They also have another cat named Toulouse. I think they’re going for a theme. A suspiciously Disney-like theme.)

I think my life has ceased to be interesting. Well, that’s not entirely true. It’s been interesting to me, but every time I go to write something, I second guess myself- “Is this going to be entertaining to take up a whole entry? Can I make it sound good and funny at the same time?” I think part of the problem is I’m out of practice, and another part of the problem is I’ve been freakishly long-winded with my entries lately, so it feels like every time I write something I’m expected to write a novel. Which isn’t going to happen.

• I’m kind of thinking about making a new layout. I like this one, but I want something lighter. After all, I think this one’s been up all summer, and it’s fall soon. Time for something new.
• My friend Amanda drove over to my house Friday. I told her she could be over at 12:30. She got there at 4. As it turns out, she had forgotten to reprogram her GPS, and ended up getting to my house (a 10-15 minute drive at most) by way of LEESBURG. As in, VIRGINIA. I live in northern Maryland. HOW IS THAT CLOSE AT ALL?
• I went shopping twice this week for back to school stuff. Somewhere along the way, I discovered yet another disturbing new fashion trend. “Jeggings.” What the…?!?! I don’t even want to ask myself why… (Why? Because we needed to find a way to make skinny jeans even skinnier, that’s why) And to think I was just starting to get used to the skinny jeans thing, which I still think is a bad idea. (There’s a reason they call them skinny jeans. Can’t wear ‘em if you’re not skinny. At least not well… whatever happened to bootcut? They flattered pretty much all body types, I thought.)
• My friends are leaving for college. In a week, I’ll be starting college. In less than three weeks, I’ll be 18. Insert exclamation of shock and terror here.
• I think my quality of writing is starting to slip. I remember back when I used to have RainysWorld- I’d write posts that had an actual point, and I’d write posts that were actually controversial or introspective and deep on occasion. I miss that, but every time I go to open a new entry, ideas escape me. Suggestions on topics- whether it’s web-related, political, or just sensitive or interesting, are welcome.
• Mini-rant: I can’t stand when people over-use smiley faces in their blog. I know, I know, it shows your emotions and HEY! it’s cute! but it really interrupts the flow of your writing, and it makes your blog look messy. It screws up your text alignment and makes the page look disjointed. Besides, if your writing is good, you should be able to channel your emotions properly without resorting to the cheap use of smiley faces to make your point. (Oddly enough, smileys don’t bother me in comments, just in the blog itself. And I will totally admit to being a smiley-spammer on Facebook chat and text messages. Just because it’s so darn easy to misread people over texts/IMs if you’re not careful.)
• I’m kind of…. bored with the Internet right now. I think I need a community to join, a forum or something. Does anyone have any suggestions? I’d like something… I don’t know, mature. Hopefully something that will bring back my will to enjoy the blog scene.
• Booklover. My old obsession that I just rediscovered. LOVE. I swear, I can’t wait to decorate my own library. This place gives me so many ideas.
• Also, Vampires Suck comes out this week, and I am SO going to see it. On account of my rabid dislike of the Twilight series and all. That, and it just looks funny.

I think that might be pretty much the extent of my last two weeks. I hope your IQ didn’t drop too many points from reading that. I’m off to bake a lasagna.