Ariel's HOT artwork

Today wasn't too bad, AC wise.

The humidity fell a bit and the drizzle of rain (throughout most of the day) kept the temperatures lower.

I had been worried about being in the house a lot with the windows closed (to keep what cool air we have inside), but the fans were running and we also turned on the AC fan to keep the air circulating.

In short, we are managing.

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So, what am I doing now? Well, there's nothing to watch on TV and if I try to read a book, I'll just fall asleep. So, I am wasting time on the internet, vainly looking for new websites to read stuff on LOST, trying to think of something to post about. (As I type this, the LOST website I am on--via another window--keeps loading and sounds of Lostzilla trumpeting and smashing trees, along with people screaming, is serving as the backdrop to this typing.)

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I do have some new scanned pictures from Ariel. A few days ago I picked her up at daycare and noticed she had several pages all with a new style running throughout them. I'll post them below so you can see what I mean.

First there is this one, which I think shows the Easter bunny. But it might be something else. What is going on here that you will see throughout most of these is a division of the page into segments . . . sometimes related, sometimes not.

Now take this one, for instance. I asked Ariel what this one was and she replied, "It's a cherry game. You match the letters (in the circular cherries) with the other letters." Here again, you see dividing the page into groups and a strong element of letters. Writing uppercase and lowercase letters is one of Ariel's newest drawing passions. Hardly any drawing goes by without a group of letters, her name, and the name of some of her friends being placed on the page somewhere.

This one is my favorite in this group. It is (according to Ariel) full of recipes for cake, chocolate cookies, etc. If you look carefully, you can see the squiggly lines that, I think, represent the instructions for the recipe along with drawings of either each ingredient or a picture of the final product. And Tegan pointed out to me later that the letters drawn also have an important purpose.

And then, of course, there is this picture. I thought I knew what this was (Godzilla rampaging) and was wondering how she knew about this particular cultural reference that I have never shared with her. But I was wrong. It is a "Shrek video game," she assured me. It appears that Shrek is the unfortunate soul being torched by the dragon (a girl dragon, if you remember the movie). Donkey is the blockish figure that is seemingly walking a tightrope above, but I think my scanner cut that part of the image off a bit. I found this picture odd because we haven't seen Shrek or discussed it in quite a long time. I am thinking that one of her friends must have mentioned it that day.

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One last item, in this most random of posts.

On Friday, while trying to work, I got a bit hungry and bought a candy bar from the vending machine. I decided to go with the Snickers bar with almonds.

It was good, and I ate it while wondering why this was created to replace one of my other favorite candybars--the Mars bar. If you think about it, this is the Mars bar, adjusted a bit to make it a Snickers. But the wrapper color is identical to the old Mars bar wrapper. (And by the way, what marketing genius signified that all items with almond gets this color?)

Anyway, I'm eating the Snickers when I catch a look at the ingredients list.

Do you see it? Down at the bottom of the ingredients list, in nice bold letters. MAY CONTAIN PEANUTS.

Excuse me? Reread that list of ingredients. Are peanuts listed? No, they are not!

Now, I know why that boldfaced phrase is there. Some people have severe peanut allergies. But this bar is not supposed to have peanuts. And while I also know that this particular candy bar is a relatively new addition to the Snickers line and is likely manufactured alongside the regular Snickers (which prominently feature peanuts), placing this warning is tantamount to saying: "We aren't confident that we maintain proper ingredient separation and our quality control department isn't the most reliable either. We might have gotten some stuff mixed up while heading down the assembly line. But, we've dutifully warned you here on the back of the wrapper, so consider yourself warned."

Isn't this WRONG?!

(I'm just wondering.)