Gazing-out-the-window thoughts

There are two crazy birds outside my window. They fly straight toward my window and then they hover at its surface without touching, they dart to the perpendicular window, they glance off the wall and wheel around the corner, and in a minute they come back and do it again. They seem to be having so much fun I'd be jealous even if I weren't inside trying to read an undergrad's research paper. (The paper isn't bad; it's just a research paper. You know.)

I have also suddenly noticed that the grass in the cow field is very long (and full of small black birds) and gone to seed. I know the cows have been out there every day, though they're not there right now. How many cows are necessary to keep X square feet of grass neatly cropped? Perhaps it wasn't ghost cows at my house after all. (Then again, noncorporeal cows might not have any limits on how much grass they could eat. But then what would stop them from eating and eating and eating until the entire world was grassless? Not that this would bother me unduly.)

The weather's going to be only okay this weekend, but I want to (a) have a picnic and (b) wash my car (ha! Like I've wanted to the last four weekends!) anyway. I think I need to build up tolerance to cold. I also need short-sleeved shirts I can wear to work, as the only one I'm really comfortable in now has a bleach spot and I feel slightly frumpy wearing plain T-shirts.

My African violets are still blooming on my windowsill. I'm beginning to suspect they're fake. Did I mention that I planted two houseplants a couple of weeks ago, a thyme and a red-veined plant, and the thyme was fine for three days and then it suddenly turned crispy? This is the same pot I killed my last kalanchoe in (I can get more from Mom, who's still, I believe, got the original grown from the seedling I stole from biology lab, but I feel like this was peculiarly my plant and also kalanchoes die in a particularly gruesome way--they turn mushy and pink). As Eric suggested, perhaps this is a Pot of Death, and I should throw it out. Or keep it around to threaten the red-veined plant with. "Grow healthy and strong, or I'll transplant you into the Pot of Death!" I wonder if this would work with my tomato plants.