one day, several years ago, i was walking home from class at UVa and ran into a girl i only slightly knew. it was one of those all-too-common situations; we barely knew each other, but of course were walking to the same destination, and had a vague acquaintance, so we had to make painful, terrible small talk for 10 or 15 minutes. IT WAS TORTURE, people. now i know what the 6th circle of hell is like, etc.

as we made our way down the hill towards the lambeth apartment complex, chatting awkwardly and painfully and hellishly and probably talking about, like, our common love for diet coke or WHATEVER THE HELL YOU ARE REDUCED TO TALKING ABOUT IN THESE SITUATIONS I DON'T KNOW ("isn't diet coke great?" "OH! i KNOW! it's GREAT!"), i caught view of something out of the corner of my eye on the grassy field, a few feet from our path. it was a squirrel. no biggie, obviously, but there was something...weird. about this squirrel. that i noticed even out of the corner of my eye. the girl with me apparently noticed too, because i could see, in what seemed like utter slow motion, her head turn towards the squirrel, in the very same fashion as my head was turning, seemingly on its own, without my brain telling it to. and we looked at the squirrel. and we stopped walking, stopped talking, stopped breathing. then we looked at each other, grabbed each others' arms, and screamed BLOODY MURDER. we shot the hell off, reached our apartments, and broke down in giggles. terrified, horrified giggles.

we were good friends after that.

i was reminded of this story because i came across this page recently, which shows the type of squirrel that brought us together at that moment. i hadn't previously known. be warned, it's disturbing. but anyway: diseased squirrels: bringing friends together since 2001.

and yes, i'm blogging about squirrels from the crypt at 8:30 on a friday night. time to go out.

check out the post's newest blog, Katrina's Impact on Washington. they state that up to 400 victims of the hurricane will be bussed to the D.C. armory. as they say:

As the Post reported this morning, the city's "mass care" effort would provide victims with food and water, medical attention, counseling and other services. The announcement also means that events scheduled to be held in the armory over the next several weeks -- at least six concerts, a job fair and a Marine Corps Marathon expo -- will likely be canceled in order to accommodate victims.

Officials are urging people interested in making monetary donations to call the Red Cross at 1-800-HELP-NOW. To find out how to contribute items locally, call the mayor's call center at (202) 727-1000 or Serve D.C. at (202) 727-7925.

this is EXACTLY the kind of thing a blog can excel at. the katrina blog also talks about gas station closure rumors, gas prices in popular labor day destinations around the area, and what local charities and organizations are doing. good job, post.

yes, the rumors are true: i will be at asylum tomorrow night at 5 p.m. for their infamous 25 cent happy hour. come on out if you're so inclined. i will not, sadly (or happily, depending on how you're looking at it) be at at the jello wrestling, though, as awesome as it sounds.

things on the d.c. list left to do:

I don't know whether anyone besides Catherine and myself will find this useful, but we've now got an RSS feed of recent comments available here. I haven't added an icon in the sidebar, but smarter browsers and RSS readers should detect a new LINK tag in the header pointing to it.

I don't know if it's just their Friday sale, or a new habit — either way, I'd jump on the fact that Amazon is selling Calphalon hard-anodized pots for ridiculously low prices. Like $20 apiece low. These things usually go for over $150 a pop.

I picked up a sauce pan and a crepe pan, despite only having a vague idea of what a crepe is.