jeneralist

The readers who followed this journal from back on LJ (including a dear friend who started following me here just a few days ago) no doubt remember a custom of the house: every year the household's (plush) groundhogs, Roozer and Douglas, need to acknowledge that they share the house with a cat named Umbra: will they see their (Latin-named) shadow? And since these woodchucks are actually hoping for spring, how can they increase their odds of a favorable forecast?

This year, their plans were shaped by mystery delivery to the house in the last week in January. We had ordered toner for the printer. A box got delivered; we put it aside.

Then two days later, the toner arrived. "Wait a minute," sez we, "if this is the toner, what was the other box?"

The other box turned out to be a case of Girl Scout cookies ordered in a moment of generosity and weakness. We'd eaten a box or two (or three...) by the time the woodchucks hatched their plan: what better way to avoid seeing Umbra than to climb into the partially-empty case and happily devour the remaining cookies? It leaves fewer cookies for the humans to feel guilty about, it provides some visual cover, and if it leads to overstuffed marmots falling into a stupor powered by Thin Mints and Do-si-dos, so much the better.

The results? That, dear reader, will need to wait -- Phil and I are both travelling. I'll let you know what I find when I get home.