Gingerbread Men VS Sugar Cookies

 

When it comes to cookies, gingerbread men are lucky. They have legs.

Gingerbread men can run away from thise who would eat them.

But when you're a round suger cookie, there is no chance to run away. You're sweet, and often decorated with frosting and spinkles. How could anyone resist?

No, in the world of cookies, it was your shape the determined whether you were eaten or lived long enough to grow stale.

Somehow, the gingerbread men had made it where people didn't eat them. They even got gingerbread houses made for them!

It was unfair, that they got both legs and houses. But that was the way the cookie crumbled.

At least the sugar cookie was sweet.

Things that are Brown

 

1. Chocolate. Deliciousness comes in many shades.

2. Brown bears. It's right there in the name.

3. Wood. Lovely and full of uses.

4. Dirt. A rich soil helps make your garden grow all sorts of yummy foods.

5. Russet potatoes. Sometimes they even come with an extra layer of dirt just for your cooking pleasure.

6. Brown recluse spiders. One way to identify it is that it has three pairs of eyes, with two per set.

7. Cardboard boxs. Typically brown, they make for a nice fort once you've collected enough.

8. Brownies. These baked goodies go well with ice cream.

9. Swamp wallabies. Did you know that they can have overlapping pregnancies, with an embryo formed just a couple days before the full-term fetus is born?

10. Kiwifruit. Fuzzy brown on the outside, and a fun green on the inside.

Arachnid Community

 

The intricate stands wove a masterpiece along the knot-ridden stump. Each web was the work of a single spider, yet each of those spiders had come together to form their own community.

Individual webs blended together at the edges, protecting the lower layers from external threats.

Some bold spiders had even moved beyond the original stump in an attempt to expand the community, with delicate strands reaching for the neighboring flowers and saplings.

Would this arachnid community thrive? Could the differing spiders get along, or would they turn on one another?

And perhaps the greatest question: will the spiders survive an encounter with Timothy Tyson, terror of all critters small and squishy?

Cookie Flavors

 

1. Suagar cookies.

2. Chocolate mint.

3. Lemon raspberry.

4. Toasted coconut.

5. Iced orange.

6. Gingersnap.

7. Almond cranberry.

8. Oatmeal chocolate chip.

9. Pumpkin spice.

10. Apple jam thumbprint cookies.

Hair

 

The brush ran smoothly through raven locks, each stroke slow and deliberate. No knots nor snarls were allowed, nor were split ends.

After the long care routine was complete, the head of fabulous raven hair was set oh so carefully upon the vanity,  and its owner proceeded to the bed to sleep.

Soon, gentle snores filled the otherwise silent room.

From the vanity, the carefully tended hair began to move. Strand by strand, it slipped off the model head. Each strand then moved like tentacles, with the bunch at the center part massed to form a psuedo-body.

The hair crept across and then down the vanity, masking its slight sounds beneath the snores. Upon reaching the closed door, it spread itself flat in order to shimmy underneath.

Once in the hall, the hair moved faster, its strands almost wild in their haste. First, it went down the long hall to the top of the stairs, then it proceeded down the steps.

Once on the lower level, the hair took a right down another hall, before stopping at a closed door.

Shimmying beneath the door, the hair had but a moment to gather itself before something pounced on it. The hair twisted beneath its attacker, each strand coiling around and around the attacker until the hair completely covered it.

Then, the hair shuddered, and fused itself to the attacker.

The attacked shivered once, then gave a rumbling purr.

Thus, the hair without a true body and the cat without a hair became one.

How to Respond to Your Cat's Meow

 

1. Say his name, so he knows you're listening.

2. Fill in your half of the conversation. It's the polite thing to do.

3. Check that your cat is okay. Sometimes our kitties do silly things like lock themselves in the bathroom, and it is our job to help them. 

4. Tell him that 2am is for sleeping, not singing.

5. Make sure that it isn't the "my bowl is empty and I need your opposable thumbs to get the food" meow.

6. Meow back.

7. Look at what interesting thing your cat has found to play with. It might be a straw, is might be a spider.

8. Quietly hush them, because commentary is for the second viewing of a film, not for the first viewing.

9. Separate the siblings, before someone loses a whisker.

10. Give your cat the cuddles he asked for.

Grandmother's Rules

 The forest was dim, lit only by the flicking moonlight of the waning crescent moon. A movement of air followed by the dying squeal of a mouse gave evidence that there was life in the forest, despite none being visible.

Except for the eyes.

Luminescent orbs that lurked in the shadows, always watching. In brief moments, they would reflect the flicking moonlight, revealing hints of a hunger that was somehow held back. A hunger, that seemed directed at you.

No matter how often you walked this path, the eyes always brought dread to your heart. You knew, just as well as you knew your own name, that those eyes would get you if you ever disobeyed Grandmother's rules.

First: never leave the path. No matter how enticing something appears off into the trees, no matter if it is a flower just out of your reach, never leave the path.

Second: always wear your cloak with the hood up. It limited your vision a little, and got uncomfortable in the middle of summer, but the hood had to stay up.

Third: never speak your name in the forest. Not to yourself, not to Grandmother, not to any stranger or creature you might meet. In the forest, you were nameless.

Fourth: never travel on nights of the full moon or new moon. Any other night was fine, if you needed to travel at night, but those nights were ill luck to any traveler.

Fifth: never knowingly kill in the forest. Doesn't matter if it's a bear or a bug, knowingly killing anything in the forest brings terrible consequences.

Those were the rules my Grandmother taught me, when I was small and she could still make her way into town to visit us. My siblings laughed at her stories if the forest and what happened to people who broke the rules. I listened, and then put what I learned into action when Grandmother fell ill and needed help getting supplies from town back to her cottage.

As time went on, she delegated all the town chores to me. Shopping for supplies, selling her tonics on market day, all the things that gave her reason to come into town.

It's been so long since she last left the forest that I don't even remember what Grandmother's name is.

Still, I care for her, and she cares for me. So long as she needs it, I'll bring her supplies from town every time I visit her home.

Even if it means enduring the eyes of the forest while I obey Grandmother's rules.