If I ever get married, I think I want a cake like this.

If anyone happens to see a Dalek rolling around the building threatening to exterminate people, don't be alarmed! His name is Dalexander and he isn't actually equipped to blow anything up. I put him in front of my office to keep guard and he just wandered off! So anyway, if you see him, kindly usher him back in this direction.

Also, some people have been asking about the bandaid on my nose. I kind of ran into a wall, but don't worry! I'm okay, not concussed or anything! Just me being clumsy, as usual.

I love Fridays! And today is so nice and breezy, too. Kind of makes me wanna go sky-diving.

HEY! Does anyone wanna come over and watch TRANSFORMERS with me? It'll be so much fun! We'll make popcorn and have sodas and stuff. Oh, and I can show everyone all the new tricks that I've taught Mr. Spock! He's SO SMART!

Oh oh, Kyouraku-san, I got you a birthday present, too. I hope you like it!!!

( .:.Private to Ishida-kun.:. )

Even though it's really hot today, it really isn't all that bad in my office. I brought in extra fans and a cooler full of juice cans! They're nice for staying good and cool.

Also, I know there have been a lot of rumors going around... I seem to recall having told a cautionary tale last year about how rumors are bad. They make things explode. Do you want everything to explode? I didn't think so.

So, I know I've been gone for a while but I have a perfectly good reason why.

See, a few months ago I was taking a walk in the park with Mr. Spock when we saw this albino squirrel running by. Mr. Spock decided to chase him and got loose from the leash he was on, so I had to run after them both and make sure my puppy didn't get into any trouble. The squirrel ran into this big hole at the base of a huge tree and Mr. Spock went in right after him. I waited a minute for him to come back out, and when he didn't I naturally started to get worried. When I crouched down to peer into the hollow tree, I ended up slipping and falling through the opening.

Down down down I tumbled, floating through clouds of croissants and past birds playing "Spanish Castle Magic" on candy red Fender Stratocasters. When I finally landed on a grassy patch of land, I saw Mr. Spock a little ways off and followed after him again. I caught up to him and he told me that we'd landed in the magical country of Ainran. Imagine my surprise!

We set out together through the thick forests until we met a helpful griffon who showed us the way to a beautiful castle on a hill. When we went into the castle, we found that it was ruled by a terrible wyrm, who had been overtaxing the people for a hundred years!

Well, I couldn't let that continue, so I challenged the dragon to a duel. Mr. Spock advised against it, since the dragon was so much larger than me, but I went ahead anyway since everyone was counting on me. We settled on a spirited game of badminton to decide the winner. I had the upper hand since wyrm dragons have no legs, but it was still tough going.

Finally I was victorious and the awful dragon slithered away into the ocean, never to be heard from again. After that, the griffon told me about the ancient prophecy which said that a red-haired girl from another world would come (along with her brave dog companion) and deliver them from overtaxation without representation.

They then crowned me the queen of Ainran, with Mr. Spock as my trusty adviser. For many years I ruled as Queen Orihime the Fabulous, and everyone enjoyed all manner of baked goods until one day when Mr. Spock and I were riding through the forest in search of the legendary gluten-free flour for a special cake recipe and got terribly lost, finally emerging back here in our world.

How have you guys been? :D

Mr. Spock gets sad when it rains because he likes to go outside but he doesn't like getting wet. I'd probably be sad, too, if my restroom were outside in the rain. He has learned Sit-fu! It's almost exactly like sitting on command, except... stealthier. He's still mastering Lie Down-fu, but I think he'll be an expert in no time!

My drug test came back negative, which I'm sure is thanks to my strict adherence to my "Hugs: Not Drugs!" policy. It's good that test wasn't like an exam where higher scores are better!

The walkway outside sure is slippery. I almost fell over, but I managed to stick the landing so everything is okay. I think I'm developing a keener sense of balance in my old age.

( .:.Private to Uryuu-kun.:. )

So it's finally 2008! I hope that everyone had a really great break. Did everyone get what they wanted for Christmas? I got the best gift EVER! Uryuu-kun gave me A PUPPY DOG! He's a golden retriever and his name is Mr. Spock (I even ordered a special name tag for him that's shaped like the Star Trek logo!). I'm taking him to the vet after work today so he can get his shots and things. Right now I'm house-breaking him, and teaching him to sit and lie down. I think he's probably the cutest puppy in the world.

I love the snow outside! When it falls it makes everything look clean and white. Mr. Spock hasn't ever seen snow before so he's not quite sure what to make of it, but I think he likes it. I personally think snow angels/snow people/snowball fights are in order! After all, it'd be a shame to let all that snow just sit there and go to waste!

( .:.Private.:. )

The party this Friday was lots of fun, so thank you for hosting it, Urahara-san. Ishida-kun, I had a really nice time.

Karin-chan, you should practice more on your Guitar Hero skills if you ever plan to defeat me. I did tell you I was the champion! Thanks for coming over this weekend, I'm glad you and I got to hang out.

My piano... The G above middle C is half a step flat... and C below middle C is sharp, too. I should look up a technician to fix it.

( .:.Private to Karin-chan.:. )

( .:.Private.:. )

Yay! The party is tonight! I hope that everyone comes and has a ton of fun. It's too bad that the weather isn't prettier outside, but maybe it'll clear up enough to be starry tonight.

I know it's a little early, but my birthday is in about two weeks (September 3^rd) and I was thinking it'd be nice to have a small get together at my apartment. Nothing big or fancy, maybe a movie and dinner and some Trivial Pursuit or Clue! Or if any of you play an instrument, you could bring it and we could have a mini jam session and totally rock out and wouldn't that be awesome?! Anyway, if you'd like to come just let me know!

( .:.Private.:. )

So last week there was a chupacabra in the vents above my office, but Ikkaku-san came to my rescue and together we managed to defeat the creature in fierce combat with a plastic trashcan and a pink fly swatter as our only weapons! It was epic.

If anyone's been trying to call me on my cell phone, the reason I haven't answered isn't because of alien abduction or anything, just so you know. Over the weekend I was terribly clever and managed to forget my cell phone in the pocket of my pants while I did my laundry. As a result, my phone is less like a phone and more like a paperweight. Not that there's anything wrong with paperweights, but people generally don't use them to send text messages on the bus. I've decided that it might be practical to design a way for your phone bits to be grafted directly into your head. That way, your SIM card could interface directly with your brain and you could send phone calls to people using the power of thought alone! Which could be good for making discreet phone calls, but also kind of embarrassing if you thought of someone too often and accidentally called them all the time.

Anyway! The party this Friday seems like it's going to be a lot of fun. Does anyone else know many styles of dancing?

The Good: When I got to work this morning, all the stuff in my drawers had magically transformed into candy.

The Bad: All of my stuff has magically transformed into candy.

At least my computer is still not candy-fied. I don't know how I'm going to get some of my work done with my candy office supplies, though.

Well, Spartan Friday was a ton of fun and I think that we should have movie nights more often. I accidentally threw popcorn on everyone when I got really surprised at one scene. SORRY.

Anyway...

I'm going to be ordering some flowers to send to Yamamoto-sama, would anyone like to chip in?

First of all: I don't know why they call it an open house, since this isn't a house, it's an office building. Second: It was less like the open house (open school?) days back in grade school when the parents got to meet their kid's teachers and more like random people bursting into my office in "Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition!" style and nearly squishing my potted plant.

Larry (my plant, not Spanish Inquisition customer) is doing fine, in case anyone was wondering, though he's slightly traumatized by his near-death experience. Anyway, I'm doing my best to answer all their questions, but most of them leave pretty quickly once I offer them one of the orange riccotta cheese white chocolate chunk cookies with the balsamic glaze on top. I wonder why that is?

( .:.Private.:. )

Today my office feels a bit like how I imagine the Sahara might feel. Perhaps if there were more lions and zebras then it woule be like going on a real safari in the wilds of Africa without even having to leave my office!

Speaking of the great wilderness, I went outside into the break garden and accidentally tripped on a rock. My extensive injuries were quite severe (!!!), consisting of a skinned knee and a scraped elbow. NOT GOOD FOR ORIHIMES! But fortunately, the good doctor Unohana-san repaired me to better than factory standard and gave me lots of candy (aka Safari Rations), so everything's better now!

Oh yes! I'm buying the DVD of "300" as soon as it comes out! I didn't get to see it in theaters and I heard it was full of epic battles and stuff, which sounds pretty fun. Anyone wanna watch it with me?

Why is everyone spreading these rumors? It's so silly! Anyone who knows the people they're about would see that they couldn't and wouldn't have done those awful things.

Kurosaki-kun would never kill anyone! He just isn't like that. Renji-kun wouldn't hurt anyone, either! Ishida-kun works way too hard fixing the computers to do anything that would mess them up. That'd only be making more work for himself. Who would do that? All the people these rumors are about are good people.

This is why rumors are like weeds in a garden. They start out small, but if someone doesn't take care of them right away, they just start to pop up and get bigger and bigger until all the little flowers don't have any room to grow and the garden is completely overrun with big ugly weeds! And you'd try to pull them up but they'd keep appearing, so you'd have to trace them into the sewer, but that's where the Mother Weed lives and she would come and TAKE OVER THE WHOLE GARDEN and you'd have to get the super weed killer spray that comes in those squirty bottles and do battle with her except it'd be too late to save the garden and you'd have to pull up all the plants and buy new flowers and it'd take so much time and money and you'd get all dirty and covered in grass stains and wouldn't that be a pain?! And then everything would explode. That is why rumors are bad.

I was so glad when I woke up this morning and it wasn't rainy like it was yesterday. Not that rain is bad, of course, since it keeps the landlady from having to water the lawn, but every time it rains really hard like that I'm always concerned that an evil scientist (or possibly the mafia (or maybe an evil scientist who's working for the mafia!)) bent on world domination has created a devious machine to control the weather. It could happen!

On a culinary note, I've been inspired to cook with mangoes a lot lately. They're so yummy! They go with so many things, like avocados, chicken, rice... they're good in curries, too! Maybe I'll post some recipes soon.


( .:.Private.:. )