Some people find dust bunnies and old papers when they move. For me, scissors and pens vanish from my grasp, and lie embryonic and unseen in overlooked corners, until it is time to move or clean. Suddenly, they gestate, and every room suddenly births scissor twins and quadruplet pens, to my confusion and Jeff's annoyance.

As days go, not bad.

Fall has awakened the cotton gin near our house, and tipped the edges of a few early-adopter leaves with gold. Each day brings a different number of bales of raw cotton piled up near the side of the road. Bales, not in the sense of man-sized or tractor-sized, but eighteen-wheeler-sized; one enormous bale per truck.

We drove off to dinner, Jeff and I, and he cocked an eyebrow toward the field of bales and wondered aloud how the owners of the cotton gin moved the bales from field to truck. In the four years we've lived here, I've never seen a bale loaded from the field onto a truck, and only in the past couple of days have I seen a bale being deposited onto the field in the first place. They simply appear during the quiet of late morning or late night, when no one is around to see their arrival.

By such things are the seasons marked.

Since you didn't ask, a few explanations, on this, a birthday. Heavy on the cryptic, but if someone ever said that we were supposed to be self-explanatory on our birthdays, he was shot before his message reached me.

One for each year:

(whap) "Tenzing, get OFF the fabric!"
MEOW! (indignant)
(sound of cat being tossed across the room)
(sound of cat jumping onto fabric)
"Edmund!"
(sound of cat being tossed across the room)
(sound of cat jumping onto fabric)
"TENZING!"
(sound of cat being tossed across the room)
(sound of spouse laughing) "Got help, hmm?"

...and so it goes, and so it goes.

After eight years, you get a little blasé about sharing birthday time with your spouse. Our birthdays aren't on the same day, exactly; just four days apart, but in a sequence that amused both our families to no end when they first realized a sequence existed. First Jeff's, then two days later his sister Lori's, and then two days later my birthday rounds out the series.

Sequence. Order. All slapping into place with a neat little snick, the sound of a previously-undiscovered hole in your life filling up.

For him: a book of linux server hacks. For me, a pair of sharpenable sewing scissors. Little things. For better or for worse, we're not the kind of people to make large productions out of birthdays.

Barbie Dolls Inc. announces the release of models of limited edition Barbie dolls for the Central Arkansas area:

Heights Barbie

This trendy homemaker Barbie is available with your choice of Lexus SUV or Ford Wind star minivan. She gets lost easily west of Reservoir Road and has no full time occupation. Traffic jamming cell phone sold separately. Available with or without tummy tuck and face-lift. Workaholic Ken sold only in conjunction with "augmented" version. Optional matching tennis outfit.