I really love a bumblebee. Now I have been stung by a bumblebee before. And actually, that stung taught me how patient -- that sting, I mean, taught me how patient they are. I was at my parents' house, I think, and something kept landing on my arm and I assumed it was a fly, so I brushed it off. And it just kept landing on the same spot and I brushed it off. And I, I mean, I must've brushed it off half a dozen times. And the last time, you know, suddenly I felt this sting, and it really hurt. Bumblebees, I guess, have a big stinger or a lot of venom or something. I mean, they really let you know. But, so, because I looked down and realized, "Oh my god," you know, "A bumblebee is on my arm, stinging me and he's ticked -- she's ticked off." And I just realized how patient that bee had been. 'Cause clearly, it really wanted to be on my arm. Why, I don't know. And it let me brush it off so many times before it finally had had enough. So, I always have a lot of bumblebees around my flower beds in the spring and, um, I don't know. There's something about them. They're kind of goofy looking and, I don't know, it's easy to think of them as sweet, and, um, I just love them.

I had put some sprouted sweet potatoes on my porch. And they were so big and so sprouted, and the sprouts had gotten so big, I felt bad throwing them away. So I thought to myself, well, maybe I should bury them and then like see what happens. But I put them on the back porch temporarily, and I never got around to actually burying the sweet potatoes. And instead, a groundhog, which I've never seen a groundhog at this property, every day started to eat the sweet potato. So every day, there'd be another fraction of it, like, gone. He was quite cute. So I -- instead of moving the sweet potato or doing anything, I would just watch him and I would just watch him eat the sweet potato. And so, anyway, I joked with my coworkers like, "Is it bad to befriend a groundhog?" Like, "Is there any drawbacks to this?" And they were all like, "It's a pest, kill it," "No, don't you dare, that's terrible," "They're gonna ruin your foundation, they're gonna destroy your yard," blablabla. And I was like, "Well, he hasn't yet. Like, he's come back every day for the sweet potato, but there's been no disturbance to my yard." Well, I looked it up. And yeah, groundhogs will eat the larvae of hornets. So, my groundhog that I befriended, he ate up the nest of the hornet that stung my ankle! So, now, I do need to go back through and completely eradicate the remaining hornets before they rebuild, but besides that, I have not seen any other holes or damage that this groundhog has caused. So I do think this is a superhero groundhog who has come to my rescue, because honest to goodness, I would've the next day or a couple days later mowed again, would've been attacked by hornets again because I -- it didn't even register in my brain that hornets can live in the ground. It just didn't occur to me. Yeah, I wouldn't have ever, I wouldn't have looked. I would've been mowing my lawn again and I would've gotten attacked again. Because obviously I would've picked up right where I left off and I would be like, "Wow, this is the worst. I guess I'm called to not mow my lawn anymore." That is not the case. So now this groundhog has revealed truth to…

My partner was starving, so got her a hot dog and she sat down at the picnic table at our campsite. That was nice, to have a picnic table. And as she was eating, she was leaning on the picnic table and felt a sharp stinging sensation. And it became very clear -- she was like, "Ugh, something just stung me!" She did not handle stings and pain super well. I remember when I first met her, we went hiking pretty early on and she got nicked by a thorn and just a little speck of blood popped up on her jeans and she almost passed out at the sight. Um, and so she was trying her best to be tough, but the sting blew up pretty quickly. We don't know what stung her because it was dark outside. I don't know if she put her elbow down on a bee, or... we actually didn't know what other living stinging things existed in the state of Washington at the time, so it could have been anything. But you know, I -- we instantly dropped everything. I took her back to the car. We had ice in the cooler and, you know, she went to the driver's seat ‘cause the back of the car was full and she wanted to be somewhere that was well lit. She got into the driver's seat, I got into the passenger seat, and I just sat with her to console her and to make sure she had what she needed. And there's, uh -- you know, things settled down. And then she kind of turned to me and got this look on her eye, and I can't remember what she said, I'll have to read my journal, but something along the lines of like, "Oh my god." And I was like, "What? What now?" And like her eyes led to the ceiling of our car, and perfectly in between the two of us on the ceiling was this giant spider. Not tarantula size, so not that big. A few scales down. But a spider much bigger in size than you ever prefer to see on the ceiling of your car. We freaked out. We both skedaddled out of the car, and then closed the doors and peered up and saw the spider also got scared and he trotted toward the back of the vehicle, the…

When covid was starting, I was technically dating this girl, but it was also like, her parents were super homophobic, so it was like supposed to be a secret. And I also didn't have a phone. I did not get a phone, my own cellular device, until high school -- my birthday before high school, the summer before high school. So, I did not have -- I had to text her on my mom's phone. Trying to keep a secret from both of your parents while also having to text on your parent's phone is -- it was, it was, it was... interesting. Um, but I guess she doesn't count as a rejection, but it still kind of sucked when right after the two-month mark, we -- I was like, doing -- I was sending something to her, talking to her. And it wasn't even that really, like -- it wasn't even anything romantic. Like, we would talk about some romantic stuff, it wasn't even anything romantic. I just like, I said something and then I put a bunch of rainbow heart emojis. And then, suddenly like the tone completely shifts and she's like, "It's okay if you're like that, but I'm not like that. I'm straight," and I was like, "Okayyy? What just happened?" And then I think she said something about, like, "My parents saw my phone, I have to go now." And then I didn't get to hear her -- from her for months. And I kind of consider that's like where the relationship probably like ended, like, when school got out for covid, but, not a rejection, but still kind of sucked.