Road Trip!

Tomorrow I am headed down to SoCal (southern California for all you non-Californians;) for my middle-little brothers graduation from USC! He is receiving his masters in Astronautics and I couldn't be a prouder sister! I have spent the afternoon frantically trying to get all the last minute things done before I leave. This included getting my hair trimmed (which cost $17. It was supposed to be $15 but the woman explained that they had to charge me more because I had too much hair...I don't know if that was fair, but I paid it.) I also washed the cooler, cleaned my car (but we've decided to take the truck), packed, did laundry, watered all my plants and...well, you get the picture. I made time to sneak in a run at the gym too! Oh, and I stopped an Noah's Bagels to pick up some for breakfast since we are leaving at 4:30 am, and nothing will be open. The store was just closing so the cashier gave me a whole bunch for free! Too bad carbs and I are no longer friends:/ I'll take them with me and share though.
When I was out on the patio washing the cooler I saw a little black and brown bird that I have noticed out there before. It has a panic attack every time I step foot on the patio these days. It pretends to be wounded and makes a little clicking sound, kind of like a *tisk* and flops all over the place. I realize that it is probably nesting in one of my spider plants, and trying to distract me from it's eggs.  I have tried to tell it to relax, that I have no interest in it's eggs, but it doesn't understand me. And I can't avoid my patio for the next month or two while the eggs hatch and the chicks learn to fly...but I still feel bad. I don't want the mother/father to have a coronary before the babies are born!
I have sort of a love/hate relationship with all the creatures that live on my patio. The little grey rolly-polly bugs that look like miniature trilobites (don't know what they are called) seem to have their annual spring fling out there, and are everywhere, scurrying for cover whenever I lift anything off the ground, and contracting into tiny spheres when I sweep.
And then there are the snails...They eat all my plants...Well, actually that's not entirely true. They totally eat a few, and with the rest they just take a couple bites out of every single leaf. Grrrr....I tried to kill them last summer by drowning them in beer (it was the only humane option I came across, and I thought to myself if I had to go, I'd probably not be too upset if it was in a pool of beer;) but they thwarted me, or reproduced before taking a swan dive into the Miller Light and it was all for naught.
I have pretty much given up at this point because I realize that they are just doing what they are made to do, and it's not their fault if I have the most lovely, well watered, delicious snail snack filled patio ever.
But I digress. Anyway most of my "to do" list is done, and tomorrow I will be embarking on a road trip down the illustrious (joking) I-5 to Pasadena! So long!