A moon-faced memory with eyes downturned

This has been a really good evening. I spent it with gaudior, rushthatspeaks, eredien, lignota, weirdquark, and syonakeleste, and there was BPAL (the combination of Kumiho and Dorian makes me smell like high tea served with lavender) and dinner (one can never go wrong with mozzarella and fresh basil) and a fantastic vid for Princess Tutu that has only increased my desire to see this anime (meta-Hoffmann!). We were all in agreement that May 2006 should be stricken from the record.

I am also delighted with the concept of a ghost umbrella, as explained by rushthatspeaks—if one owns an umbrella for more than a hundred years, at least in Japan, it will develop sentience and a malicious sense of humor, so that you may be out in the rain with no shelter nearby and suddenly the umbrella will twist free of your hand and proceed to hop away home, laughing all the while. But it will also guard your house. And I imagine this works; I should think that most burglars would be dissuaded by a close encounter with a sentient umbrella. Or a vampire squash. The combination would probably guarantee that salesmen never visited your house again; and possibly your in-laws as well.

Amanda Downum's "Dogtown" has no umbrella ghosts, but it does have ghouls and ambiguities: and these are both excellent things.

Oh, and green tea Pocky is crack. But I'm sure some of you knew that already.