Oleander, Pomegranates, etc: Highlights of the past few days

I'm sitting listening to the rain on my roof. My room is in the attic, and it's really nice to hear the rain on the roof as I fall asleep. It was really pouring a few minutes ago, but it's stopped now and the only drops are those that are falling off the trees when the breeze picks up. It's been mostly rainy since I've gotten home, which is a big change from California weather. I don't really mind, though, since Minnesota rain beats California rain any day. (It's actually worthy of the word "rain.")

I've been playing piano again lately, which is nice, although it's just been a bunch of really easy Baroque stuff. I'm playing for somebody's wedding this upcoming Saturday. It's funny because everything I'm playing is Baroque, except I have to play "Here Comes the Bride" (or whatever it's called), which is by Wagner. It's pretty out-of-place stylistically. It's awesome though because I'm getting paid $150. :D

Last night my dad, my brother (Kai), my sister (Amelia) and her boyfriend (Nathan), my best friend from high school (Marissa), and I went bowling in La Crosse, WI, which is the town 30 miles away where you have to go to do anything when you live in SE Minnesota. We ate dinner there--Marissa and I each had mini corn dogs and cheese curds (I love my batter-fried cheese curds, I must say), and the others had various burgers or pizza. We bowled as we ate, something I'd never done before. It's not like it was terribly exciting to eat and bowl at the same time, but I did have to be careful to wipe the grease from the cheese curds off my fingers before attempting to pick up my bowling ball. :) We were playing music on the jukebox, which was actually more like a computer and which charged $2 for five credits (most songs being two credits, so the bonus credit didn't do much good). I spent several dollars on the music, but it's alright because we played some awesome tunes (including "Popmuzik" by M, "Night Fever" by the Bee Gees, "Play That Funky Music" by Wild Cherry, and "Beat It" by Michael Jackson; also my brother played "Indestructible" by Disturbed, which was rather incongruous). The second game, I bowled a 131, my best score ever. We ended up playing four games, rather than the three we had planned on, because suddenly at 9 pm it was "cosmic bowling" and the blacklights made everything look--dare I say it?--groovy, convincing us to stay a little longer.