Oh my! I've let a whole week pass once again without putting up any updates! For someone who spends as much time with their laptop as I do, you would honestly think that I would be better about posting. But there are always so many interesting forums and blogs that I have to keep up with, sometimes I just don't get around to keeping up my own! Plus, as I mentioned, I had been feeling a bit under the weather for a while there...

Anyway, here's some gossip! ~.^

As I may not have mentioned, I work at a cute little cake shop. It was sort of lame and corporate at first, but luckily the manager was lucky enough to buy out the location and open up her own shop! It's so much nicer now, and I really love to work there! The hours are very flexible, which is perfect for me, since - as a student - my schedule is not always as steady as I would like it to be.


A picture of me before the shop was remodelled...

The fact that the shop is independently owned means also that Janet is able to fill in shifts without having to keep a schedule at all. So when I got sick, Janet took over my shifts for me.

I will have to give you a better introduction to Janet soon, but as I believe I mentioned back in my first or second post, Janet and her boyfriend Tam are good friends with Wulf. Poor Wulf is still a bit shy around Enna and I! I suspect it makes him a bit nervous to know that as close friends of Smilla's, we might have some influence over his fortunes with her. He needn't worry tho, honestly! We're all rooting for him! Some days it is tempting to just be direct and tell Smilla that *clearly* Wulf is in love with her, but they are both so sweet and innocent that I can
never quite go through with it. So we're left with just hinting and subtle pushes.

Janet was the most recent of us to take a stab at getting them together - when she found out that she was filling in at the cake shop, she insisted that Wulf come and visit her. She also *strongly suggested* that he ask Smilla to come along. Of course Tam was there to visit Janet too, and Tam brought along his camera. Tam's not a bad photographer, even if his subject matter usually tends to be limited to one topic: Janet. :P



At any rate, Janet says Tam told her that Wulf agonized for quite some time about how to ask Smilla to come and what he should say. The funny thing is that he doesn't really need to worry so - I don't think Smilla would ever refuse to go anywhere with him! She's a bit dense in the romance department, but she clearly loves to spend time with Wulf. It's just so hard to tell if she really sees him as anything more than a friend. I don't know quite what Wulf said to ask her to go with him, but talking to Smilla later, I don't think she did realize it was meant to be a date... ^^;
Still, how could she not?! She said Wulf even bought her cake for her! I guess maybe bringing her to a place that your friends are at might still seem too casual... Wulf needs to be a little bit more direct! Or, better yet, he should just tell her how he feels! But I think he is still too shy... Ganbatte, Wulf-kun!



Tam did stealthily snap this picture of Wulf and Smilla together at the cake shop. Don't they look cute?

Here's what happened two weeks ago on Earth Day... Janet was trying to give Mimi a lesson of some sort, to fulfill her promise to Mimi's parents. She thought, since Earth Day was a beautiful spring day, it was a good day to do some work on her gardening. She figured it was a good opportunity to teach Mimi about what plants were native, and which were not, and what an invasive plant is, and maybe some basic principles of composting and some of the science of getting a garden to grow nicely...
Besides which, gardening was, after all, a nice princess-like activity besides. (Although Janet herself likes it *in spite of* rather than *because of* this fact!)



Unfortunately Mimi wasn't having any of it, and could not have been less interested. I heard her muttering about how she had no interest in some *tame* garden, when she could be out exploring the wilderness! And, furthermore, if there were any frogs, she was soooo NOT kissing them, and someone else was gonna have to, 'cause she'd done her part with that... XD



So Leda decided to tell her some basic information about the environment. Mimi was horrified. She never pays attention in school and didn't realize there were so many things to worry about!



Since she is a Princess, Mimi called home *immediately* to convince her parents that their Kingdom needed a recycling program. She was relieved to hear that they already got a substantial amount of their energy needs from wind power. (Being a small and well-hidden Kingdom, they really don't have much choice but to be self-reliant. Still, I think Mimi's dad actually has an interest in alternative energy... He was off attending a conference on solar panels not too long ago, Janet said...)



Meanwhile, Smilla and Wulf were cleaning up trash from a local park. It was Wulf's idea. I don't know if I can believe it, but I think his idea was to get some time off alone with Smilla... ~.^ Still, I'm not sure if anything happened...



At any rate, Mimi's parents were so pleased to see Mimi taking an interest in running the Kingdom that they wanted to talk to Janet to congratulate her for doing a good job with Mimi's "diplomacy and deportment" lessons. (Here Mimi is looking horrified to have discovered that she learned something her parents approved of... XD)

Atsuko

Atsuko
Originally uploaded by esmereldes

Hi there!!! I have to apologize to my readers, if I have any, for being gone for so long. It's been so beautiful here that all I wanted to do was sit outside in the sun! But then the weather went back suddenly to being cold and grey and I caught a bit of a cold. I had to have Janet fill in for me at the cake shop I work at. But never fear! I do have more to fill you in on, and Janet even says Tam took some photos at the cake shop, so I can post those soon. I think he has some from Earth Day too, so maybe he won't mind if I post those as well...