Moments of the Week: Cotton Bugs and Unforgettable Music

It's been a busy week. Lots of business going on in the workplace, plans being made and falling apart, money being spent, money NOT being spent (ask me why I'm angry at my bank).

But it only takes a moment to make a moment, so I have a few things  for y'all this week.

•  I discovered a species of bug I'd never seen before. One afternoon this week, I arrived home to bits of cotton flying everywhere. It looked like dandelion seeds floating on the air at first, and then I realized they were flying of their own volition, not on the wind. I managed to convince one to land on my hand so I could get a better look. (Have I ever mentioned on here that I like bugs? As long as they don't sting or bite or I don't know that they sting or bite, we're cool.) They looked like a mix between a fly and a mosquito wearing a cloak made from a piece of cotton ball and were no bigger than a centimeter. I'd never seen anything like it before, and they were everywhere, specks of white dancing in the air. I have not seen a single one since.
  
  Evidently, they're called Wooly Aphids. This blog, Nature Posts, has some fabulous pictures of them.

• I saw a man riding a dirt bike the wrong way down a sidewalk. The dirt bike was bright green and probably made for someone 3/4ths his size. He was hunched over and just toodling along.

•  There are some things that are so engraved on your memory that encountering it again can spark flashbacks to another time and place, or that are so attached to their topic that you immediately think of it. You can't help it. First the smell, the sound, the taste is there, and then the memory.
  
  I went to the movies yesterday with some girlfriends, a big group to see Mad Max: Fury Road, which, if you haven't seen, stop what you're doing and go. This post will be here when you're done. Go see it. Go.
  
  Are you back now? Cool. So the movie ended, and we left the showing theater, the whole group of us hanging right outside in the hall and talking about the movie. Well, I say talking. Mostly listening to the girl who arranged the trip, for whom Mad Max is to her as Disney is to other people: her childhood, her obsession, her favorite thing ever. We stood between the Mad Max theater and another one with a marquee that I couldn't see; it was one-sided and I was on the wrong side. There were sounds that could only be described as "violent" every now and then. Easy to ignore as my friend told us the making of Fury Road. And then we went silent, because we heard it.
  
  A swell of music.
  
  THE music.
  
  We shrieked. At least a few of us did, myself included. Because suddenly in the theater beside us there were dinosaurs and those gates opening and we were 7, 8, 9 years old again, sitting there as Spielberg revealed his theme park that was somehow more magical than Disney World. And we hadn't even bought a ticket yet. But with just a few notes, in a single moment we were there again. A few notes completely changed me from "mildly interested" to "I NEED TO SEE THIS MOVIE" because those iconic notes tapped into the well of childhood memory and magic and transported me to a place and time I barely remembered. I've got plans to see it Sunday.

So, dear readers, how was your week? Did you collect any moments for your stories?