The Twenty-First

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I am not usually much of a girl about insects. I went to camp for years, tramped around in woods, prided myself on my lack of girly fears, and generally could handle whatever as long as it wasn't a cricket.

But this morning when I opened my eyes, the first thing I saw, absolutely level with my head, RIGHT NEXT TO MY PILLOW, INCHES FROM MY FACE, AND MOVING ITS EXCESSIVE AMOUNT OF LEGS was a giant black spider.

It was pretty disturbing.

The Seventeenth: Going to Bed

I'm pretty happy here in ole China these days. The only true thorn in my side is a wildly off-kilter sleeping schedule that's been mucking things up. I don't know what my issue with going to bed is, but it's been around since childhood, and it always flares to magnificent proportions when I have a varied daily schedule, as I did in college and do now.

Going to bed is just so unappealing. Either I can continue to get things done or to relax with various fun forms of entertainment, or I can abruptly stop what I'm doing, lie down, and do...nothing.

I'll only do it at whatever time I actively start falling asleep, which is always later and later into the night. And now I'm going to bed at 4am and waking up today at 1:37pm.

When I'm home, in addition to his many other fine qualities, A is especially wonderful because he always goes to bed at the same time every night (between 10 and 11pm), and he always drags me with him. And when A is there, it's so fun to go to bed! He's warm and nice, and we get to talk without the TV, and he spoons me (cheesy, I know, but he's really good at it, so shhhh) until I fall asleep.

And then suddenly I'm regularly getting plenty of sleep at the correct time, and that really makes the rest of life so eeeaasy.

And, you know, who wouldn't want to climb into bed with this?

The Seventh

Dear Richmoor,

I love your granola with raspberries and milk. After reading such marvelous reviews of it online, I took a chance and allotted it some of the limited space in my boyfriend's luggage when he came to visit me in China. And I was not at all disappointed. Your granola has so many of the flavors China lacks (whole grains, berries, and American-style milk), along with being lovely and easy and light and fresh and very portable. The first bite was so perfect and in one little spoonful so encompassed everything I'd been missing that I confess it was the only thing that made me feel better after my boyfriend left.

So when I returned to China at the beginning of February, I made sure to stop off at REI and get several (seven) bags of your marvelous granola before I left. My suitcases were massively overweight because of all the food I was carrying (in addition to the granola), and it was a humongous hassle to convince the airlines to check it all without charging me, and then it was a hugely difficult trek across town dragging those heavy suitcases over uneven walkways all the way home to my Chinese apartment.

But, obviously, all that effort was totally worth it to have food that makes SUCH a difference on dark days in China.

So imagine my great sadness after all that to discover at various points in the last 6 weeks that not one but TWO of my few precious bags of life-saving granola contained granola and milk powder, but NO RASPBERRIES.

Sure, maybe two out of three isn't bad, I still got my grains and milk, but it just isn't the same without the raspberries. Because they're freeze-dried and not normal-dried (or whatever), the texture, shape, appearance are almost exactly like a fresh raspberry, and the beautifully preserved flavor brings that tartness to balance the sweetness in the granola. Without the magic of the raspberries, it's just beige sugar sludge! They have that here!

I can only assume that other customers of yours have made similar discoveries in similarly inconvenient locations (on top of mountains, in the middle of the woods) and have also been deeply, deeply saddened.

Richmoor, the raspberries are so key. Please do better.

Thank you,

Molly

P.S. The ziploc seal inside the granola bag doesn't stay closed. While it is not a problem for me, because I'm incapable of not eating the whole bag at once, I'm sure it matters to somebody.