There's Not Enough Charm

Today we got word that Peter's sister, the one I'm not particularly fond of, has emailed him that she is attending the Surprise! party. great. The one person that I'm totally DREADING. She's so awful, we need to create another word for awfulness that will fully describe the noxious unhappiness and vitriol that emanates from each of her pores.

And you think I'm kidding? I'm not. She's HATEFUL.

After I sent out the party invitations, I spoke to my friend Marisol about it and she thought that I was CRAZY to invite all these terrible people. She has a little bit of experience because she's got a few clunkers in her family tree.

"You should have just planned a party with a few of her friends here and NOT invited the siblings, that way, she can call them and said, 'Yes, Peter and plue threw a party for me! And it was great!' You do NOT need to invite these people and have to be around them and serve them meals! WHAT were you thinking?"

I need to talk to Marisol before I make ANY decision in life. Because she is SO RIGHT.

On one hand, I'm happy that everyone is coming because it's going to make Peter's mom s'happy. But I am also surprised that Peter's OTHER awful sister, who should know better than to come because SHE DID NOT BOTHER TO ATTEND OUR WEDDING and should never think to DARKEN OUR DOORSTEP is now coming. Yes, technically, she was invited, but we have had NO CONTACT with her except for that 4th of July wedding.

You know that scene in "When Harry Met Sally" when Billy Crystal screams, "I WAS JUST BEING POLITE!"

Every few days, whenever I think about the fact that Peter's sisters are coming, I channel my inner-Billy-Crystal-from-the-80s and say internally, "I WAS JUST BEING POLITE!"

Lesson?

NEVER BE POLITE

So now EVERYBODY is coming and I started to freak out a little bit, because everyone is united in their awfulness and phoniness. These are people who HATE each other, but they will totally yuck it up with each other and I'm a bit afraid that they're going to totally take over this event with their awfulness (and I know I'm being selfish, because this is for Peter's mother, but I'm afraid that they're going to gang up on me and be TOTALLY MEAN to me like they've done in the past).

I was talking to my sister Jenny about this Surprise! party yesterday and I said, "I just don't know how I'm going to handle all these unpleasant people at one time."

She said, "Don't worry, we'll be there and we're CHARMING."

And I said, "Although we have charm in EPIC PROPORTIONS, there's NOT ENOUGH CHARM for THIS!"

It Won't Work For You

Never in a million years did I think that Peter's siblings would accept their invitations for the surprise party for his mom. I mean, these are people who didn't even attend his father's funeral. But sure enough, I got emails in my email box that have proven me WRONG WRONG WRONG.

Like this emailed response:

Hi. Hope all is well. We will see you on the 4th.

That was the email--uhm....okay, but who is this email from? I did invite MORE THAN ONE PERSON--and because they're Catholic, more than one person has THE SAME FREAKING NAME.

I had to send this person an email saying, "Great, looking forward to seeing you...but who are you?"

I frantically called my friend Andrew, who throws dinner parties all the time and is famous in San Francisco for his soirees and I asked him for advice. Or rather I said, "Please, you've GOT to HELP ME! Give me ADVICE!!!!!"

His response was, "But it won't work for you."

"Why NOT?" I asked.

"Because the most important ingredient of a successful even is to invite the right people...and in your case. YOU'VE ALREADY SCREWED THAT ONE UP."

OH NO!!!!!

But the one thing I can take home from all this is that when I invited my mother to the party, she was SO PROUD of me and went on and on about how WONDERFUL this was and HOW HAPPY Peter's mother is going to be...I think that this served as further proof to my mom she raised her kids right.

Eye Contact

Whenever I walk the dogs, I take them out across the street to a little park that's so small it only has two benches and a tree. It is our building's doggy urinal and whenever I see unsuspecting families taking a small break and letting their children roll around in the grass, I cringe. I don't think there's even one square inch on that grass patch that hasn't held urine or poop at some point.

Anyway, there's a stop sign I cross the street in front of and it drives me CRAZY when cars slow down, see that I've stepped off the curb...and keep going.

Hello?

You have a STOP SIGN ASSHOLE!!

Then, what really riles me up is when the car slows down, I MAKE EYE CONTACT and the bastard keeps rolling by...hmmm

Usually, when I'm on the road and I make eye contact with the pedestrian, it tells the pedestrian, "Yes, I see you...go ahead. After all, you have this thing called RIGHT OF WAY."

I'm a safe driver and obey all the rules of the road, just don't throw babies in front of my car.

I think that Westchester people think that a stop sign is just a pretty red lawn ornament that people stick in the ground like colorful lollipops. They don't pertain AT ALL to any RULES OF THE ROAD. It doesn't actually mean STOP. It just means let's try to race that bitch who just stepped off the curb.

I have a mind to start wearing a sandwich board when I walk the dogs that says, "STOP SIGNS=STOP"...and as you drive by, on the back of my sandwich board, it will say: "YOU JERK"

CASA!!

I can't wait for the next season of House.

What I like about House is that it's a show about a genius surrounded by smart people who get on his nerves because they are SO SLOW.

Peter hates it when I joke around that he's like the House of where he works--but he sort of is. But it's a little scaled down. He goes around pointing out all the stuff his coworkers have done wrong and then they get mad at him--but he doesn't save lives or anything...

And the only reason he points this stuff out is that he only wants the organization to not look stupid--so sometimes he HAS to point out grammatical errors before they get posted ON THE INTERNET for ALL THE WORLD TO SEE.

One time he said to me, "Do you think that in Italy, House is called CASA?"

"Hmmm." I said. "I guess in Taiwan it would be TSOO...or FANGZI in Mandarin, which would be the more likely..."

DMV Phone Calls

We share a few of the same numbers for a DMV office in Florida--except that our area code is 914 and the DMV in Florida is 904--so it is a very common for us to receive a phone call--while running out of the shower dripping wet and racing for the telephone, just to have some redneck yell at me about her motorcycle license.

And when I tell them they have the wrong number, they don't believe me and argue with me. And then when I hang up on them, they call back, just to be told that this is the wrong number.

I don't think that they're very bright over there in Florida...

I mean, don't you think the actual DMV would have some sort of recorded greeting instead of a person saying, "Uhm. Hello?"

Go Away, Kitty Kitty

That's it.

We're done.

We're giving away our cat.



Why?

Because it's time. She doesn't like us--and okay, maybe I do roughhouse with her a little too much and treat her like a dog--you mean, cats DON'T like to be manhandled? That's what big labs and Siberians are for? Oh well...

Now that we're moving into a new house, it's not going to be a good situation. So now I'm trying to pawn her off on my mother-in-law. We've asked her (as a favor) to look after the cat for us for 2 weeks.

Little does she know that we're not taking her back!

I think this is the meanest trick I've ever played on her. And by her, I mean Meow Meow.

YOU Don't Even KNOW

While we were at Rhinebeck, my sister Jenny looked after my Meow Meow--the cat we've been seriously thinking of ditching...I mean, finding a new home for...

The thing is, we just are not cat people.

When we were away, Jenny woke up and stepped into the bathroom...into a puddle of pee.

We're having a teensy bit of trouble in the toilet-training arena. For some reason, this past week, the Meow Meow hops on the toilet and faces the wrong way!!

She's been peeing correctly for a year and for some reason, she's suffering a sort of brain fart when it comes to toilet-facing.

As Jenny cleaned up the pee, she looked at Meow Meow--knowing that if she starts having accidents all over the place it will definitely be the end of her and us--and said:

YOU don't even KNOW!

Rhinebeck=Great Food

We've been spending the Labor Day holiday in Rhinebeck, NY and I have to tell you, we are considering moving here when we retire...next year. There's everything you could possibly want here, which means, there's FOOD TO EAT!!!!

The first night we were here, we went to a Thai restaurant called Aroi, which was really awesome--I can't get enough of the Thai Iced Tea, which is why I got the Thai Ice Tea Ice Cream later for dessert!

We had breakfast the next day at the Bread Alone Bakery, and I love a place that is painted my favorite color--orange. Their T-shirts were also s'cute.

Peter and I walked along the streets and we stopped by this shop window that had all these Life is Good T-shirts and Peter bought this one.

Today we went to the Apple Pie Bakery at the CIA--the culinary institute, not the place with the assassins. Although, wasn't it funny on Alias whenever there was a scene at the CIA headquarters, all you saw were signs for CIA, CIA, CIA!! Like, yeah, WE GET IT. You're at the CIA!!!!! The food was really awesome, although a TON of butter and cheese went into the Quiche and Macaroni and Cheese we got--we're still feeling it....a day later.

I didn't grow up eating a ton of cheese and butter--my mom cooks very nutritious meals for us--once, when my sister was watching Paula Dean's show, my mom looked up and said, "Oh, what's she making there, is that tofu?"

And my sister answered, "No, that's 8 sticks of butter!"

So now whenever we eat a meal with tons of butter, we say, "That sure is a lot of TOFU!"

Do You REALLY Want to be Friends?

My whole life I have struggled with friendships where I am the one who has to work on the constant upkeep: the phone calls andn the visiting and the sending of cards. After a while, it seems very one-sided and I stop. 99.9% of the time, the friendship just flits away into the ether--nowadays we have Facebook to deal with people like this.

I used to have a very close relationship with a cousin of mine and we were almost like sisters, but better than sisters because there wasn't any of the sibling rivalry. Our parents would send us to Japan for the summer, mine because they were busy with the restaurant, and hers because there were 5(!) kids in the house, so it was nice for her parents to send a few of them away for a little while. When I was studying in Michigan I went out to visit her in Minnesota, where she lives, and she drove 8 miles down to Chicago to meet up.

About 12 years ago, I decided to stop the phone calls because I didn't want to keep up a relationship where I felt that I was the only one who cared. And so we've stopped talking. I attended her wedding and she attended mine, but we've been pretty much out of touch. She does, however, come into New York a few times a year and she'll always go to my dad's restaurant to eat a free meal. In these 12 years not once has she ever called me to meet up with her. I took that as a sign that she's not interested.

Today, my father calls me up to let me know that she's at the restaurant and he puts her on the phone. It's sort of evident that she wasn't planning on talking to me, but I suppose my father put her on the spot. And in the conversation, she admits that she visits NY all the time, but it has never occurred to her to call me up. That statement alone made me want to hang up on her.

She makes a big deal out of asking me for my email address, which I give her, which has not changed in the past 15 years or so (even though everyone and his IT guy has been trying to get me to switch to gmail).

The thing is that I'm a pretty optimistic person. You know what they say, that a pessimist is really just an optimist who's been disappointed too many times.

I would love to actually think that my cousin wants to hang out and that she's genuinely going to email me the next time she's in town, but I just know better. A part of me always wants my friends to really be their best selves. The person that I remember when I really loved them. The person who might actually have genuine feelings for me and want to see me. I know that it's very difficult to maintain relationships when we're older and that there's something to be said for losing touch with an old pal, but sometimes we just have to let things be.

And by the way, I've learned my lesson. The next time my father calls me, I'm going to ignore it.

Portrait of Meow Meow Sitting on the Bowl

This was taken when we were on the green stage of the litter kwitter. She's staring at the toilet and saying to herself, "WHAT is wrong with THESE PEOPLE!?"