Thanksgiving

There are many things to give thanks for this year. My sister Jenny has returned home from school and it has been nice having her around, especially when it comes to taking weekend trips because she can look after the dogs. Just KIDDING!

The other day she called me and said, "I was talking to someone about you. He asked me if I was close to my sister and I said--Yeah, we're REALLY close. In fact, I think she's one of my best friends. Actually, I think she's by best friend. OH MY GOSH! My sister is my BEST FRIEND!"

This doesn't come as a shock to people who have a normal siblinghood, but Jenny was born when I was 14, so I've been more of a substitute mom until a few years ago. Now that we're both (ahem) adults, it's been super-nice having a real human person I helped raise become a true friend.

Other things I am thankful for this year is that SOMEONE has FINALLY rented our apartment--no more paying two mortgages!! Also, Peter has TONS of vacation time this month. In fact, he's only going to be going to work for 5 days this month and we might even be able to take a small trip out to San Francisco.

I've finally set up my living room and my kitchen--so now all I need to do is sort out all of my clothes in the bedroom--NOT looking forward to it...So the move has been pretty smooth.

Another thing I am thankful for is our NEW SHOWER HEAD--the one that mixed air with water so that our piddly no-pressure shower is now GUSHING WITH WATER.

I am thankful that my new memory-foam mattress arrived and I've been sleeping so soundly these past few weeks...now if only that platform bed will arrive soon...

The dogs are thankful that we now have a great big yard for them to frolic in and I'm thankful that I no longer have to stand out in the freezing cold waiting for them to "do their business."

I am NOT thankful that I found my first gray hair this year---it seems to be the only one. When I told my friends Karen and Elliott about it, they both said, "I've been going gray since I WAS TWENTY-EIGHT." So I guess I'm thankful that I have only just started going gray at the ripe old age of 36.

Most of all, I'm thankful that although my parents were hours late for Thanksgiving dinner, Jenny didn't bring the pumpkin pie she said she was going to bring, and my mother-in-law got so skunk-drunk that she was stumbling all over the apartment, Thanksgiving at our house TURNED OUT AWESOME.

UNFRIEND!!

Peter's sister has been doing the oddest thing. Instead of picking up the phone or emailing him like a normal person, she sends all her correspondence to him via Facebook.

Like, the time she couldn't come to the Surprise! party, she posted it ON HIS WALL.

That's right, so all of his friends can see what a douche she is.

For the past four years since Peter's father has died, Peter's mom has gone over to stay at this sister's home for Christmas. And of course, a wonderful time is had by all--in this case, wonderful means having your daughter completely ignore you, cook her own meals and eat them in front of you while not preparing anything for you, oh yeah, and then there's that time she snuck off to Church without bringing you, even though you wanted to go.

That's right. GOOD times.

So this morning, Peter finds a Facebook message from her stating that her husband isn't going to be able to pick up their mother for Christmas, so she hopes that Peter is going to be able to spend time with her that day.

Of course, this latest blow comes after numerous telephone conversations between Peter's mother and her two daughters over the past few weeks about how she is TOO OLD to be cooking the elaborate Thanksgiving feast she prepares every year so they're no longer going to come over for that holiday.

She WANTS to prepare Thanksgiving dinner because it's one of the few occasions his family does come over. Usually, if she doesn't see them on Thanksgiving or Easter, she doesn't see them at all.

I love how the pretense to all this is that they CARE SO MUCH about how she troubles herself every year to prepare all the food, when in reality, they just can't be bothered to come over. It wouldn't bother me so much if they made ANY EFFORT at all to visit her, but sometimes years will go by before she sees them.

I know that this is Peter's family and I shouldn't get worked up about this, but it does upset me to see everyone in the family treat his mother so shabbily. And a part of me is annoyed that there's a THOUSAND excuses everyone give on why they can't come visit her--and that there's this feeling amongst the siblings that it's fine, because she's got Peter. The thing is, it would be nice if Peter had ANY support from his siblings when it comes to his parents. Sadly, they're all extremely terrible self-centered people.

I was all, "So, did she post that on ALL of your sibling's Facebook pages or just you?"

And Peter said, "That's it. I'm going to have to Unfriend her now. Not only Unfriend her, but BLOCK HER."

Dog Booties for Lazy People

Now that we have moved back into the house, I remember now why I used to go to Costco and buy boxes and boxes of baby wipes. The dog's paws get SO dirty. We have gotten them booties in the past, but EVERY dog bootie I've ever bought has been SUPER breakable and lostable so I was trolling the internet to find a review of some good ones.

Unfortunately, there are some that cost $50/set!!!!

I mean, I am NOT spending $50 on SHOES FOR DOGS.

Although I love the lady on the video who is demonstrating and explaining the differences between the HIGH PERFORMANCE boot and the standard boot. Her accent reminds me so much of my friend Andrew's family.

Check out the video "Chapter 3 of 6, otherwise known as, "The Features of the High Performance Boots." At the 1:18 mark she says, "...the fyattest pahhnt of the pahhhw."

I would know that New Englandy Bostony accent anywhere.

One time when I was over at Andrew's grandmother's house, her son came home and the conversation went like this:

"Where'd-yah paaaahhhhrrk the cahhhhhr?"

"I paaaahhhhrrked the cahhhhr in the gahhhraaaaaahhge."

"Which gahhhhhraaaaahhhge did'ya paaaahhhrk the caaaaaahhhr?"

Anyway, she seems like a nice lady and I'm sure that's a mighty fine dog boot, but basically, shoes for dogs ends up merely being a bit of fleece with some grippy material and Velcro on them. That is a HUGE markup on fleece and Velcro.

So I trolled the internet for "diy dog booties" and I found this website.

Peter catches me crouching over the floor with the duct tape and he says, "Stop wasting that! It's expensive!"

And I say, "Oh, really? But is it $50 expensive, 'CAUSE THAT'S HOW MUCH WE'RE SAVING."

He refused to let me make more than the one boot I had already made. When I slipped it around Scout's paw to see how it would fit, she tolerated it for about one nanosecond before flinging it clear cross the kitchen. And she had this look on her face like, "NOW what? WHAT is the MATTER with you YOU CRAZY HUMAN!"

Peter said, "I know you're too lazy to wipe their paws, but let's say you make eight duct tape dog booties. Where are you going to keep EIGHT DIRTY DUCT TAPE DOG BOOTIES? Not in MY kitchen."

That Peter, always thinking ahead to the future.

I went back to my computer to see if I can find another solution and then found this lovely couple showing me how to make dog boots with balloons. INGENIOUS!

I love how the lady says "Balloooooons..." and how her husband repeats the last few words of her sentences. They are SO CUTE! And they both LOVE that dog.

The balloon thing, that's a MUCH better idea than the ziplock bags I had planned on using.

Can you imagine the horror on my neighbor's face as she looks out her window with her morning coffee?

"What did that girl PUT on her dog's FEET? OH MY GOODNESS!! I think they're ZIPLOCK BAGS!!"

And her boyfriend will say:

"WHAT is the MATTER with that CRAZY HUMAN?"

That HAIR

Today at the post office I actually saw a soccer mom with Kate Gosselin's hairstyle.

Fer REAL!!

I even blinked my eyes and rubbed them a little bit before looking again just to make sure. And today was NOT Halloween.

I Love the 80s...Miniseries!

I don't think that there's one person who grew up in the eighties who doesn't remember when the slimy green alien lizard baby crawled out of Robin Maxwell during that pivotal scene in the V miniseries.

EVERYONE talked about it the next day at school.

It was one of my favorite miniseries growing up and for some odd reason, my mother let me watch it. She didn't allow me to watch Lace, the only thing I knew about it was from the commercials with Phobe Cates saying, "Which one of you BITCHES is MY MOTHER!"

She also didn't allow me to watch SHOGUN--I don't remember, why was that inappropriate? Oh wait, it's not that I don't remember, it's that I don't know. I NEVER GOT TO SEE IT.

My mother let me watch the remake of Splendor in the Grass until the scene where Bud Stamper squeezes Deanie Loomis's hands and she falls to her knees. That's when my mother told me to go to my room because she had seen this movie before and it was INAPPROPRIATE. Of course it's inappropriate, it's all about sexual desire. Who were the geniuses who decided that it would be great to cast Melissa Gilbert of the Little House on the Prairie for that film, knowing that diehard eight-year-old Little House fans (such as myself) DESPERATELY wanted to see her in this movie?

The one saving grace was that she told me that she would personally watch the movie AS A FAVOR to me and tell me the appropriate parts of the story the next morning before school.

When I asked her what happened, my mother said, "Oh, that girl and boy never ended up together...she was better off because he ended up being poor and married to some poor slob and SHE married A DOCTOR!"

Can you blame me that for years I didn't believe her version of the story because it's so Chinese to tell your daughter that you're better off not falling in love with that handsome boy in high school because what you really want to do is save yourself for A DOCTOR!

Anyway, back to V.

For some inexplicable reason, she let me watch this one...although how is alien sex and lizard babies appropriate television for children? And I LOVED it. It's partly the reason why I love sci-fi and why I spent my high school years trolling the science fiction sections of bookstores and having total nerds suggest Orson Scott Card novels to me. Although once in high school, the cutest boy in school admitted to me during one of our 8-hour-long conversations (if I knew then what I know now, we would have SO DATED because now I know that boys NEVER talk with a girl that long unless he liked her...DUH! Why was I so stupid in high school?) that he loved Lloyd Alexander and I had never felt closer to any other human being. And then a few days later he told me to start listening to Steve Winwood.

So how excited was I that a NEW V SERIES was being produced!?!?!?!?

Let's just say I was s'excited and literally COUNTING DOWN THE DAYS until the pilot aired.

Unfortunately, now I know that V stands for V'terrible.

They obviously spent a lot of money on great actors (except for that terrible Scott Wolf--which should have been a sign) and awesome production stuff like special effects and I guess by the time they were all done, there wasn't any money left for writers.

I felt that the show was SO unrealistic and Peter said, "Uhm...the show is about lizard aliens who come and harvest people. How is that show going to be realistic?"

The thing is, when you have a show that is Cuh-RAZY, you still need to center it around the reality of that universe. I mean, those human characters are WAAAAY too calm about aliens announcing their arrival on their huge plasma screen on their spaceship. Cheering? Really? Like, THAT'S the way these writers think that human beings will react to the news that we're not alone on this planet?

Hmmm. Have those writers ever MET A HUMAN BEING? Because we all would be going SO APESHIT.

Instead, these people are all, "Lahdidah...let's all go up to the alien spaceship and check it out!"

Also, I felt that the whole lizard-reveal happened WAY too early. Peter felt that the producers might have been forced to make the reveal early because EVERYBODY ALREADY KNOWS that they are lizards.

I disagree. The most tragic of the Greek tragedies are more so BECAUSE the audience already knows what's going to happen. There's an incredible relationship you can build with an audience when they are in on the secret. I felt that the show should have waited to make the reveal--but instead, they blew their load and now when we watch the show, it's just me screaming at the television, "REALLY? You have this AWESOME story and THIS is how you're going to execute it?"

And Peter's mumbling, "That poor Elizabeth Mitchell. Things were going so well for her..."

Anniverscary #5 Nothing Made of Wood Was Given

Traditionally, the 5th wedding anniversary calls for a gift of something made out of wood (insert crass joke here).

Instead of giving or receiving blocks of wood, we were ORGANIZING ALL OUR SHIT. I went out at 2am to pick up some Halloween candy...to no avail because NOT ONE KID SHOWED UP.

So what it was drizzling rainwater all day long? That would not have stopped me at the ages of 5 through around 18...yes I went trick-or-treating at the age of 18--I had little ten-year-old and four-year-old sisters. I couldn't just steal all THEIR candy, now could I? That would be CRUEL and MEAN.

These Westchester kids are total wimps.

Now Peter and I are eating all the bags of Butterfingers, Baby Ruths, Nestle Crunches and Kit Kats all by ourselves. Every once in a while, I'll walk into the kitchen and see Peter surreptitiously unwrapping yet another yellow candy wrapper.

And then I shout:

Those are NOT FOR YOU!!

Those are to be saved for NEXT YEAR!!

That's right, if you don't come by my house, you get STALE CANDY next year. Suckers!!

So we've been unpacking and unpacking and unpacking and I've been cleaning and cleaning and cleaning.

Our tenant apparently got tar EVERYWHERE and I've been scrubbing things I've never scrubbed before...like an inch of brown gook off the tops and bottoms of our kitchen cabinets. The tops of our cabinets had this brown yucky goo all over the top, which made me TOTALLY FREAK OUT.

I got those Mr. Clean Magic Erasers...those things were put together by magic elves and fairies because it's the only thing that gets that stuff out. Plus I rubbed some on my disgusting toaster and it is now BRAND-NEW-SHINY!!

For the past few days, I've been saying to Peter, "Isn't that toaster SO SHINY?"

And he responds by saying, "Uhm...yeah...it is..."

Which is not the reaction I'm gunning for. The reaction I'm gunning for is:

"OH MY FUCKING GOWD THAT TOASTER IS SO SHINY I CAN'T BELIEVE IT--YOU WORKED SOME PURE UNICORN MAGIC ON THAT FUCKING TOASTER!!"

Since I didn't get the proper reaction, I keep asking the question over and over and by the fourth day, Peter was all, "Yes, that toaster LOOKS FANTASTIC!! Please leave me alone now!"

I wanted to go out for our anniverscary, but we just didn't feel up to it. We both wanted to rid ourselves of all the piles of boxes in our house. Every time we broke down a box, we would shout the number to each other. So Halloween will be the day I will always remember as the anniversary we were screaming "NINETEEN!" and TWENTY-FIVE!!" at each other instead of getting dressed up and going to the the Blue Hill at Stone Barns. Ah, memories...