I Married a Vegetarian

My Pet Miniature Elephant

2011-09-23T12:55:00.002-04:00

The other night I had one of the most terrifical dreams I've ever had. I had LOVED elephants for as long as I can remember. My friends are always getting me elephant pendants, lamps, and paper made from elephant poop (okay--two people have given me this as gifts--I love elephants, not their poop! If I hear that you like dogs, do I give you a bag of my dog's poop?).

In my dream. Peter and I were living in some sort of city. We were renting this huge and awesome apartment and we had a roommate--who had a miniature elephant from Ethiopia as a pet. She was all:

"Oh, this elephant? I got him in Ethiopia when I lived there for a few years."

Okay, so in my dream, I totally fell in love with this elephant--which looked like one of those baby elephants you see on TV. It was about as tall as a Great Dane--so pretty big, but so sweet and cute! And in my dream, I was trying to concoct all these ways that I could kidnap her because my roommate was never going to let her go.

The roommate got this last-minute call--I guess she worked for some sort of organization like the Red Cross or something like that and was called away to Sarajevo, or some other remote country. She asked if I would take the miniature elephant because she didn't want to have her quarantined for 4 weeks like she had to when she brought it to America.

Peter said to her, "Oh, I don't think that's a good idea."

And of course, I totally elbowed him in the stomach and said, "WE'LL TAKE HER!"

The rest of my dream was telling Peter that I would never, ever ask for anything else for as long as I lived if I can have a pet elephant. And we were already living with her!

And then I woke up.

You know that hazy state you're in right after you wake up from a dream? Well, I went over to my computer and looked up "Miniature Elephant as Pets" because I sort of believed that they were out there. And when I found a link, I got SOOOO excited--I mean, I'll go to the ends of the earth to get me a miniature pet elephant.

Apparently, this was a facebook page for the "Society for the Introduction of Miniature Elephants as Pets." It's sort of a jokey site created by someone who had the idea before I had my dream. And no, miniature elephants don't exist...yet. Bummer.

Eeeeeeeeeek!

2011-09-14T23:47:00.006-04:00

A few weeks ago, when I was in Kentucky, I talked to Peter on the phone and he said, "I think I hear an animal in our bedroom wall."

It's not that I didn't believe him, but Peter's ears suffered through years of playing in extremely loud clubs and rock concerts without earplugs. So yes, I believed that he heard something, but I wasn't really convinced that it was an animal.

About a week later, we were in our bedroom and he said, "That! Do you HEAR that?"

I did hear a little something, but it was very faint and I'm not even sure if I trusted my ears. But then the next morning when I woke up, I distinctly heard something that sounded like chewing in the wall.

I googled "animal in wall" and came across websites featuring birds and possums and raccoons caught in between the walls.

An hour later, I was blithely getting a Swiffer cloth to Swiffer around the living room floor. I pressed down on the box to lift up the flap and AMOUSERANOVERMYHAND!!!! Oops, sorry. I meant: A...MOUSE...RAN...ACROSS...MY...HAND.

Just at that moment, Peter turned the doorknob as he returned from work and heard my bloodcurdling scream that sounded a bit like: "UUUUUUUUUUAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
(deepbreath) AAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUEEEEEEEEE (deepbreath) EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEHHHHHHHHHHHHAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!"

He said that at first, my frenzied, high-pitched scream made him think that I had hurt myself, but then my scream took on a frantic energy that made him think, "Oh, yeah. That noise I've been hearing is probably a mouse!"

Apparently, the mouse had been FEASTING on the bird seed that we keep under the sink--which is also where we keep our cleaning supplies.

That night we went to Home Depot and picked up these plastic kill and contain mousetraps because they didn't have what my friend who lives in Park Slope calls the "Mouse Electric Chair."

It looked pretty flimsy, but it caught the mouse a few days later. At least, I hope it was that mouse and I hope that it was the only mouse in the house.

Although, Peter and I keep wondering, how was is that the mouse was in the Swiffer box the moment I reached for it? Was he sleeping in there like Stuart Little?

Birthday Party

2011-09-07T01:30:00.003-04:00

My sister Judy had a birthday party dinner last week and it was really wonderful. You know the feeling you get when you get so happy that it makes you feel sad? I felt a bit like that.

Judy has developmental disabilities so she kind of operates like a seven-year-old at times. Her friends were mostly from her school and programs she's involved in and a few of her friends have Down's Syndrome. My family picked a restaurant that does events with people who have developmental disabilities and the waitstaff was super-nice (The Bicycle Club in Englewood Cliff, NJ--a really nice space with great people).

When the menus were passed out, one of the kids asked if there was a party menu and when my sister Jenny said, "No party menu, you can order anything you want in the regular menu."

He gasped, "We can order off the REGULAR menu?"

You could tell that inside, he was thinking: Boy, this is CLASS.

It was sweet to see all those kids together. Each person has different disabilities. For example, some kids are shy about asking where the bathroom was, some kids won't eat vegetables, some have special food restrictions, some need help walking because they have physical disabilities. What was amazing was that they all knew each other so well, that they helped each other out.

One girl took away her all her neighbor's vegetables because he won't eat his ribs if vegetables are touching them. (Of course, I'm thinking: Man, his poops must be tough!) One girl with Down's Syndrome needed to go to the bathroom and a friend helped her find it. It was nice to see that everyone had their strengths and weaknesses and as a group of friends, they all worked together to help each other out. I wished that more people could be like that.

Jenny also made these gorgeous decorations with banners, place cards, cupcake flags and goodie bags. She spent hours and hours printing them up and putting it all together. And it did not go unappreciated. When we wrapped up the party, we discovered that a lot of the kids kept all those paper decorations--even the cupcake flags. How cute is that?

Jenny got cupcakes from Manhattan for the party, and on the way home, one of the girls told her mom, "We ate cupcakes from NEW YORK!" It was just so nice because these kids just APPRECIATED the hell out of every little thing and it did kind of make us feel like a million bucks.

I mean, the night was all:

"You're so PRETTY!"
"Where'd you get this? You MADE this? WOW! You're REALLY GOOD!"
"Judy, your sisters are SO NICE!"
"Who's this? Hi! Nice to meet you!"
"I LOVE your dress!"

What's not to love?

I've heard of so many people who terminate their Down's Syndrome babies and it actually made me cry when I got home because these kids were so sweet and kind. And I know that growing up, a lot of my parents' friends have felt sorry for us, but we're so lucky to have Judy in our lives.

I mean, who else has a person in their lives who, no matter what he or she does, will ALWAYS love them unconditionally?

This is how nice my sister Judy is--when she first started work at the library, there was a co-worker there who HATED Judy. In fact, she tried to get the boss to get rid of Judy a bunch of times. I mean, what a creep, right?

About a few months after Judy started her job, I asked her how this co-worker was doing--and if she was being any nicer. Judy said:

"Oh, YES. She's SOOO much nicer now."

"Really?" I asked her. "What's different?"

"Now, sometimes she says hi!"

The Bangs That Never Were

2011-08-31T21:09:00.003-04:00

When I was young, my mother used to cut my hair herself and she kept all of her children in bangs up until we were in junior high school. I haven't had bangs in about twenty-five years, but I had been hankering for a change, so I decided that when I went for my haircut, I was going to get bangs.

I've tried to get bangs before, but many hairdressers have talked me out of it, saying that my forehead was too small, my hair was too stiff, I'm too lazy for the upkeep, blah, blah, blah.

When I call up the salon I go to, I was told that my (very expensive) hairdresser was out of town for the next few weeks on vacation. I've had my hair cut with the other senior stylist they have, but I wasn't that happy with it, so I googled around for another salon who can do Asian hair. I found this Japanese hair salon in Scarsdale and thought, "Well, they're Asian, so they should do Asian hair well, right?"

I got there and I told the guy that my hair was really thick, so I wanted my hair thinned out and that I wanted short bangs. However, I did ask him if he thought that my hair could do bangs. He looked at me and said, "Yes, of course."

An hour later, I looked like a mulletted rat.

And I don't know why, because I was paying for a VERY EXPENSIVE haircut, but I didn't want to make a fuss. When the guy looked at my hair, he gave me his card and even offered to fix it if I didn't like it. You know it's bad when the stylist is already offering that while you're still sitting in his chair. I said it looked cute because I didn't want to hurt his feelings. Meanwhile, I was crying in the car on the way home.

This is why I had my friend Marisol come with me to get my hair put up the day of my wedding. I needed a hair advocate because when I'm sitting in that chair, I lose all ability to think straight and I'm so afraid of hurting the stylist's feelings that I don't ask for what I want.

So now I've been pinning back my bangs until they grow back, which according to google will be six months.

The Bra Whisperer

2011-08-16T00:48:00.003-04:00

I was sitting at a good-bye lunch with the magazine gang last week (our managing editor and three interns were leaving us for greener pastures) and I kept tugging at my bra because it was chafing my right boob. I was trying to figure out what was wrong and I thought that perhaps after all these years of practice, I had simply put my bra on all twisted up. I was sitting there sipping my extremely delicious butternut squash soup with dollops of creme fraiche when I simply could not take it any longer and went to the bathroom to investigate.

Yes, I went to the bathroom and took off my bra. And it wasn't all twisted, in fact, the underwire had BROKEN IN HALF. Yes people, my boob broke the underwire in my bra.

In the past I've had underwires just poke out and decide to leave themselves on Boston's Newbury Street. Apparently, Boston likes to see me without a bra on.

But this was the first time the underwire BROKE IN HALF. I asked all my friends if that had happened to them before and they were like, "Uhm. No. What's wrong with your boob?"

Unfortunately, my publisher and I had a very important meeting so I couldn't just go braless, so I MacGyvered the damned thing with some rolled up paper towels to act as wire supports.

That's when my publisher told me about the Orthodox Jew Bra Lady, who is the New York Bra Whisperer. She can look at any woman and know instantly what size bra she should were.

"Do you think that it'll be weird to tell them that I'm just going to wear it out of the store like a pair of shoes?" I asked.

"Are you kidding me?" she said. "ALL of my friends walk out of there wearing their new bras."

Unfortunately, when we drove by, it was CLOSED. Nerts!

Slovenly Vs. Sloppy

2011-07-12T01:55:00.002-04:00

The other day I bumped into a person I know from town at the local coffee shop. She was wearing this old strappy-type dress that hung so low that her boobs were kind of hanging all out. And we're not talking movie-star boobs, but momish boobs. Plus, she was carrying around this really old pocketbook--it was dark with dirt and yuckiness. Also, she didn't look like she had washed her hair in days. She's kind of a salesperson, so I didn't understand why she doesn't take more care with her appearance.

I came home and told Peter that I didn't understand why my friend wanted to look so slovenly.

"Well, you look slovenly sometimes."

"Uh... Uhm... EXCUSE ME?" I said. "I may look SLOPPY all the time, but I don't EVER LOOK SLOVENLY."

Apparently, Peter didn't know the difference.

Sloppy is when you might not iron your shirt so it's still a bit wrinkly, but slovenly is when you don't even bother putting on a bra.

So after a loooong discussion where he took back the part about saying I was SLOVENLY--I said:

"The thing is, she IS married. Isn't it her husband's job to tell her that she doesn't look very good in that dress?"

And Peter said: "Oh, nooooooooo. That's the LAST thing he would ever do."

Goo Is What Tape Is All About

2011-06-22T01:50:00.004-04:00

House of Yes is now playing on Hulu!

It's on my favorites list. I love Parker Posey and the writing is incredible:

"Goo is what tape is all about. Goo is what makes it tape instead of PAPER!"

"If she were ill I could give her an aspirin, I could put her to bed, I could make her that soup you're supposed to make. But I cannot. I mean, I can make the soup, for Heaven's sake, it comes in a can."

"Excuse me, I'm going to go baste the turkey and hide the kitchen knives."

"Boy, it's been a long day."
"Not as long as yesterday. Yesterday was 24 hours."

"Oh, there's something I've been meaning to ask you. There's this thing I heard. And if I thought for one second it was true I would probably kill myself. Does your fiancee work in a doughnut shop?"
"A Doughnut King, actually."
"A Doughnut King? So is she like, the Queen? Are we entertaining royalty?"
"She would be more of a Doughnut Lady-in-Waiting."
"So she's sort of a marginal donut figure."
"In all fairness, she is a minor and not a major doughnut...figure."

16 and Pregnant...and Stupid

2011-06-18T01:28:00.004-04:00

There's a show on television that I can't tear myself away from and it is 16 and Pregnant.

I know, it's totally strange. I think this is the same part of me that loved to watch Jon and Kate Plus 8. One time when my sister and I were watching the show, my husband said, "I don't understand the appeal to this show. It's just a show about two people taking care of some kids."

"Yeah," my sister said. "But we're compelled to watch because there's just so many of them."

My favorite episode is the one where the anorexic girl is having a baby and she asks the doctor, "So, do you think it's possible to lose weight while I'm pregnant?"

Uhm...yeah...because you want a baby that weighs negative pounds.

And then one of her friends tries to get her to eat some food and says, "Aren't you supposed to be taking prenatal vitamins?"

The 16-year-old's response was: "I do when I remember to take them...about once a week."

Yup. This is why the show should be called 16 and Pregnant...and STUPID.

The funny thing is that a lot of the 16-year-old pregnant girl's friends have been forbidden to socialize with the pregnant girls. However, I think that hanging out with a teenager who is pregnant is the best thing to scare your daughter shitless.

There's a scene in that anorexic girl episode where she starts to go into labor while her friends are all over her house for a sleepover. All the girls burst into tears and broke out into hysterics. There was not one level head in the room.

No one said, "Okay! Let's get you to the hospital! Where are your bags?"

Instead, there was a lot of freaking out, hand-wringing and crying as the pregnant girl passes out at the dinner table.

Another reason not to get pregnant as a teenager: Your friends are just not ready to handle it.

Rocky Killed an Opossum

2011-06-11T12:00:00.003-04:00

Last night Peter couldn't call Rocky back into the house and went out to see that he had killed an opossum. We love opossums. They eat all the rotten fruit on the ground and roadkill. Basically, they are the garbage-eaters of the world, making our communities cleaner. Plus, they're adorable.

Peter was shaking when he came back to the house and threatened to get rid of our dog.

"Is this your anger talking, or do you really want to get rid of him?" I asked.

"I just don't want a dog that does this. He's a real asshole."

I sort of argued the point that as his owners, it's our responsibility to ensure that there are no roving small animals in our yard. But Peter is insistent that Rocky "knows" it's wrong to kill animals. Hmmm. Sometimes he doesn't even "know" where his tail is.

Today I called the vet, who directed me to the Department of Health. Apparently, I need to take the dead opossum to get it tested for rabies and make sure to give the dogs their booster rabies shots. And if the opossum did actually have rabies (which the dept. of health thinks is a really low possibility), then Rocky will have to be quarantined for 6 months.

He got skunked last year and he also killed a crow. The crow, I'm just like, well, what kind of self-respecting crow can't fly away from a dog? But this poor opossum? Rocky sure is a big jerk.

When I told Peter what would happen if the opossum had rabies, he said, "Well, instead of quarantining him, I think we should put Rocky down."

Oh boy, that dog's days in our home may be numbered.

Wedding Invitation: Hot or Not?

2011-06-10T01:38:00.005-04:00

We got a wedding invitation from someone recently and here is what it said:

(name omitted) and (other name omitted) are super excited to be getting married. Almost as thrilling, is the opportunity to invite those we love, like, and patiently tolerate to come to (location omitted) for the celebration.

You are most welcome to join us (date omitted) for a ceremony at (time omitted) at the home of (names omitted). Ceremony will be followed by much feasting, drinking, & celebrating.

Okay, so grammatical mistakes aside (I'm a bit vigilant because I AM an editor), I was a bit taken back by this invitation. I had spoken to the groom the week before and he told me that the invitation was humorous. However, his parents refused to let him send it to their family and friends--so they sent their own invitations and the groom and bride argued for the right to send their version of the invitation to their own friends and other "young people."

I have a bit of a hard time calling anyone older than 40 a "young person." Once I passed the mid-thirties threshold, I stopped calling myself young. Chris Rock said it best when he said, "40 is only young if you die tomorrow. Then they'll so, he was so YOUNG!"

However, call me a fuddy-duddy, but I found this invitation to be really sarcastic and quite rude. Perhaps the intention for humor is there, but I don't quite see it. I think when something is written down, it's difficult to interpret at times. I see this happening a lot with emails where I might think someone is upset because she was terse in her email, but it was completely unintentional. You can't hear the humor in the written word sometimes and this invitation just came across negative, not funny.

I read it to my sister over the telephone and when she didn't respond, I said, "Did you hear me?"

"Yeah, I HEARD you, I just didn't quite UNDERSTAND...How old are these people?"

"40."

"Okay, so they're old enough to know better."

I read the invitation to someone else and she said, "That's HORRIBLE!"

I take weddings and marriage quite seriously--I mean, I knew Peter 8 years before we got married. So maybe I'm the wrong person to talk to about an off-the-cuff wedding invite, but when you are asking someone to take one of the rare Saturdays during the summer to drive six hours to help you celebrate your special day, the last thing you want is to come across like a jerk who doesn't take the vows of marriage seriously. This is the second marriage for the bride, so it's surprising that she would want to come across even remotely flippant about wedding vows.

Plus, don't these people know that your wedding day is the biggest fund-raiser of your life? You do not want to give anyone an excuse for writing that smaller check. I mean, Peter and I are already annoyed that the groom came to our wedding empty-handed. But of course, we're too polite to do the same thing to him.

In my family, my cousins would have made fun of me to no end with an invitation like this. All day, I would have heard, "So, are you still PATIENTLY TOLERATING us?" And as soon as my back was turned, they would be taping "kick me" signs to the back of my wedding dress.

Gender Neutral Debate

2011-05-31T18:56:00.002-04:00

I recently read an article about a baby in Toronto who is being raised gender-neutral. At first I thought it was a crazy thing to do, but when I kept reading the piece, the parents started to seem less and less crazy. Basically, the couple want to raise this child to figure out his or her gender preference without society pressures. Here's the article.

When I talked to Peter about this, he was all, "Uh, don't get any ideas of doing this for any future children."

I don't see that there's anything wrong with sending out a birth announcement with just a name and a picture. If people want to find out what gender, they can come over or pick up the phone. While we're going that route, we won't let them know what ethnicity the baby is either.

In theory, I think that this is a great idea and it would be great for people to get over the old-fashioned notions of what's right for girls vs. what's right for boys. I went to a Catholic school where boys and girls had their gender-specific uniforms. We had to line up with one line for girls and one line for boys. They also separated us in the classrooms--boys on even rows and girls in odd rows. I always felt that sort of gender-specific classroom placement so oppressive. That separation kind of reached its way into the playground--boys never played with girls. I had only spent a few years in a public school in NJ where all the boys and girls played together (mostly because there were 19 girls and 3 boys in the class--girls ruled that grade!) and it wasn't a big deal.

Intellectually I think it's great that the parents of this kid are trying this out, but I wouldn't feel comfortable about it because I also don't want people in my neighborhood thinking I'm a total freak. Maybe this is just something that you can get away with more in Canada.

Another Use for Balsa Wood

2011-05-24T11:24:00.002-04:00

Peter and I had an errand to run super-early in the morning last week on the upper east side, and after some debate, we decided to go home for breakfast. However, it was raining so hard that we ran into what looked like a small lake that had formed at the entrance ramp to the FDR.

Just then, I remembered that there was this breakfast place I used to go to when I was in college--E.A.T.

So Peter turned the car around that's where we went for our overpriced omelette and an overpriced danish. But while we were sitting in the restaurant, Peter remembered that we had gone there before when we used to go to the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

"Hey!" I said. "Didn't you want to go to the Guitar Exhibit?"

We googled the Met's hours and it was about to open so we got our stuff and walked over.

There was a HUGE line in front of the museum, which was a pretty amazing sight. I used to spend every weekend at the Met during my high school years, but I had never been there when it opened (let's say I'm not a morning person). It was so nice to be in that dinghy, rainy, early morning hour to see a zillion tourists clamoring to see ART!

The guitar exhibit was in my favorite gallery space in the museum and the only thing I was bummed out about was that the Stradivarius violin was missing because it had been used in a performance the night before. I have never seen one in person before. That would have been fun.

Peter and I also walked through the Alexander McQueen exhibit which was Ah-MAZing!

I've never seen an exhibit like this at the Met in my life! When you walk in, it's really goth-looking with dark mirrors and mannequins with leather wrapped over their faces. The dresses were gorgeous. There were dresses made up of feathers of all kinds and a hat made up of elaborately carved cork which reminded me of the cities carved on a grain of rice in the Taiwan museum. It's definitely a sight not to be missed.

My tip is that if you want to go to the exhibit, get there as soon as it opens, because Peter and I just walked right in, but I saw a bunch of velvet covered ropes with signs that said: 30 MINUTE WAIT FROM THIS POINT

The exhibit was pretty fabulous, but it kind of made me a bit sad and I said to Peter:

"Now I hate all the crappy clothes I have at home. I want a vest made of balsa wood."

The Fates Hate My Dentist

2011-05-19T15:12:00.002-04:00

So I've had this cavity that I needed to get fixed for a while--but I was a bit nervous about finding a new dentist because my previous two have been not-so-great.

After a few months of procrastinating and getting on a better dental plan, I picked a dentist out from one of the "Best of" lists in the local magazine and he's great. I had an appointment with him yesterday which got cancelled because I had to make a last-minute trip to the city for a work emergency at the time of my appointment. The receptionist was nice enough to reschedule it for today at 2pm.

I left my house with plenty of time to get there, but that's when the road crew decided to shut down all the roads FOR HALF AN HOUR. I was so annoyed. And of course, this was after a HUGE fight I got into with Peter because we had planned on going downtown to run an errand and he didn't understand why I couldn't blow off the appointment. So we basically got into a huge fight for NOTHING because the fates have decided that my cavity WILL NEVER GET FIXED.

When I called the receptionist again, it's a new one who I've never met and she doesn't like me already because of all the cancellations. Begrudgingly, she scheduled me in for Monday at noon. I hope that there's no crazy tornado or anything. I'm going to leave two hours early to make sure that I make it on time.

Everything About Everything

2011-05-18T23:44:00.002-04:00

The other day I was teaching creative writing and the kids had a zillion questions.

"What does a gun case look like?" (for a murder/mystery she was working on)

Well, I've only seen one gun case--my friend John's father mailed him a gun (which is against the law, by the way) the week John got engaged. It was aluminum and padded with yellow foam on the inside.

"What does a divan look like?"

It's basically a sofa.

"What's that sort of chair that looks like a bed?"

A fainting couch.

"What's another word for off-white?"

Ecru

After answering all of their questions, the little boy in the class looks up at me in wonder and says:

"You know what I like about you? You know everything about EVERYTHING."

Kids are so easy to please.

Own Your Notes

2011-05-11T01:41:00.011-04:00

Last week it was raining and when I got to my car, which was parked on a PUBLIC street, I found this note on my wet windshield:

It says:

If possible please leave this spot open, for I come home late from work and its very hard to find a parking space considering I have no driveway and you do.

Thank you for your consideration

Besides the fact that this person isn't very literate--I mean, c'mon neighbor! (its=possessive it's=it is)--this is about the fourth or fifth note we've gotten from a neighbor about parking. It's so ridiculous.

When I moved back into town, a guy I know who has lived here his whole life was so happy to see me and asked if I was glad to be back. I said yes, but I was getting stupid notes from my neighbors whenever I parked on the street. He got so mad that he offered to get his police officer friend to send letters out to my neighbors. I was all, uh, no, I think my neighbors hate me enough already.

You know, I also come home late from work and it isn't very hard to find a parking spot. Honestly, most of the homes are single-family so you just have to walk about three houses down on a very safe block. I get really annoyed when people are SO LAZY that they find it a complete hardship to walk a few extra feet.

I'm so thankful that I have legs and feet and that I can walk. Whenever someone is being ungrateful for something in their lives, I always say to them, "But hey, look on the bright side--you've got legs and feet! Some people would do ANYTHING to be able to walk." My friend Andrew is always, "Urgh...you're STILL talking about the feet thing?" And I always answer him by saying, "Well, if YOU had an aunt who was in a wheelchair because she contracted polio, you would be thankful every single day you could walk also."

I mean, if you have the energy to go home, write a note, and put it on my car, then you certainly have the energy to walk a couple of steps to your house. And if you don't have feet, let me know! I would have total sympathy for you...but I've seen you guys and you all look like you have feet. And what's it to you, stupid neighbor, if I have a driveway or not? That's like saying, I would appreciate it if you could give me ten dollars because you have a driveway.

I find this note extremely cowardly because it is unsigned. I mean, own your notes, dude. Leave a phone number. If my neighbor actually wanted to open up the lines of communication, then I could tell her that we can't park in our driveway because the ramp needs to be fixed and it's just not at the top of our priorities budget-wise.

I also find this note totally infuriating because it is the same handwriting as the note I got on my car last year when it was parked on another spot in the street. Okay crazy neighbor! Even if you want to "claim" a public parking spot, don't try to "claim" two. I mean, that's just plain greedy.

I think the neighbors are getting upset because we've started to park our two cars in front of our house. Usually there are three cars parked there and now we're taking up two prime spots that our neighbors have gotten used to parking on. I asked Peter if he thinks that the neighbors are upset that we're parking our cars in front of our own houses and he said:

"Yeah. I bet they WISH they could write us a note about that."

Hmmm. Maybe I should park my car in front of my house and put a huge note on it saying:

"Don't you WISH you could write me a note telling me not to park here?"

Magnolia!

2011-05-02T17:03:00.003-04:00

Our magnolia tree blossomed this week!

Last year we were in Denver the week our magnolia tree bloomed--basically we came home to the pink petals all over our yard. The thing only blooms once a year for less than a week. The year before that, we got a crazy thunderstorm right before the tree bloomed and all the flowers got dashed to the floor before its glory could be realized.

This year we're really lucky! Here's to the end of the longest winter in forever!

Dirty Rocky

2011-04-21T23:15:00.001-04:00

This is what happens when we let the dogs outside a day after it rains:

Did I mention that he's a WHITE Siberian Husky?

Scout from the 70s

2011-04-19T01:16:00.001-04:00

I am in love with my iphone because I can take photos like THIS.

You Spin Me Right Round

2011-04-18T22:57:00.006-04:00

Right now my arms feel like they're about to fall off, my hands are shaking, and I feel sick to my stomach--I even have the shakes. What happened to me? I just failed my first spin class.

This class felt like TORTURE. And it's not only because that teeny-tiny seat just about dug right into my lady parts. I'm still feeling the burn.

Just ten minutes into the class, I felt like getting out--and the worst part was I didn't even know how long the class was going on. We cycled like super-crazy, then we got up and cycled standing up for five whole minutes--the longest five minutes of my life, then we were supposed to hunch over and cycle some more like crazy, still balancing on our feet.

On my way home from the workout I called my sister Jenny.

Me: I just took my first spin class.

Jenny: That's great! Wasn't it super-fun?

Me: No, it was TORTURE.

Jenny: What? Did you tell the instructor it was your first class?

Me: Yes, and all she said was--"Good luck keeping up! Ha. Ha. Ha."

Jenny: She's supposed to make sure that you're seated in correctly and show you how the resistance levels work.

Me: My arms feel like they're about to fall off and my hands are shaking.

Jenny: That's not good. I think you're seat was too high. There's NO REASON why your arms should hurt. Your legs should hurt. That instructor doesn't sound very good. I think you should try it again with another instructor.

Me: I'm NEVER trying this again. The whole time I was on the bike, I was all, "I HATE THIS. Why do people like this?"

Jenny: No, you should come to my gym. I have a great instructor and it's really fun if you do it right. I have to show you because it seems like you were supporting yourself with your arms and hands and you're really supposed to be working your core.

Me: I didn't know that! I wasn't working my core at all! Sucky Westchester lady's gym! Y'know, I took a Zumba class there too and it was all over the place.

Jenny: Oh, Young is a great dancer and she can't do Zumba. That's for pros.

Me: Okay, I'll try a class with you with a GOOD instructor and see if I like it. I definitely think I was doing something wrong because my lady parts are all sore too.

Jenny: Oh THAT? That's normal. You're just going to have to get used to it.

Dog Food Hoarder

2011-04-13T03:57:00.009-04:00

I love Trader Joe's, but the one thing that drives me a bit nutty about that store is that sometimes for no good reason, they decide to discontinue something that I have grown to love with no warning. That happened to Oregon Chai, those yummy spicy papadums, those really crazy delicious garden burger chicken patties, to name just a few. I mean, with no warning? That means that there's no time to hoard supplies.

The one thing that I have CONSTANT paranoia about is the Bench & Field holistic dog food.

Yes, I feed my dogs holistic dog food. Why? Because when Scout was a puppy, she used to have an explosive diarrhea problem. I tried several different kinds of food including Iams, Nutro, and PHD dog food and it wasn't until we moved to Westchester that I picked up a bag of Bench & Field dog food on a lark and...discovered...that Scout's poop no longer just pooled on the sidewalk whenever she squatted down. Try picking that up...it made us VERY popular neighbors back in the Queens days.

Another reason I like buying the Bench & Field food is that the company is great. About five years ago, there was a problem with a Bench & Field shipment to our local Trader Joe's and I called Bench & Field in a panic. The customer service person calmed me down and told me that she would overnight a bag of dog food to me FOR FREE.

Scout is two months away from being 12 years old and she's in great shape. In fact, every time I tell people she's 12, they marvel at how great she looks. Both of my dogs are in super condition (knock on wood) and I know that this food plays a large role in this.

We really cannot be without this dog food. In fact, just last year when Peter and I went to Denver, I got a call at about 6am in the morning and one of the poor boys at the dog kennel said that Scout's poops were getting a bit soft, so he gave her a special veterinary dog food and now she was exploding poop all over the place and he wanted to call in a doctor ASAP.

After I talked him down from the cliff, and believe me, I understand that cliff. I talked Peter down from that same cliff when Scout was still a puppy and I had left Peter alone with the care of this puppy for the first time. As soon as the plane touched down, I called to tell Peter I had landed safely and his first words to me were:

"I AM GETTING RID OF YOUR DOG!"

Apparently, when Peter came back from dropping me off at the airport, Scout had exploded diarrhea all over her dog kennel, rolled around in it and shook it all over our bedroom. It was all over our carpet, our bed, our walls...Peter said after he gave Scout a bath and cleaned up the mess he couldn't even look at her. He was THIS CLOSE to taking her back to the breeder.

So with this kid from the dog kennel, I explained that his first mistake was taking Scout off the Bench & Field dog food and to put her back on it IMMEDIATELY. She probably got a bit anxious so had a few soft poops and then he totally exacerbated the situation by taking Scout off the only food that has ever made her not explode feces out of her ass.

She was totally fine when we went to pick her up.

Last month, every time I went to our local Trader Joe's they didn't carry the Bench & Field dog food. Not only that, but there was a strange new bag of TRADER JOE brand holistic dog food, which is something they do sometimes. They take away the brand that you have grown to love and trust and put in an imposter TRADER JOE usurper.

Of course, I kind of flipped out. I ordered a huge bag from Amazon, went to another Trader Joe location and picked up about 10 bags of dog food. Peter thought I was going nuts. But my response was, "Hey, this has been working for us for the past 13 years. It's TOO LATE to get this dog used to something new!"

Passive-Aggressive Are We?

2011-04-07T03:54:00.011-04:00

So the other day, I was outside waiting for Peter to come out of the house so we could go out for lunch when one of my neighbors across the street--no, not the one who left huge snowpiles in front of my house...and not one of the ones who wrote me douchey notes about parking in front of their houses.

That's right--that's TWO neighbors who have written me notes about not parking in front of their houses. Is that Kah-razy or what? It's a PUBLIC STREET people!! Well, even though it's a public street, I don't want to park my car in front of people's houses if I'm going to find notes on my car, it's more aggravation than it's worth. (Unlike my sister, who would totally be parking in front of that person's house every chance she got, because she's just like that.)

Anyway, I was parked in front of yet another neighbor's house--why? Well, our driveway ramp needs to be fixed because we no longer have our cute Honda Element due to all the 800 blind spots that kept causing me minor hear attacks every time I tried to merge into traffic because there were hidden cars that suddenly appeared as if out of nowhere being driven by extremely angry people who would honk and curse at me. Hey! It wasn't my fault!! It was the Honda Element blind spot! I once nearly ran over a lady because I stopped at a stop sign, looked at the street and no one was on it. I proceeded to drive--and apparently a thin woman was totally hidden by the metal between the windshield window and the passenger window of the Element. She screamed at me and I was all, Hey! I didn't see you! It's not me, it's this car!

Basically, if you see an Element on the road, STAY CLEAR! And if you're crossing the street in front of an Element, WATCH OUT!

Oh, did I digress again? Sorry!

Every time we go up and down the ramp of our driveway, it scrapes the undersides of our cars--and we like to keep our mufflers ON our cars. So, it's not a huge priority to fix this, but for now, we're parking on the street.

So I was waiting for Peter to come out of the house when I see the neighbor and three middle-school-aged girls get out of his Highlander. Then he faces his kids and shouts really loud, "I WOULD HAVE PARKED ON THE STREET BUT SSSOOOOMMMMEEEEBBBBOOOODDDDYYYY TOOK MY SPOT!" Then he ran into his house.

My ears heard his shouting, but my brain hadn't processed what he had said yet, so my first thought was: Wow, he really is super-mad at his daughter--and why does he need to shout at her in public?

Then a few moments later, my brain finally kicked in and I was all: He was passive-aggressively communicating with ME!

I mean, what a COWARD! Not only does he not have the balls to just come over to me and say, "Stop parking in MY SPOT." He ran into his house after his outburst like a total pussy!

I've mentioned before that it's not difficult to find parking on my block. At most, you'll be one or two houses down from yours. In Queens where I grew up, you're lucky if you can see your apartment from the parking spot you find. So you have to walk a few feet to get to your house. Is that any reason to get so worked up?

The fact is, people ALWAYS park in front of my house, which is why I have to park in front of OTHER PEOPLE'S houses!! See how that works? And by the way, that guy who screamed before he ran into his house? His wife is always parking her car in MY SPOT. I should totally scream at her. What a BITCH.

Alien in the Bedroom

2011-03-31T01:53:00.005-04:00

I have had trouble sleeping my entire life. I still remember being at my aunt's house for a sleepover and I was in a room filled with children (she had 5 daughters) and I lay there listening to my cousins breathe for HOURS. At home at least I could turn on my secret flashlight and read my Trixie Belden books, but at my cousin's house I could ony stare into space.

Some time in the night, my aunt comes into the room and I pretend to sleep. Because if you are a kid and have as much trouble sleeping as I do and you grew up with my father, you learn to fake-sleep or you're hauled out of bed to stand in a corner. Because in the child-raising manual he got when I was born, punishment cures insomnia.

My aunt then takes the pillow from my head as I lay there fake-sleeping. And of course, not only do I have trouble sleeping, but I absolutely cannot sleep without a pillow. My aunt kind of did stuff like that to me my whole childhood--little things that just made me think, "Why do you hate me and what the hell have I ever done to you?"

After college, my constant insomnia turned into nightmare-laden sleep...and then, the most annoying part of this whole thing was that the family snoring on my father's side, which I thought I had escaped, came down on me--hard. Granted, I didn't bring the walls down like my dad's younger sister, nor did I snore as loud as my grandparents, I mean, talk about insomnia, when I went to visit them, I slept next to my grandmother on a futon and my grandfather slept on the other side of the room and the snoring IN STEREO drove me to get up and play with my dolls at 3am just about every night.

I was completely embarrassed about my snoring until one time I went on a road-trip with my friends and while I was in the back waking up from a nap, I overheard my friend Nicole complain about my snoring and my other friend Mike said, "I think it's kind of cute."

I stopped being embarrassed about it because if someone liked you, they would think it's "kind of cute."

I am so jealous of Peter because he can fall asleep the moment he presses a pillow under his head. I mean, it's pretty amazing. I'll be talking to him and he'll get into bed and as soon as he's in a horizontal position, he's fast asleep. Plus, he says that he's never had ANY trouble sleeping. I'm sure it's some kind of fairy godmother trick because I've never met another human who has NEVER had any trouble falling asleep.

If I had a fairy godmother, I'd ask for the gift of easy sleeping. And if I had two fairy godmothers, I'd ask for being able to find a parking spot in front of any place I visited. Yup, forget beauty and grace.

So Peter and I have been married for almost 7 years now and my snoring and nightmares have gotten really bad--so he made me go see a sleep specialist. I had to go in to a sleep lab a couple of times and I got hooked up to a zillion wires. The verdict is I have sleep apnea and now have to sleep hooked up with a CPAP machine that will blow air into my lungs.

Tonight I put the machine on for the first time and showed it to Peter.

"How sexy is this?" I said. "It's like sleeping with an alien."

He looked me straight in the eyes and said. "You. Need. This."

And then he rolled over and fell asleep.

Westchester Has Turned Me Into a Jonathan Franzen Character

2011-02-21T21:34:00.005-05:00

So I yelled at an old man.

Yup, I've finally gone off the deep end.

Remember those snowpiles I mentioned a few posts back? Well, we've had those piles of snow on either sides of our driveway since December 16!

Yes, that's SINCE LAST YEAR people!!

And when I went over to the neighbor across the street to ask him to please stop pushing all of his snow to our side of the street, he responded by saying:

"Well, where else should I put it?"

Uhm...oh, I don't know...maybe YOUR side of the street? Maybe YOUR backyard you big DOUCHE? How about I hire a crew to stuff it all up your pooper?

So a few days ago it snowed again and I was sick of it. I spent two hours digging out the snow and putting the snow on HIS side of the street. Then, a window went up in the house and an old man shouted at me. He said:

"Why are you putting all your snow on our side of the street? How am I supposed to drive over all that snow when I get out of my spot?"

I look over at him and I throw down my shovel and point at the HUGE piles of snow on my side of the street. And then I proceed to scream at this extremely old man:

"Do you SEE the HUGE PILES of snow on our side of the street? YOUR LANDLORD has been doing this to us ALL WINTER! Well, it's not cool, is it? I'm totally SICK OF IT and we don't get any sun on our side of the street so the snow DOESN'T MELT. If I put the snow on your side of the street it will melt by tomorrow! WE HAVEN'T BEEN ABLE TO PULL IN AND OUT OF OUR DRIVEWAY SINCE DECEMBER 16TH! And what are you talking about? That's NOT EVEN YOUR CAR parked next to that snow!"

Yes, not my best moment.

Then the landlord opens his door and just stands there staring at me with his hands on his hips. I mean, it was really weird. I thought, you know, if this was a movie, he would come out here and help me with the snow. I thought he was going to come out and talk to me, but no...he just spent the next half-hour watching me shovel snow.

When I told my friend about this, she said, "Oh, dear. You HAVE TO move back into the city. You've just turned into a Jonathan Franzen character."

And I was all, "Duuuuude. I'm turning into Patty Berglund."

Of course, as soon as I yelled at the old man, I stopped pushing the snow to their side of the street. I was a bit embarrassed because I knew that even though our neighbor was being a total douche, I shouldn't have escalated it. In fact, when I told Peter about it, he was all:

"Are you okay?"

As in, do we need to send you to a mental hospital to calm down?

I am just so sick of my stupid note-leaving neighbors who are so crotchety and awful and do douchey things. But on the bright side, when the neighbor cleaned out the snow in his driveway, he didn't push it all against our side of the street this time...so maybe my crazy rant wasn't for nothing after all.

Bronchitis in California

2011-02-18T22:27:00.003-05:00

Peter and I just came back from a week-long Valentine's trip to a lovely resort hotel in California, but unfortunately, I was sick the entire time and I got Peter totally sick. And even though we were wheezing and coughing almost the entire time, we still had a good time (although we spent almost all of our time in the hotel).

Driving around the central valley of California, Peter and I kept saying to ourselves, "Uhm...WHY to we live in NY? Because it's perfect weather here all year round! Why have we been so stupid our entire lives?"

At one point, Peter turned and asked me, "Okay, why are you resistant to the idea of moving here?"

I really couldn't think of any real reason. But a large part of my brain was all one big ball of resistance.

And then he said, "I know. It's difficult. Because we're such New York people and California...well, it's the anti-New York."

Then it all clicked. I mean, of course that's why I'm so resistant. California is the anti-New York. It's like turning my back on a place where they do almost everything the way I'm used to and then moving to a place that's three hours behind. And yes, I know a bunch of people who have moved to California, including a whole bunch of people I went to college with, but the thought of being so far away from the center of the universe is a bit daunting.

It's one thing if we were going out there for a job or a reason, but to pick everything up and move away from all of our family just for nice weather and a cute house? In February, it's always a good idea, but then the sun comes out in March and New York is lovely for a few weeks before the deadening heat of the summer. And, oh yeah, we have bedbugs here. Maybe we should move to California.

Snowpiles

2011-01-25T21:59:00.009-05:00

We have been hit by snowstorm after snowstorm and as I pull out of my driveway each day, I notice that there are no huge snowpiles around other people's driveways, but I don't give it much thought.

Then last week, after our last storm, Peter stomps into the bedroom and wakes me up and he is FURIOUS.

As I wipe my bleary eyes, he lets out this HUGE rant and I'm all, "What did you do to my mild-mannered husband and who are you?"

Apparently, he noticed that our neighbors across the street dig out their driveways and their side of the street by pushing all the snow onto our side of the street. The neighbor directly across the street from us snowplow all their driveway snow right up to our driveway so that it now looks like this:

It's hard to tell in this photo, but there are two huge mountains of snow on each side of our driveway, making it super-difficult to maneuver our car in and out. It's been really annoying because the snow has not melted since the last week of December. It's ultra-more annoying because our side of the street GETS NO SUN. That's right, their side of the street gets sun all day so that the snow would eventually melt, but the shadow from our house prevents any sort of sunlight to hit these huge mounds of snow.

Peter was incensed because this is completely crappy unneighborly behavior and very inconsiderate.

I offered to go across the street to talk to the neighbors about maybe not pushing all their snow to our side of the street and he was all, "Oh, really? You think that'll make a difference? That they DON'T KNOW that they shouldn't be pushing their snow in front of our driveway?"

The thing is, we live on a block populated by older people who have been here for the past twenty-five years. So they won't really be taking too kindly to some newcomer who's going to ask them to change their ways.

Sometimes I really hate living in the suburbs--I can't believe how much time I waste talking about these stupid neighbors. Just last week I parked in front of one of our neighbor's houses and received a note on my car telling me not to park my car there. Keep in mind that we've lived here 5 years and this was the first time I had ever parked my car in front of this house. Also, I was only parked there for 3 hours--I only parked my car on the street because we were planning on going right back outside. I don't mind getting a note on my car, but I think it's the height of cowardice to not sign a note. I mean, really, neighbors! Own up to your stupid notes!

My sister said that I should park my car there again and leave a note on my car that says:

"Please forward all correspondence to the blue Accord parked across the street."

Austin Is Awesome...and Weird

2011-01-18T20:17:00.003-05:00

A few weeks ago my friend Hannah invited me and a couple of girls to her house for a psychic friends visit. Hannah's ex-roommate discovered psychic abilities a few years ago and now makes a living as a medium. I know, sounds kind of nutty, but I am totally into it.

My mom is a bit in tuned to that sort of thing--she's saved us a lot of money on long-distance calls in my childhood because all she has to do is think of a person and that person will call her. Plus, every time she's had a car accident, she had dreamed of one beforehand--of course, why would she would still take the car? Uhm... still can't understand THAT one.

Okay, so during this meeting, the psychic urged me to take a look at Austin, Texas because my guides are convinced that I would be happy there...she also said to stay away from Toronto because there was "bad karma" there.

Now I'm afraid to go to Toronto.

But for the Christmas holiday season, Peter and I went to Austin and aside from the soft water, we really loved it. The water was really kind of gross. Whenever we washed our hands with soap, it still felt grimy and slippery, like we couldn't get the suds off.

We went to see Tron at the Alamo Drafthouse. There's just nothing more fun than watching a terrible 3-D movie with your favorite person while eating macaroni and cheese and enjoying an orange creamsicle. The drafthouse is right next to Austin Vintage Guitars. Since Peter has started playing music again, we've been hitting vintage guitar shops everywhere we go.

Thanks to my sister's ex-roommate Selena, who sent us a list of vegetarian-friendly places, we went to eat at Casa de Luz, one of the best meals I've ever had, they make this taco thing with this awesome green sauce. The people there were nice (although a bit floopy) and the best meal (and good for you too) you can get for $12 per person. East Side Cafe was also great, unfortunately, we blew our load the first night out by ordering every vegetarian dish on their menu. We wanted to go back there later that week, but we had already tried everything...tip for you guys...PACE yourselves.

One of the best parts of the trip was going to this little airstream trailer and getting cupcakes at Hey Cupcake! Little did we know how famous it was--that cream cheese frosting is the best I've EVER had.

Oh yeah, we had a good meal, but an unpleasant waitstaff experience at Bouldin Creek Cafe the first time we went. Now, pretty much everybody likes me. Gay men, old ladies, babies, young girls, boys, you name it. And most of time, gay women like me, but for some reason, when I asked for more time with the menu, I just got on our lesbian waitress's last nerve and so she completely ignored us pretty much throughout our meal when Peter needed some stuff from her. In fact, on our way to the car, he said, "We got bad service because she DIDN'T LIKE YOU."

Later, Peter said that he only meant that if we had hoped to get ANY kind of good service from anyone, it was if she liked me...and she clearly didn't. Fortunately, we went back on another night and our gay waiter was practically tripping on himself to provide me with the best service, including getting me a special desserty thing that wasn't even on the menu. So my argument to him is that, even though I was a woman, perhaps HE could have done a better job charming the lesbian waitress, since I clearly charmed the gay waiter.

According to our guidebook, The Clay Pit was the spot to hit for Indian food. We went for the lunch buffet, but since we're used to the Jackson Diner, the food was merely...meh. Of course, the Jackson Diner has pretty much ruined us for any other Indian buffet. We're used to having practically ten meal choices with free dosas, tandoori, dessert, salad as well as naan bread. So when we went to Clay Pit, we were all, huh? Only three meal choices? But to be honest, all of the Indian people who were there ordered off the menu--so I suggest you skip the buffet and order off the menu, it seemed that's what the locals were doing.

We had a great time and ate a lot. There was so much for vegetarians in Austin. The only thing we didn't try was the pizza. Every time we passed a pizza joint, Peter said, "Soft water pizza. I just don't think that could be any good."

Mega

2011-01-11T02:17:00.002-05:00

So my mother called me up last week and her first question to me when I picked up the phone was:

"WHERE ARE YOU?!"

Okay, ten heart attacks later, I'm all, "WHY? WHY? WHAT HAS HAPPENED?"

Apparently, she just wanted to get a hold of me to tell me to purchase MegaMillions tickets because according to her Tibetan sushi chef, a psychic from the Chinese newspaper said that the next winner was going to be a woman, born under the Gemini sign, who lives in New York State.

That's ME!

So she wanted to get a hold of me because I needed to get my coat on and run over to the local gas station to pick up my winning ticket.

My mom is a bit in tune with psychic forces herself, so I was getting my jacket and Peter came with me.

While I was in the car, I thought, which gas station am I going to bless with the fantastic reputation of being a winner?

At one point, Peter asks me, "Why are you doing this?"

I said, "Look, once a year, my mother asks me to do a crazy thing and I do it. Last time I had to burn a piece of paper, but water on the ashes and pour it over my head."

"You did WHAT?" Peter said.

"Yeah, I didn't TELL you about it because you would have told me that it was CRAZY."

"I don't think you should have told me now," he said.

I was really bummed when I didn't win, because she had me totally convinced.

Oh well, I made a deal with myself that I will do ONE crazy thing for my mom each year--and she used it up early this year!

Happy New Year!

2011-01-07T02:17:00.001-05:00

Happy New Year!

Standing in the bathroom, I told Peter that, "2011 is going to be the year I CONQUER SOAP SCUM!!!"

I thought that would elicit a laugh from Peter, but he looked at me with an eyebrow raised and said, "You know, you said that last year."

I was all, "What? I did? I don't even remember!"

Oh well. Maybe I'll succeed this year. Now that I have this written record of it to remind me.

So much happened last year. Rocky got skunked, one of our cars was caught up in a tornado (thank goodness no one was in it), our other car was hit by a drunk driver (while we were in it), Rocky ran away during Peter's mom's birthday party (luckily some nice people found him), my grandfather passed away and Peter got cancer.

Although we hit some rough patches last year, we had some fun times. Peter has picked up the guitar again and is back to writing songs. We did a lot of traveling. We went to Denver, Austin, Nashville, and both Portlands--the one in Maine and the one in Oregon. Guess which one Peter liked better? The one that had more vegetarian options and didn't "smell like fish."

At the close of last year, a year we were on pins and needles just trying to survive, I asked Peter, "Was this year the worst year of your life?"

And he looked at me and said, "Of course not. Some really great things happened this year."

The reason I didn't post so much last year was that I wanted to respect Peter's request not to write about what he was going through while it was happening---but it was such a large part of our lives that it didn't ring true not to write about it so it felt easier to just not post. Then a few weeks led to a few months and pretty soon I became another deadbeat blogger even after Peter gave me the okay.

So, another one of my New Year's resolutions is to post regularly on this blog again. After all, I have my dozen fans to think about...plus all those people who come here to find out about Liz Cho's feet.

Don't You DARE!!

2010-11-03T15:41:00.005-04:00

About two hours before we had to leave for our flight to Portland, OR, my parents come over to pick up the new menu I had designed for them. I wanted to make sure that everything was 100% perfect before I made up a batch. My dad looks everything over and gives it the okay and so we go into Peter's office to print them out. Meanwhile, my mother settles herself in my kitchen so she can cook up sesame and Yakisoba noodles for us to bring on our flight. Isn't she great?

As soon as we get into Peter's garage/office/man cave, my dad complains about HOW MUSTY it is in here and WHAT IS THAT SMELL? (my room freshener from Crabtree and Evelyn) He was all, WE HAVE TO OPEN A WINDOW! WHY IS THERE ONLY ONE WINDOW? He was about to try to open the garage door when I flung myself in his path.

"DADDY! The garage door is BOLTED to the floor! I am going to the airport in TWO HOURS. I think we can handle non-fresh air for the next FIVE MINUTES!"

And here is where I make my mistake. I turn my head around and get busy printing up the menus. A minute later, I hear a loud THUNK.

I look up and see the electrical cord for the air conditioner pulled taut and an empty space where the air conditioner used to be. I turn around and I see my mother rushing to the door to see what had happened and we exchange THE LOOK.

THE LOOK is what all the women in my family exchange with each other when my dad does something so ridiculously annoying.

I ignore the situation and continue printing up the menus while my father brings the air conditioner inside, all the while complaining about Peter not bolting the air conditioner into the window and how DANGEROUS this is.

"Daddy?" I say. "How am I going to explain to Peter why the air conditioner isn't in the window anymore?"

My father looks at me and says. "Well...just tell him that I saw it in the window...and decided to do him a favor by bringing it inside...you know...because it's getting cold."

"So he's going to believe that, out of the goodness of your heart, that you decided to bring in the air conditioner?"

"Sure, why not?"

"And how am I going to explain why it doesn't work anymore?"

"Oh, I don't think it's broken. It landed in the dirt. The dirt's not that hard."

"Okay, so I won't tell him what happens until next summer when he turns on the air conditioner and it doesn't work."

"DON'T YOU DARE tell him about this!"

I give my father a, "yah right" look.

"FINE! Tell him if you want! But if he yells at me for this, I'm yelling AT HIM for not securing that air conditioner! HE'S the one whose fault this is!"

Right. It's his fault. You see what I had to grow up with?

We Stink

2010-08-10T16:47:00.005-04:00

I know I've been super-delinquent with this blog, but we had a really stressful summer here--Rocky got skunked, my car was caught up in a tornado in Park Slope, Peter's car was hit by a drunk driver, Rocky ran away...twice, and, oh yeah, Peter got cancer.

Whew!

And then I saw this poster:

Yup, that sums up exactly how I feel about this year.

Even though it's been a terrible summer, our house is smelling a lot better, my car is fine except that two of our passenger-side windows were blown out and right now I still hear pieces of glass skittering across my dash when I make sharp turns, Peter's car only suffered some minor bumper damage, I found Rocky the first time on our sidewalk and the second time the police found him, AND Peter went through surgery and now he's recovering and the doctors think that he'll be fine (knock on wood). Wow--I don't even think that's a real sentence.

I will tell all of these stories in later posts, but I'll start with the skunk incident:

About a month and a half ago, at 2:30 AM, Peter let Rocky and Scout into the backyard, but just as soon as he opened the door, he saw a furry little patch of black and white close to our Japanese maple tree. In an instant, Peter was screaming:

"NO!!! NO!!! Rocky! Scout! Come! COME!! COOOOOOOOME!!"

I was sitting in the living room when I heard the crazy ruckus and when I opened the door, Scout was there with a big smile on her face and Peter was having five conniptions screaming for Rocky in the dead of night. I'm pretty sure we woke up all our neighbors.

Before I knew it, Rocky ran back into the house, retching and smelling like the most God-awful awfulness ever created. There are no words for this kind of skunky awfulness. I felt like throwing up myself, and this all happened a week after Peter's surgery.

The strange thing is that when the skunk spray is fresh, it doesn't smell like the skunk smell you smell in the air whenever a skunk has sprayed. It's super-concentrated and smells like something the devil created is burning. It also permeates everything. In fact, even though Rocky hadn't gone upstairs, the next day, the upstairs smelled worse than the first floor.

Quickly, I ran to my computer to look up how to treat skunk smell and apparently, the only thing that works is hydrogen peroxide and baking soda. I ran out of the house to buy hydrogen peroxide and on the way home, I was pulled over by a cop for speeding.

Yah.

No joke.

When the cop pulled me over, I just burst into tears. I think it was all the pent-up anxiety over Peter's surgery and a scary trip to the emergency room. I hadn't dealt with any of this and so when the cop came up to the car, I blubbered all over him and told him about the skunk and the surgery and his reaction was:

"Well, I still have to write you up for speeding."

I continued to sit in my car, sobbing and then I think he caught the waft of unadulterated skunk. He jumped back a few feet and said, "Oh, I REALLY smell it on you."

That's when he let me go--because that skunk smell TRAVELS. I hadn't even gone near Rocky when I left the house. The cop just didn't want to get any of that smell on himself.

I've found the best way to get out of a moving violation. Carry skunk odor around.

I got home and Peter gave Rocky a bath with the hydrogen peroxide and baking soda. One quart hydrogen peroxide and 1/4 cup baking soda with a few squirts of liquid hand soap. It really worked, but the house smelled really rank for about two weeks and the smell lasted about two months. It was hideous. Every once in a while, even now, I smell skunk when I walk in through the door.

And the very next day, my poor friend Emily and I had a lunch date. She's so sweet that when I told her about the skunk she said:

"I'm from Missouri. There are tons of skunks there. Skunk smell doesn't bother me. I'm used to it."

When Peter heard that, he was all, "Well, if that's the case, I AM NOT ever going to Missouri."

So either Missouri is a very skunky-smelling state or Missourians are just the sweetest, most polite people ever created.

Now, Relax

2010-07-12T23:12:00.003-04:00

I've been going to an acupuncture guy for the last few months and he came highly recommended by my mother and the NY Times. Apparently, he's the best and people travel the world over to lie down in his little office on Canal Street.

Now, the whole experience of getting to Chinatown and braving the crazy traffic to make it down to the city twice a week was nerve-wracking. I've had more fun cleaning up dog pee in my kitchen. You have to do THAT twice a day when you've got an incontinent Labrador Retriever on your hands.

So we get down to Chinatown and park the car to rush to the office before it closes. Once we get there, huffing and puffing, he sets me us up in a room--most of the time Peter and I get to be in the same room, which is nice. He has us lie down and then pokes us all over with teeny needles, turns off the lights and says, "Now, relax."

As soon as he leaves the room, Peter and I always giggle, because all we can hear after the word "relax" is a thousand car horns beeping at each other right outside and two fire trucks cranking away, wailing down the street.

The Most Popular Gadget in America

2010-06-24T12:41:00.004-04:00

The other day Peter and I took a walk in Pemaquid Point in Maine.

Oh, did I not tell you all we're on a vacation in Maine?

Of course you didn't know we were away--I haven't posted in a million years. Sorry internet. I can give you a ton of excuses why I haven't posted recently, but the truth is that I am just plain lazy.

So anyway, we're walking around and I take out my iPhone so that Peter can take a picture of me.

A lady in a Pemaquid Point sweatshirt offers to take a photo of the two of us, so I gladly hand over the iPhone. She looks at it and says:

"What is this?"

I'm all, "Uhmmm. That's the...iPhone."

And she said, "Wow! It's a lot of FUN!"

Later in the car, Peter said, "Wasn't that strange? I mean, when she asked us what the iPhone was, I almost said, 'It's the iPhone, also known as the most popular gadget in America.' I think they're a little behind the times here in Maine. The do have The Internet, don't they?"

Then I said, "I thought I was late in the game, after all, I'm the last of my friends to get one."

So we kept driving for a little while and I suddenly thought of something.

"If she's wearing a Pemaquid Point sweatshirt, then she's not from around here, is she? I mean, why would you get a tourist sweatshirt from your hometown?"

Our New Pet

2010-06-07T02:41:00.002-04:00

We found a carpenter ant in our house, which of course, FREAKED ME OUT. I wanted to call the pest control guys and have them shoot poison into our walls to get rid of the ants which were probably going to DESTROY MY HOUSE.

But Peter? He was poking holes in the tupperware we caught the ant in and feeding it dog kibble.

He was all, "Don't PANIC. Unless you see a bunch of carpenter ants, we don't have a problem. Sometimes random ones forage for food. This does NOT mean that we're infested."

I'm so glad he's much more level-headed than I am.

The Black Yankees T-shirt

2010-05-25T02:45:00.002-04:00

The other day Peter and I had lunch at the California Pizza Kitchen. We had been going there for years only getting the two or three vegetarian pizzas on the menu when some time last year, we had a really sweet waitress who told us that we could order any meat pizza and they can make it without the meat.

Hmmm.

So of course now we get the Santa Fe Chicken without the Chicken Pizza.

It's a pizza with caramelized onions and you top it with guacamole, salsa and sour cream.

And before you say, "wha---What?!" Let me tell you that it is AWESOME.

I didn't know that you could put salsa on everything until I went to San Francisco. My friend Andrew took me to this little oceanside mexican restaurant and they served clam chowder (since it's the law in the Bay area for every restaurant to offer this chowder) and I noticed that they topped it off with a dollop of salsa.

When I first got the bowl, I kind of crinkled my nose. But let me tell you something. It was DELICIOUS!

Anyway, so we're at the CPK and Peter said that a white guy at the restaurant was looking at Peter's T-shirt and giving him the nastiest look. Peter looked down and saw that he was wearing his 1935 New York Black Yankees T-shirt.

It got us wondering if wearing that T-shirt is actually a political statement. I mean, does that mean that we were protesting the treatment of African-Americans during the early days of baseball. Because, I'm okay with that.

I mean, when I got Peter that shirt, I just thought it was cool. Who knew we were being subversive?

Not a Cougar

2010-05-17T22:44:00.006-04:00

I had this really strange dream last night that I was dating a 22-year-old. For some reason, I was a 36-year-old person who had a 22-year-old boyfriend in an alternate dream-world where Peter did not exist and I was still friends with this high school buddy I haven't heard from in 13 years.

So I'm walking with my friend Angela and this guy and we're at school. And this is a continuation of the math class nightmare I have about every month. When I was in high school, I had this Geometry class first period. All my friends understand that I'm a late person. I'm always late. And I was always so late for first period that most times I skipped math class. It got so bad that friends would ask me, "Who do you have for math this semester?" And I would answer, "I'm not taking math."

A few hours later, as I was sitting in American History class, I would sit up, startled and think, "Oh shit! I AM taking math!"

So in this dream, I'm in high school (as a 36-year-old for some reason) dating this young kid and still friends with Angela. Of course, I go through the whole, Oh Shit moment with the math class and I'm scrambling to take the final exams.

A few moments later, the three of us are off to take a motorcycle driving class (don't ask me why--it's a dream). This boyfriend is driving me crazy because he's acting all young and silly, but to tell the truth, he was adorable. Exactly the kind of kid I would have been mad for in high school. But of course, I was getting really embarrassed by him and he kept doing really juvenile stuff.

On our way to the motorcycle class, he gets stopped by a group of girls and he stays to flirt. Of course, Angela and I get mad because we're almost late for our class so we stomp off without him. We expect him to run over right away, but he stays and we act juvenile too, by not waiting for him.

Then we proceed to totally talk shit about him and I'm all, "I have to break things off with him. He's 22! I'm much too old for this. I need a grown-up!"

So we get to the class and--for some reason, the motorcycle class consisted of walking up flights and flights of stairs and waiting on lines, sort of like they have in Six Flags, and then we leave.

Then the boyfriend shows up and we harangue him for a while and he says, "I caught up with you guys and hid in the bushes. But then I heard all the shit you said about me."

Angela and I sort of stood there and blinked at him for a while. He ran off and we felt terrible.

But then I turned to her and said, "You see! I can't BE with someone who's going to HIDE IN THE BUSHES!! I can't be with someone who'se 22!"

Mother's Day Squared

2010-05-12T02:55:00.003-04:00

We had two Mother's Day days this past weekend. My mother always works on Sundays, so this year, I suggested that we go over to Peter's mom's house on Saturday and celebrate Mother's Day with both of our mothers.

This led to an almost-argument between Peter and his mother, because even though we were going to go over her house on Saturday, she was insisting that we also go on Sunday. Mind you, Peter had JUST gone over to his mother's house that Thursday.

The whole logical statement of "But we're going SATURDAY" was completely lost on her. She started getting all hyperventilatingly nutso on him and she was about to break into tears, so Peter said fine, we were going over on Sunday, BUT WE WERE NOT EATING DINNER.

Yeah, that'll show HER.

Dealing with Peter's mother is sort of like dealing with my developmentally delayed sister growing up. If Judy did not get to watch her Power Rangers, all HELL BROKE LOOSE. And God help you if you didn't leave the television on for the Power Ranger Tip of the Day after the commercial break, because then it's just a huge tantrum involving a child screaming:

Tip!
TIP!!!!
TIP!!!!!!
TTTTTIIIIIIIIIIPPPPPPPPPPPPPPP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

And I know that she's 85 years old and that her marbles were never screwed on right in the first place, but it's VERY FRUSTRATING, nonetheless. And everyone's always, "But she's 85! You won't have to deal with it for much longer!"

By the way, that's a TERRIBLE argument.

And besides, she's Italian. They live forever. Her own mother lived to be 96 years old. So I know that I will be dealing with this, at the very least, for the next twenty years.

Saturday was fun, Jenny, Judy, and I took my mother to Stone Barns for a tour of their vegetable garden. The girl who took us on the tour was really sweet, but my mother kind of showed her up by knowing much more about vegetables than she did.

One particular scene:

Tour Guide: So this is the kale....

My Mom: That's CHARD!

Tour Guide: Oh, yes, you're right, that's chard...y'know, sometimes the seeds get mixed up and different things get planted where they're not supposed to.

Jenny (in a whisper to me): But isn't she supposed to know what it looks like?

Afterwards, we went to Peter's mom's house and she made enough food for all of her sons and daughters and their spouses and children...all the people who can't be bothered to visit her more than once a year, if that.

My mom was incredulous at the amount of food and Peter said, "You know. She usually makes all this food...and it's only the three of us."

She made salad, stuffed mushrooms, roasted peppers, broccoli rabe, ravioli, zucchini parmesan, chicken parmesan, and I'm sure I'm forgetting a few other things.

At one point, I looked at my mother-in-law, and she had a look on her face like, "So, I guess this is it. THIS is my life. I'm spending all my holidays from now on with my son and ALL THESE CHINESE PEOPLE."

I felt kind of bad for her, because her other kids have completely turned their backs on her.

The next day, we went to her house AGAIN and as soon as we walk in the door she goes on and on about how everyone called her and how happy she was and how they love her SOOOOO much and that one of her daughters gave her a bag.

Later, Peter admitted that he felt a bit annoyed that she was going on and on about them, especially since she's all happy just to get a phone call from them and he can't get away with not coming over on Sunday when he's already seen her on Thursday and Saturday.

He was also annoyed because his sister told his mother that day that her daughter had her First Communion the day before. His mother was very hurt that her daughter kept this from her. She said to Peter, "If she wanted to keep it from me, why didn't she just not tell me about it? It's cruel to keep it from me and then tell me all about it the day after. Why does she want to hurt me like this?"

Of course, Peter didn't know what to say to her.

It's so strange that his sister considers herself such a pious Catholic. What's the point of going to church if you're going to be such an asshole to your mother on Mother's Day? Isn't Honor Thy Father and Mother one of those commandments?

Jesus would SOOO not be cool with that.

The Front Seat

2010-05-06T02:35:00.004-04:00

Lately Peter and I have been getting into a new show on television. No, it's not Glee. I Do Not like musicals. And that guy who was in the Broadway cast of Rent who told me I had to go see it because Rent was more a Rock Opera than a musical can go SHOVE IT because Rent is SOOOOO a musical. And I didn't hear any rock during the performance.

We've been watching Parenthood and it's been better than Lost this season. I mean, I'm going to watch the rest of the Lost season. I've gone this far and now I'm pot-committed so I'm laying down more chips to see the flop--but they lost me the day they showed me that the smoke monster was just that stupid guy who's on The Good Wife.

There was a scene in last night's episode of Parenthood where the siblings all get together in a car and one of the younger siblings yells out, "Why do you guys get to sit up front?"

The younger ones argued that they were taller.

And the older sister answers, "You've always been taller than us and we've always been older than you and the one thing we get is to get to sit up front."

One thing is for certain--my sisters would NEVER argue to sit in the front seats. I've trained them better than that.

While we were watching the episode, there were these everyday family scenes with the siblings and it is obvious that the brothers and sisters really care about each other. Knowing Peter's not-so-great relationships with his siblings, I asked if it bothered him.

He said that it didn't bother him because he doesn't want a relationship with his siblings. He said that a while ago, he came to the realization that they didn't want the best for him and that they don't care about him so that's why he's decided to keep them at arm's length.

"That being said," he said. "If any one of them ever picked up the phone and showed any initiative in being a part of my life, I would welcome that." Then after a pause, he said, "But that would never happen. They're not that kind of people. On the day of my father's funeral, I knew that these people weren't ever going to be there for me. And I'm okay with that. I don't need that from them."

On the day of my father-in-law's funeral, I was too shaken up to be angry at Peter's siblings. But later I realized that we felt abandoned, in a way. Peter's father died and they all stayed away. At most, they live two hours away and every single day we sort of expected them to just show up and take his mother to lunch or take my father-in-law's suit to the funeral home, or just sit with Peter so he wouldn't feel so alone. But no one ever arrived.

We ended up bringing my mother-in-law to our house every day that week and sat with her while she stared into space.

It's interesting that it was me, this girl my father-in-law never spoke more than ten words to, who ended up choosing his casket while his own flesh and blood arrived the morning of his funeral as if they were just ordinary guests.

After the limousine dropped us off at my mother-in-law's house, Peter took a look at the family gathered around the living room and turned to me to say, "Let's get out of here."

We said our good-byes, much to the surprise of everyone present, and got into our car.

Peter turned to me and said. "I don't EVER want to see ANY of those people EVER. AGAIN."

A few moments later, he said. "I forgot to get my cell phone."

For the first time that day, we laughed and I knew that no matter how resolute he thinks he is when it comes to his family, there will always be a small side of him that holds out a sliver of hope that they aren't the awful people they've shown themselves to be, that underneath it all, there's hope.

Mining Facebook

2010-05-04T19:52:00.002-04:00

Lately I've been spending a lot of time on the time suck also known as Facebook.

What's really been great is reaching out to people I knew in college, especially when they respond with, "I've been trying for ages to find you!"

I'm quite glad that you can take a look at people's friends lists without having to friend them, because I can't count how many times I've seen someone I don't want to get in touch with again--but have mined their Facebook friends lists for the good ones.

I can't get over how many kids people have had and what they're doing now. I'm more excited to find out when someone has done something entirely out of the realm of what they were like when I knew them rather than the people who live in the same place they've always lived and married that same person they were going out with way back when--especially when it was someone I knew they weren't crazy about back then. I mean, I've dated people and I've never dated someone who I wasn't crazy about and a year later, fell madly in love with. It doesn't work that way, unfortunately. And actually, I was really brutal. Most guys did not last two months and I broke up with one person because he had a strange laugh.

My friends were really incredulous when I told them why I had broken up with that guy and I told them:

You know I can't date someone with a stupid laugh! I'm FUNNY.

It's the Altitude

2010-04-25T23:22:00.002-04:00

While I was in Denver, I heard this quote about a billion times.

"It's the altitude."

As in: "I'm so drunk and I only had a glass of wine. It's the altitude."

"I'm so tired. It's the altitude."

"My skin is soooo dry. It's the altitude."

I think that this phrase should be the official slogan of Denver.

My friend Jim said, as we were walking down the streets of Denver, "Am I just really horny or are the people here REALLY good-looking?"

I don't know. People are exceptionally attractive there. Could it be the altitude?

I don't know how they do it because, although I loved it in Denver, my skin was totally scaly and I couldn't stop taking afternoon naps, I was so tired. And yet, everyone in Denver is biking and hiking and running. I'm serious, I've never seen more in-shape people in my life. According to my friend Andrew, Denver is the thinnest city in the U.S.

I loved Denver.

The main reason? I did not have ONE BAD MEAL the entire time I was there. Yes, that can win you some converts.

My favorite place was Snooze, a breakfast place where they serve this marshmallow sauce-soaked challah bread with whipped cream sauce and rice krispies. It was like a grown-up rice krispies treat. It's the sort of breakfast that makes you want to go to this place morning, noon and night.

I was told that on weekends, the wait for a table could be as long as 2 HOURS!

We had breakfast there a bunch of times. They put a layer of hash browns in their huevos rancheros. GENIUS!!

I wish we had a place to go to like Snooze in New York. The good breakfast places tend to be divey or completely fancy.

I was telling everybody at the conference I attended about this place and my friend Jim turned to me at one point and said, "Why are you trying to sell me so hard on this place? Do you know the owner or something?"

No, I'm just trying to make your life more wonderful, but if you have enough wonderfulness in your life, well, good for you. You don't NEED the most scrumptious Cherry Cobbler pancakes ever created. Congratulations.

The last morning we were in Denver, I woke up at 5:30 am (and I am NOT a morning person) so that we could grab some Snooze takeout for the plane ride. I was so sad that I wouldn't be able to have any more of their pancakes, my friend Andrew asked the girl behind the counter if they sold pancake mixes.

Her answer was:

"Well, no, because our ingredients are secret? Because our chefs make up the recipes and they're secret so because they're secret, we can't really sell mixes, because of the secret ingredients."

Yah. I got it. SECRETS.

After we arrived home, Peter turned to me and said, "I miss Snooze."

I know honey. So do I.

Tortas! to Gorgeous!

2010-04-18T23:32:00.002-04:00

California is full of strange juxtapositions.

Case in point:

Tortas! Tortas! Tortas! Tortas! Tortas!

About an hour later:

Gorgeous! Gorgeous! Gorgeous! Gorgeous! Gorgeous!

By the Side of the Road

2010-04-05T04:32:00.001-04:00

Look what I found while driving in the Rocky Mountains.

Note on My Car

2010-04-03T02:37:00.007-04:00

So Peter gets to the car and finds this:

Upon closer inspection:

Am I the only one who thinks that this is completely obnoxious?

Each time I have ever left a note on a neighbor's door, I have left my name and phone number. So that they know it's me, the annoying lady from apt #5 who is asking you to fix your air conditioner so it doesn't leak into my apartment. It's the anonymous part of the note that irks me the most.

But it kind of makes me laugh because we've lived here for almost a year now and usually we don't park the car on the street. We just happened to leave the car out for four days because neither one of us needed to move it and I guess whoever left the note just couldn't take it any longer. She must have been getting angrier and angrier every day the car was out there. The only reason I wouldn't park my car there again is that there was a ton of bird poop on the car today. They can HAVE their bird-poopy spot in front of their drivewayless house.

Although I do feel like writing this person my note:

If possible, If you can please not leave obnoxious notes on my car. It would be most appreciated because I don't like douchey notes.

Thank you douchebag

Signed by the annoying lady across the street

Easter Card: Lost

2010-03-29T04:56:00.002-04:00

So I lost the Easter card I was going to send my mother-in-law.

The Valentine's Day card I got her is still sitting on my end table because every time I asked Peter to fill it out, he kept saying, "Later, I'll do it later."

And now the Easter card has gone by way of the black hole we call our living room.

I feel like I've been spending my entire life looking for lost stuff.

Mini-Marathon? Why?

2010-03-25T03:10:00.004-04:00

So the Mini-Marathon last weekend almost prevented me from going to a doctor's appointment. Because of this damned thing, a zillion streets along mid-town were blocked off and no one was allowed to cross the street. Of course, this spun me in circles trying to get to Columbus Circle, where my doctor's office was and of course I was s'late.

Instead of showing up on time, I encountered THIS:

Why do we need mini-marathons in NYC? Can't they do this in a less populated place, maybe somewhere in Omaha?

The Family Compound

2010-03-24T23:44:00.000-04:00

My sister Jenny and I were talking and I told her that my parents wanted to build out their house so that Peter and I could move in. When I told my mom that there is no way Peter would want to move into their house in New Jersey, my mom asked:

"Is it because he doesn't want to move farther away from him mom? Because she can move in with us too."

I mean, isn't my mother the sweetest person on the face of the planet? Who else in the world would move in the most bitter 85-year-old on the planet?

And Jenny said, "Well, you know she wants to build a compound so that we could all live together."

"That makes sense. That's how they do things in Taiwan. The ultimate desire in every family is to have everyone live together in a compound. Why do you think Akong has one?"

"Oh my gosh! Akong DOES have a compound! She gets it from HIM!"

My mother's father has a compound. He has several buildings flanking the main house. There are actual outdoor bathroom stalls for all the buildings peppered throughout his property. Jenny used to think it was fun when we used to chat while we pooped in adjacent stalls. Yeah, it didn't take much to amuse a four-year-old.

"Remember the row of bus seats he had in his office that he used as a sofa?" Jenny asked. "I used to love sitting in them and thinking how funny it was that I was sitting in bus seats, but I WASN'T ON A BUS!"

"I guess since he was a mechanic, he always had stuff like that lying around. So instead of getting a sofa, he was all, 'Well, I already got THIS,'" I said.

I told Peter that my mom offered to move in his mom also and he also thought it was sweet. The other day, when he went to visit his mother, she burst into the guilt-tears and Peter shut her up by saying, "Ma. If you REALLY miss me so much, my wife's mother has offered to build out her house and we could all move in with her."

Peter's mom's reaction was so not, Oh, that's sweet. It was more like, Why does that woman want to RUIN MY LIFE? Never in a million trillion years would I EVER want to live with them and you shouldn't either!

"But why would she look at a nice gesture like that in such a negative light?" I asked him.

And Peter said:

"Because she's awful."

Easter Cards

2010-03-23T23:41:00.000-04:00

The other day we received an Easter card from my mother-in-law. Easter cards? Are we starting that, now?

I already don't send Christmas or birthday cards. I mean, do I need to clutter the landfills with cards that have toxic inks that will leach into our riverbeds and oceans? I'm not lazy, I'm just trying to be green.

When my mother-in-law sends an Easter card to us in the mail, she's making the point that SHE WOULD LIKE TO RECEIVE AN EASTER CARD.

Because she'll send us a card, then tell us that Peter's sister has recently sent her a card and how wonderful that was.

I'd like to see what she would really do if Peter stopped visiting her once a week and just sent her a card every few months just like her other kids. I wonder if she would be all, "Why, a card! How wonderful!"

I mean, Peter's sister hasn't darkened her mother's doorstep in over two years. TWO YEARS!! And she only lives about an hour away. And did I mention that my mother-in-law is 85 years old? When I first met Peter, his sister once said to him, "You know, Mommy and Daddy aren't going to be around forever..." This was back when she was trying to guilt him into driving his parents to her house more often...so she wouldn't have to make the trip out herself. Isn't she so generous of other people's time?

Anyway, while I was out shopping today I picked up an Easter card. And the funny thing is that I saw the 99 cents ones, which looked just as nice as the expensive ones, but I know that I would NOT be able to get away with sending his mother a 99 cent card. Who needs THAT drama? So I got the fancy card with the tri-fold fanciness and all because you KNOW she would be all, "Huh! 99 CENTS! How cheap!"

In this case, the thought is NOT what matters.

I know my audience. And that audience? She Cuh-RAZZY.

The Guilt Complex

2010-03-22T01:49:00.002-04:00

Today I was part of an event where I sat down with writers to talk about their short stories. Out of the 23 people I met with, I had 2 bad experiences. One lady just kind of had it in for me the moment she sat down. I felt this barrier almost immediately. And everything I said to her she resisted.

After she left I was so frazzled that I had to take a moment when I was with the next person. It was kind of obvious that she was unhappy and I told the next guy that sometimes I rub women of a certain age the wrong way.

"It's because I look young, but really, I'm old," I said.

He laughed and said that he had the opposite problem.

But I do feel that when I talk to certain women they get annoyed because the feeling is that I'm this young pipsqueak who shouldn't be telling them what's wrong with their short stories.

I once taught a GRE class when I was in my mid-twenties and although I am an EXCELLENT teacher who has increased students scores tremendously as a mercenary of knowledge, this particular group of wannabe nurses asked for a different teacher because, although I was very nice and taught the material well, they wanted someone who was older. I was older than most of them!

I mean, I look young, but I don't look THAT young. And yes, I'm still getting carded at the movie theater. For rated R movies. Which means that people think I am 16!! God forbid I try to get two tickets for me and my 43-year-old husband for The Hangover.

And this other guy just really felt that I missed a key element in his story---and even asked me how many times I read it. I was a bit taken aback. I had read his story TWICE! And I didn't SEE what he had intended because it wasn't there!

I came home kind of down and feeling bad until I opened up my email account and I got a bunch of emails from other people I met today thanking me and telling me how I inspired them to work on their stories to make them better.

I turned to Peter and said, "Why is it when I had 21 good experiences do I concentrate on the 2 bad ones? Does everyone do that?"

And he said, "Only people with guilt complexes."

Why do I have a guilt complex? It's probably because I'm an oldest sister and I was brought up believing that if I didn't help my younger siblings, then they wouldn't be able to reach their full potential and then they would live horrible lives and it would ALL BE MY FAULT.

So I went through my day and I remembered this one guy who said that he had been looking forward to our mentorship session all week and that he was SO HAPPY that he came to the event.

I decided that THIS is what I'm going to remember about today from NOW ON.

That Teacher is a LOSER

2010-03-17T04:04:00.009-04:00

Recently, a teacher wrote the words, "loser" on a child's exam in North Carolina.

Now, North Carolina is a place that Peter wants to stay the hell away from because BAD THINGS have happened in North Carolina. A childhood friend of his was arrested for a crime he didn't commit and almost got convicted. So whenever we drive through that state, Peter wants to go AS FAST AS POSSIBLE, which is why we've gotten several speeding tickets there.

Everyone has a lot of opinions about this one, but I've had my share of mean teachers. Mr. Catapano used to hand out exams and make snide comments right along the lines of "loser." Boy, was he a jerk. But back in those days, kids just sucked it up. No one ever complained to his/her mom about it, I don't think.

The thing is that as a child, I looked up to my teachers, and I think that teachers tend to forget what it was like to be a child. An adult can say something offhand to another adult and know that whatever is said is taken with the same intent that it was said. Uhm...did I just take you down a corn maze? You got that, right?

Children, on the other hand, tend to internalize things more and blow small stuff out of proportion.

I remember in second grade, when my family first moved to Bergen County, New Jersey, I attended the public elementary school and LOVED my teacher Ms. Adams. I thought she was so cute with her curly brown hair and I had never encountered anyone that young who was a teacher.

I had transferred to that school from a Catholic school in Queens which hadn't started teaching us how to read. And keep in mind, that I had just arrived in America just a year before that--so I was learning Taiwanese and English at the same time as well as trying to keep up with my first language, Japanese.

So yeah, I didn't learn how to read!

One afternoon, Ms. Adams had us sit in a circle and she had her students take turns reading from our textbook. When it came time for me to start reading, I had such a difficult time sounding out the words, and I could tell that she was getting impatient, which, of course, made me all the more stumbly and stupid and made me stumble over words I already knew. Let's just say I don't do well under pressure.

At one point, Ms. Adams took her big spiral teacher's textbook, raised it and whacked me over the head with it. Of course, I was still trying to read the words, but as I was reading, I was crying and it was SO embarrassing. The other kids just kind of stared because Ms. Adams was usually nice and this reaction was completely out of left field for us.

Now, I don't know how Ms. Adams felt about it--she sure didn't look very sorry at the time, she just seemed SO ANGRY. And I was scared at just how angry she was--thinking back, it was SUCH a huge deal for me, but it was probably just a little blip for her.

This memory will be with me FOREVER and that is what teachers need to understand when they deal with kids.

Teachers represent learning and bad teachers make kids not want to learn.

Oh, and by the way, I got into a Master's program for English that only accepts ten students out of 2,000---so even though I got off to a slow start, I'm doing just FINE with my reading skills.

It Was a Dizastah

2010-03-16T02:41:00.003-04:00

Last Saturday we can this crazy storm in our area that knocked out the power to 420,000 homes according to the news. We were really lucky that we were spared because I hate not having my electricity. Then the fridge just becomes a big box of rotting vegetables and what would Peter and I do if we couldn't sit on the sofa in front of our TV with our laptops? What would happen to our quality together time?

On Sunday I went to Brooklyn and of course, had to turn around twice because there were downed trees and darkened traffic lights and scary black wires that had been toppled down.

I turned on 1010WINS. When I was younger, their catchphrase, "You give us 22 minutes. We give you the world" made me think that they were a real estate agency.

On the air was a newsperson from Hartsdale and she was reporting on all the damage in the Westchester area. It was pretty crazy. People died when trees fell on their cars. The newsperson said, "In the weehrds of one of the firemen, 'It was a dizastah.'"

Okay.

I don't know what made me laugh more--that she had such a thick Westchester accent, or that she thought that the "it was a disaster" quote was s'good.

I mean--It was a disaster? Really?

How about, "The worst storm in the past 100 years and for three generations to come."

All right. THAT may be too extreme. But "it was a disaster" is almost an understatement--it is NOT something that I would have thought to myself, "Oh, I better USE that in my report on the news!"

C'mon Westchester newslady! Step it up!

Oh, yeah...

2010-03-10T00:38:00.003-05:00

The other day, I said to Peter, "That was really stupid of NBC to let Conan go. But I think they should have thought ahead and put someone in his time slot. I mean, NOW what are they going to do after Jay?"

"Uhm," he said, looking at me like I was totally nuts. "They have Jimmy Fallon."

"Oh yeah....I totally forgot that he had a show."

SHIP!

2010-03-08T03:21:00.006-05:00

I was watching this interview with Seth Godin and he said something that has been my mantra for the past few days and it's this:

Just SHIP!

That means, don't just daydream about your wonderful product or idea, but self-actualize it--you have to SHIP the product. Don't think. SHIP!!

So that really did get me going, especially since I have such a looooooong bucket list now that I wrote down, which was really helpful to me--to see all the things I want to do so that it's more concrete and it gives me more of an impetus to get things going.

I am so happy to say that I FINALLY got around to opening up Photoshop and tooling around with the design of my new site. In a few weeks (hopefully this month), I'll be putting up my new site.

I will be going through my old blog posts and eliminating anything that is not good to have out there after I non-anonymize. Hmmmm, that's probably a new word I invented, along with the Italian word Totamente (which means Totally....as in, "That is SOOOOOO Totamente Awesomedente!") I'll write up a glossary some day.

Basically, when this blog was mainly anonymous, I wrote some gripes about certain people I am related to by marriage...some people who are not very nice.

The lesson I learned a few weeks ago when someone from my elementary school discovered my blog was the kick in the pants I needed to realize that I DO NOT want my in-laws to be s'totamente PISSED. My reasoning in the past was, "What? Like, they DON'T KNOW that they're jerks? I mean, if I acted like a jerk and someone wrote about it, I wouldn't care..."

Well, people do care. And I know that my in-laws would act the SAME WAY those people in elementary school did--they will have totally forgotten every mean thing they said or did and think I was just plain old crazy and be all, "What is HER Freakin' problem?"

So, all bad stuff about my in-laws will be done away with in a few weeks, so don't be alarmed. But before I pull everything out, I will write part DEUX about the Surprise! party, which I hadn't had the energy to do--the party turned out great, but it SUCH a mistake to invite everybody. I'll put that together in the next few days.

On a side note, Peter and I went to Nashville about a week ago to pick up an 80's Rick. Internet, that's a vintage six-string Rickenbacker guitar. Yes, we took the dogs and drove a zillion miles to Nashville, TN to buy a Rick from a guy Peter TWITTERS with...and who says Twitter is useless? This is the sort of thing we do that makes me think sometimes that we're living out the script to some silly indie film.

Until last month, I didn't know the difference between a twelve-string Rick and a hollow body Gretsch. Today we went to Borders and when Peter picked out Vintage Guitar magazine, I was all, "That's a Hollow Body Gretsh, Sunburst pattern Fender Stratocaster, and a 1960's Fender P-Bass."

And Peter said, "Whoa...I think you're right."

By the way, for all of you guys in NY, the radio station WNYZ 87.7 FM, also known as the indie darkroom, is playing a few songs from Peter's old band Pepperfarm from an album Mutiny Records put out. Isn't that AWESOME? You can listen online here.

I realized that the reason I love The Smiths so much is that distinctive feeling I get when I listen to their songs, which is, as Johnny Marr says, "turning your daydreams into sound." I also think it's funny that he says that his dream guitar is a 12-string Rick, which Peter just bought on ebay. Yeah, he's going a little nuts right now, but I'm glad he's playing again.

I found a video that shows a Rick that looks EXACTLY like the one we went all the way to Nashville, TN to get. I've now named the guitar RiiiiiiickRickRickRickRiiiiiick, like Amy Poehler's skit she did with a stepdad named Rick. By the way, notice that there's a GUITAR STORE behind Amy Poehler in that skit? S'Twilight Zone!

What's Up With People Looking Like Sam the Eagle?

2010-03-05T03:03:00.000-05:00

I've written about this phenomenon before.

Stephan FRY!!

2010-03-03T23:42:00.003-05:00

So Craig did a whole show with no audience with Stephen Fry.

Who?

Stephen Fry.

Who's that?

He was in that vampire movie.

You must be mistaken. Craig would never feature a guy on his show for a whole hour who I've never even heard of.

Why? Just because you've never heard of him, he isn't popular?

Yup.

You know EVERYONE who's popular.

I know EVERYONE. And where do you know him from?

He was in that vampire movie.

Yeah. That's real specific.

The vampire movie with Tom Cruise...Interview With A Vampire.

You're thinking of Stephen Rea. Is THAT who Craig is having on his show?

No. It's Stephen FRY. I heard him say Stephen FRY. Google it if you don't believe me.

Fine. I will.

(a minute later)

I guess you're right. Stephen Fry.

I told you. Stephen FRY. Stephen FRY.

He's the guy from Wilde.

Oh yeah! He's the guy who played Oscar Wilde!

You know who Stephen Rea is, right?

Yeah, he was the guy in the vampire movie and The Crying Game.

Remember the SECRET in that movie?

I saw that movie in Paris. And when they showed that transvestite, I was all, this better not be that BIG SECRET because I knew from the moment they showed him that it was a guy.

I thought it was a girl.

Well, you didn't practically grow up in the Village.

Scout's Tennis Ball

2010-02-25T19:10:00.001-05:00

This was a dog tennis ball:

Why don't tennis balls made for dogs last as long as regular tennis balls?

If I Knew Then What I Know Now

2010-02-22T03:06:00.002-05:00

A few days ago I found out that a blog post I wrote about a year ago had been discovered by the person I wrote about. Why? Because I actually used the person's real first and last names. That was a colossal mistake. Let this be a lesson to ye all.

I'm actually quite embarrassed about this after having been given a stern talking to by Peter for putting the names of his family members on this web site. I had systematically gone through and changed all the names to extremely long and difficult to cull together strings of "Peter's sister's husband's children from his first wife" and "Peter's brother's wife's sister." I guess I missed that particular blog post during my slash-and-burn session. I've gone through and reworded things so that it's more generic and not quite so caustic.

The thing is that blog posts are written quite off-the-cuff and so posts get written quickly (and sometimes in an emotional rant) without input from editors...SOME people find that trait charming and others find that they would rather lie down for a colonoscopy than read some stupid girl's trite internal monologue.

Suffice it to say that I received a ton of comments that I did not post--mostly because it ranged from, "I knew those guys in high school and they are SO NICE. You need to GET OVER IT" to "God, that guy is still SUCH an ASSHOLE." None of the comments really added more to the conversation and it actually just kind of regressed people back to junior high.

I mean, we're all supposed to be adults now. In fact, we're all middle-aged! Wow, how did THAT happen?

The "These guys are nice to me" comments made me laugh because people are so narcissistic that they think that the only thing that matters is their own experience. Yes, I'm sure SOMEONE loved John Wayne Gacy and thinks he was TERRIFIC. But is that what I was talking about? I mean, if I read that some kid I knew in high school acted like a bully, no matter how well I knew the kid, it's still within the realm of human behavior. This is just a pet peeve because I hate that kind of comment. It's ignorant.

We all did stupid things when we were young. We all did extremely hurtful things to people that we never thought twice about. I'm sure that Tom from high school could rant on a blog about how once he wrote me a love note and I threw it in the trash in front of all my friends. I had my reasons, among them, when he gave me the note I told him, "I DO NOT want it," and handed it back to him four times. He thought my being a generally nice person who did not want to treat him like an outcast like everyone else was (since I understood what that felt like first-hand) repaid me in dividends I did not want. Boy, I never made THAT mistake again.

If he had used my real name, I would have written:

You know Tom, I'm really sorry that I did that and you're quite right to post anything you want on your blog, but can you please take down the part with my last name on it because I really don't want this rant to show up first on Google when I go for a job interview and my potential boss types in my name.

It's embarrassing to go back into your childhood and see all the crap that you once did or said and I'm glad you could make a funny story out of it so people on the internet could laugh about it. In fact, it's great that we can ALL laugh about every stupid thing we used to think was so insanely important and The. End. Of. The. FUCKING. World. when it wasn't. Aren't you glad you're not 14 anymore?

If I had gotten an email like that, I would have totally dug it. And I would have posted it. AND opened it up for comments.

I think the rant I wrote wasn't really about some jerk in junior high, but it was about the whole oppressive nature of the elementary school I attended. It was all uniforms, "boys-on-one-side, girls-on-another" and "stand in line" and "open your books" and "repeat after me." Of course, that, along with the whole fire and brimstone and Jesus will send you to the devil thing.

In elementary school, when I read the Bible, I couldn't understand it. It was so confusing being a non-Catholic in a building full of Catholics who genuinely believed that they were going to heaven just because a few drops of water fell on their foreheads as infants regardless of how callously and cruelly they acted in life. We studied the Bible in school, but it was just pretty words on a page. In their day-to-day life, the teachings of Jesus were just fairy tales and their actions were, let's just say, not full of Christ-love.

After junior high I entered high school and the experience was like Dorothy entering Oz. Black-and-white morphed into Technicolor. I checked out of elementary school and never came back.

In high school, the teachers wore jeans and you could call some of them by their first names. They were passionate and supportive. There was no lines and girls and boys were all mixed together. Everyone in school was there to LEARN and even as a teenager, a lot of the kids were at the top of their game. Some were dancing at the American Ballet Theatre or taking lessons at Juilliard on weekends or singing opera on Broadway when they weren't at a science lab pursuing research for their prize-winning Westinghouse project. The craziest part about this school was that the door was wide open. No one was forcing you to be in class. If you wanted to cut class, you just walked out that door. Greenwich Village was just a few blocks away, so it was pretty damned tempting.

But if you wanted to read To the Lighthouse as a sophomore like I did, even though the whole Virginia Woolf modernist psychologically deep philosophical story with no plot whatsoever is really WAY over your head at that age, your teacher will take you by the hand and guide you through it because if you NEED TO read Virginia Woolf before you're ready, then BY GOD, WE WILL GET THROUGH THIS TOGETHER. And yes, it was WAY over my head and I didn't understand it at all, but when I read it now, as an adult, Mr. Greenburg's kindness makes me want to cry and that kindness, internet? That is SO VERY To the Lighthouse. In fact, that kindness is the very reason why To the Lighthouse EXISTS.

My elementary school experience became a sort of thing that I made fun of and told people about at cocktail parties. I would tell people about that time a girl in my class accused my race of taking over everything and wanting all the jobs, and my punch line was, "Yeah, like I wanted to become a checker at the Silver Barns grocery store."

I did not maintain one friendship out of that group of kids. I left that world behind. I saw my ex-classmates as people who were stuck in that world and I wanted OUT.

It was meeting Peter that helped me feel differently about this because he grew up Italian-Catholic in the Bronx and came from that world of Catholic school--he was an ALTAR boy, if you can believe it. He also grew up feeling different from all the kids he went to school with and he was one of them. He became vegetarian and his friends did not get it, they're still trying to convince him to eat a Big Mac. When Peter quit his promising job at CBS to go on tour with his band, they were the first to attend his gigs and buy his band's CDs. When Peter came back home flat broke after the band naively spent ALL of their six-figure signing bonus on recording their album, his friends took him out and paid.

I always felt that I had such a difficult time because of my race and perhaps that wasn't fair. Yes, kids made fun of me for my funny lunches and the shape of my eyes, but I really could have given as good as I got instead of retreating. I mean, IRISH people making fun of immigrants and the way we look and talk? C'mon! And at least Chinese people are known to be smart in pop culture, unlike Italians. I could have opened up a dialogue but I didn't. And perhaps I missed out on something there. And perhaps I didn't. We'll never know.

Sent From Heaven

2010-02-18T03:06:00.011-05:00

The past few days I've been mulling over the plot of an epistolary novel that I'm working on and I've been thinking a lot about my grandfather because one of the characters is inspired by him. For the past few weeks, I've been thinking about scenes from my childhood with him.

My grandfather, who I called Akong, was the only doctor in a very small, rural part of Japan and his patients were mostly the older rice farmers. Some of them had spent so much of their lives hunched over their fields that they were permanently hunched over and could no longer stand upright. And yet, they were always quick to smile whenever they saw me.

Akong's office always smelled like iodine and he had a leather examining table that had felt the weight of everyone in town. There was such a sense of security growing up in his house because whenever something ailed me, I knew that he would have all the answers.

Akong earned his license during a time when a Taiwanese medical student had to learn Japanese and German because the professors were Japanese and the textbooks were written in German. He also spoke Russian, Mandarin Chinese, a bit of French, and since my great-grandfather understood that if his children spoke English, they would be able to communicate in any part of the world, he hired an English tutor (a real English tutor from England) for all of his children. This would explain why I have relatives who live all over the planet, including several Parisiennes and a South African uncle.

My sister inherited his love of languages. She speaks French, Mandarin, Taiwanese, English, and Swahili fluently.

My mother told me this story which is a scene in my novel. She said that whenever he would finish with a patient, he would come into the kitchen (his office was at the front of the house) and ask her what color she dressed me in that morning as he washed his hands by the sink below the window. And then he would search for me in the schoolyard. She said that he was always so happy to spot me and he would tell her whatever it was I was doing. Hearing my mother tell this story always made me feel so cherished.

Akong died the day after the Chinese New Year in his sleep. He had been in good spirits because his entire family in Taiwan had visited for the holiday. He couldn't stomach the rich foods and went to bed early. The next morning, my aunt came in to check up on him and he told her to go back to bed because he was still tired. When she returned, he was gone. He was 94 years old.

When I heard the news, I thought how strange it was that I had been thinking about my grandfather so much the last few days. And then I realized that for the very first time, I was living on this earth without him. It was difficult to grasp the concept. Because he lived so far away, I told myself that I could pretend that he was still there on the other side of the world. But even as I told myself that, I knew that it would be impossible. I feel as if a part of me has become a bit untethered. Perhaps that's what we all go through and we keep getting untethered until it is time for us to leave the earth.

I asked Peter, who lost his father four years ago, how long he mourned for his father.

"I'm not sure how long it lasts. I might mourn him for the rest of my life," he said.

When I called my father, he told me that when he was young, his mother had taken him to an oracle of some sort and she had told them that my grandfather was a god who had been sent back down to earth.

My father said that at the time, he didn't quite believe it, but hearing about Akong's amazingly peaceful death, he was reminded of this and thought that perhaps it was true.

Akong was such a kind man and a gentle person. While he practiced medicine he saved countless lives and genuinely took care of his patients. He was a brother to eight sisters and truly loved his wife, so when he birthed babies, he understood that this took time and never rushed the process. Years later, women would approach my mother and tell her how lucky they were to have had him as their doctor.

He and my grandmother taught me what love could be when you found the right person. Every morning, he would bring my grandmother a hot towel as she was waking up so that she could wash her face. Witnessing this relationship gave me the faith not to settle and to search for the right man for me.

Akong was a lucky man. Unfortunate things did happen in his life. He lost his hearing in one of his ears as a child when an uncle clubbed him on the side of his face. He lost out on his father's medical practice when he had been sent to mainland China during the second world war. Later, he would have to lead his young family aboard a smuggler's ship and brave the pirate-infested seas to return home so that his children and grandchildren would not have to live in Communist China. He borrowed money on some very bad terms from an old friend which ruined their friendship. He underwent major surgery, I think it was an appendectomy, without anesthesia because the surgeon, ignorant of Akong's identity, didn't want to waste anesthesia on a patient who wouldn't be able to afford it. Imagine his surprise when my great-grandmother came to visit her son in her mink coat and imported European fashions. I always picture this surgeon quaking in his shoes once he found out that my great-grandfather was a member of the Taiwanese parliament.

Akong was lucky because he was born the eldest son in a wealthy and generous household. He was beloved by his family. He had a father who valued intelligence and encouraged Akong to study, and study he did, for his favorite story of his schooling was that he never scored lower than a 96 percent on a mathematics examination.

His eight sisters filled the house with music on the piano my great-grandfather had bought for them (at a time when a piano cost as much as four houses). Akong was able to work in a profession he loved. After failing his hearing test three times, he valiantly strived to take it again and was rewarded with a broken machine and a lax administrator to become the doctor he always wanted to be, a profession that suited him.

Later, he married my grandmother, a beautiful woman who was the love of his life, and they were together for more than five decades. They had two sons and two daughters.

Then, during a time when most men were considering retirement, Akong embarked on another adventure, and that was moving to Japan to take up residence as the town doctor in a small village. He was able to invest wisely in this new country and that's where he made his own fortune.

It's almost impossible to fathom the world Akong was born into during the early part of the twentieth century. He loved technology, so this was an exciting century for him to live through. He was an avid photographer who fashioned a darkroom out of my father's childhood bathroom. Towards the end of his life, he was converting all his files into digital format and Akong was on his computer every day answering emails from his children and grandchildren.

I know that Akong was afraid of death. I think that's partly the reason he was so careful about his health. And as a doctor, he always monitored himself carefully. His own father died in early middle age of a heart attack while hiking in the mountains. I'm glad that his last moments were in his comfortable bed with his family by his side.

When my father told me the story about the oracle, it does make sense to me. Perhaps Akong was a god sent back down from the heavens. And now he has returned home.

My Brother Has One of You

2010-02-17T15:24:00.003-05:00

For Valentine's Day, we decided to go up to Kingston, NY to look at a Roadtrek RV. Yup, I'm interested and Peter was dragged along so that he could convince me that these were a TERRIBLE idea. I bribed him by enticing him with a trip to The Apple Pie Bakery at the Culinary Institute at Hyde Park.

All week Peter kept asking me to call the place to MAKE SURE THAT THEY'RE OPEN SUNDAY. I looked on their website and it said that it was closed on Monday for President's Day, but no mention about Sunday, so I assumed they were open.

When we drove up to the place, there were hardly any cars in the parking lot, which kind of made me nervous, but I was still hopeful...I'm an optimist (or maybe simply delusional). When we reached the door and it was LOCKED, Peter was s'mad.

"I told you TO CALL THEM!" Peter said.

"Yeah, uhm. I guess when you said, 'Make sure that they're open on Sunday,' I just went to the website and it didn't say that they were closed THIS Sunday--it didn't occur to me to check their hours because it's a bakery--why would a bakery close on Sunday?"

"It's not a bakery, it's a SCHOOL and SCHOOLS ARE NOT OPEN ON SUNDAYS."

Apparently, this turned out to be true.

Wow, this was turning out to be the most terrible Valentine's Day ever.

Fortunately, we had discovered another great bakery, Bread Alone, in Rhinebeck last summer so we headed on over there. It was super-packed, but it was OPEN! Yay!

When I ordered my food, the cashier asked me for my name. Here's the conundrum that I face whenever restaurants ask for a name--I have such a strange Taiwanese name that it always throws people off. Most of the time I use Peter's name, but this time I chanced it and told her my name.

She smiled and told me that it was a pretty name, so of course, I thanked her. And then she said:

"My brother's girlfriend has a name that sounds like yours. I love her, she's so cute. And my brother's learning her language. It's Korean or Japanese, I can't remember which one."

That was sort of strange. My sister speaks Swahili. I know which African language she learned. I'm not telling someone,"Oh, Swahili or Bantu, one of those..."

I mean, she can't be bothered to learn what country her brother's girlfriend is from? What kind of person is she?

Valerie-ing

2010-02-10T05:06:00.003-05:00

I was IMing with my friend Andrew, who is one of the funniest people I've ever met. He can make me laugh just be saying one word. (The word is HUUUUUUUGE--it's not the word, but the way he says it--he's mocking someone we used to know in college and it's DEAD-ON)

When we talk, we tend to come up with our own phrases and today, he wrote that he lost 23 pounds! And afterwards, he said, "I am SO Valerie-ing!"

So funny! I'm going to start using that phrase for weight loss--such as:

"In order to Valerie, I had to stop eating carbs."

"I'm gong to eat this cheesecake now, but I'm really REALLY going to start my Valerie tomorrow."

"I got s'Kirstie that I totally had to do some serious Valerie-ing."

You Can Go Purell Your Iphone Now

2010-02-09T01:05:00.003-05:00

It's no secret that I am severely paranoid about germs. I hate shaking hands with people, I hate touching doorknobs, I hate touching shopping carts, I mean, I'm not Howie Mandel-crazy, but I'm crazy enough that it can annoy people around me.

The other day, we had trouble with our cable service. Our phones kept dropping calls and the internet was constantly not connecting to whatever it is it's supposed to connect to so I called the people over at Cablevision, who, by the way, are a bunch of budonkadonk-heads.

The first time I made an appointment, they never showed up. When I called the next morning, their records said that the guys fulfilled the appointment. Hmmmm... Fine, whatever, so I set up another appointment between 2pm and 5pm the next day. 5pm came and went and when I called, they said that the guy was running late and would be here by 10pm. Then 10pm came and went--soooooo the long and the short of it was that FINALLY by the NEXT day, one of their guys miraculously found his way to our house.

He fixed some stuff and replaced some wires and kind of chuckled when he asked me to check the modem for some stuff that I was apparently not checking the modem for because I was looking at THE ROUTER the whole time, which apparently is an entirely different thing altogether.

Peter called when the guy was almost done and the guy asked to speak to him (since Peter's the only person in this house who actually knows the difference between a router and a modem). I reluctantly handed him my iphone because he's a stranger and carries germs and I hold that thing to my face! But I didn't want to appear rude so I gave it to him. After he finished talking to Peter, I took the iphone back and Peter said:

"Okay, everything seems to be working okay right now. I'll be home in a few minutes. YOU CAN GO PURELL YOUR IPHONE NOW."

Nine Stories

2010-02-05T16:57:00.005-05:00

The day I met Peter, I suggested that he read Nine Stories. I was obsessed with Salinger at that time and I was writing short stories. His were just so perfect. Each one just hits you right in the heart and it was my barometer for the guys I was dating. If you didn't understand Salinger, I was all, "I think it's about time we start seeing other people."

The stories in that collection are deep without being sentimental, powerful without whacking you over the head, funny and meaningful.

Little did I know that just that day, Peter said to himself, "I don't think I'm going to date a girl until I find one who recommends a book to me."

Kismet?

Serendipity?

Fate?

Salinger?

My guess is all of the above.

Peter picked up the book at Borders the next day. And we're still together twelve point five years later.

Thanks Jerome David. Rest in peace.

He Must Really Love Her

2010-02-01T01:01:00.007-05:00

I was brought up by people who feel that romantic gestures are phony. In fact, the thinking is that the couple who is at your party who can't keep their hands off each other, making out in the corner, winking at each other all evening? They're the ones who are MOST LIKELY to be on the brink of divorce.

In my experience of observing people, I find that the most fragile relationships tend to put on a big show of affection around others.

When it comes to romantic gestures, Peter puts up a giant red circle with the slash across it. It's not that he's uncomfortable with them, he doesn't put any effort into it. He doesn't value it.

That's okay about 99 percent of the time, but it kind of went really wrong the day he proposed to me.

First of all, I had warned him that it was a HORRIBLE IDEA to propose at a restaurant or at a ball game. Why? Because you are subjecting people, in fact, STRANGERS, to your intimate moment--and I don't want my entree being held up because of some stupid couple who are probably going to be divorced in 7 years, anyway.

Peter planned a 30th birthday party for me and invited all of our closest friends. Unfortunately, a lot of my closest friends couldn't even come to the event due to circumstances out of their control. So that should have been a clue to him that maybe proposing at that party was NOT A GOOD IDEA.

Unfortunately, when men get it in their head to do something, it's difficult for them to see those signs.

A friend of mine knew her husband was going to propose to her one horrible night when mosquitos were eating her alive and they were sweatily trudging along a hiking path in Vermont. He kept bringing up their FUTURE and she kept changing the subject and trying to get him to take the hint of NOT NOW!! I'M NOT IN THE MOOD FOR A PROPOSAL RIGHT NOW WHEN I AM CRANKY and SWEATY!!

Unfortunately, he just kept plowing ahead and he insisted. When she relayed the story to me, she told me she said yes, of course, but she was a bit bummed out that he didn't take the hint.

My advice to guys out there? Girls dream of the moment they are proposed to so try to make it a sweet, memorable moment. And if she's giving you signs that she's not into it, or it's a bad time, do it another time.

My fantasy proposal goes like this: A beautiful walk in Vermont in autumn when the trees are all turning and gorgeous and my boyfriend takes me to a scenic spot and gets on one knee...(notice that there aren't any other people in this scenario?)

So the afternoon of the party, a party I was all frazzled getting the food ready for and setting the apartment up and a million other tasks I needed to do, the phone rang and one of my friends was at the train station. I went to go pick her up and Peter asked me to come into the bedroom...and that's when he proposed.

I literally was so shocked and I'm the kind of person who needs to take time to process things. As soon as Peter proposed, I felt that I needed to lie down and take a nap. BUT I COULDN'T because I had to pick up my friend at the train station. So about two minutes after Peter proposed, I was sitting in my car freaking out.

I didn't want to tell people, but then I realized that PEOPLE MUST ALREADY KNOW. So it would be WIERD if I was all proposed to and I put the ring away and pretended that I wasn't engaged. So the whole rest of the party was kind of a blur. I was newly engaged and I had some random collection of people at my apartment, including my real estate agent, Scout's dog trainer, Peter's web designer, the web designer's pregnant wife, and Peter's friend whose sister is best friends with Peter's web designer's ex-girlfriend. An ex-girlfriend of ten years who he dumped and then went on to knock up this other girl 6 months later. Why do guys do this?

Anyway, let's just say that it was an awkward group of people to be celebrating MY ENGAGEMENT with and I just wanted to go into the bedroom to be by myself and process what just happened and maybe spend the day with Peter getting used to the idea of getting married.

And another thing, Peter got me a sapphire ring, which was really pretty and I loved it....up until I asked him why he chose that one. He said, "Well, there was this other one I wanted, but it would have taken an extra week to get, so I bought this one."

To this day, he can't understand why this would upset me so.

Then, I freaked out. Like, I'm not worth that extra week? And why did he propose to me right before I had to pick up my friend? Doesn't he KNOW ME? He doesn't know me! How can I marry someone who thinks that I want to be proposed to right before a bunch of random people are going to come to my house? How could I marry someone who would choose to propose to me right after I get a phone call from my friend at the train station while I was putting sunscreen on my face in the bathroom?

Later, he explained that it took everything he had to ask me to marry him. After all, we had been together 7 years at that point and he was so against marriage that he never thought that he would ever marry. Finally, after SEVEN YEARS, he decided that he was ready, so he went to the store and wanted to go home with a ring THAT DAY. And he knew I didn't want to be proposed to at a restaurant, but he didn't know it was because of the PEOPLE. Then he said that he would make it up to me.

Plus, there was a bit of drama with that sapphire ring. Because he didn't get me a diamond, everyone from my mom, to his mom, to people I thought were my friends, made comments like, "Oh, why isn't it a diamond?"

When I told people that Princess Diana's engagement ring was a sapphire, they were all, "Ohhhhhh."

When I told my mother-in-law that my mother's engagement ring was a pearl ring, she said, "Pearls are CHEAP."

Well, at least they were able to BUY THEIR OWN HOUSE a few years later. Because they didn't SPEND ALL THEIR MONEY on diamonds and ugly Hummel dolls.

So a few weeks later, Peter got me another ring. A diamond ring. 'Cuz sometimes when you do things different, people judge you and one thing that Peter hates? It's for people to judge us and think that there's something WRONG. Then the person I thought was my friend got SO MAD that I got TWO RINGS!! (Her exact words were, "Why do YOU get TWO RINGS!!")

Of course, now I'm totally anti-diamonds because of what happens to people in Africa over conflict diamonds--I'm glad that the ring Peter got me was an antique ring from the 1920s.

Suffice it to say, with all that stupid drama from me, proposals are a very sore subject for Peter. Although now I find that the story is very cute and much more interesting than other people's--also, a lot of people who had lovely proposals are now divorced. I mean, look at Jessica Simpson.

The other day, I saw a cool post on designsponge. A guy made this gorgeous illustrated book and hid a ring in the book as a proposal.

When I showed it to Peter, he said, very sarcastically:

"He must REALLY love her."

Big Nose

2010-01-30T23:12:00.003-05:00

No matter how many photographs I take of Rocky, his nose appears SO BIG. In real life, he's much better proportioned. We can send men to the moon and yet we still haven't solved the whole "the camera adds an extra 15 pounds" thing? In Rocky, that's 15 pounds of nose.

Melding Soap

2010-01-28T22:05:00.005-05:00

Peter has saved us hundreds of dollars worth of soap by perfecting this talent: soap melding

Soap melding is what we call the combining of the small, about to be used up soap with a new bar of soap, ensuring no soap wastage. You might call this gross, but we call it resourceful.

The small white soap is this wonderful hand-made hotel soap we got at the Hard Rock Hotel in Seminole, Florida (one of the best hotels ever!) The other one is L'Occitane Honey & Lemon Hexagonal Soap.

Ya Gonna Call Security?

2010-01-27T01:39:00.001-05:00

Tuesday nights are Free Movie Nights at Clearview Cinemas for all of those who are members of the Optimum Rewards program. For those of you who have no idea what that means, it's a program that my cable provider offers to members who use them for cable, internet, and phone services.

When I told my father about this program, he asked me to sign him up for it, and I promptly did this as soon as I went home. I told him to look out for a card in the mail a month from that day. Fast forward about two months later, my mom asked me whatever happened with that card thing. I had a suspicion that my dad misplaced it/threw it away. But when I asked him about it, he told me that it never came in the mail. When I pressed him on this, he got mad.

So I backpedaled and told him that it was okay if he threw it away, I just had to know this bit of information so that I could let Optimum Rewards know that they had to send him another card. I took my own card from my wallet and asked him if he had seen something like it come in the mail.

He sheepishly told me that he sorta kinda recognized the card and that he MIGHT have....thrown it away. Because it looked LIKE JUNK. And how was HE supposed to know what that was? There was nothing on it saying FREE MOVIE CARD.

You see this right here, people? This was my entire childhood with my father in one frustrating pull-your-hair-out nutshell.

Fast forward a year later when I signed Peter's mother up for the card and she did THE SAME THING.

What part of WATCH OUT FOR THIS IN THE MAIL do people not understand?

ANYWAY, I don't know if they've done studies on this, but Tuesdays are the MOST DIFFICULT day for us to get our acts together and go out on a date night. After weeks and weeks of Peter being way too busy to go out on a Tuesday night, he had a free Tuesday last night!!

YAY!

We went to see Up in the Air.

The thing with Free Movie night is that sometimes there will be people in the audience who are just there because the movie is free since it is the type of movie they would NEVER pay good hard-earned money to watch. When Peter and I walked into the theater, we noticed that 3/4 of the audience were made up of people who, shall I say, look more like the sort who would prefer Transformers or the latest Vin Diesel vehicle.

Throughout the movie, there was a group of ladies in the far right of the theater who were acting like the movie theater was their house. And by their house, I mean a place where they can get all relaxed and shout for their kids to come down the stairs because actually walking up those stairs to talk to them like people who deserve that type of dignity would be WAY TOO MUCH WORK.

So finally, after about the fifth outburst from those ladies, I hear a scurfuffle with people SHUSHing them and there were unkind words exchanged. Then one of the ladies yell out, "Whatcha gonna do? Ya gonna call SECURITY....AGEEEEN?!"

It was the "Ageeen" that made me laugh out loud. There was such a derisiveness in the way she said it, like she was flush with the power of being such an asshole.

I mean, the poor guy sitting in the middle of the aisle just cannot enjoy his free movie. And when he finally cannot bear it any longer, he calls Security, who is supposed to handle this type of behavior. Unfortunately, we can't expect Security to do anything because doing something would require some sort of effort. And people just don't make an effort at work anymore. So the loud ladies totally get away with being loud without any consequence.

After all, how can you expect people to show pride in the jobs they are doing when there is no more job security in this country? We're all just waiting around for robots to take over our jobs anyway. At least, that's the lesson I took away from the movie.

Pretty soon, the loud ladies at the movie theater are going to ruin our lives.

But I Have Two Jobs!!

2010-01-25T14:40:00.003-05:00

We have made an active decision to cook at home more, which means that I'm the one cooking 99% of the meals. Why? Because Peter has two jobs. He does work really hard. Just the other day he came home for lunch and before his meal he checked his inbox. He had 100 emails from people and it was not yet 11:30am! And this was for only one of his web sites.

It's been a running joke in this house that he has two jobs--and it's true, he does bring home the bacon. I bring home more of the occasional baguette or a box of cupcakes.

Yesterday when I asked him whether he was going to go outside and pick up the poop, he said, "But I have two jobs!"

So of course I went outside to take care of it before this monster rainstorm hit--mushy dog poop all over the yard doesn't bother me. The steppage of messy dog poop by our disgusting dogs fills me with horror.

And then when I came back into the house, Peter was all, "Oh, I was just kidding."

"Right. Well I didn't see you running out to help me."

"But I have two jobs!"

A part of me feels that I should be annoyed when he says this, but he does it with such an impish smile that I can't help but laugh.

A Breakthrough Moment From Jessica Biel

2010-01-22T15:41:00.004-05:00

It's not every day that I open my inbox and I find an email addressed to me from a Jessica Biel. I'm all, there's only one Jessica Biel I KNOW. And even though I never click on junky emails, I looked at this one and here is what it said:

Dear Vogue Reader,
It's funny when you think about the idea of a breakthrough moment in someone's career. A few times in my own life, I have been told by people, 'Oh! This is your breakthrough moment or that is your breakthrough moment.'

But you can't put too much weight into that idea because there really isn't one moment when you actually feel you have arrived. I feel as an actor you are trying to work as hard as you can and make the best decisions you possibly can, and you have to take each moment for what it is.

All of that said, a part of me always wanted to be on the cover of Vogue. But to have it actually happen? That felt incredibly special to me.

I suddenly found myself sitting in this beautiful location and wearing the most amazing couture, with Mario Testino shooting and Tonne Goodman from Vogue editing the story. I just remember feeling very grateful, wanting to work hard, enjoy the day, and really take it all in.

I hope you enjoy the February issue, which hits the newsstands this week.

Best,
Jessica Biel

Now I'm all, I'm supposed to have a BREAKTHROUGH MOMENT? No one has ever said to me, "You know that creative brief you wrote last year was totally your breakthrough moment in content development."

"That roasted tomato soup? Totally your breakthrough moment in the kitchen."

Do people get that said to them? What kind of crazy is she talking about? As far as I'm concerned, that Jessica is ridiculous if she thinks she's had a breakthrough moment IN HER CAREER. I've seen some of her movies. If those movie scripts had been any good, Julia Roberts would have been in them. And there are probably three other Hollywood actresses stealing Jessica's breakthrough moments.

Haiti Coverage

2010-01-18T11:08:00.002-05:00

Like a lot of Americans I've been watching news coverage of what's been going on in Haiti. I really can't watch it for long. Is it just me, or are the reporters almost giddy with excitement when they're out there? It's kind of gross, but maybe I'm being paranoid.

Another thing that I've noticed is that every time I've turned on the news, the story is about a blonde girl or woman who had been in Haiti when the earthquake struck and that she's been discovered to be safe. Then there's the whole interview with their families here at home and how they are so thankful.

The thing is that I haven't seen one black Haitian-American family being interviewed about the family they have in Haiti. Granted, it could be that every time I turn on the television, the reporters just happened to be interviewing white families, but I don't know...

So yes, the coverage has been irking me--but whenever I ask someone about their experience, I've discovered that most of my friends are logging online for their news and not watching television, so they haven't come across my experience.

Peter thinks the best thing to do is to stop watching how the news is exploiting people and to send money to the Red Cross instead. And of course, he's always right.

Here's the link to the Red Cross.

ebay Person leonhart.306 is SOOO On My Shit List

2010-01-17T06:50:00.003-05:00

A few weeks ago I sold a bunch of items on ebay--and wouldn't you know it, the ONE ITEM that I didn't purchase insurance for got "lost." I actually believe that the ebay person I sold the item to totally got it and pretended it was lost, but that's neither here nor there because it was my fault for not taking precautions.

I guess I figured that since I didn't sell the item for that much, why bother paying more money for the insurance?

Being new to ebay, when the guy asked me for a refund, I quickly sent it to him--not making him cancel the transaction first so that I could at least get my ebay fees back--which is only a few dollars, but it is the PRINCIPLE. I know, that PRINCIPLE thing gets me every time.

So I've sent the guy a couple of emails that he never answers and when I asked him to cancel the transaction, he REFUSED.

URG!!

Of course Peter is all, "This is stupid, get a life."

Anyway, I have his home number and ebay says that I should call him and try to resolve this ourselves.

Hmmmm. I want to call him at 3am in the morning, but that's harassment.

It really burned me up because he was all, "If you refund my money I won't write you a negative review."

Then I refunded his money quickly--I was going to anyway--then he wrote me a totally unfairly negative review and lied about the entire transaction.

That's really the part that burned me up.

And you know the part that really annoys me? That this whole stupid thing is irritating me in the first place! I'm annoyed that this stupid thing is annoying me. It's such a stupid thing and easy to let go, but I can't stand it that this guy is such a jerk!

I hope that an avalanche falls on him.

Orange Julius

2010-01-13T03:37:00.002-05:00

When my father decided to open up his own business, he was seriously considering an Orange Julius franchise, which was so cool with me because I LOVED those things. We had a store at the Queens Mall and my dad wanted to open one up in Manhattan.

My parents really struggled financially in those days, so I don't think my father was able to cobble together the franchise money. But I still remember all the Orange Julius literature scattered all over the house (because to my father, the living room floor is a filing cabinet for all your important papers). When I found out that he decided to open up a Japanese restaurant instead, it was one more childhood disappointment.

For some inexplicable reason, Peter asked me completely randomly the other day, "What's an Orange Julius like?"

And I said, "Liquid AWESOME!"

Poor, poor Peter, never having had the childhood pleasure of an Orange Julius. No wonder he didn't like to eat fruit. His parents always bought mushy apples and pears and put bananas in the fridge. For the first few years of our relationship, my mother would give me Asian pears and I would ask Peter if he wanted a slice. He always turned up his nose and said, "I hate pears."

Then one day, he plucked one from my plate and said, "That's NOT a PEAR!!"

I said, "Huh?"

"Pears are gross and this is DELICIOUS!"

And I was all, "Yeah, well, WELCOME TO MY WORLD. I only eat DELICIOUS."

Once I realized that Peter was just fruit-ignorant, I introduced him to Fuji apples ("I didn't know apples could be crunchy"), pomelos ("That's like a huge-ass grapefruit"), pomegranates ("So, do I swallow the seeds?"), and other delights.

He asked me to look up an Orange Julius recipe and I found a couple of them on the internet--after some trial and error, we made up this recipe that tastes EXACTLY like my memory of an Orange Julius. Unfortunately, the closest Orange Julius location is 50 miles away and I haven't tried one since my age contained single digits, so I can't say that it definitely tastes this way. But it tastes like what my brain remembers.

The Orange Julius Recipe

6 ounces frozen orange juice concentrate
1 cup milk
1 cup water
1/4 cup agave nectar
1 teaspoon alcohol free vanilla flavor (that's what we have at home--but you can use extract)
8 ice cubes

Put everything in a blender and process until smooth and you'll have LIQUID AWESOME.

In order to make a slushy and not an Orange Julius, substitute the water and 8 ices cubes with one tray full of ice cubes and you'll get SLUSHY AWESOME.

FYI: The first time I used Trader Joe's frozen Organic Orange Juice concentrate--and it came out perfect.

The second time, I used my local Stop&Shop's Sunrise Valley frozen orange juice concentrate, which made the drink slightly too orangey--so you'll have to calibrate according to whatever concentrate you use.

I'm Totally Taking the Credit

2010-01-11T18:54:00.003-05:00

My sister and I have the same voice, which has always made it difficult on people who call the house, especially Jenny's friends. One time I picked up the phone, said, "Hello," and her friend started going on and on about a private matter and when she finally took in a breath I said, "Do you want to speak to Jenny?"

To which she replied, "Uhm. Uh.... Yes. And all that other stuff? I was just kidding."

I left a message on my sister's cell phone today and when she called me back, she was cracking up.

She said, "When I hear MY OWN VOICE on the voicemail, you don't have to say, 'It's your sister.' I mean, it's easy to figure out who it is because why would I be calling MYSELF?"

Then later on, we both said, "COOL!" at the very same time and it was kind of strange. Not only do our voices sound exactly alike, but our inflections were exactly the same.

"Do you think you talk like me because you imitated me when you were younger or do you think that the way we talk is totally genetic?" I asked.

"It's okay," she said. "You can take credit for my personality."

Things to Do Before I, You Know...

2010-01-09T06:48:00.004-05:00

Instead of New Year's Resolutions, I decided to finally put together a list of the things I want to do in life. And it was actually kind of cathartic, writing them down. It makes me take these nebulous ideas out of my head and turn them into serious goals. Like, hey! If this is the only life I get, what do I want to do?

This list will be ever-expanding--whenever I come up with more things I want to do, I'm going to add them. Although I think I've made enough New Year's Resolutions here for a lifetime.

Go shopping in London
Safari in Kenya
See the pyramids in Egypt
Watch the sunset in Bali
See the fireworks at Niagara Falls
Experience bioluminescent swimming
Take another photo at the Grand Canyon
Go to a fashion show in Paris
Buy a watch in Switzerland
Leave a can of succatash on Elvis's grave at Graceland
Go to Seattle to see if it's always raining
Eat at a vegetarian restaurant in Portland
Snorkel in bora bora
Go to Hawaii just to go
Introduce Peter to my gajillion cousins in Taiwan
Take Peter to the camera shop and Harajiku in Tokyo
Swim in the Dead Sea (like Jesus!)
Take a photo with that big statue in rio de janero
See if Hong Kong really is as cool as everyone says it is
Live outside the US for a period of time
Take an Alaskan cruise
Do the American road trip in an RV
Go to Newfoundland
Experience the Taj Mahal
Own waterfront property
Move somewhere it doesn't snow
Attend a festival in Rome
Explore the ruins of Greece
Stay at the fancy shmancy Canyon Ranch spa
Attend the Hay Festival in Wales
Learn how to use my camera and take awesome photos
Grow an organic garden
Have a baby
Meet Oprah
Learn how to bake pies
Adopt a beagle or king cavalier
Adopt a miniature horse
Have my home photographed for a decorating magazine
Write a Modern Love article in the NY TImes
Write a book
Make my friends some bath bombs
Open up my own store
Renew our wedding vows (and only invite people I like and to not be sick this time)
Start to compost our garbage
Write a song
Get a steam shower or sauna or hot tub
Learn how to play drums
Learn how to play the harp
Learn how to make bath bombs
Learn how to make a rag doll
Keep the house organized and clean
Finally learn html
Read the classics
Earn a phd
Win a pulitzer
Learn how to sail
Learn how to swim the front crawl
Become financially secure
Learn how to fix a car
Be happy with my weight (or get to a weight I'm happy with)
Learn how to knit
Learn how to sew
Learn how to sculpt
Learn how to paint well
Take a culinary course with my mom
Meet Julianne Moore
Walk the entire length of Manhattan
Learn how to belly dance
Attend a world series
Attend a superbowl
Learn spanish
Learn french
Learn japanese
Learn italian
Write a will
Learn how to juggle
Donate $1,000,000 to a charity
Buy a plug-in car
Ride on a hot-air balloon
Go to Monte Carlo
Ride a gondola in Venice
Take a pottery class
Learn how to make jewelry
Form a band
Go Zorbing
Throw the first pitch at a baseball game
Become a guest on a TV show
Learn how to woodwork
Learn how to walk on stilts
Experience the northern lights
Go to all 50 of the American states
Swim in the largest swimming pool in the world
Invent something
Revamp my blog and make it awesome
Dinner at Per Se
Make a short film
Write a cookbook
Watch a space shuttle launch
Visit every baseball stadium in the major leagues
Get an invitation to the White House
Receive a personal letter from a super-famous person

Which One to Buy?

2010-01-07T01:06:00.002-05:00

The single most annoying thing about buying appliances are that manufacturers make so many of them!

When I was shopping for a stove, there are a gazillion stoves at Sears--and even when you've whittled down the manufacturers, let's say, Whirlpool? Whirlpool makes a gajillion free-standing standard one-oven stoves!

I just wish that there was a store that was just called "Buy This One." Just TELL ME what your best product is!

Right now I'd like to get a dehydrator--and I've given up! Yes, I know Excalibur makes the best dehydrator, but what is the difference between the ED 2900 vs the ED2500? Not to mention the 3900 Deluxe Series? Why should I buy the Deluxe Series? Why are you making all these different kinds of dehydrators? Why can't you just make one and say--"That's it! That's our best one."

This is not like a diner with lots of things on the menu--because each item on the menu is a different food. When you read the descriptions of the Excaliburs--I can't see anything different.

This happened a few weeks ago when I was shopping for a Garmin. Should I get the Nuvi 255W or the 350? The 265W/265 WT? Or how about the 780? The difference in price ranges from $130 to $400.

Huh? Wha? Uhm....

It was too much. I gave up and didn't buy ANY Garmin in protest.

Fuck you Garmin! You and all your choices!! They are totally paralyzing me!!

New Year's Resolutions

2010-01-04T01:42:00.002-05:00

Ooops, I forgot to make some New Year's Resolutions...My New Year's Resolution: to get some for 2011.

I can't believe it's 2010!!

For those of us who grew up in the seventies and eighties, 2010 is something we've always thought of as THE FUTURE.

Kind of scary.

Rocky's Christmas Present to Us

2009-12-31T01:25:00.003-05:00

This morning Peter woke up to find a pile of mushy poop next to the kitchen door.

Poor Rocky.

He's feeling much better after we've fed him several Pepto-Bismol pills. He's stopped wanting to go out every two seconds and his farting has subsided. I'm glad I didn't have to take him to the vet.

The sweet thing is that when he's not feeling good, he sidles up next to Peter and curls up against him--and when Peter goes upstairs at night, Rocky curls up by the staircase.

One funny thing about this whole thing is that before this week, Rocky's never had an audible fart. But during the past few days, he'll be lying down and a loud fart comes ripping out of his butt, which makes him jump up and whip his body around and he looks at me like, "What the HELL is goin' on here!"

Don't Put Bird Seed Out in December

2009-12-29T03:09:00.003-05:00

While we were at the Lowe's shopping for faucet hoses and Christmas decorations, we saw several bird feeders and I picked one up because we have some of the cutest little birds flying around our house, including some gorgeous bright red cardinals and bluejays.

One morning a few weeks ago, Peter says, "Look out the window!"

There hung the bird feeder filled with birdseed.

"Hmmmm." I said. "Should you have put this out right now? I don't think there are any birds."

"Sure there are birds!"

Yah. Right.

Fast forward to yesterday when Rocky wouldn't come back into the house every time I let him out. Usually he starts to run for the door as soon as he hears me open it. Last night, I went out there and he was engrossed with a portion of the yard. I couldn't see what he was doing, but I was really surprised that when I dangled a carrot he still would not come back. I mean, he usually mows down anything in his way to get to his carrot.

This morning Peter discovered that the bird feeder that had remained filled with birdseed for the past few weeks was now hanging empty. Apparently, the bottom of the feeder fell out and all the seed tumbled all over our lawn. Crappy $5 bird feeder! Damn you!!

What Rocky had been doing all day yesterday was EATING THE BIRD SEED.

And today he has been farting and farting and coming up to us and nudging us to let him out. As soon as I let him back in the house, he starts to nudge us again to be let out. It's driving us totally bonkers!

These birdseed farts are the most heinous and noxious things ever created.

I said to Peter, "Do you think that he's put two and two together that the eating the birdseed is what caused the diarrhea?"

"Uhm," he said. "Maybe."

"Well, I hope he's learned his lesson!"

"Don't you mean, you hope that WE'VE learned the lesson?"

Smart Santa

2009-12-25T00:28:00.003-05:00

When I was six years old my family and I moved to a house in New Jersey, the same house that my parents live now. I was super excited for Christmas because we had a REAL FIREPLACE!! Which meant that Santa could come to the house!! The year before my father had to wait up and let him in the front door.

I told my mother that I needed to get a stocking so that Santa could put a present in it. She really didn't take me very seriously but I whined and whined about it and finally she went to her suitcase and pulled out all sort of stupid stockings. I wanted to go out and buy a real red and white stocking like everyone had, but we didn't have much money in those days. My mom pulled out this long green, orange and white striped thigh-high stocking that she had, remember, this was the seventies, and my father fastened it above our mantelpiece.

Of course I was all, "Uhm...That's totally never going to work. The only thing that's going to fit into THAT stocking is a baseball bat...and I DON'T WANT a baseball bat!!"

This was just another one of those American things that my parents get ALL WRONG and now I was resigned to the fact that I was going to get a stupid gift.

So come Christmas morning, I ran down the stairs to find that Santa had TIED THE STOCKING AROUND MY PRESENT. It was a paint-by-numbers set of Wyle E. Coyote. I really loved that present because IT WAS NOT A BASEBALL BAT!! Instead of trying to put something INSIDE the stocking, he thought OUTSIDE THE BOX!!

And I remember thinking, "Wow, that Santa is SO SMART. No matter what silly stuff my parents do to try to RUIN EVERYTHING, he TOTALLY KNOWS how to make it right. Because he's SANTA."

oink OINK!!

2009-12-16T04:31:00.002-05:00

So I have the chills, a slight fever (or a broken thermometer), sore throat, runny nose, a cough, and the no-feeling-so-goods.

I'm really deathly afraid of swine flu--especially since I'm a germaphobe in general. But when I came down with this cold, everyone in my life has pooh-poohed me whenever I bring up swine flu.

The last few days, I've been putting Swine Flu apps on my iphone and checking my temperature with this Vicks thermometer I had lying around.

My temperatures:
99.9
98.4
99.7
98.9
99.6

That's just the last five minutes. I turned to Peter and asked, "What if this thing is totally shitty and I'm really raging a fever right now?"

Without even touching my forehead, he says, "You DON'T have a fever. If you did, I would know."

And how's that?

Plus, he's being totally unsympathetic about this illness. He's still all, "When are you cleaning up the kitchen?" and "You're not that sick." and "Let the dogs out."

Every time I let the dogs out, a blast of cold air chills me TO THE BONE and takes me two hours to get back to a normal temperature. And when I whine about this, he just gives me a look that is SO COLD--a look that says, "Lady, I just got you an iphone for Christmas and I work two jobs so that you can have it SO EASY."

Yes--he is the best husband in the world, but when it comes to illnesses? He really can't be bothered. AND he doesn't think you're all that sick.

Our Old Dog

2009-12-12T23:48:00.002-05:00

The other day Peter and I were talking about the dogs and I mentioned that labs have a life expectancy of 12-14 years and Peter said, "Well, Scout's already 10 and-a-half. 12 is just a year-and-a-half away."

I was all, "Sure, make me cry, why don't you!"

The World Has Changed Before Our Eyes

2009-12-04T11:45:00.002-05:00

Every morning we've been waking up to a British radio station on our newfangled internet radio alarm clock. And we don't even live in England! Technology is so cool.

Although it's a little jarring to hear the DJ's accent in the morning. I can't understand every third word. Is it the accent or my sleepiness?

Thanksgiving

2009-11-29T17:50:00.002-05:00

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!!

2009-11-23T08:28:00.000-05:00

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

2009-11-18T06:07:00.002-05:00

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

2009-11-12T01:04:00.002-05:00

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!

2009-11-11T04:00:00.007-05:00

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

2009-11-07T01:16:00.003-05:00

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...

Moving in the Rain SUCKS!!

2009-10-29T18:25:00.001-04:00

Let's just say that the title just SAYS IT ALL.

More will come, I promise, including part 2 of the Surprise! party...

Moving...Again

2009-10-26T03:45:00.002-04:00

Here I am packing up boxes in the middle of the night.

Fun.

Let's see, how many moves does this make?

2001 (right after 9/11 into our first 1-bedroom coop--that was fun with the cops pulling over our U-Haul truck and breaking my beloved orange lamp).

2004 (into our new house right after we got married)

2006 (flipped the coop and moved into Mt. Kisco, where Peter wanted to live, then didn't want to live one day after we moved....URRRGGGHHHH.)

2008 (into our 2 bedroom coop after we flipped the condo)

2009 (back to our house!!)

That's right, count'em 5 moves in 8 years!!!!!

Peter says that he GUARANTEES me that we're staying put for a while---but he said that last year. All I've learned in this process is that I HATE MOVING and that I HAVE TOO MUCH STUFF.

And I'm The Jerk?

2009-10-21T21:17:00.002-04:00

So today, I caught this lady letting her dog take a wizz right outside my living room window--people in the building are not supposed to let their dogs pee in the courtyard, unfortunately, most of the owners of little dogs seem not to care. I've seen her do this a zillion times and today I was IN NO MOOD FOR IT.

I opened the door and said to her, "You know you're not supposed to let your dog do that. It's a $100 fine."

She turns around and tells me he doesn't pee--as she's saying this, he lifts his leg and pees and I point this out.

"Well," she said. "He's sick and blind. What else am I supposed to do?"

"Why don't you take him across the street?"

"He's BLIND!!!"

I was all, huh? What the hell difference does it make that he's blind? You carry him down the stairs from your apartment. You can walk him a few feet across the street to the park where we all go. And then to add insult to injury, she says:

"Well, I hope your dogs never get sick!"

Okay...what do my dogs have anything to do with your lazy ass being too lazy to walk across the street?

She acted like she was helpless to this whole situation when she's healthy enough to carry her dog and let him pee somewhere that is NOT OUR COURTYARD.

And yet, when I told Peter this story, he said, "Why were you acting like an asshole?"

"Wait a minute, she lets her dog pee right outside our apartment and I'M THE ASSHOLE?"

I do admit that I was in a bad mood, but she was CLEARLY in the wrong. And yes, everybody around here does it, so why am I bringing it up?

Because ONCE IN A WHILE I feel that people need to be CALLED OUT ON THEIR SHIT.

Y'know, because I'm a big'ole JERK.

She Looks Like My Mother

2009-10-19T04:18:00.002-04:00

I sent my sister this link to an article about graduation rates and I titled it "Did You Know You Were In the NY Times?"

I found it when I was doing some research about graduation rates. The college Peter works for has a graduation rate of 60%--which is really bad. Peter's alma mater has an 80.5% graduation rate and mine is 87%. Although, I do have to point out that we had a lot of Orthodox Jewish girls who attended my school for the single purpose of finding a husband. Two girls who lived on my floor freshman year were married and had kids by the time I was a senior. So if it weren't for these teenage brides, I'm sure our graduation rate would have been higher.

I found this article and saw that the picture was taken at Amherst--then I thought to myself, "Wouldn't it be funny if Jenny were in the photo?" And then I saw that she was! It was pretty surreal. She's the girl who is staring at the camera in the right side of the photo.

After I sent her the photo, Peter told me to follow up with her so I gave her a call and said, "Did you get my email?"

"Yeah," she said. "I sent that to you months ago."

"Oh, so you knew you were in the photo?"

"Months ago."

"Don't you think you look like Mommy in that picture?"

"What are you talking about?"

"Your picture in the article."

Apparently, when I said, "You Were in the NY Times," she took that to mean that HER SCHOOL was in the NY Times and not that she, Jenny, was actually photographed in the article. So she opens her web browser and FREAKS OUT because she looks EXACTLY LIKE MY MOTHER in that photo. In fact, I have a photograph of my mother at her high school graduation and she looks EXACTLY like that.

She looks so much like my mother in that photo that Peter said, "Was your mother wearing Jenny's graduation gown at the graduation?"

So Jenny sends this link to all her friends and in her subject note, she wrote, "Don't I Look Exactly Like My Mom in this Photo?"

Her friends wrote back:

You buried the lead! This isn't a PHOTO, it's a photo from the NY Times. Your subject note made it seem like you looked like your mother from a snapshot you took recently.

And her friend Tranny wrote back:

I emailed you this article MONTHS AGO! BECAUSE YOUR PICTURE WAS IN IT!

Yes, Jenny is just that ditzy that she read the article without noticing her own face staring back at her in the photo.

After I told Peter about that, he said, "Well, THAT'S why you have to follow up with people. Tranny should know better...I mean, it IS Jenny."

The Cat

2009-10-18T23:46:00.000-04:00

The day before we took her to Peter's mother's house, I had taken away her bed and she had peed on her scratching pad, so she didn't have a place to sleep on. Apparently, she looked at the dog bed and said to herself, "Well, I guess I'm sleeping here now."

I still can't believe that she did that.

I haven't been to see her since we gave her away, but Peter went to visit his mom the other day and she's been sleeping with his mom on her bed!!

They're like best buds now, which makes me feel good. The Meow Meow really wasn't working out for us, but she's keeping Peter's mom company. In fact, she wasn't allowed in certain rooms of the house at first, but since she's so well-trained, his mom has let her have the run of the house.

And my mother-in-law even said that I did a great job raising her because she's been a great cat.

Isn't that awesome?

In 12 years, I've finally done something right in her eyes!

Don't We Count? We're HAPPY!

2009-10-16T02:52:00.002-04:00

I'm gearing up for part 2 of the Surprise! party, but I wanted to write a little side-note. Apparently, Peter's sister said during the party that no one in their family is ever happy because they're not happy people.

"Wait," I said. "But you're happy. WE'RE happy! What does she mean by that?"

"I think she said that because she doesn't consider me a part of the family," Peter said.

"But after Jenny's graduation, my grandmother kept going on and on about how happy we are. (And then my mom said, 'Of course they're still happy! They don't have kids yet!' Yeah, that makes us want to have kids, right?)"

"It just goes to show you who's paying attention."

I Never Knew: The Surprise Party Story Part I

2009-10-12T23:21:00.008-04:00

Before the Surprise! party, my sister said, "Hey, wouldn't it be funny if the party went without a hitch and after all the anticipation of this stupid thing, you just wrote: It was fine. I mean, your followers would get SO MAD."

Yup, I can practically hear them clicking me off their blog rolls.

The night before, I was frantically trying to make these Martha Stewart tissue-paper flowers and it was SOOOO not working out.

They were supposed to look like this:

Instead, after two hours of accordion-folding and fluffing (Oh, the endless night of fluffing that didn't fluff the fluffstuff!) I only got these crappy pieces of tissue-paper GARBAGE.

I am a crafty person and I don't know what was going on--on the website, the pompoms looked like adorableness--maybe I'm just not crafty, but I AM!! All over her website, dozens of people said they made them and it made their bridal shower/birthday party/baby shower look absolutely GORGEOUS. I think that either their version of GORGEOUS differs greatly from mine--or I'm just a Martha craft failure.

I looked up at Peter after two hours and said, "I just don't think that this is an effective use of my time."

He looked at me and said, "I know. I wanted to say something to you earlier, but I didn't want to upset you."

In my mind, I had visions of how I wanted to decorate the space. I wanted to do such an AWESOME decorating job that people were going to have their minds BLOWN AWAY.

Unfortunately, I waited until the last minute and the tissue paper pom poms that were supposed to be just that thing turned into a pile of tissue-colored doo doo.

Instead, I wrapped up issues of the literary magazine I work for as an editor in gorgeous cardstock and folded a band of ribbon around them. They looked lovely. But Peter had his apprehensions about giving them out.

"They're philistines. They don't read literary magazines. They're just going to throw them in the garbage or leave them at the restaurant and you're going to get really mad."

I do know that about them and I did think about not giving them copies of the magazine, but then I figured the gift will be given from my heart and I can't control how they are received. I can only give what I have to give. I think Mother Teresa would have been proud, because you know how she's all giving out literary magazines to the philistines...and oh yeah, feeding the hungry and healing the sick.

The next morning, there was still a lot to do--my sister came over early to help. While she was here, Peter checked his email and found one from the Wicked Witch of the East--apparently, her daughter was sick and so they weren't coming. I was ECSTATIC to hear this news, although a bit surprised that the morning of the party, she's expecting us to be checking our email to get this information. Luckily, there was time to call the restaurant and get the tables rearranged.

The funniest thing was when Jenny texted her friend Emily to tell her that Wicked Witch of the East wasn't coming, Emily said, "What a BITCH! After WE'VE BEEN STRESSING all week about this, she didn't have the DECENCY to show up!"

I thought it was so cute and funny that people who have never even met Peter's sister are all, "What a BITCH!"

I wanted to get to the party an hour beforehand to set up and get things ready, but my sister and I are what we call "Vortexes of Time Suck." We inherited that from our mother. It's recessive and we both got the genes for it. For some reason, no matter how much time we are given to complete a task, the time is just sucked right out of the space-time continuum and it will take us an hour to do a simple task like pick up the cake from a bakery in the next town.

This is the reason why we will never become winners of Project Runway. Heidi will take a look at something we tried to make and say, "This looks like you threw it together in two minutes. AND it looks CHEAP."

So we get to the restaurant only about ten minutes before people are supposed to arrive and of course, people are already there. Fortunately, the restaurant threw up some cute balloons and decorations (Thank GOD) and so everything looked festive and cute already.

I forgot the candles and commissioned one of Peter's nephews to get them. I put out all the favors/place cards--I know it's a little strange since it's all family, but Peter DID NOT want to sit near his sister who hadn't been speaking to him the last seven years so I wanted to ensure that everyone knew where they belonged. We were SHOCKED that she emailed me to tell me she was coming and that night, she thanked me for inviting her twice.

I was all, "Uhm, I didn't actually invite you. I told your son that if he wanted to, he could invite you because I DIDN'T WANT TO BE RUDE and invite the entire family except for you and now we have regretted it since the minute you emailed us that you were coming. I mean, you didn't come to our wedding, you wrote in ALL CAPS on our response card WILL NOT BE ATTENDING. You didn't even send us a gift. I mean, I didn't send you an actual invitation. Can't you read between the lines?!?"

Okay, I didn't say that, I said, "Well, thanks for coming!"

To be continued....

Picky Eater

2009-10-07T04:08:00.004-04:00

I don't like beans. Yes, it's strange, but I've hated beans since I was 1 years old--according to my mom, I would pick each individual bean out of my azuki and rice she would make for me. I also don't like Feta cheese. My version of hell would be to have to eat a large brick of Feta.

I dated a few Greek guys and the thought of introducing me to their mothers always stirred up a bit of fear because of the Feta-hating. And oh yeah, the grape-leaves-hating.

Today we went to Tomatillo again and fortunately, we did not get my most unfavorite waiter. My unfavorite waiter messes up my order 80 percent of the time. He's this skinny hipster-ish guy who is the only white guy who works the tables. And every time I ask for a tofu burrito WITH NO BEANS, he can't seem to keep it straight and there they are, the dreaded pinto beans in my freaking burrito.

Since my parents own a restaurant and I'm with a guy who hates it when I return food to the kitchen, I always sit there and eat the messed up food, not enjoying it one bit.

Last time we went to Tomatillo, I said to Peter pretty loudly, "Oh good, that AWFUL waiter isn't here today." I didn't see him when we walked in, but the people at the table next to us seemed startled and a few minutes later, the awful waiter sat down next to them for a little bit of chit-chat.

Peter said, "They totally knew that you were talking about their friend."

So? He's a crappy waiter. I'm sure if they are his friends, they know this by now.

Today, when I ordered my meal, I made it a point to say no beans and the waiter, who is Mexican, seemed really confused. My anti-beanness confuses a lot of Mexicans. And he asked me, "You want the rice, right? And do you want the lettuce? And do you want the tomatoes?"

Every time he asked me a question, I said, "Yes, I want everything EXCEPT the beans."

"So, you want the tortilla?"

And after I ordered, Peter looked at me and he looked like he had a revelation.

"Is THIS why you're hesitant to go to Mexican restaurants? Because of this bean thing?"

"YES!!" I said. "And it's really tough for me, because I LOVE Mexican food."

When I was little, everyone used to tell me that I would grow out of the bean hating business, but I never have. People always ask me what it is about beans I don't like and it's the texture of the beans when I'm chewing it and it gets all clumped up in my mouth.

"But mashed potatoes are like that and you LOVE mashed potatoes!" My mother would say.

Yeah, that's because it doesn't taste like anything but tons of butter and gravy.

You also can't travel through Asia not liking beans because Chinese people LOVE to serve mooncakes to their guests and I would always turn them down. And my uncles would get all indignant and mad and say, "They're DELICIOUS! You HAVE TO EAT ONE!"

And of course, I would say, "No, thank you." Which is apparently a REALLY RUDE thing to say to an elder. When an elder tells you to do something, you're supposed to do it, especially in Taiwan.

So I would put it on my plate and leave it untouched.

I am still known in some parts of Taiwan as: "The only girl I've ever met who hates mooncakes."

Open Letter to SNL

2009-10-04T00:44:00.004-04:00

Can't you write some funny skits? I mean, you only do ONE show a week, AND you have a musical guest who comes on twice.

I mean, seriously.

SERIOUSLY.

Hey Lorne Michaels! Stop appearing in those stupid skits and whip those writers into shape!

My IM Chat With Andrew

2009-10-02T02:49:00.003-04:00

andrew: how you doing? when's the surprise "party"?

Me: the 10th! Guess what? EVERYBODY is coming!

andrew: wow. the Wicked Witch of Long Island too?

Me: yes, wicked witch is coming with her wickedlings

andrew: u know what would be the BEST SURPRISE EVER?

Me: if we didn't show up and didn't tell them?

andrew: if you and Peter weren't HOME! "like this, like this!"

Me: actually, now that there's so many people, we're not all going to fit! my suggestion was to disinvite people-- we're going to have to go to a restaurant and spend endless amounts of money!

andrew: wow!

Me: well, that's fine--although I'm glad that everyone's coming since it's for her, I'm not looking forward to dealing with these people--what WHAT WHAT was I THINKING!!!!!

andrew: wow, so generous!

Me: Although my parents ARE SO PROUD OF ME and I feel a little guilty because they think I'm a better person than I am--I ONLY invited these people thinking they weren't going to come! Some of these people didn't even go to their own father's funeral!
Suffice it to say, the SURPRISE! Is on US!

andrew: haha
THE BIG FUNNY!
u said u have a sizeable backyard? why not rent a tent and hold a circus with these freaks?

Me: I'm a little stressed out that everyone is coming! JERKS! And Peter's nephew--the one who DID NOT GIVE US A GIFT for our wedding EVEN THOUGH HE WAS A GROOMSMAN and we bought HIM a groomsman gift is bringing his girlfriend--and I'm sure, showing up empty-handed.

andrew: to be mentally prepared for thsi u really have to be prepared for the WORST absolute WORST that can happen
just imagine everyone screaming and fighting, and crying and storming out

Me: Them BEING there is already the worst (peter said that)

andrew: and being majorly ungrateful - then u'll be ready for anything!

Me: I'm a little worried that they're going to order up a storm knowing that it's on our dime

andrew: you could set a prix fix menu
tater tots for all!

Me: I know, but the local restaurant here is being a bit unflexible about that...I'm looking around
Peter wants it to be nice--I was thinking PIZZA PARTY!

andrew: MMMM PIZZAAAAAA

Me: my parents think they raised a wonderful daughter and now I'm a bit ashamed of how annoyed I am that they are all coming--- Can you come? I NEED THE SUPPORT!! Plus, it may be the only time you'll get to meet them.
There are going to be more of his family members there than at our wedding...

andrew: is that an incentive?

Me: and definitely more than my bridal shower because...no one came to that.

andrew: I'll be in Boston that weekend

Me: my sister is going to be there--and my mom might also.

andrew: u want more support than Peter and Jenny?

Me: I need the ROCK OF GIBRALTAR-sized support

andrew:well, i'll think about it

Me: My friend Marisol was going to come, but she can't because she's taking stupid weekend classes at YALE

andrew: watch it rain and nobody show

Me: YES!! If only!!

How Did 12 Years Slip By Us?

2009-10-01T23:00:00.000-04:00

Yesterday Peter and I were sitting on the sofa and I realized that our 12th year anniversary of the day we met passed by us...on September 5th. Yup, about a month ago.

I asked him if our wedding anniversary were not on Halloween if we would have both forgotten it already. He said no, but I don't know....

Anyway, it was 12 years and a month ago when I went to a venue with my friend Paul to go see his coworker play in a band. Paul said, to me, "That's the guy who knows Beck," and of course Odelay was my favorite album at the time, the album I was listening to on my long, and I mean looooong, train rides back and forth from Ann Arbor, Michigan. So to hear someone actually KNOWS this guy?

So I sat down next to Peter and said, "I like your glasses."

And the rest, as they say, is history.

There's Not Enough Charm

2009-09-29T23:10:00.004-04:00

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

2009-09-28T01:10:00.004-04:00

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

2009-09-22T12:43:00.003-04:00

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!!

2009-09-21T04:02:00.003-04:00

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..."