The Worst Book EVER!!!!

I have been a lifelong reader of books ever since I have learned how to read. I have read many books. Some good, some bad, but never have I read a book and thought to myself, "THIS is the WORST BOOK EVER WRITTEN." It wins the Pulitzer Prize of BAD books.

My friends, I have discovered the NADIR OF LITERATURE and it is "You've Been Warned," by James Patterson and Howard Roughan.

I discovered this book sitting in a drawer at the house we rented in Florida. I like great literature, but I also like a good thriller. I've read some of Patterson's other books. He doesn't have the insight or the great writing voice as Stephen King, but it's like cotton candy. Most of the time, it's disgusting, but every once in a while, you want some.

Spoiler alert in case you ever want to read the NADIR OF THE WRITTEN WORD--

The story starts out with a girl nanny who is having an affair with the man of the house. The woman of the house is a witch (of course) and the kids love the nanny more than their stepmother. Okay. Can we get more cliche? This character has these awful nightmares and keeps seeing people on the streets who have died. Then she witnesses the same events from her dreams.

You would think that this was a murder-mystery, what with the body bags and the moving arm she sees poking out, but no. We go right back into the boring-ass story about her stupid affair. And then the end? In the end we discover that the wife was having an affair with a younger man all along, the nanny told the husband. The husband went to the hotel to discover what happened and ended up killing the boyfriend. The wife kills the husband and the nanny tries to save the boyfriend, killing the wife in the process. However, when the wife was defending herself, the nanny got herself killed and...the body bags the nanny saw in her dreams were of the four of them! They're all dead and she's been reliving this nightmare on a loop! It's Groundhog Day, but with body bags!

I think this may be a huge April fool's joke Patterson is playing on all of us. I mean, the title is "You've Been Warned." That should have told me something.

Honor Your Father and Mother

My mother-in-law hasn't spoken to her daughter since she got back from her house during Christmas vacation. My sister-in-law is not my favorite person, ever since that time she told me I wasn't part of the family. It's also hard not to judge someone who skips out early on her own father's funeral and refusing to attend the burial because she wanted to go to a local restaurant with friends.

I grew up attending a Catholic school and all throughout my childhood, I could never parse these people, these Catholics who attended church on Sundays and Wednesdays and, at the same time, show such racism toward me. Not everyone, of course. My best friends have been Catholics and I married someone who was raised Catholic. As my friend Andrew says, "I guess Jesus feels like he owes you!"

On Christmas morning, Peter's mother wanted to attend Christmas Mass, which she does every year. Her daughter knew that Peter's mother wanted to go with her, but snuck out of the house without taking her. Since I studied the Ten Commandments in kindergarten, I know that the fifth commandment in the Catholic faith is, "Honor your father and mother." In fact, that commandment is listed above, "You shall not kill."

I always felt that this meant God viewed honoring your parents as more important than not committing murder.

This is the sort of behavior which always annoyed me about certain practicing Catholics. They will cut you off to get a parking spot to make it to Church on time. They will leave their mother at home to go to Church to act pious.

When she arrived back home, Peter's mother had it out with her daughter and during their argument Peter's sister said, "Maybe I'll be DEAD by next year and you won't have to deal with this at all!"

Of course, Peter's mother played right into her hands by crying and professing her love. This behavior is so manipulative. Peter's sister basically avoids being called out for bad behavior by taunting and scaring her mother. I don't even know why she bothers inviting her over the house if she's just going to ignore and terrorize her all week.

This reminds me of a time I had a huge argument with my father during my adolescence. We have a very strange relationship. I met him when I was five years old because he had come to the US to make a living. During my childhood, he wasn't a very good father. Seeing him become a better father to my sisters has healed some of what I endured.

I can't remember what we were fighting about, but he turned to me and said, "You can blame me for every unhappiness in your life. I know that I've given you many things to be unhappy about. But I also know that I've given you joy. It's your choice, what you choose to keep and what you choose to throw away."

It was the turning point in our relationship. Sure, he still drives me crazy. The other day, as I was on the telephone with my sister, I heard that timbre in his voice as he was talking with my mother. The one that made me want to run to my room and hide and I thought, "Hey! I'm THIRTY-FIVE YEARS OLD. I can just HANG UP THE PHONE and not have to hear this!"

When I was young, I would cry in my grandmother's arms and she would say, "He's not the best father in the world, but he's not the worst. There are some people who have burned their children alive."

Thanks Ama. Way to put that in perspective. At least my father doesn't use me for kindling.

Peter's mother gave birth to four healthy children. Three of them seem to hate her. And even though she may not have had the best capacities to guide her children through life, they are all still healthy and successful, with beautiful families and large homes (multiple homes, even). I'm sure there are thousands of people out there who would chop off their leg to have what these people have. However, they seem so unhappy and they harbor so much resentment toward their mother, which I don't understand. I often wonder about the good memories. Where did they store them?

I hope to be the kind of person that will remember the good things. It's not easy. I think it's easier to harbor negative thoughts and resentments. I guess that's my new New Year's Resolution. To be more POSITIVE!

To start, I guess I should stop grousing about how horrible my sister-in-law is.

It Says STUFT!!!!

Peter and I went on a week-long trip to Florida to do some research on whether or not we want to move to St. Petersburg.

Pro: No Winter

Con: Not NYC

The most annoying thing about this trip was that we didn't pack any food for the ride back home to New York. We drove because it was such a last-minute trip during the most popular time in the year to go to Florida, so we couldn't get a reasonably priced airfare. We figured that we would just drive up and stop by a Quiznos or Panera Bread and then get to our favorite restaurant in Virginia for dinner.

What we didn't count on was that we would get stuck in crazy unbelievable traffic in Georgia so we weren't going to make that restaurant in time. Also, there are NO PANERA BREADS all the way through Georgia and the Carolinas. Also no Quiznos. The ONE TIME WE STOPPED somewhere in South Carolina, Wendy's did not have the vegetable wrap. Apparently, they have no vegetarian options in any fast food by-the-road restaurant. Even the salads are sprinkled with chicken.

Finally, at around 9pm, we hadn't found anyplace for Peter to eat so we stopped by a Taco Bell drive-thru to see what they had and this was the conversation:

Peter: What does that say for number two?

Me: Uhmm. Steak?

Peter: No. Number two further down.

Me: It says STUFT

Peter: You mean it says STEAK.

Me: NO. It says STUFT.

Peter: Steak, right?

Me: No. STUFT! STUFT! It says GRILLED STUFT BURRITO!!!!

Peter: What is that?

Me: I DON'T KNOW! I've NEVER BEEN TO TACO BELL BEFORE. Apparently, they do this to their burritos. They STUFT them!

Peter: Okay, well ask them what it is?

Me (to the window): What's in the STUFT Burrito?

Window dude: Uhm. Well, you can have chicken or steak and there's beans. And there's other things in there...uh....uhm...but I don't know how to explain it.

Me: Can we have one that doesn't have any meat in it?

Window dude: Sure.

A few minutes later, while Peter is eating his STUFT, he turns to me and says, "What is it that the guy had trouble explaining? It's beans with vegetables and melted cheese. Doesn't he ever look into one of these things?"

"Well," I said. "I think he's just used to dealing with people who order Taco Bell every day. I was just throwing him into a tailspin. But perhaps those aren't real vegetables and cheese so he didn't know exactly how to explain the polymethlsiloxane that's in the sandwich."

"I don't THINK so."

Happy New YEAR!

When Peter asked me what my New Year's Resolutions were this year, I said:

Lose ten pounds.

Get a great job I love.

Try to have a baby.

To which he replied:

Those aren't resolutions. Those are wishes.

Huh?

What's the difference between resolutions and wishes?

Treedmend

I got my hair cut on Tuesday at the Korean salon near my mother's house. The way my mother found this salon was by asking a cashier from one of the local shops where she gets her hair cut. So far, both my sisters, my mother and my grandmother has been sent to this shop because this is what my mother does. She decides you need a haircut and makes you CAH-RAZY until you agree to go to her salon. It goes like this:

"You need a haircut."

"I'll get around to it."

"No you won't. You will continue to look unkempt with all your hair flopping all over the place for months and months."

"Like I said. I'll GET AROUND TO IT."

Then, every time she sees me, she'll make this clicking noise with her teeth, which sums up all the disapproval for every life choice I've ever made, culminating in the fact that I HAVEN'T GOTTEN MY HAIR CUT.

So fine.

I went.

I was strapped into a chair and these thoughts rushed through my mind, like--I DO NOT want to look like an old Korean lady. What in the world am I DOING HERE? My hair is my shining glory--am I really going to let this happen? It didn't help matters that, as I sat there, my wet hair dripping water onto the towel draped over my shoulders, my mother leans forward and says, "Well, anyway, if you don't like it, it'll grow back."

Not words of comfort.

Then, the girl behind the counter said:

"While you're here, you should get a Brazilian Treedmend."

My hands instinctively covered my crotch and I said, "No thank you."

But she didn't let it go.

"You need it to straighten you hair."

It dawns on me that this Brazilian thing doesn't have anything to do with my girl parts.

"Oh, what is it again?"

"Brazilian Treedmend."

"Treatment?"

"Yah, treedmend. To straighten your hair."

"My hair's pretty straight."

She takes a dismissive look at my hair as if it had caterpillars crawling all over it and said, "No. Your hair? It's frizzy."

Let me tell you, my hair is NOT frizzy. It's so shiny I use it as a nightlight in my bedroom. But I suppose this is how the beauty industry chugs along, one treedmend at a time.

My sister got such a kick out of the way the girl said treedmend that she walked over and said, "What was that again? The Brazilian what?"

PENIS!

This evening, when I took my dogs out for a walk, I noticed that some kids had drawn a bunch of dog bones on the snow that had accumulated on car windshields. I passed by my car and saw the letters P-E-N-I-S in huge capital letters and realized that those were not dog bones.

Just really badly drawn penises.

Why would anyone draw balls on both sides of the penises?

Your Wii Controller Smells So Good!

I am afraid of germs. That is why I carry a bottle of Purell and wet wipes with me everywhere I go. I try not to touch door handles in public. When I wash my hands in a public toilet, I do not use the hot air dryer, but a paper towel. Then I use that paper towel to open the bathroom door.

This is something Peter used to make fun of, but he is now one of the converted. Because he has seen people go to the bathroom and walk out the door, TOUCHING the door handle.

The other day I brought the kid I babysit over my apartment because my sister made the good point that since I have 2 dogs, a cat, and a Wii, this makes my apartment the child's fantasy dreamland.

"You mean, I live in a dreamland?" I said.

"Uh...Yeah..." she said.

So after the kid went home, I Purelled all the Wii controllers. Why? Because I don't see children as small people--I see them as creatures teeming with bacteria.

So when my sister came over last night, we're playing Wii and she brings the Wii controller close to her face and said, "Wow! These newer type controllers smell SO GOOD!"

I Quit!

Today I quit my babysitting job. I felt kind of bad about it, because no one wants to go through the trouble of hiring someone, especially someone as AWESOME as I am, and then hear that she wants to leave. I had wanted to do this in person, but the mom is always working late and I haven't seen her in weeks. So today when she called the house, I had to buckle down and tell her over the phone.

Her reaction was what I expected. She was REALLY ANNOYED.

I told her that I had been offered a full-time job. Okay. That's not true, but I didn't have the guts to come out and say, "You're boyfriend really creeps me out and I don't like his energy or his naked afternoon parades."

I told her that I would give her until the second week in January because I wanted to give her four weeks notice. Between you and me, internet, this is something I didn't want to do, but I thought that the extra few weeks would be appreciated. In an exasperated tone, she said that it really wasn't enough time since she couldn't start to look until after the holidays. I did see her point and I felt really bad about it. I felt bad about it for about an hour until I realized something: This wasn't the job I had signed up for!

The job I signed up for was taking care of her son, which was pretty easy work. He's a nice kid who doesn't trouble me at all. I like the mom and the dad, who both seem like nice people.

However, I did NOT sign up for the boyfriend. And since he's home ALL THE TIME, I don't see why she can't just get him to pick the kid up after school until they find someone better.

If the job had continued to be the same job I had the first month I had started, then I would have been more than happy to keep working there.

Also, whenever she doesn't need me, she only gives me about a day's notice, which had irked me because I do plan my life around having to be around for those hours. I felt that I gave her more of a courtesy than she had shown me. Let this be a tip to all you moms out there.

If you want to keep a babysitter happy (and working with you for a LONG time), you can't be taking away hours all the time. In the future, when I hire a babysitter, I will definitely pay her a set amount each week whether I use her or not. I don't think it's worth the extra $30 you save here and there because that babysitter, if she's a good one, will find a better situation.

The Idealized You by Wii

Last weekend I was really excited to have Peter's friends over because I had made Miis that looked EXACTLY like them. It was astonishing how close I got.

So when we turned it on during halftime of the Steeler's game, the Miis came on the screen and the comments were:

"That doesn't look like me at all!"

"Where's my goatee?"

"Why do I have a smirk on my face?"

"My eyes don't look like that!"

Okay. Hold. The Freak. Up.

The Wii gives you like 8 types of faces and a VERY LIMITED amount of variations. I had created these two masterpieces of Wii Mii. I had become the Leonardo da Vinci of the Mii and here they were COMPLAINING?

I felt like saying:

"This is the idealized you. Notice that you didn't say, 'Where's my drinking problem?' 'Where's my gut?' 'Where's my bald spot?'"

I Guess I'm Quitting

This afternoon, I was sitting in the dining room of the house where I'm babysitting, and the dreaded boyfriend loafs down the stairs and says to me, in a really disparaging way as if I was a five-year-old:

Him: "Did you call -(the kid's mom)- yet?"

Me: "No."

Him: "Uh...WELL...Don't you think you SHOULD?"

The thing is, I've been doing this for the past 3.5 months and I never call the mom. She usually calls the house whenever she wants to talk to me...after all, she KNOWS I'm there. It's no mystery.

Now, I don't know if I'm blowing this whole thing way out of proportion because every time he talks to me, I want to say:

"Uhm...Did you roll over and DIE yet? Uh...WELL...Don't you think you SHOULD?"

Put Yer Shirt On

The boyfriend of the lady whose son I babysit (hmmm... could this be more confusing?) often comes downstairs from taking a shower, which he does at 4:30pm every day -- I mean, 4:30pm? Most people take showers in the morning or at night, but in the early evening? -- wearing only a bathrobe or a towel or jeans and no top.

Am I being prudish, because I find this completely INAPPROPRIATE and when I talked to Peter about it, he said that I cannot say anything if I want to keep this job, which I actually don't want anymore because of this stupid boyfriend.

He says my best bet is to say something to the boyfriend, but I don't want to talk to him at all.

It's not the biggest deal in the world, in the whole scheme of my life, it's such a nothing thing. I think he's mostly doing it for attention and to even mention it will give him what he wants. So I completely ignore him and curse him for being such a douche.

I think when I'm out the door, I'll tell the mom, "Oh, by the way, you MIGHT want to warn the next babysitter about the naked boyfriend parade at 4:30pm."

Snow Already

So last weekend Peter and I were programming our new Wii and there's this feature where we can put in our location and we will have access to weather reports. So Peter puts in our location and we flick on the weather report and it says that it is snowing. In shock, I say, "Oh my gosh! It's snowing!"

Peter looks at me with his crooked Harrison Ford grin and says, "Uh huh...VERY funny!"

"I'm totally serious," I said.

"Right. So if I open the blinds, I will see snow falling."

"Yah, dude."

So he goes over to the window, peeks through the blinds and says, "Holy SHIT!"

Wii are Not Very Fit

Whenever a birthday or anniversary rolls along, there's never anything I really want. Actually, I always want elephant-shaped objects and cute orange-colored things, but Peter always refuses to purchase me anything that would be considered clutter or nonsense -- two types of things I LOVE.

So this year, I asked my sister what I should ask for as my anniverscary present and she said (without skipping a beat), "A Wii Fit!"

So I asked for one and I got one! Although our first Wii was stolen by someone in our building (or UPS) because the folks at Best Buy are GENIUSES and put "Wii Game Console" on the boxes. Duh, people!

Peter saw our old UPS guy at the local pizzeria and told him what happened. The UPS guy was all, "Oh yeah, people who work there steal stuff ALL the time. I wouldn't be surprised if it was stolen before it got to your building."

Nice.

But I totally think that someone in the building stole it. But that's their karma and Santa is SO not going to be happy about this. I'm going to write him a letter and HE KNOWS WHO YOU ARE.

The Wii Fit is SOOO much fun, but I don't really think that we will be able to lose any weight shifting our weight on a block of plastic, but I'll let you know in 6 months. It's really the most fun you can have with a video game and actually makes yoga fun. Although, because my weight is posted on the chart, I can never show my mother this video game because she thought I was fat about twenty pounds ago.

You Have to Go Home Now

Peter and I went on our trip to Cancun, Mexico and we stayed at a great resort. I was really nervous about booking this trip because I didn't want to make the wrong move, so I stayed up night after night reading about 805 reviews of the hotel. I knew I had done a little too much research when Peter ran out of singles and I told him, "Oh, they exchange twenties for singles at the front desk!"

It was the first time we had gone to a resort-type of facility and it was AWEsoooome! We had so much fun that I want to bring my parents next time. But then I thought back to every vacation we've ever had and it always involved Doing Something, Visiting Someone, Going Somewhere.

Every morning Peter and I would wake up and say, "What have we planned for the day? Uhm... Nothing? Sounds great!"

We just sat out there with constantly replenished drinks in our hand.

When we were shown our room, the bellhop pointed all the amenities to us and made a big deal out of telling us that there were two porn channels (since this is an all-adult, mostly honeymooning resort). And during the whole week, we would be blithely channel-surfing when, all of a sudden, GAPING ORIFICES would appear on screen causing us to scream at the television.

I guess that's what most men want to see, alternating HUGE CLOSE-UPS of gaping orifices and those orifices being stuffed by unnaturally huge and alien-like penises. It's more scary than sexy. Actually, scary would be an understatement. Gross would be another understatement. You know it's bad when you're sitting there thinking, "Wait, that doesn't belong there...unless...ew, GROSSGROSSGROSS!"

Of course, I can't watch porn because I always look at the poor girls (who look obviously high on whatever it is that gets them through the ordeal) and think what a sad life they must lead and I hope that they haven't been kidnapped and sold into sex slavery. This kind of thinking is what Peter calls "taking all the fun out of" thinking.

Seven days of pure relaxation made us realize that we wanted to live every day like that. Except for the being drunk seven hours of the day every day part.

At the end of our trip at checkout, the girl asked us if we had a nice time and we said, "Oh YES! We had the BEST TIME!"

She answered with, "But now you have to go home."

And Peter muttered, "Bitch," under his breath.

I Can Handle It

Tonight my friend Andrew called because he's coming to NYC this weekend and we're going to be hanging out. This is sort of a huge step for us because he broke up our bestfriendship a few months before my wedding, at a time when I was really stressed out because I hadn't selected a venue, my mother had just started a new business and was completely unavailable for any support, and every question I asked my then-fiance about anything concerning the wedding, be it invitations of programs or cake was met with, "I don't care."

Of course, what Peter ACTUALLY meant was, "Whatever you wish, love of my life." But he chose to express it as, "I don't care."

I ended up not inviting Andrew to my wedding. At the time it was just one more thing I didn't want to deal with, especially having to already deal with Peter's estranged family members, the non-estranged mean and awful sister, my grandfather who was rushed to the hospital the week of my wedding, etc. etc. ETC!

In hindsight, I felt that I should have invited him and my advice to anyone getting married is that if you want to ever have a relationship with the person you're thinking of not inviting, please invite him/her to your wedding. Because even though you don't want your crazy bitch sister at your wedding because you hate her, one day she may marry George Clooney and wouldn't you just wish you could spend the summer with them in Italy.

We've been trying to repair our friendship for the past few years now and this last phone conversation actually felt like the old days.

We were talking about how he has this friend who does not believe in conserving water. He leaves the water running for half an hour before he showers and when Andrew travels with him to foreign countries, sometimes very poor countries with limited water supplies, it drives Andrew up the wall.

During one of the two years my family lived in NJ in the early eighties, we had a drought in Bergen County. Some of our neighbors who would water their lawn at 2 in the morning, which would drive me crazy because in my house my grandmother was taking micro-showers. To this day, I don't know how she would do it. She would go into the shower with a Dixie cup full of water and two minutes later, have been bathed and shampooed and smelling like flowers.

I used to feel that those bad neighbors were spitting in the face of all the sacrifices my family made to preserve our water supply. And for what? Green lawns? It soon became a badge of honor to have a dead yellow lawn and anyone with a green lawn was looked upon as a traitor.

Andrew told me that it's very common in San Francisco for people to turn on the faucet and leave the water running when they're in the bathroom. And when people do that at his house, Andrew says to them:

Hey! Stop wasting water in there! Listen, if I hear you pooping or farting in there, don't worry! I can handle it!

The Olden Days

The one thing I really wish we had in the NY area is a good radio station. And puh-lease Do NOT email me about how much you like THE PEAK 107.1 because I can't get into a radio station that plays Phil Collins every other song.

And what is the deal with Westchester and Phil Collins, anyway?

I mean, everywhere I go...

When I went to Amherst, I flipped through the radio channels and found a station that played the greatest music. A bunch of stuff that was popular when I was in college and right after the DJ played Sleater-Kinney she told the listeners:

"Hey! That was something from the OLDEN DAYS OF THE NINETIES. We feel that it's really important to listen to the great music in our archives."

Uhm... OLDEN DAYS? Really? Already?

That didn't just make me feel old, it made me feel completely ancient.

But the very next day I was mistaken for a high school student, so although I may look young, really I'm old and listen to ARCHIVAL MUSIC. Y'know, from the OLDEN DAYS OF LIZ PHAIR.

Skimitar

Last week at my creative writing class, one of my students read from his short story and pronounced scimitar SKIM-I-TAR and I almost cracked up laughing because my sister and I just had a conversation about pronouncing things wrong.

In my sister's Chinese class, the professor said that she was reading a famous German writer and she pronounced the name in Chinese, but no one could understand her. This makes complete sense because it took me years to realize that when my mother mentioned someone named E-luh-Tz-BYE-Teh-Loh she was talking about the actress I knew as Elizabeth Taylor.

The professor wrote the name on the board and said, "I really like this author, GO-eh-theh."

Jenny casually mentioned that she was pretty sure it was pronounced, "GER-tuh."

"Well, you should know," I said. "We used to live right around the corner from Goethe Street when we were growing up." But of course, I forget that she was intsy-bintsy when we used to live there and she had no idea. I always thought that it was funny to name a group of streets in Elmhurst, Queens after philosophers. I'm sure all the people in the area pronounced it the same way as Jenny's professor.

There's an area in Hartsdale called Poet's Corner because all the streets are named after poets - it's pretty funny because the guidos who live there probably don't even know who Keats is. And I mean guido in the nicest way possible, because some of those people who live there, with their statues of water-spouting cherubs on the front lawn? They're some of our best friends.

When I was in high school, this guy named Jonathan asked me out on a date. At the young age of 16, I hadn't mastered the art of telling a nice guy that I wasn't interested and letting him down easy. Instead, I decided to say yes and then invite all my friends to the movies with us and pretend it wasn't a date, but a mere gathering amongst friends.

During lunch at McDonald's, I was talking about something and used the word facade, except I called it FAH-KADE.

Jonathan looked at me, rolled his eyes, and said, "That WORD is pronounced FAH-SSSSAHHHHHDDDDDuh."

I felt really stupid and turned BRIGHT RED. Especially because I was already embarrassed at what I had just done and facing his unhappiness the entire afternoon. A few minutes later, my friend Mac took me aside and said, "Hey! Don't be embarrassed when you pronounce things wrong. It means that you read a lot. And you know that word choir? For years I used to think, 'What's a CHWAH?'"

No Back Story Needed

When I went to visit my sister at Amherst a few weeks ago, I had such a good time that I wanted to go there again this past weekend. I asked my sister why we didn't have as much fun the last time I stayed with her and she said, "I was a freshman then. I didn't know anything yet."

That's why seniors are so much cooler than freshmen.

Peter and I had been planning on going last Sunday, but we had started to finally put up our curtains and shelves and making our place look like a real home and we were on a real roll, so we decided to spend our Sunday going to Home Depot and buy curtain rods and drill bits.

I really liked meeting Jenny's friends for dinner, especially her friend Tranny, because every time I said something like, "Did you read Aunt Jodi's blog?" She knew who Aunt Jodi was and yes, she had read the blog.

And later, when the topic of Native Americans came up, I said, "It's so sad, but did you know that our government won't let them have access to running water?" She knew exactly what I was talking about because she had seen that episode of 30 Days.

After we had dropped everyone off, I told my sister that I felt like her friends were so easy to talk to.

"Especially Tranny, right?" My sister said.

"Uh, yeah. Every time I talked about something, I didn't have to explain any backstory. She knew exactly what I was talking about because she had seen the movie/read the newspaper article/had the same thing happen to her. Which makes me think that we just might be living parallel lives."

No Stickers!

I went and voted yesterday and yes, I am SO PSYCHED that we have a first non-white president of the United States. BUT I didn't get a STICKER! :(

Mamaroneck-voting SUCKS!

Part of the fun of going to vote is getting that little sticker. It's like going to the dentist when you're five years old, but without the teeth-cleaning.

After I pressed all my levers and pulled the curtain back, I asked one of the guys who worked there for my sticker.

"What da ya mean?" He asked. "Like a smiley-face sticka or somethin'?"

Boy, I feel like I totally miss out on everything good here in Westchester.

Not Just Eating Poop

Today I came home and discovered the litter kwitter completely clean. At first, I thought that the kitty swiped every single morsel of litter into the toilet, but when I looked into the toilet, there was No. Litter.

That can only mean one thing. That the dogs have been eating the litter. I already buy very expensive Holistic Dog Food so that Scout doesn't get explosive diarrhea. So I am NOT HAPPY that they have now decided to eat very expensive flushable cat litter made out of corn.

I don't know whether Rocky was eating the cat's poop one day and then discovered that her litter tastes like nachos or whether he just went for the litter. When I told Peter about it, he said:

"Now do you want to get rid of her?"