The Secret

Last weekend I took Scout on a trip to Amherst, MA to visit my sister. At first, as we were sitting in a traffic jam, I thought that it was a huuuge mistake because Scout used to get crazy carsick. By crazy carsick, I mean that as a puppy, she would sit in the backseat of my Nissan Maxima and contort her throat into making the most disgusting sounds, after which she would propel a mound of half-digested dog food onto my leather seats. The only great thing about leather seats is that it cleans up dog vomit pretty easily. Otherwise, it's too hot in the summer and too cold in the winters.

As I drove, I tried to ease into the gas pedal and keep a bit of a distance between my car and the next driver so I wouldn't have to slam on the breaks, but wouldn't you know it -- about two dozen people would see that small gap and decide to cut me off, forcing me to SLAM down on the breaks and curse the son-of-a-bitch under my breath after which I screamed, "SORRY SCOUT!"

When we got to Amherst (about one hour late) we took Scout on a beautiful walk through the woods and met a bunch of my sister's friends. On the way home, I suddenly realized that I forgot to pack any of her dog toys. Right after I had that thought, the tennis coach, who was packing up her car, dropped a tennis ball which bounced right toward Scout. When the coach saw us, she said, "She can keep it!"

S'lucky! I threw the ball around with her and got her all tuckered out before my sister and I headed out for dinner.

The next day, we took her to a farmer's market and Scout made friends with the organic apple ladies, who gave her generous slices of apples rich with organic goodness. Amherst is such a dog-friendly town that almost every person who passed us gave her pets, which is her Number Two favorite thing in the world only second to FOOD!

We went for another long walk and window-shopped. I was afraid that Scout was thirsty after all that walking, but I didn't bring her dog bowl with me. Just then, we walked into the Essentials store and the cute salesgirl asked us if Scout wanted water, because the store has this great dog bowl they fill with water for dogs!

I turned to Jenny and said, "I think that Scout has been reading THE SECRET."

The New Knight Rider

Peter and I watched a bit of the NEW Knight Rider pilot and it was so bad that a few minutes into the show, Peter turned to me and said, "Wow, the show hasn't been cancelled yet?"

I burst into laughter, picturing a big corporate television executive sitting in his plush leather sofa watching the same part of the show we just did and calling in the order to cancel the show five minutes into the pilot episode. I imagined the television screen going into an old rerun with a message from the network saying, "Yes, we let Knight Rider run for a few minutes, but realized that this show is SOOO terrible that we had to perform an Insta-Cancel. Thanks for watching and we're so sorry that we greenlit the absurd amount of money to produce this show instead of feeding hungry babies in Africa."

I mean, there are some shows which warrant the spending of the big bucks -- but the New Knight Rider? It's the sucks.

It's so bad that when the main character goes into the "Restricted Area," the audience is made aware that it is a "Restricted Area" by the signs which looked like photocopied paper taped to the doors.

When the show first aired in the 80s, the concept of a talking car was just so whack. But now, I don't think it's as far-fetched, so it's just silly to watch people get FREAKED OUT by a talking car. By now, I think we're expecting cars to talk.

Husbands Don't Belong in Forever 21

Walking into Forever 21 is like being blasted into a room filled with sensory experiences -- clothes just itching for you to touch its material, shiny bangles that beg for you to touch all their shininess, funky sunglasses that look just like Nicole Ritchie's, and you know you must try them on just to see how she looks at the world.

When we were in Orlando, Peter and I went shopping and just as he wanted to leave, the Forever 21 store beckoned its shiny gold fingers at me. Y'know those scenes in movies when a box opens and all you, the audience, can observe is the shiny light on the character's faces? That's what Forever 21 is like. Forever 21 is the shiny box.

The minute we walk in, Peter is in a bad mood, because, HELLO? There are NO CHAIRS!

The reason there are no chairs is that this store is made for fifteen-year-olds. Fifteen-year-olds who are not saddled with husbands who are just fine if they have a chair to rest their weary butts after a long day of shopping and a place where they can twiddle around with their Blackberry.

So I browse the store, which can take all day, there's too much stuff! The store is jammed-packed filled with STUFF. So I walk only about a quarter of the way through the store and Peter stomps up to me and informs me with a controlled unhappiness that I have been there for FOURTY-FIVE MINUTES!!

Huh? Whaaa? How can that be? Not only is Forever 21 a roomful of STUFF, it's also a sucker of time. You walk in and WHOOSH! You're the Rip Van Winkle of shopping.

But how can Forever 21 put any chairs in its stores? I'm sure its CEO wakes up every day and says:

"Each and every square inch Must. Be. Filled. With. STUFF."

IS A VEGAS?

I've noticed that there are more cars with vanity plates these days than there used to be when I was a child. Is it because our generation is more willing to throw money away on silly things? Or is it because when we renew our registration online the website asks us if we want to get a license plate that features the Yankees, Child Safety, or vanity plates? I'm sure more than one person looks at that screen and says, "Hey, I've always wanted all my friends to know that I'm lame."

One time, while I was living in Michigan, a foreign student from Asia drove my roommate and me to Star Wars I: The Phantom Menace and I saw that she had a vanity plate that had both her first name and last name printed on it.

"Uh," I said. "You really shouldn't have your name printed on your license plate."

"Oh!" She said, totally surprised. "Why not?"

"Well, it's the same reason our mothers didn't write our names on our backpacks or our T shirts, because then some stranger con man on the street can walk right up to you and say, 'Hey Emily Kee, remember me?' and then take you to an undisclosed location, hit you over the head, and it'll be an episode of CSI."

She looked at me like I was CUh-RAZY and snorted, like, whatever...you're paranoid.

Today I noticed a vanity plate that said: "ISAVEGAS" and I was all, "What's Is A Vegas?"

Peter looked at the sanctimonious white Prius and said, "Oh, what a douchebag. It's I Save Gas."

Meanwhile, this whole time, I'm thinking, "What's the thing that is a Vegas?"

I Didn't Write It

Today after I dropped off the boy I've been babysitting, I went to the supermarket, where I randomly bumped into the mom's boyfriend. He seemed really surprised to see me and for some reason, even if there's nothing strange about bumping into someone in the supermarket, I felt weird about it. When I told Peter about it and asked him if it was weird, he said that it was and here is the conversation that followed:

"But why would it be weird to simply bump into someone in the supermarket? What's so strange about that? Yet, we BOTH think it's weird."

"Uh oh, this is the part of the movie where he's been STALKING you and is going to try to kill you."

"Uhm. Not if it's a Desperate Housewives episode."

"No, if it was, you guys would be about to start an affair."

"Well, he's nowhere near as cute as you, so that wouldn't happen."

"Then he's a stalker."

"That's ridiculous."

"Don't blame me, I didn't write the movie."

Not Shitting You

I decided that the long weekend would be a good time to move little kitty to the next level of Litter Kwitter. The dreaded GREEN level -- the level which FREAKS THEM OUT (according to the Litter Kwitter message boards). The first morning after I outfitted the Litter Kwitter with the newer green level, I woke up with Peter going around the house screaming, "Oh, no! Oh NO! OH NO!"

Of course, that could only mean one thing, which was, yes, the kitty decided to poop and pee ON THE FLOOR! Do you know how heinous it is to wake up to poop and pee that you will need to clean up off the floor?

However, before we clean up the poop, Peter and I must take turns analyzing all the angles of the excrement all over our bathroom floor. Did it look like she tried to poop and pee into the toilet, but simply missed?

Or...Did she just sit her butt down on the floor and poop?

That's right, the newest show on television: CSI: OUR BATHROOM.

I walked up to the kitten and said, "No! Bad kitty! No going on the floor! No treat for you!"

I think I gave her a complex, because she then proceeded to not pee or poop...for about 65 hours. I am totally not kidding. She did not empty her bowels the whole weekend. Instead of pooping, she would meow and meow and meow and meow. As if saying, "Why did you fuck with me? Now I can't go! I need to go! What should I do?!"

A few times over the weekend I almost broke down and put the orange disc back in, but Peter was totally playing hardball and absolutely would not allow it.

Finally, about ten minutes ago she pooped! On the green disc like she was supposed to! We almost threw the kitty a ticker-tape parade right in our living room. We showered her with treats and now the meowing-all-the-time kitten hasn't made a peep. She needs to rest after all the hard work of holding in poop for three days.

Later, I said to Peter, "I cannot believe that she held in her pee and poop for three days. I mean, that's just not normal."

"I don't really know about that," he said.

"Oh yeah?" I asked him. "Have you ever held it in for three days?"

Success!

About a year ago, my sister Jenny introduced me to this frozen yogurt called Pinkberry. Yes, you've probably heard of it, as have a gajillion other people. On more than one occasion, we've driven into the city before Pinkberry opened to get our Pinkberry breakfast!

The last time we were in the city, I looked at her and said, "Hey! I think there's time to get some Pinkberry!" I reached into my day planner, where I keep a list of all the local Pinkberries. "Oh," I said. "Do you think this is totally over-the-top?"

Reaching into her bag, Jenny pulled out her moleskine notebook to her very own Pinkberry page.

So a few weeks ago, Jenny told me that her friend made Pinkberry with this recipe in their dorm room with the Cuisinart ice cream maker and said it was "face-meltingly GOOD."

I went right out and bought the ingredients and tried to make it, but it just formed goopy yogurt. It was very delicious goopy yogurt, but it was disappointing. No freezing!! I was so bummed and I called Jenny to tell her that the recipe didn't work. Apparently I had the same ice cream maker as her roommate, so what the hell?

I went on message boards and found out that I need to put my ice cream freezer container with my fridge on the coldest setting for two days. So I did this a few days ago and I made the pinkberry today and....

IT WORKED!! It tastes (can I say it?) BETTER THAN PINKBERRY!

I ran into Peter's office and yelled, "IT FORMED! IT FORMED!"

He laughed because he immediately knew what I was talking about.

Now I am s'happy!

Sidenote: I used 2 containers of Trader Joe's greek yogurt, 1/2 cup sugar and a few generous squeezes of agave syrup in the ice cream maker. Whoooa! Ambrosia!

The funny thing is that I looked at the yogurt at the supermarket and thought, "Four dollars for a tub of yogurt? That's expensive!" Then I realized that I spend that much on ONE little serving of Pinkberry.

Lazy-Loafing Larchmont Librarians

There is yet another thing I CANNOT stand about Westchester and that is what Peter and I call the closing time situation. In New York City, when a store posted that it closes at 11pm, it closes at 11pm. If you walk in at 10:45, they will serve you. In fact, my dad's restaurant's clock is 5 minutes slow, so in case you are walking in at 11pm, you will definitely get served.

In WESTCHESTER I'm constantly getting to a store, even half-an-hour before closing and the store will be closed or the lights will be turned off.

Today, I walked into the Larchmont Library at 5:45pm to look for a book. I know that the closing time is 6pm, but that's plenty of time for me to run and get that one book, right? I walk to the computer to locate the book, I find the code and walk over to the librarian to ask where that is. This is the first time I've tried to use the Larchmont Library, so I did not know that if you ask the librarian a question at 5:48pm, she will refuse to help you because, "We are CLOSING. There's NO TIME."

And not only did she refuse to help me, the other librarians were already turning off the lights. I've never run into this at Chappaqua, Mount Kisco, or Mamaroneck. In fact, the librarians there will always try to help you because they're not one foot out the door at closing time. (Or fifteen minutes before closing time)

This is a huge pet peeve of mine. There are lots of times Peter and I have gone to a restaurant an hour before closing and the staff is vacuuming and Windexing the tables right next to us. It's so annoying.

Anyway, one thing's for sure, Larchmont Librarians Suck Balls!

Not Helping

In the past few weeks, I have befriended a local au pair at the schoolyard. Basically, none of the moms really want to talk to any of the babysitters or au pairs and I can't make friends with any of the babysitters because I don't speak Spanish.

In the hour I am waiting for my charge to finish playing soccer or football in the play yard, the au pair vents about her home family. When I went to pick up my little boy a few weeks ago, I witnessed first-hand how the mom treats her. The mom was basically going over which children's shoes to throw out and which ones to keep, but in the time she was "showing" the au pair how to do this task, she could have just done the task herself. This wasn't really so much micro-managing as it was power-tripping.

An example of one of the mean things the mom does? They were all in the car and the mom looks at the au pair and says to her: "Something smells in here. Oh, it's you. You STINK." She says that it wouldn't be so bad, but the kids are really awful to her also, and curse at her and call her names all the time and everyone treats her like a slave.

The funny thing is that she's from a place where there are no Jewish people and this family she's staying with is Jewish, so when I tell her to try to get assigned to another family, she said, "I should, because not ALL of the families will be Jewish."

I quickly tell her, "Not ALL Jewish families are mean. You just happen to be staying with a mean family. Who HAPPENS to be Jewish. A lot of my friends are Jewish and they're AWESOME."

She looked at me like, "Yeah, right." And I felt really bad for her. I really think that if you are hosting an au pair, you need to be extra nice because then the au pair will think Americans suck. That mean lady is creating an Anti-Semite in her own house.

He LOVES His Blackberry

For years Peter has gone back and forth on whether he wants a Blackberry. He always gets whatever the Verizon store has for free or for very cheap, just because he couldn't stomach spending $500 on a cell phone, especially when you know they're just giving them away for free in Japan. Every single person from Japan comes over here and is like, "Oh, you mean your cell phones don't come with 5000 megapixel cameras and 2000 Gigs of memory? And you have to pay for them?"

Fine, but they have to pay $2 to play a video game and $50 for a peach, not to mention their $500 melons.

Last week, Peter finally got his very own Blackberry and he LOVES it. Every few hours, he would play around with his Blackberry, turn to me, smile and say, "Have I told you that I LOVE this thing?"

At around the thousandth time he said this, I said to him:

"I KNOW. Did you know that for the past few days, you have told me you love your Blackberry more than you have said you love me?"

He looked at me and blinked several times and said:

"You just made me feel AWFUL...But I do LOVE this Blackberry."

Yup, Still Married

Every once in a while, an old boyfriend or old crush will contact me somehow. Sometimes they find my name on yahoo people or they find my classmates.com page, and there are some people who actually had my cell phone number since way back when (ten years ago!).

A few months ago, an old friend of a friend called to chit chat and Peter was home when the phone call came. But I stayed on the phone with him for about an hour and a half because every time I wanted to hang up the phone, he was like, "Oh yeah! I forgot to tell you about that guy who tried to teach you how to rollerblade backwards and how he's in prison for trying to kill two people." And I would sit right back down on the sofa and go, "WHAT?!"

Then later, I was try to wind down the conversation because Peter was casting evil glares at me from across the room and this guy would say, "Oh yeah, I forgot to tell you about another friend of ours from way back had a baby with someone he didn't even know."

And of course, who doesn't want to stay on the line as this person tells you how wonderful you are and how all his friends get together and talk about what a shame it is that you're married because you're TERRIFIC!

I guess that's the difference between men and women. Men will say to themselves, "Hey, it's been four years...Maybe she's not married anymore. Let's give her a ring."

Women are just, "Been there, done that. NEXT!"

Today I got this random email from my classmates.com page. An old boyfriend from high school had just emailed my account there. Last I heard, he was married. And when I checked out his weddingchannel.com website, I noticed that there was an overlap in their story and our story. We had dated in high school for about four weeks, one of those high school ridiculous relationships that consisted of holding hands and saying, "You like going ice skating? Me too!" "Wait a minute, you like science fiction?" "Me too!"

The problem with this guy was that he was attached to his mother, almost literally. On more than one occasion, we would make plans and then he wouldn't show up and I would spend the day with his best friend...which caused him to one day profess his love for me. I guess all that time together and the thought that: Hey! The guy she's dating isn't going out with her! I am! I'm going on all their dates, she might as well be dating me! It was like every bad high school movie from the eighties.

One time, we made a date to meet up at this park near his house and as I was waiting for him, I saw him approach the park...next to his mother! And I kind of got up from the bench I was sitting on and he made a slight gesture with his hand, a dont-come-up-to-me-I-haven't-told-my-mother-about-you gesture. I was SOOOO mad. I remember storming home, just barely keeping it together, I was so mad.

Later that night when he called me, I said to him, "DO. NOT. EVER. CALL. ME. AGAIN."

And then I hung up the phone.

You know what I learned from that situation? You have to give boys CLOSURE otherwise they will obsess about you for no reason at all. So four years after I hung up on him, I bumped into him in Forest Hills, NY, where we used to go to the movies at The Continental, and his friends were all like, "That's HER?"

Now, if I had let that relationship follow its course, he would have gotten bored of me eventually, but cutting him off made him build me up in his mind. He wanted to be friends, so we sort of hung out every once in a while when I was in college. And one time, while I was over at his house, he offered me a diamond ring. It was sort of a proposal, if you consider, "Hey, I have this ring. Do you want it?" a proposal.

He was constantly asking me if I wanted to give it another shot with him, but the answer was always, "Uhm. Absolutely NOT." That image of him walking next to his mom at that park...that image will never die.

So when I found his weddingchannel.com site, it miffed me that he was going out with her for about a year of the time he was trying to get me to go out with him again. I mean, did he offer her the same ring or what? I wasn't jealous at all, but a bit indignant for the other girl.

So anyway, he emailed me a few weeks ago and I just found out today. And it makes me a bit suspicious. If Peter ever emailed some random girl he had proposed to -- God help him.

Litter-Kwitter Training Update

For the most part, lil' meow meow has gone in the litter kwitter except for the two times I left the bathmat on the floor and one time on the towel that fell onto the floor. My biggest fear is that she'll decide to wander on over to the sofa and pee on it. If she does that, then I'm just going to have to open my window and throw her out.

I'm on the orange stage right now and TWICE she's actually tinkled INTO THE TOILET so I didn't even have to clean anything!

For those of you who are interested, you can see what the orange stage looks like here. Of course, if you keep clicking around, you'll become totally mesmerized by all the cat-peeing and pooping videos.

The tinkling into the toilet is nice, but she does scrape the litter all over the place so that litter goes all over the floor. I am hoping that she will be able to be fully trained soon before we have to buy another bag of very expensive flushable litter made out of corn. Basically, this means that when the bathroom does not smell like poop, it smells like tortilla chips.

We're NOT Bringing Him Home

Peter came home after throwing out the trash and said, "You HAVE to come see this."

The last time he said this, we got a new cat.

"Uhmm. Okay, but we are NOT getting a new cat. Or a dog. Or a rat. Maybe, and only maybe, if it's a pot-bellied pig, but that's probably not wandering around Mamaroneck at night."

When he brought me to the trash dumpster, Peter pointed out the cutest opossum I'd ever seen in my life. Usually they're a bit messed-up looking with bent tails and kind of scary faces. But this one had a cute little face and big eyes.

"At least this animal is better off outside," I said. "Thank GOD. Stop looking for cute animals in dumpsters. It will only get us into trouble."

That's True

Growing up, there was always one or two kids I played with who my mother did not like. She didn't like them, but she was always super-nice when they came over. The second they left, she would say, "Why do you have to play with that one? I don't like her. She seems sneaky."

As it turned out, she was pretty dead-on about those kids. Each one of them ended up proving themselves unworthy of my friendship.

This kid I babysit has play dates and the kids who come over have always been nice kids...except for the one who came over yesterday. He asked if we could go to the bagel shop after school to get something to drink, which was fine so we went.

While we were there, two elderly ladies were also at the bagel shop and this kid kept making comments like:

"Oh look, she's so hot!"

and

"I think I hear wedding bells. I want to marry her."

He kept pointing and saying things that were not-so-quiet. He was very ill-behaved, but it's not my job to discipline him. Later, when we got to the house, I prepared some snacks for the boys and when I brought them down to the basement where they were hanging out, this kid snatches the snacks from my hands, which ignited my very quick temper.

"Hey!" I said. "What's wrong with you? You shouldn't grab things out of people's hands! "

He looked a bit stunned, probably because no one ever talks to him this way, and said:

"That's true."

He didn't apologize, but I thought it was funny that he said, "That's true," as in, "I'm in total agreement with you and I don't know who got a hold of my brain there for a second."

When his mom arrived, she kind of poked her head in the door as asked, "Did he behave?" She looked a bit worried, like she was half-expecting me to say, "Whoa, that kid you got? He's a nightmare."

The kid then came upstairs and had his mother put his shoes on and tie them for him. He's nine, for crying out loud.

Not Edible

We have this toaster oven that we can preset to "oven" so that we can heat something up at a uniform temperature for a longer period of time than the timer dial allows.

Tonight, at 12:45am, I happened to see that the light on the oven was lit.

Alarmed, I asked Peter what time he had placed the piece of naan bread in the toaster oven, which had now turned into a hardened brown hockey puck.

"Oh MY GOD!" Peter said. "I can't BELIEVE I did that! I put that in at 6pm! I'm SO SORRY! This will NEVER HAPPEN AGAIN."

Two seconds later, he said.

"Is it still edible?"

Because you know he's sorry that he put us all in jeopardy, but more importantly, he's upset that he didn't get to eat his snack.

Promoting Mediocrity

The little boy I'm taking care of had a soccer game last Saturday and when I asked him who won, he said that his team won 5 to 0, but only because his team wasn't allowed to score any more points after 5. I kept asking him to repeat this because I didn't understand why they couldn't score any more points, and he said:

"When the winning team scores five points and the other team hasn't scored yet we have to stop at five. If we score 6, the other team automatically wins the game."

I really couldn't wrap my brain around this and then he told me the kicker:

"AND when we get to five, we're not allowed to go on our half of the field anymore. It's called SPORTSMANSHIP."

"Noooooo, that's not what SPORTSMANSHIP is. That's called RIDICULOUS. I mean, those sucky teams know that they're sucky, right?"

"Of course, YEAH."

"I mean, wouldn't it just make them feel even suckier that the winning team has to STOP PLAYING SOCCER? If you were on the losing team, wouldn't you feel COMPLETELY EMBARRASSED?"

"Yup."

I know what it's like to be on a losing team. I went to a total nerd high school. A nerd high school that had a basketball team which was completely trounced by the opposing team during each and every game. The question wasn't whether or not we would win the game, it was: Are we going to lose by thirty points or sixty points?

And yet, our boys went out there and did the best they could. Sure, none of them went on to play for the Knicks, but they went out there and we cheered them on and we got ridiculously happy when we only lost by 20 points.

Are we so afraid of hurting our kids' feelings that we're going to change the rules of the game so that they won't feel so bad losing by fifteen points?

All of a sudden, it completely makes sense to me that when I was teaching at that lovely coed Catholic College in Lower Westchester, the students would neglect to turn in assignments or show up for class and still expect me to pass them. Parents don't make their kids face the very real truths and sometimes those truths are about themselves.

Parents are afraid to say:
No, you are NOT an excellent soccer player. GET OVER IT.

The county's slogan may as well be, "Westchester, Building Mediocrity, One Child at a Time."

I mean, c'mon Westchester! All your kids are going to grow up completely gutless and useless! Am I the only person that thinks this way?

Conversation With My Sister

"Ooooooohhhhhhh! Scout and Rocky have been lying down on our sofa!"

"Why aren't they allowed on the sofa?"

"Oy. We'd like them to, but we totally got the WRONG type of sofa. It's sort of a velour-ish Restoration Hardware sofa that keeps every little hair and shows spittle. We didn't think it through and now it's too late and it's easier to keep the dogs off the sofa than to clean it every second."

"Why don't you lock the dogs up in the kitchen?"

"Because ever since we've tried to toilet-train the cat, we don't want her to jump over to our living room in case she's looking to pee into our potted plants. When the dogs are in the living room, she won't hop over. But now I'm going to have to put stuff on the sofa so the dogs don't get on it. But I hate the way the sofa looks when there's stuff all over it and I always forget to put stuff on it when I'm leaving the house."

"When did your life get this complicated?"

I Like New Cars

Peter and I recently purchased a brand-new car and I've come upon a new theory of car-owning. I used to be a strong believer in the buy-a-car-and-drive-it-into-the-ground school of car ownership. That way you get the best bang for the buck. But THEN we got a BRAND-NEW CAR! And I LOVE driving a BRAND-NEW CAR! If we only buy a car whenever one craps out, then how many cars does one get to buy in a lifetime? 4 or 5 if you live a very long time?

It might not be very frugal (and it does sting a bit to do something that isn't saving me some money every second of every day), but maybe buying a new car every 5 years isn't a bad idea. That way, you're always driving around in a relatively new car. If you have only one life to live, isn't it nice to be able to go around driving new cars all the time?

After much deliberation, we decided on a Galaxy Gray Honda Civic. Although we DID NOT purchase it at the Mount Kisco Honda because MT. Kisco Honda SUCKS!! We also didn't buy it at the White Plains Honda because they foisted us off on this nineteen-year-old salesperson who we could tell was completely not given any authority to give us any deals on pricing. We bought it at the Yonkers Honda because they knocked $1500 off the price we were given at the White Plains Honda. So yeah, we got it under MSRP!

(Side note: Why is it that whenever we ask a salesperson about the Honda Element's windshield cracking problem and if they've fixed it in the newer models, they tell us that they've "never heard about it." Aren't salespeople supposed to be kept apprised of law suits filed against Honda and the many complaints about a car that they are supposed to be selling?)

We were told that Galaxy Gray is to be discontinued, so we thought we were getting a car color not many people have.

Hmmm. I've already almost tried to open the door of TWO other Galaxy Gray Honda Civics.

Peter said that it was probably the same person.

The same person at the CVS and then a few days later at Trader Joe's? Are we living parallel lives? I don't think so.

Although one time my mother opened the door to another green Jeep Cherokee, sat in the driver's seat and thought it was so strange that someone left a whole bunch of trash on the passenger seat. It took her a few moments before she realized that this was NOT HER CAR.

Well, if you happen to see a girl trying valiantly to open the door to your Galaxy Gray Honda Civic, just give her a few minutes, and please don't get mad.

Pain in the Ass Toilet Training

When Peter and I adopted this stray kitten, I knew that I wanted to train her to use the toilet. I had read a really long article years ago about a woman who had trained her cat to do this and it completely fascinated me and I thought, "How cool would it be to have a cat that uses a toilet?"

So a few weeks ago I purchased a system called "The Litter Kwitter," which guarantees to work in 8 weeks to get your cat to use the toilet so there will be no more cleaning up of litter.

The thing is, this kitten likes to paw at the litter all day long. Sometimes she'll just climb up to the toilet and paw the litter so that it is scattered all over the bathroom floor. This wouldn't have been as big a problem in our old place where we had 2 bathrooms and a bath area which was closed off from the toilet areas, but now we only have ONE bathroom, which I like to keep relatively clean and this is DRIVING ME INSANE.

We've also discovered that if you leave a bathmat or accidentally unhooked your bath towel from its place, the kitten will use this opportunity to pee on those things, which is SO GROSS.

Plus, we are encouraged to give the kitty treats when she does do the right thing, but whenever I give her a treat, she FREAKS OUT because when my sister Jenny came over, Jenny gave the kitty a treat, which caused Rocky to LUNGE AT THE CAT. So now she equates delicious kitty treats with MURDER.

But I'm looking forward to a day in which she will be able to just use the toilet, but I can now understand why there are many many people on the litter kwitter forums who have given up.

And just the fact that I am checking something called a litter kwitter forum every day just goes to show you how pathetic my life is right now.

Unpacking

"You have a copy of the Bush/Dukakis debate on tape?"

"Uhmm... Yeah... But don't look at that."

"Why not?"

"Because it might have turned into porn."