I Don't Read Chinese

I know that I have an Asian name. But it's always funny to me when I get junk mail IN CHINESE. Funny that Peter never gets mail in Italian. They're never like, "Oh, he's Italian, so he's not going to know that the McDonald's is now offering a Delicious Coffee Drink unless we send him that coupon in Italiano."

The thing is, I don't know how to read Chinese. Well, except for some of the three hundred words I can still remember from my one year of Mandarin class senior year of college. The Chinese class for non-native speakers my Chinese friends referred to as "The White Man's Chinese Class."

When I visited Taiwan one summer, I had to explain to almost every restaurant waitress that I can speak, but am illiterate, so they would have to read me the menu and they were all, "Huh? Didn't you go to school?"

And I was all, "I'm in college!"

And they were all, "WHAT?" 

I appreciate the coupons, but one of the plus sides of being married to a vegetarian is that you don't really visit fast food chains that often. 

Sometimes I Think Cops Are Not Smart

Today I saw the most heart-wrenching story on TV. A yellow lab was hit by a car on the Major Deegan Expressway and her companion dog, who I found out later was her son, barked at and shepherded the oncoming traffic around her so she wouldn't get hurt. There's a link to it on youtube here.

The footage is so sad, mostly because that yellow lab clearly couldn't get up and the pavement was smeared with her blood. I kept thinking about my own yellow lab and how helpless dogs are now that they depend on people for everything. 

I've heard this story reported on in many news programs today, but it really irks me that no one mentions the policemen who almost botched the whole rescue operation. First of all, they seemed afraid of the barking dog and couldn't get to the injured dog for about 15 minutes. 

They should have tried to grab the healthy dog first so that he wouldn't get hit by another car, but they just stood around staring at him. I mean, how many cops does it take to catch a dog. Form a human chain and close in, for crying out loud! Do I have to be in charge of EVERYTHING?

Then, when the policemen were trying to get the injured dog through the left passenger side of the car, one of the them opened the door on the right side and just walked away. Although injured, there was a small chance that she would have tried to make a run for it--I was so frustrated to see how these guys were bungling this whole thing up.

Then, as they rescue the injured dog, the healthy dog runs off and is running around in traffic. 

These are the people who are supposed to protect us? 

All the news programs were commending these clowns. 

My Broken Pedometer

Now that we weather is nicer, Peter and I have been taking the dogs for walks. I fished out my pedometer from the glass jar it has been sitting in the past few months and we walked down the main street in our town. 

My grandpa used to walk around with the very first pedometers when I was a young girl and it's pretty funny to me now how popular they have become. At the time, I thought my grandpa was a bit anal and nerdy. He used to have this special belt strap that he hooked a pedometer, a box of really hideous-tasting silver mint balls, and a pocket English-Japanese/Japanese-English dictionary. 

The dictionary he only carried with him when I was around because many times during a conversation I would say something like, "Do you want to go to the place-with-a-lot-of-books-that-is-not-a-bookstore-because-you-don't-buy-them-you-borrow-them later?" I mean, my parents never taught me the Taiwanese word for "library." That's when he would reach down on flip open the plastic pouch on his belt and whip out the dictionary for me to flip through and point to the word. 

During the day of the walk, Peter and I were in agreement was that we were going to walk one mile and head on back home. Peter's ride to work is about 4.25 miles away and he wanted to try to see how long it would take him to walk that distance. So, we figured, we would multiply the time it took us to walk two miles and extrapolate. 

So we leashed up the dogs and took off down Main Street. It was so nice to be outside and to not be wearing flannel mom-jeans. I love this time of year, right before the horrible NY face-melting summers. 

Periodically, I kept checking the pedometer. After what seemed to us like a huge distance and we approached the next town over, the pedometer said we had only walked half-a-mile. Peter was all, "I don't THINK so. That thing is BROKEN."

I didn't think that it was broken because I had counted out some steps the pedometer was accurately counting my steps. Also, I wanted to hit that 10,000 paces mark, which Peter and I have NEVER approached during a walk. It's the magic per-day number of paces that scientists say a person should walk for optimal health. So I kept encouraging him to keep on walking farther and farther. 

"We'll walk until it says one mile and we'll go back home," I said. 

About 2 HOURS later, we were on our way home and Scout just stopped walking and refused to move. She's going to be ten years old in a month and must be getting on in years, because she used to have the crazy boundless energy, and in all these years, she's never once stopped in the middle of a walk. During this whole walk, Peter would point out random landmarks and say, "Now, I KNOW that this (fill-in-the-blank-post office/ dry cleaner/ fire station) is AT LEAST (1, 1.5, 2) miles away from home."

Peter looked at me and said, "If I have to carry this 60-pound dog home, it's going to be all your fault." 

At that point, we could almost see our apartment building, so we urged Scout to keep walking. We are all super-tired and my feet were threatening to go on strike. My shoes hurt my feel terribly, but I didn't feel like I had a right to complain, since I was the one who kept pushing everyone onward. 

When we got home, I Mapquested the route we walked and discovered that we had almost covered 5 miles! 

"Throw that pedometer AWAY," Peter said. 

"Hey, look at the bright side," I said. "We conquered the 10,000 paces! Scientists want us to spend two hours walking a day. Although walking to work is going to set your commute back two hours in the morning."

Acela Express Train Straight to HELL

The other day, Peter was at his mother's house when his sister called--keep in mind, this is the sister he no longer calls because the last time he called her she shrieked at him to NEVER call her house after 8pm or he'll WAKE THE BABY!!!!!

To this day, he has never called her house again, so that baby sure is VERY well-rested. 

When Peter's sister found out that he was there, she asked to speak to him--and during the phone conversation, she could not stop shit from falling out of the asshole she calls her mouth. 

Of course, there's the obligatory, "It's really great that you go visit her (meaning their mother)."

I asked Peter what he said to that, he's a much better person than me, because I would be all, "Coming to visit her more than once a year wouldn't kill you, y'know."

But he's not as confrontational as I am so he replied, "Well, she IS my MOTHER." 

And then, later on in the conversation, his sister casually mentioned that her son had his First Communion last week. For those of you who are not Catholic, the First Communion is one of the rites of passage which is traditionally a HUGE family event and although it is a big relief that his sister didn't make a big deal out of it and make us all go, I did feel terrible for his mother, who was a bit shocked and, I'm sure, very upset not to be invited--it's almost on par with you calling up your mother and telling her that her grandchild had gotten married last week and she wasn't invited. 

After he hung up the phone, Peter's mom started to talk about the First Communion, but he really couldn't take another, "Your sister treats me so terribly after I've given her EVERYTHING" conversation. It wasn't that long ago that his sister purposefully snuck out of the house to get to Christmas Mass so she wouldn't have to take her mother. Remember?

The way she has shown favoritism to her daughter really sickens me, especially after she gave Peter's sister the money his grandmother left him (by the way, Peter's sister pulls in $10K per week, so she really doesn't need the dough) during a time we were really struggling after we bought our first house. 

Peter was the one driving his mother to visit his grandmother every week and towards the end, every day, and his grandmother wanted to give him the only money she had left as a token of her appreciation. Peter's grandmother gave the money to his mother and Peter's mother kept it in her own account for years (and used it to buy really expensive gifts for Peter's sister and her family) before putting it in a trust for Peter's nephew and niece. By the way, his sister didn't even attend this grandmother's funeral even though she was in town that day. Don't even get me started on THAT.

I'm always asking Peter how he can still have the relationship he does with his mother and visit her every week. I mean, I'm sure people have turned their backs on their mothers for much less. He always replies by saying, "I know she's not a good person, but she's still my mother. I don't like her very much, and she makes it very difficult to even deal with her on any level. But I'm the kind of person who sees things through. And she's one of those things."

I've gotten mad at my mom for wanting to go to the mall with my sister instead of me. This is one of the many things Peter teaches me every day. He does try to live his life with integrity. Suffice it to say, he is very different from a lot of other guys. 

I asked my friend Andrew about the importance of the First Communion. He is the person I turn to for all things Catholic--and he was HORRIFIED that Peter's mother wasn't invited to the First Communion. 

"Mothers are such a HUGE part of First Communion," he said. "In fact, at my church, the First Communion is always held on Mother's Day, to honor all the mothers and grandmothers. What did Peter's mother do?"

"Well," I said, "She quickly sent her daughter a check as a gift, which I think is totally wrong, because it just reinforces the idea to Peter's sister that she didn't do anything wrong."

"She doesn't deserve a CHECK! She deserves a ticket on the Acela Express Train Straight to HELL!"

That Poor Guy!

Yesterday I went to the movies with my sister and mother. We ended up going to a showing of Valentino, which was really interesting. But before we had made up our minds, I was thinking of taking Judy to go see Wolverine. My mother asked me what that movie was about and I couldn't really come up with a decent explanation so I asked my sister if she could help me out and she said:

It's about this guy. He starts out a normal human and one day a scientist kidnapped him and implanted metal into his hands. 

Hearing this, my mother says, "Oh, that poor guy!"

Phenominal

Peter has a friend on facebook who is always posting these things about her kids, which to someone with no kids, can be the eensy-weensiest bit annoying. I know this is impolite to say, but we really don't care what your four-year-old did at 4pm yesterday, even though it might have been totally great. 

Yeah, we're jerks. 

We barely want to know what YOU did at 4pm yesterday unless it's INTERESTING. 

What's happening with facebook is that people aren't differentiating between interesting and boring anymore. 

So the other day, Peter gets a message on his Blackberry and he shows it to me. This friend has written:

"Just saw Grey Gardens and it was phenominal! What great clothes and such a great life!"

I turned to Peter and said, "Uhm...Great LIFE? Did she SEE THE SAME MOVIE we did? Did she see the part where they were abandoned by everyone in their entire family and living with cat feces under the bed? If that's her idea of a great life, she's more crazy than those old bats!"

Peter said, "The lady spells phenomenal with an "i"--can we really trust her judgement on anything?"

Queer Eye For the Straight First Lady

I was talking to my friend Andrew last night and I was telling him about my horrible Easter Sunday experience and how my brother-in-law is so unhappy that Obama was elected he took it out on us for voting for him. 

So we got to talking about Michelle Obama and what a great job she was doing, especially in getting attention to little-known clothing designers. I love that whenever they talk about Jason Wu they're always bringing up the fact that he's Taiwanese. 

Andrew doesn't think that her outfits are that great. 

"Okay," I said. "I know that she really loves J. Crew, but I think enough is enough. It's okay for her and the daughters to wear something that isn't off-the-rack. I mean, the other day I was watching a show and a woman was talking about how she was going to wear the same dress that Michelle Obama wore for the cover of some magazine. It's a little weird. Women want to dress EXACTLY like her and it's sort of freaky. To combat this weirdness, she should wear things that are one-of-a-kind."

"Personally," Andrew said, "I think she needs a little bit of a Queer Eye for the Straight First Lady."

GOOD Time?!

This past weekend we invited Peter's mom over to our apartment. I made sure that I was home the entire time she was here, because last time we went out to do a little shopping and I came home to find my jewelry box propped open in my underwear drawer. 

I understand that when a mother-in-law comes to visit some snooping may go on, but c'MON! My underwear? You touched my underwear? You KNOW I had to wash everything again.  

Peter said that it was embarrassing on a few levels. 1. because his mother is cuh-razy and 2. the quality of the jewelry in my box. 

Most of that is my fault because I don't really want fancy baubles and I like silly plastic rings with snow globes on them. Although we did chuckle a little at the idea of his mom lifting up my plastic snow globe ring and thinking, "What the HELL?"

This visit went reasonably well except that she kept asking questions every freaking second.

"Where's the flush to your toilet?"

(on the side of the toilet--just like hers)

"What's that noise?"

(the mailman)

"What's THAT noise?"

(the front door)

"What's that noise?"

(the upstairs neighbor)

"What's that noise?"

(me turning on the water faucet)

"What's that noise?"

(the horribly ugly chiming clock you gave us)

"Can you turn off that clock chime?"

Do you get the pattern? 

Then, in the middle of the night, I went to the bathroom and when I opened the door to leave, I saw a scary figure luring in the darkness and I SCREAMED. It scared the BEJESUS out of me. I no longer have any more bejesi because they have all been scared out of me. 

It was my mother-in-law, standing right outside the bathroom door. Why in the world would anyone wait for the bathroom outside the door? I mean, it's not like she needed to beat Peter to the line at 4am in the morning. Any normal person would have listened and waited until I was done. After all, her hearing has been proven to be quite acute.

Apparently, she couldn't sleep, what with all the NOISE in our noisy apartment full of noise made by noisy people living a noisy life. 

Other than the loss of all the bejesi, I thought that the visit went really well. Peter made this awesome pizza and he made delicious corn pancakes for breakfast and we had pasta with homemade pesto made out of our delicious basil plants. 

The next day, when we dropped her off, I turned to her and asked her, "Did you have a good time?"

She kind of did a guffaw kind of thing and snorted and said, "GOOD time?!?" As in, yeah right!" 

This kind of stunned me, because I thought that we were perfect hosts. And also, even if you didn't have a good time, even if we had spent the whole visit pressing toothpicks into your fingernails, the polite thing to do is to say, "Oh yes! It was wonderful!"

She must have seen the look on my face and she rapidly backtracked and said, "Well, I like spending time with Peter...and with you..."

At least she's learning now that she needs to backtrack when she says something shitty...that's progress!!

Just Who is Ashton Kutcher, Anyway?

So who is Ashton Kutcher, anyway? 

He's this guy who did a TV show and a movie with Amanda Peet and then he married Demi Moore and now he's got a Twitter page that a million people are following. 

So? 

And he looks like he's got very silky skin? 

What do you mean? 

His cheeks look silky. 

I guess, but WHO is he? 

Uhm... I don't know, but he's also a twin. I think he kinda sucked all the good parts in the womb and his twin is all messed up and Ashton Kutcher's perfect. 

Oh.....So he's the Devil, then.

How can you say that? 

That's something that the Devil does. 

Grey Depressing Gardens

This past Saturday I wanted to watch the HBO film "Grey Gardens." Of course, we don't have HBO...but Peter's mother does. So I suggested that we make our weekly visit this time on a Saturday. 

Thinking back on this, I should have warned both Peter and his mother about what this movie was about--which means--it's about CRAZY ladies!!

When the movie first started and my mother-in-law saw that it was starring Drew Barrymore and Jessica Lange, she said, "Ohhh!! This is going to be GOOD!" 

And then...

Yes, the two ladies morph into a sad pile of cat-keeping ice cream-eating recluses. This is very far from the kind of movie that the two of them were prepared for--causing Peter to turn to me in the middle of the movie and say, "Why CATS?"

Interpretation: "Why do crazy people keep cats?"

I really don't know. 

At the end of the movie, Peter and his mom were completely traumatized and Peter was all, "You KNEW what this movie was about and you didn't give us ANY HEADS UP? That's so NOT COOL."

And yet, even though it wasn't cool--it was kinda funny. Actually no. Make that REAL funny. 

Cat Clipping

As I've said before, I'm not really a cat person, so when this little creature came up to us in the parking lot, no one could be more surprised than I am that she's still here. 

I don't know much about cat care, but she's been pretty good. She doesn't scratch on our things (so far) or do anything other than hang out in her bed and run away from me when I approach her. 

Lately she's been pawing at our dogs and her claws are SHARP! She took a swipe at me the other day when I tried to adjust her while she was positioned wrong on the toilet and I came away with a bloody hand. I don't want to the dogs to get hurt so I've been reading up on what to do. 

Peter's last cat had been declawed and he said that it completely changed his personality. I asked a couple of my friends with cats and everyone is pretty mixed on the declawing issue. Some people think it's deplorable, others say that their veterinarians have told them that there's nothing wrong with it. I have one friend who said that she left her cat with her mom one time when she had to go on vacation and she came home to discover that her mother had gone ahead and declawed the cat. 

"This is why I NEVER leave anything with my mother anymore," she said. "I come back and it's broken!"

I've been clipping her claws and I think it makes them less like tiny knives and more like tiny not-as-sharp pencil points. But it's still scary to think that she'll go at the dogs with those pencil points. I might try the plastic claw tips and do more research on declawing. 

No More Cupcakes

For Easter Sunday, I decided to make very delicious carrot cake cupcakes with cream cheese frosting topped with a colored chocolate egg. They were so cute! 

Of course, when dessert time rolled around, only Paul, Peter's nephew, had one. He's the only one who ever eats anything I bring, which is why I like him the best. After I mentioned the cupcakes for the third time, Peter's brother's wife said, "I'll take them home."

When you read between the lines, she's saying, "I'd rather eat these dried-out pastries I bought at the store than your freshly-baked cupcakes made lovingly with organic ingredients. But if you insist, I will bring them home with me and throw them out later." 

Peter has beseeched me time and again to not make anything to bring to the dinner table. But I always do, because it makes me happy to make something. The thing is, he always gets really upset when people completely ignore what I bring and then go on and on over some yucky desserts they bought at some no-name bakery. This time, on the way home, he asked me to please not to bring anything over there anymore. 

Although, I don't know when we'll see them again. The good news was that Peter's sister called a few hours before dinner started to let his mom know that she wasn't coming. Apparently, her husband's gout flared up. I didn't even know he had gout. Every time she makes these health excuses for her family it just gets worse and worse. When she didn't make it to my bridal shower she said that everyone had the flu and they were throwing up all over the house. But we all knew that she was fine since we found out later (Peter's mom blabbed) that they went to PA to visit her stepdaughter at her college.  

Unfortunately for us, that meant that Peter's brother and his wife focused all their attention on us and why we are so misguided to vote for Barack Obama, who will drive the economy to the ground and bankrupt the entire nation, leaving our grandchildren to a life of dirt-eating and begging on the streets of Calcutta--therefore, we should watch Bill O' Reilly's show to get the REAL facts. 

It's okay if you don't want to eat my cupcakes, but if you want me to take you remotely seriously, you really can't bring up Bill. 

Is That What You're Wearing?

Today I asked Peter what he was wearing to Easter dinner tomorrow. 

He answered with a smirk and a roll of the eyes. 

"So you're wearing a look of annoyance?" I said. "You know what? I think I might put on that EXACT SAME OUTFIT tomorrow."

Movie Star Legs

Peter and I went to see the play, "God of Carnage." I got the tickets because I LOVE Hope Davis and think that she is awesome (Jeff Daniels, Marcia Gay Harden & James Gandolfini are also in it).

We were pretty stressed out by the time we got there because, although we left the house 1.5 hours earlier (it usually takes us half that time to get downtown), we were still cutting it close. Plus, we got into the biggest fight in the car. And then we had the most ridiculous parking experience ever created (which I will be posting about tomorrow).

So, by the time I got to the theater, I was pretty huffy and puffy. I showed my ticket to the usher and although my seat was only about 5 seats in from the middle, this bouncer-type usher person insisted that I get to my seat from the left side, across about 10 people who were already seated. 

I started to argue with him, pointing out that it would be much easier to get past the four skinny people seated at the other side of the aisle instead of the ten rather corpulent people on the left side. 

During this time, I kept pointing at the aisle and the bouncer/usher was all, "NO WAY. GO TO THE OTHER SIDE. DO NOT EVEN THINK ABOUT GETTING IN THE LOGICAL WAY."

The skinny people kept looking at me like, "Why is that lady pointing at us and arguing with the usher?"

And the corpulent people? They were SO unhappy to have to move any more than they had to and I had to wade through their force field of unhappiness. They were harrumphing and grumpling left and right. 

Then, when Peter got to the theater, they made him do the same thing and I told him about the stupid bouncer/usher person I had a fight with. 

"That's Kevin Spacey sitting right there," Peter said. "That's probably why they didn't want you to go that way."

Apparently, one of the skinny people was a movie star. 

What makes those movie star legs so fancy that they can't move aside to let people get to their seats?

MY David Letterman

Tonight Julia Roberts was on David Letterman and Peter said to me, "I guess she must really like him and that's why she's always so flirty with him. Even though he must be about twenty years older than her."

"I could see myself being flirty with Jon Stewart. I guess he would be my David Letterman," I said. 

"Uh. No.... Jon Stewart's not THAT old."

"Well, then who would be MY David Letterman?"

"David Letterman."

Why is it that I'm so much younger in MY MIND than I am in REALITY?

Kitty Toilet Training Update

The kitty pooped in the tub today. 

ARGH!!

That's right. This is so upsetting that I'm reduced to expressing myself through dialogue from a bad Archie comic book. 

I simply don't understand this. She's been doing everything fine for the past two weeks. I guess sometimes she just says to herself, "I am NOT doing THAT today. I'm just not." 

I don't know why she takes these random stands. I'm afraid of reprimanding her too much because she might decide she wants to poop on our bed instead of the bathtub. Although that would just make the decision to throw her out the window that much easier. 

Timeless Celebrity Craziness

My friend Andrew and I were talking on the telephone the other day and we LOVE to gossip about celebrities. One time, he had gotten me a subscription to The National Enquirer, not only for the gossip, but also for the crossword puzzles that are easy enough that even I can complete them and of course, The BLUE DOT! 

And if you don't know about the blue dot, then you've never cracked open a National Enquirer. 

After Andrew got me that subscription for my birthday, I started to get all this crazy junk mail. Apparently, a National Enquirer reader is the target audience for porcelain kitten statues and hideous garments from a myriad of ugly clothing manufacturers. 

One of the things I miss about living in Mount Kisco is that the library carried the National Enquirer. It really is the only library I've ever been in which carried that periodical. I used to stop by on my way to the post office to read the current issue. 

For some reason, the library had the current issue, but no back issues you could take out. So you would always have to get to the library each week to look at the gossip. And would it make me seem ridiculous when I admit that when the next Monday rolled around and I had missed last week's issue, I would actually be a little sad? 

Anyway, we were talking about the Miley Cyrus and I said,

"Well, before you know it, her parents will be pimping her out just like Alyssa Milano's parents did in the eighties."

To which Andrew replied:

"We should start a new blog that compares today's celebrity craziness with celebrity craziness in the past. We could call it Celebrity Craziness--Yesterday and Today."

I'm sure lots of people would be interested in comparative essays on celebrity gossip. 

Conversation About Easter

Me: So, who's going to be there for Easter?

Peter: I don't know.

Me: What do you mean, you don't know? That's all your mom talks about for weeks before everybody gets here. 

Peter: Well, I try not to pay attention to her. Anyway, why do you need to know?

Me: Because I want to know. So I can prepare myself. 

Peter: I have no idea who is coming. 

Me: Really. You have absolutely no idea. I find that hard to believe. I think you just don't want to tell me. That's fine. Because when I don't make enough cupcakes, you can tell your niece and nephew that they don't get any because their Uncle Peter told his wife that they weren't going to be there. 

Peter: Oh. They're going to be there. 

Me: Then you have an idea of who's going to be there? 

Peter: I might. 

Me: PETER!!

This Makes Me Happy All Day

I think that I can understand a little bit about parenthood, just from dealing with my new kitten. 

We've been trying to toilet-train her for the past few weeks and have now gotten to the point where there's merely a small rim of litter underneath the toilet seat. I was afraid that when we took away the second-to-last toilet litter kwitter ring, that we were going to have an upset. 

The last time we moved one stage over, Meow Meow showed us her displeasure by pooping on the bathroom floor, then not pooping at all for three whole days, then pooping in the bathtub, and of course, pooping in her scratch pad. 

But this time, so far so good, she's been pooping (and peeing) into the toilet--YAY!!

And then the rest of the day, every time I thought about the kitty, it made me smile. I caught myself with the biggest grin on my face as I was driving home from Trader Joe's and I thought, "Wow. The fact that my cat pooped in the toilet makes me happy ALL DAY. Is that normal?"

I Thought Everybody Was Interested

Today I was reading an article from Yahoo! Entertainment news on twins and I said to Peter, 

"Hey, you've GOT to see this!"

He took my laptop and then handed it back to me and said, 

"Why did you want me to look at this?"

"Oh. Isn't everybody fascinated by twins?"

Atkins Farm Donuts

Peter and I went to visit Northampton this weekend, which we always start off by getting a yummy curry rich dish at the Haymarket Cafe, which is delllllicious! 

This is a place that makes me want to move right next door, so that I can go there every single day, morning, noon, and night. 

The great thing about Northampton is that there are a ton of vegetarian restaurants, which means that Peter can eat everything on the menu. Plus, the prices are really good, compared to NYC. 

What I love about Northampton is that it's a great place to go to look for environmentally conscious shower curtains (or anything else, for that matter). I've been looking to replace my yucky shower curtain for a while now, but my supermarket only sells the vinyl kind, which is bad because of the phthalates. 

This is a place that doesn't make me feel silly for being "over the top organic."

My sister took us to Paul and Elizabeth's, which she calls the "expensive" restaurant in town. When the bill came for our (extremely scrumptious) dinner, we were surprised to see that the bill was about $60--that's with three appetizers, two entrees, and a beer. Plus there was more than enough to take home. 

Our one downfall is that we always go to Atkins Farms to pick up the sinfully yummy and probably totally bad for you cider donuts. This time we overdid it and got a whole dozen. It's a bit too much cidery sugary cinnamonny goodness in one fell swoop. Please people, be careful with those donuts. It's easy to overdo it. 

They sell the donuts online too, which means that we can get donuts without having to shlep all the way to Amherst, MASS.  

The Time-Sucking Has Begun

For the past few years, my friends have been urging me to join Facebook and I've never thought anything about it. Then at the AWP conference in Chicago, it seems that EVERYBODY and their grandmas are on Facebook and it seemed like the ideal way to stay in touch with all the people I only get to see once a year. 

I was warned that it would be a total Time-Suck, but I thought that I would be able to keep my distance. 

The thing about Facebook is that it's perfect for people like me who like to snoop. It's totally intoxicating because I can look up when people have gotten married and what they registered for on Amazon. Even though I haven't seen someone in twenty years, I know what sheets they're sleeping on. And they are very expensive. 

I am a master internet sleuth, except when it comes to finding out an old cast member of Sex and the City. 

The strangest thing was looking up the kids I went to elementary school with. There was this one girl who was really nice to me and I found out that she was a cancer survivor. That made me sad, but happy that she beat cancer. The ones I wanted to see old and fat were the mean kids who were so racist and made my life miserable. 

When I was in middle school, there was a kid named Jason who was just about the most awful person ever created. There was one year when he sat in front of me in class and I don't know how on earth that happened because we were always arranged in alphabetical order. In gym class, he would always try to get on the opposite team so that he could slam that big red bouncy ball off my head during dodge ball. In this day and age, that school would have been fending off lawsuits for letting boys play dodgeball against the girls. 

Every time I'd walk into class and take my seat, Jason would wave his hands over his nose and say, "Wheew! Something SMELLS in here!" He would then proceed to announce this again and again in class until our teacher, Miss Battaglia stepped in. 

If you thought that she stepped in to help me out, you are SO wrong, Internet. The teachers were often just as, if not meaner, than the students, so she would roll her eyes and say, "If she stinks so much, then move to the other side of the room!" 

Sometimes she would forcibly take him and move him to a seat closer to her, which was what she wanted all along because she liked him. 

Miss Battaglia was never nice to me, but I used to excuse her because she used to tell us all the time that her mother had died that year and that she lived alone with her father. I actually felt bad for her and tried to feel magnanimous. I pictured her sitting home alone with her father, knowing that she may always be a spinster. Because, let's face it, men usually want ladies who are decent and kind people.  

Jason used to cut the bottom of this gym T-shirts so that you could see his abs. I mean, this was in the seventh grade, so you can imagine how ridiculous that looked. 

When the show Everybody Hates Chris came on  the air, I could commiserate. My life in elementary school was kind of like that, but more verbal abuse than physical (except for Dorian, who used to kick me in the girl's bathroom) and without any comedic bits. I bet if you talked to Chris Rock's old schoolmates, they would be completely shocked that anyone thought that they were racist at all.  

The thing is, I understand where all those kids came from. They were raised in a very homogenous town and they felt that they were being pushed out of their slice of the American pie. These kids didn't grow up like I did--going down to Greenwich Village on weekends and hanging out with my parents' transvestite friends. If anything, cross-dressers teach you to be a more open-minded person.  

Once, I saw a Dennis Miller interview where he talked about how an old bully of his approached him after a show. He ended up telling the guy's wife what an asshole he used to be. 

I can kind of imagine that if Jason's kids ever approached me at a book signing in the future (after I win my Pulitzer, of course)--I would have to say:

"I don't know what kind of man this guy turned out to be, but when I knew him in grade school, he was a real jerk." 

I just hope he's nicer now. 

I Guess Her Name Is Now Mari

My sister set up a new email account for my mother last week and she told me to keep an eye out for a message. So a few days ago, I went into my inbox and found a message from "Mari" whose subject line looked like a message from my mom. 

I asked my sister, "Why is Mommy's email account listed as Mari?" 

"Oh," she said. "I told her not to do that, but she's decided to change her name to Mari. She said that her Chinese name is too confusing for people. This way, it's less confusing."

"But it's MORE confusing for people who didn't know you changed your name!"

"Yeah. I tried to explain that to her." 

Jonas Brothers!

When Peter and I were driving back from Florida, we stopped at a rest stop in the Carolinas. You may remember the STUFT incident. 

While we were at that rest stop, three hipster boys were lounging around in front of the quick stop at the gas station and Peter said:

"Hey look! The Jonas Brothers!"

I was so excited, "Oh my goodness!" I said. "Let's sit here and wait to see everybody FREAK OUT."

So we sit and one person after another walks by the Jonas brothers and have no reaction whatsoever. They were mostly older people and no one young is roaming around a North Carolina rest stop in the middle of the night. 

After a while with no reaction, I said, "I can't believe no one has recognized them by now."

Peter said, "Yeah, well...They wouldn't...because those aren't the Jonas brothers."

But I Don't Even LIKE Filet-O-Fish!

Whenever Peter hears a snippet of a catchy song, he will start to hum it...All. Day. Long. Until another more catchy song bites the head off the other catchy song and takes over. 

This is completely frustrating because once he starts to do it, it creates this domino effect in our house where we're both singing that song against our wills. 

Right now there's a television commercial that features a singing fish mounted to a wall--and if you know what I'm talking about, I feel sorry for you, because that song is probably bursting through your brain and will be with you until the day that you die. 

Because there is no other song that is catchy enough to vanquish this song!! 

Please help us!!

He's Just a Regular Dude

Today I saw a HUGE blow-up leprechaun on somebody's lawn and I said:

Isn't the whole point of a leprechaun is that he is a small fellow? I mean, at that size, he's just a regular dude. A regular dude who wears bright green outfits and smokes a pipe. 

Note From My Teacher

I've been cleaning out my STUFF lately, trying to make a cleaner household, and I've been finding all sorts of things--such as an old note from my teacher, Mrs. Lalji, in 3rd grade on which I forged my mother's signature.

In my memory of the event, I had gotten a low score on a spelling test and the teacher got angry at several of the students and called us to the front of the class where she gave us all mimeographed notes for our parents to sign. Her anger scared me so much that I was too frightened to show the note to my parents.

When I was in the 3rd grade, my parents had first opened up their restaurant. I hardly saw them. I woke up and got myself ready for school and waited for the school bus downstairs alone. I returned to school to either go back to an empty apartment or to a neighbor's house. I was told to go to bed when my parents called me from work and they wouldn't return until well after midnight. Basically, stuff that people would call Child Protective Services for today. In those days, we were just called "latch-key kids." 

To put this in perspective, I was an extremely conscientious student. I hardly missed any homework assignments and mostly did well on exams. I wasn't a problem student. On top of that, we had just moved to this country about three years before, so I had learned the English language in about a year and by that time, was performing at the top of my class at school (which just goes to show you the brainiacs who attended THAT particular Catholic school in Queens...).

There were times when I would only see my parents on weekends, and even then, for a very short time before they had to go into Manhattan unless I went with them to the restaurant.

So, in my 3rd-grade brain, I thought it would be an easy enough thing to do to FORGE my mother's signature. She had a pretty easy handwriting to copy, unlike all the swirls and whorls in my father's signature. So I studied an old signature of my mother's--she had to sign every exam we got home and every homework assignment. I know, Catholic school is strange.

After a few tries, I felt that I had NAILED IT. So the next morning, I handed the note to my teacher, who, in her FURY, snatched the note out of my hand and marched me to the principal's office to call my parents. As I looked at the note trembling in her hand, I realized my rookie mistake. 

The note was about 5 inches by 4 inches and I had used a LARGE area and signed my mother's name in HUGE three-inch letters. This is why a 3rd grader should never be President of the United States. We're not very smart at that age.

I had an internal meltdown. My parents hardly got enough sleep and they were working so hard to make their restaurant a success. I was ashamed of myself and horrified that my parents were going to discover what I did. I was SUCH a disappointment and all their hard work was wasted, having a daughter like ME. 

I also, until this point, WORSHIPPED the ground Mrs. Lalji walked around on, my one true desire in the 3rd grade was to become a teacher just like her and she was my ultimate role model.

My parents were struggling financially and paying money they didn't really have to send me to this school, something they constantly made sure I understood. My father, who became a better parent later in life, was not someone who would shirk away from punishing me, so in my mind, I thought that this would surely enrage him to a point where my life would come to an early and abrupt end.

Mrs. Lalji got on the phone and told my mother what happened and to IMMEDIATELY get to the school.

My poor mother, my sleep-deprived immigrant mother who didn't have much of a grasp of the English language, rushed to the school and when I saw her enter the room, I had expected her to look angry.

Instead of anger, she seemed worried, as if I had been hurt and not a signature forging excuse of a human being. 

Mrs. Lalji explained what had happened and, at this point, steam was literally coming out of her ears. She was so furious that she was shaking.

My mother immediately took me in her arms and held me. She turned to Mrs. Lalji, and in her limited English, told her that she would sign the note. She kept telling my teacher that it was okay. She kept saying, "It's okay. It's okay." 

And then she turned to me to say that I shouldn't have worried so much. That if I had trouble in school, I should tell her and not keep it inside. 

It was one of the times in my life that my parents have surprised me, have shown me that they understood the situation and understood me in a way that I didn't think they ever did.

Mrs. Lalji was quaking, she was so mad. And I realized that this teacher, who I looked up to unlike anyone I had ever encountered in my life, had wanted my mother to be angry with me, to punish me, and she was disappointed and furious when that didn't happen.

Anyway, I found this note while I was cleaning up and this goes to prove to Peter that I save EVERYTHING. And what I discovered was that this note was for a missed social studies homework assignment. 

It wasn't even for a low grade on an exam! The note was for a missed homework assignment in the THIRD GRADE.  

But I guess when you're eight years old and your home life is turned upside down and you're balancing a lot of things in your head and figuring out the world and you are new at dealing with Americans, much less mean Catholic school teachers who don't take the time to be their better selves, you do stupid stuff because you're just trying to HANG ON.

Hoping For No Sitting

Over the past few months, our coop building has had an issue with bedbugs. This, of course, scares the *bleep* out of me because the thought of our home infested with blood-sucking vampire bugs who live in beds and clothing is something that makes me want to move out of this home and into a ranch in the middle of nowhere with no visible neighbors and no visitors...ever.

Last Friday, a bed-bug-smeller dog was sent around the units to detect the presence of these suckers. I wanted to be there, but had a job interview so Peter was in charge of this. We were told that the dog would come into our home and if he found a bed bug, he would sit in that spot.

So of course, throughout my interview, all I kept thinking was, "I hope that dog doesn't sit. I hope that dog doesn't sit."

I was more nervous about what Peter was going to tell me than the job interview. I started making bargains with God like, "Please God, I would rather have NO BEDBUGS than this job...Although this job would be great too...but I'm not greedy....Thanks, God."

When I got home, Peter looked sort of unhappy and I started screaming, "Oh NO!!!! Did he sit? DID HE SIT?"

"No," Peter said. "He didn't sit. Which is a good thing...but...."

"What?"

"Well, I'm not sure if I trust that dog."

"Why not?"

"Well, picture two guys who look like Steve Buscemi and Phillip Seymour Hoffman come by with this friendly black lab, who by the way, doesn't look any different from our dogs, and says to him, 'Seek! Seek!' And the dog kind of wanders around looking all distracted and unfocused. And we're pinning all of our bed bug hopes on this dog? I mean, he looks like a nice enough dog, but he didn't seem that professional."

And then later on, Peter said that the bed bug dog trainer people were flipped out over the fact that we were toilet-training our cat.

"They kept saying, 'NO WAY!'" Peter said.

"But aren't they dog trainers? Wouldn't they be more knowledgeable about animal training than the next person?"

"Yeah. That's why I don't TRUST THEM."

Books We Have Read

The BBC believes most people will have only read 6 of the 100 books here.

Instructions:
1) Look at the list and put an 'x' after those you have read.
2) Tally your total at the bottom.
3) Tag others and pass it on.

Here's the list:
1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen (x)
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien (x)
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte (x)
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling (does one book count? x)
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee (x)
6 The Bible (Don't think I've read this cover to cover, though-- x)
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte (x)
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell (x)
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman (One of the books--x)
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott (x)
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier (x)
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulk
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger (x)
19 The Time Traveler’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger (x)
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell (x)
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald (x)
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck (x)
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll (x)
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame (x)
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis (x)
34 Emma - Jane Austen (x)
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen (x)
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis (x)
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden (X)
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne (x)
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell (x)
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown (x)
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez (x)
44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood (x)
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding (x)
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan (x)
51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52 Dune - Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen (x)
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon (x)
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck (x)
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov (x)
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt (x)
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold (x)
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding (x)
69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker (x)
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett (x)
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses - James Joyce
76 The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath (x)
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession - AS Byatt (x)
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker (x)
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro (x)
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte’s Web - EB White (x)
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (x)
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery (x)
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare (x)
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl (x)
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

Brad Pitt's Never Going To Win That Oscar

Last Sunday, as I was watching the Oscars, I thought about something Peter had said about Brad Pitt few months ago.

Brad was going around all the talk shows talking up his new movie, especially since he had been nominated as Best Actor for the Oscars. However, he was wearing this strange little mustache.

"Oh, he's NEVER going to win that Oscar if he's going around with that Hitler mustache," Peter said.

"Maybe it's for a movie. Why else would a man groom that kind of mustache."

"Well, if he wants the Oscar, he needs to shave that off. He needs to tell the production company, 'Hey look. I can win an OSCAR. This may be my only shot at this and I am NOT jeopardizing this by going around talking to people about it in MY HITLER MUSTACHE.'"

As it turns out, he did not win the Oscar and I do believe it's all because of the mustache.

I haven't seen the Benjamin Button movie yet and my friend Andrew said, "You should, because they CGI him back into the Brad Pitt you fell in love with in A River Runs Through It."

Ungoogleable

Last night a bad movie, called Turks 182 was on late-night television. It starred Kim Catrall and Timothy Hutton and it was so terrible that Peter said, "No WONDER their careers went down the crapper!"

I mentioned that she's really lucky that she ended up with the role on Sex and the City instead of the woman they originally hired and immediately, Peter wanted to know who that woman was.

"She's not popular," I said. "You wouldn't know her."

"Yes I would," he replied.

Peter does have this uncanny ability to pick out any character actor anywhere. He'll say, "Oh, see that guy picking up the trash in this movie? He used to be a judge on Law & Order."

"No," I said. "She's very little known, so you wouldn't know her."

I tried to google it, but couldn't find her name. I was talking to my friend Andrew at the time, so all three of us were googling to find out who this mystery person was. Andrew's from San Francisco, so I had people working coast-to-coast on this.

Our search phrases:

"Originally cast as Samantha Jones"

"Sex and the City Samantha Jones Actress First"

"Samantha Jones First"

"First Samantha Jones Sex and the City"

Later on I mentioned that I found out about this woman when she was interviewed for "Sex and the City E! True Hollywood Story and Peter shouted, "Well, WHY didn't you say that from the begginning? THAT would have made a difference.

New search terms:

"Sex and the City Samantha Jones E! True Hollywood Story"

"Samantha Jones E! True Hollywood Story"

"E! True Hollywood Story Originally Cast As Samantha Jones"

Etc, etc, etc,


It seems that this did not make a difference. This person was not on the Wikipedia Sex and the City page. She is UNGOOGLEABLE! My theory is that the producers of Sex and the City disappeared her. I don't know how and I don't know where, but it was DONE.

I have thrown down the gauntlet of Googledom. I have found the one ungoogleable item EVER.

Does That Look Like A Sandwich To You?

The problem with going out to eat with eleven people on Valentine's Day in Chicago is that there are TOO MANY PEOPLE with TOO MANY IDEAS. Because (for some reason) several of us wanted to go somewhere within walking distance of the hotel, and almost every restaurant was jammed full of people, one person in the group decided to that we should all go to this diner on Michigan Avenue which was practically empty.

Okay, simply the fact that this place was empty when every other restaurant was packed full of people should have tipped us off, actually, it did tip ME, Urban and Jim off, but we were with a huge group of people and we had already tried to go to three other restaurants and gotten turned away. So we decided to just go with the flow.

HOWEVER, food is really important to each of us, so in hindsight, Jim said, "Me and Urban should have grabbed you and ran for a taxi out of there!"

It was the type of diner that had one million items. Which is another bad sign. I asked Urban what he was ordering, and he said you can't go wrong with a burger. So that's what we ordered. As it turns out, you CAN go wrong with a burger. It was terrible. Urban ordered a side of fried mushrooms, but the cook misunderstood and put mushrooms IN Urban's burger. The waitress corrected the mistake and Urban kept the mushrooms on this burger. After a few bites of the fried mushrooms, Urban told me to try some.

"Okay," I said. I took a piece of fried mushroom, dipped it in the barbecue sauce and right before I popped it in my mouth, I asked him, "Is it good?"

He shook his head sadly and softly said, "No."

Later on, I noticed that Jim's meal looked like a pile of white goo. I couldn't think for the life of me what that was, so I asked him, "What did you order?"

Jim very angrily and loudly said, "It's a SANDWICH! What did you THINK?" I mean, steam was coming out of his ears. You would have thought I had asked him if he was wearing panties.

I turned to Urban and very quietly asked him, "Does that LOOK like a sandwich to you?"

And Urban turned and said, "Uhm...no..."

Later Jim apologized. He explained that he had told the waitress he wanted gravy ON THE SIDE and she must have assumed he wanted the gravy ON ALL SIDES of his plate. Which was why that SANDWICH looked like a PILE OF WHITE GOO. Later that night I took Jim to South Loop Club for a gyro and he felt tons better. And when we were talking about the diner, I said, "I felt that it was just a waste of twenty dollars."

Urban said, "It was more like wasting a chance for something good to eat, which is WAY more important than just twenty dollars."

Totally agreed.

AHHHHH! I HAD A GREAT VALENTINE!!!!!

During the REAL Valentine's Day, I was in Chicago and the one time I called Peter on Valentine's Day, I spent the whole time moaning and whining about people I thought didn't like me. And Peter was all, "I haven't heard from you in almost two days and the SECOND you get me on the phone you just want to whine to me? Who cares if people don't like you? You're being such a BABY!"

I gathered myself, but in my head, I was thinking, "But I was saving all this jumbled mess of my collected insecurities FOR YOU!"

The fact is, husbands are there to assure us that, no, we are not being crazy when we think people are being mean to us and no, we are in fact, extremely lovely and lovable and wonderful.

That's okay, because I got that from Jim a little later that evening, during which time he said, "Your husband called you a baby? My girlfriend would NEVER speak to me again if I said that."

My reply was (in Peter's defense), "Well, I actually am a baby a lot."

Anyway, during that Valentine's Day conversation, Peter said, "You know, I was going to spend a ton of money to get a plane ticket and surprise you in Chicago, but I'm glad I didn't!"

Later, he explained that he thought about whether I would rather see him on Valentine's Day in Chicago or get a really expensive present and he decided that I would rather get the expensive present. I had a suspicion of what it was when he picked me up in the Honda Element to go pick up the present... because it was THIS!



I have the BEST HUSBAND EVER!

I Was In Shit-cago And I Didn't Hate It

I went to the AWP conference in Chicago and although I don't enjoy Chicago in the wintertime, I didn't have the worst time. That's about the best thing I can say about Chicago.

It's a city that always "Blizzards on my ass." A phrase I came up with the last time I was in Chicago during the winter. We were having a leisurely lunch at Greektown when all-of-a-sudden I looked up and I couldn't see across the street because of the white blur of snow that appeared out of nowhere.

The thing about going to a city for a conference is that it doesn't really matter what city the conference is at because you only hang out in one building for the most part. And the bar at that building. The very expensive bar that charges $12 for a mixed drink. $12 DOLLARS!! Suffice it to say, I NURSED that vodka tonic as long as I could. So long that all the ice melted.

Another thing about the conference is that I regressed back to high school. There was a girl there who is a bit standoffish at times and I felt myself having my feelings hurt because she seemed to be actively shutting me out of conversations and I don't think it was my imagination that her friends seemed to really not want to talk to me.

When I mentioned this to my friend Jim, he said, "I don't think she likes me either. I think it's because she's jealous we look so young and SHE looks OLD!"

I don't think that there's anything that can cut a woman in her thirties to the quick faster than telling her that she looks OLD.

Anyway, this really touched me and made me feel really gooey inside.

Speaking of Poop...

The cat pooped on her scratching pad today.

We have been experimenting with putting less and less litter on the toilet litter kwitter pan so that she can get used to going in the toilet with no litter. Apparently, this is just fine for tinkling, but when it comes to taking a dump, she NEEDS those tiny beads of litter to go poop, I guess the same way my father needed the morning paper.

The way her little kitty noggin worked today is that she scratched up a bunch of cardboard bits from her scratching pad and formed a mound of bits. She then pooped on her scratching pad and covered up the poop with the cardboard bits. ARGGG!

This is VERY disheartening.

This is the second time she's done her business on the scratch pad. So now, another $7.99 down the drain.

She had been pooping in the bathtub about once a week, which was fine because you can pick it up relatively easily and we're trying to get her used to pooping in the toilet, which she HATES. Now I'm a bit worried because she had now taken the pooping outside of the bathroom for the first time since she peed on her last scratching pad a few months ago.

I just don't want her looking around the house trying to find another elimination station. So every time we see her eyeing something, we scream, "Snap out of it!"

And then she jumps in terror and runs hiding under the sofa.

Love, Thy Name is Labrador

Of all of our pets, Scout is the best one. I don't know if it's just a first-child parental thing. I know you're supposed to love all your children the same way, but there's nothing like that first one, the one that changes your life forever. I don't have children, but I am a first child and first children always think that deep down, they are, if not the favorite child, the most memorable one. And the first child will be the only one who will remember their parents when they were a little more youthful.

I am the only child who can even fathom running through the sprinklers with my parents. The one who accompanied them on our first trip to Disney World. We were like three children and I still remember my mother squealing throughout the Dumbo ride.

I know that my birth transformed my mother from a non-cooking, cockroach-fearing, non-opinionated girl into the awe-inspiring magician of food, killer of insects, and the person who is not ever afraid of ever saying, "That outfit makes you look like a middle-aged woman."

I didn't have the heart to tell her that, at age 35, "I AM a middle-aged woman! Which makes YOU an ol'lady!"

Scout is the sweetest dog and it breaks my heart that she's getting older by the minute. I can already see that she's losing some of her muscle mass. Her ribs poke out of her sides more than they used to and she doesn't come as fast when you call her.

I used to be able to whip a bite up apple up in the air and it didn't matter how far I flung it, she would pounce and grab it out of the air. Nowadays, it might bounce off her nose...or worse yet, drop to the floor.

The way she interacts with the cat is so cute. When we first brought her home, Scout just looked at it and looked at us as if to say, "What have you guys done NOW (sigh). What IS that thing?" Gone was the abject terror of the day we brought home Rocky. On THAT day, she looked as if we were seconds away from throwing her out on the street and saying, "So long, girl. We've got a new dog now. We won't be needing your services any longer."

Scout and the cat will sleep near each other, on their own beds. In the mornings, the cat will rub up against Scout, although Scout is a little bit cautious, lest those sharp claws come out. Scout has weathered the storm of our four moves, countless road trips across the country, and bringing in newer members of the family. I don't think that anything we ever do will ever freak her out anymore. And for some reason, that makes me sad.

I think that she will be the dog we'll talk about forever, especially that night she pooped on the corner of our bedroom floor when she was only a few weeks old. She was a terrible puppy to toilet-train, which got her into a lot of trouble. That night, I woke up to the most horrendous smell in the world, a smell so foul it wasn't earthly. It smelled like a present from the land of Hades.

When I got up to go clean it up, I saw that Scout had placed two socks on top of the poop.

That's right. She made her poop, looked at it and thought, "Uhm. I better cover this up before they find out about this."

After she placed one of my socks on the poop, she stepped back and said to herself, "This won't do. I think I need to cover up THAT little bit right there." Then she went and got the other sock.

And you know what kills me about that incident? She used TWO DIFFERENT socks from TWO DIFFERENT pairs.

Cleanliness Is Next To...

We have a friend who comes over our house and never washes his hands. He goes into the bathroom, does his business, and we never hear the faucet turn on. I brought this up to Peter last night and he said:

"Oh. He doesn't wash his hands on purpose. He knows we think it's important. I believe he's making a point by doing that."

Of course, what goes on in my mind is, "@#&%!" You know, like in the old comics when a character does something so out there that there are just no proper words to express this.

"But...but...but," I said. "He's only hurting himself! And getting E.coli. all over the potato chips!"

I know that I'm a little over-the-top in my hygiene. I am always washing my hands. This traces back to when my sister Judy was born and I was eight years old. I was told to wash my hands and face THE MOMENT I got home so as to not get any germs on the oh-so-delicate baby.

Now it's just a habit. I come home and wash my hands and my face. I believe this makes the world a better place.

I find it completely crazy when other people refuse to practice good hygiene. I know men are gross, but I never thought that a friend of ours would PURPOSEFULLY not wash his hands in my house. Of course this makes me want to invite people over less. And that's the slippery slope down the slide of becoming a Crazy Cat Lady Hermit.

Crawling On The Floor

Tonight we had two of Peter's friends over for the Superbowl, mainly because we have an HDTV. Peter likes sports, but when his team is in a tight spot, I have never seen him crawl on the floor on his hands and knees while groaning and keening like his friend Vinny, who wins the title hands down for most CRAZY STEELERS FAN. We will save that for when the kitten decides that she's had enough of this toilet-training nonsense and poops on our bed.

Thankfully, the Steelers won, although I have to admit that a part of me wanted to see Vinny flip out. I mean, if he's screaming and going nuts when the Steelers are several points behind, what would he be like when all hopes are dashed? Luckily, we live on the first floor in case he flung himself out the window. I would just hope that he doesn't break any of our stuff on the way out.

This reminds me of one of Peter and my first dates. He told me that he wasn't much of a sports fan and he hardly watches games. Which I learned later was completely untrue. He does enjoy watching sports and if we're at a restaurant and there's a game playing behind my head, if I took off all my clothes, it wouldn't even register with him. Therefore, you should date a man for more than several weeks before marrying him because what he thinks is true is different from what is the truth.

I tried to think of something I would feel so strongly about, but I have to say that I acted with much more decorum when George W. Bush won the presidential race against Kerry, and THAT determined the leader of our nation. Perhaps they haven't found that thing yet, the "Ice Skating While Fire-Breathing With the Stars" reality program which will inspire such passion in my heart. In that case, I would so be "Team Nia Peeples."

Can't Get Rid of Stuff

I have been going through a tumult of cleaning the past few days. This is all coming about because I have gotten sick and tired of looking at my messy apartment and getting into arguments with Peter on why I cannot clean the floors before I clean the dogs and if I clean the dogs, I will have to clean the dog beds. If I clean the dog beds, I will have to clean out the laundry machine, which means that I cannot clean our clothes before I disinfect the laundry machine. I cannot clean the floors before I clean out all my papers. I cannot clean up my papers before I get a desk so I can keep my crap in it. I cannot clean the clothes before we get a new dresser because Peter gave away my dresser to the painter dude who sprayed blue paint all over my bathroom because he must have been too lazy to put drop cloths down.

But DESPITE all these things, I decided that I should start to clean the clothes and the bathroom and spruce up the kitchen and living room anyway. And it looks a LOT better than it did two days ago, so that's good.

The thing is, I am a huge procrastinator, mostly because I want am super lazy, but also because I want things to be done right, which makes each small task a huge undertaking. But my New Year's Resolution is to not let Peter live like a slob. Because if there's only one life to live, I don't want us to live like that dirty kid that was Charlie Brown's friend.

Inspired by my whirlwind of cleaning, Peter decided to get rid of some of his old computers. I don't know why he's kept them so long. But last night, he asked me to look up when we could dump old computers in Mamaroneck. So I pull up the Town of Mamaroneck's website and discovered that they will only accept computers on two days per year. One day in April and another day in October. Which means that if you are on a cleaning spree in January, you have no choice but to dump it somewhere you're probably not supposed to (which we would NEVER do, of course).

Sometimes I don't get this town. Why are we paying these huge taxes?

Superman Just Doesn't Make Sense

Tonight we saw the tail end of Superman Returns. What I didn't like about it was that every seemed too mamsy-pamsy to be those characters. Lois Lane was so meh...And Superman was not Super enough. Kevin Spacey didn't have any charm.

"You know what I didn't like about Superman?" Peter asked. "I didn't like the fact that there isn't any explanation to the phenomena."

"Do you mean stuff like, if Superman's hair is so strong, how does he get his hair cut?"

"Maybe his hair doesn't grow? There's no explanation."

"So he's destined to only have one hair style? And also, remember that movie where Lois Lane dies and he turned back time? If he can turn back time, why doesn't he just do that all the time?"

"Well, that would require too much energy."

Late-Night Conversation

Me: Don't you hate it when you get to a dark room and flick your hand up to turn on the light switch---

Peter: And you miss it? Yeah, it feels really weird.

Me: And then you lose your balance because you flicked too hard?

Peter: No... That's never happened.

Pleasant Techno Music?

While we were in Orlando this year, I browsed through Tripadvisor.com to look for restaurant reviews and it always makes me laugh. For instance, we went to a restaurant called Sweet Tomatoes, which was really delicious for a buffet that costs merely $8.19.

But when I logged on to tripadvisor, I saw several posts which advised people that there were MUCH CHEAPER deals in Orlando. My reaction was, "Cheaper than $8.19 for a huge salad bar, all-you-can-eat soups (delicious soups at that), freshly baked breads and pasta (including a whole wheat penne dish)? What do you people want for $8?"

But the funniest post was this one, especially because it starts out with: "My wife, daughter and I began our experience by having a glass of wine at the bar while listening to pleasant Techno music."

Rachel Getting Married=Vomit

A few weeks ago I took my mother to see Rachel Getting Married. The performances were good, although a bit over-the-top, but ultimately it was pretty boring. At one point, everyone sits in the kitchen watching a dishwasher-loading contest. I turned to my mother and said, "Is this interesting cinema? I can load my own dishwasher at home."

But the biggest problem in the movie is the way indie film makers want to capture a film with all its "real world" jiggling a la "Blair Witch." The purpose, I suppose, is to make things appear more like documentary off-the-cuff film making. However, the real effect is my poor mother leaving the theater and saying:

"I feel like THROWING UP!"

Happy Inauguration Day!

Wishing everybody a Happy Inauguration Day!

It's the day we all tell President Bust --oops--typing slip-- President Bush, "GET OUT!"

I believe that Bush was a terrible president, but let's overlook the non-intelligence and the bad decisions and falling asleep during Hurricane Katrina and the torturing, etc. etc. etc. A lot of very unlucky things happened during the first term of the Bush presidency.

The Chinese believe firmly in the reality of luck. Belief in luck and superstition is more powerful than any religion or blood relations. My grandmother was given away at birth because a fortune teller told my great-grandmother that a girl born in the year of the tiger was bad luck. Luckily, she was adopted into a wonderful and wealthy childless family. So, I guess as it turned out, being a tiger girl was good luck. For my grandmother.

The fundamental difference between Americans and the Chinese, is that the Chinese people would NEVER have re-elected a president as unlucky as this one. You know the saying, "You don't have to be good if you're lucky?"

Obama seems to be pretty lucky so far, so it's a great sign.

Not My Friend

Today, I was talking to my sister and she started a story with:

"Something happened to my friend... actually, she's not my friend because I hate her.

JCPenney Has Tricksy Mattresses

When I bought my mattress, I made a point to go to JCPenney to buy one of those "Natural" mattresses made of organic materials. Peter and I got into HUGE fights that day because when we went to the JCPenney in Nyack, that particular store didn't carry mattresses. However, Peter did purchase two pairs of Lee Jeans for a steal.

We traveled to a part of New Jersey no one with all their teeth venture to purchase this particular mattress. I felt the aggravation was worth it, since I wanted us to fall asleep in luxurious organicness every night for the next ten years.

So I was VERY UPSET to learn in this NY Times article that the mattress I bought, in the Natural Care line by Danny Seo is not so organic.

JCPenney sucks and they are lying liars! I am NEVER buying non-organic organic items from them EVER AGAIN!

Relying On My Personality

The other day, I was looking in the mirror and I thought that I really should start wearing makeup. The thing with me and makeup is that I had a friend in high school who used to take two hours a day to get ready for school and a large portion of that time was applying makeup.

I told my friend Amanda about this and she was horrified. "You mean," Amanda said. "She looks at herself in the mirror for two hours every day?!"

It seemed like the height of vanity and I had a bad attitude about this. Especially since most of the girls I knew who were consumed with fashion and makeup seemed to have very little else to offer. Plus, the whole thing with makeup, I find, is that it's all about the re-applying. Makeup WEARS OFF, practically from the first moment you put it on. So the whole rest of the day is spent obsessively looking into mirrors to make sure that pieces of my face didn't rub off.

I realized the other day that I am the opposite of the girl who relied on her looks and never worked on her personality. When I had just graduated college, I had my wisdom teeth pulled and I went to work anyway with a swollen face and wearing an ugly white sweatshirt with orange cuffs and collar. I remember pulling on that ugly sweatshirt and thinking that I wanted to look as bad as I felt.

That day, a new guy came to work. A really cute new guy. We all hung out after work together and when things were winding down, the guy asked me out. I was stunned. You mean, I can look like a slob and cute guys will still like me? Wow. Only in New York! (By the way--this would NEVER happen in Westchester. They like their girls made up, with long colored nails and wearing tight mafia-wife type sweatpants.) (And yes, whenever I mention New York, I am not talking about the state, but THE CITY.)

When this happened, it was just positive reinforcement for bad behavior, because I hardly ever took pains with my appearance again. I mean, I brush my hair occasionally and wash my clothes, but I have twisted open a mascara wand less times in the past ten years than I have fingers and toes.

It doesn't help that EVERY MAN I've ever dated has not cared (or noticed) whenever I put on makeup. In actuality, the only people who care seem to be other women. At my wedding, my mother-in-law turned to me and said, "You're so BEAUTIFUL when you FIX YOUR FACE!" I took that as a compliment.

It's only recently that I've thought perhaps I should put a more presentable face to the world. It's probably my age. Although it's kind of funny to still get mistaken for a teenager, perhaps it's not such a good thing. I should look my age and do all the things my mother wished I would do--like fix my hair and not look slovenly. Oh! And lose that last bit of weight. So I went shopping with my sister today for grown-up clothes and I bought a suit. The thing is, that I'm between sizes, so a size 12 was a little too big, but a size 10 was too tight to be comfortable. At one point, I looked at my sister and said, "Honestly, which one looks better? Because I can't figure it out. A little too big? Or a little too tight?"

"Uhm. Well, I think the best thing to do is for you to lose five pounds so you can look really good in a size 10."

Ouch.

What Our Parrot Would Say

Today Peter and I just sat around the house and thought up words and phrases our parrot would say...if we were to have a parrot. Yes, this is what happens when you've been together for eleven years. If you are LUCKY.

If we ever had a parrot, we would name him Caribou and he would say:

Oh SNAP!

Ack! (what we tell the dogs when they're doing something wrong)

Good Kitty!

Where are my KEYS!

PETER!

Good Meow Meow!

What a douche bag!

It's a MESS in here!

Sit!

Where's the DS?

Don't drain all the batteries from MY DS!

Get your OWN DS!

Are you pooping in there?

We All Have to Deal With It

The little kitty is (so far) pretty successful with the litter-kwitter toilet training. However, she has been pooping a lot less. She used to poop every day and now she will keep it in for three days straight. My sister asked me why and I said, "Well, my theory, and it's only a theory, is that she hates it when the poop splashes the water up her butt. I haven't figured out a good way to fix that yet."

"So what? She needs to learn how to DEAL WITH IT. I mean, WE ALL do."

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!"