Nine Stories

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

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

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

Kismet?

Serendipity? 

Fate?

Salinger?

My guess is all of the above.

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

Thanks Jerome David. Rest in peace.  

He Must Really Love Her

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"He must REALLY love her."

Big Nose

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

Melding Soap

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



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

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

Ya Gonna Call Security?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

YAY!

We went to see Up in the Air.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

But I Have Two Jobs!!

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

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

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

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

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

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

"But I have two jobs!"

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

A Breakthrough Moment From Jessica Biel

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

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

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

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

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

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

Best,
Jessica Biel

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

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

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

Haiti Coverage

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

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

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

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

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

Here's the link to the Red Cross.

ebay Person leonhart.306 is SOOO On My Shit List

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

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

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

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

URG!!

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

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

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

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

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

That's really the part that burned me up.

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

I hope that an avalanche falls on him.

Orange Julius

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

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

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

And I said, "Liquid AWESOME!"

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

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

I said, "Huh?"

"Pears are gross and this is DELICIOUS!"

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

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

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

The Orange Julius Recipe

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

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

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

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

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

I'm Totally Taking the Credit

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Things to Do Before I, You Know...

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

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

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

Which One to Buy?

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

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

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

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

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

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

Huh? Wha? Uhm....

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

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

New Year's Resolutions

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

I can't believe it's 2010!!

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

Kind of scary.

Rocky's Christmas Present to Us

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

Poor Rocky.

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

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

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

Don't Put Bird Seed Out in December

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

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

There hung the bird feeder filled with birdseed.

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

"Sure there are birds!"

Yah. Right.

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Uhm," he said. "Maybe."

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

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

Smart Santa

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

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

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

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

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

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

oink OINK!!

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

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

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

My temperatures:
99.9
98.4
99.7
98.9
99.6

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

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

And how's that?

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

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

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

Our Old Dog

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

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

The World Has Changed Before Our Eyes

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

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