Happy New Year!

Normally, I hate New Year's Eve. For the past few years, I would feel hope and excitement for what was to come, only to realize that nothing magically changes just because it is a new year. We still had the same buttfuck for a president, I still had the same job, and things just rolled along. Even though I knew that change happens as it comes, not on a schedule, I was still depressed for the first few weeks of January.

Today I am more positive. I know that nothing will be different in the next few hours, but there is so much to look forward to this year. My book will be coming out, I'll have a new job, and maybe I'll even be starting an MFA program. A number of my dear friends recently had or are having children in 2008, and it makes me smile to think about being Aunt Suzanne.

This past year brought many excellent developments for me, too. My sister, who had been trying to find a teaching job in Iowa for five years, finally was hired to teach first grade and is thriving. (Even better, kids at a troubled school are lucky enough to have her as their teacher.) Some of my friends had babies, and others became pregnant. My friends who have kids already have wonderful families. Almost my whole family was able to come east and celebrate my brother-in-law's wedding with my in-law family. I was not only able to see my family in Chicago a few times this year, but I traveled around the world. And, of course, my book about unusual things to see and do in my beloved New York City finally found a publisher after I'd worked on the concept for almost three years. I doubt that 2008 will top any of this, but that's OK. There's new and interesting things coming our way.

Here's to a year free of sea urchins and full of unshaved snatch! (Translation: I hope that everyone has a healthy and happy new year!)

Pearl Harbor

It's foot soaking and reflecting time. We woke up dark and early (the sun doesn't come up until after 6:30) and headed over to the USS Arizona Memorial. Tickets to the memorial are distributed on a first-come-first-serve basis at 7:30, and it is definitely true that if you snooze, you lose. Husband and I got into a long line at 7:00, reached the ticket counter at 8, and received tickets for the 9:00 AM tour. (By the time we left at 10:30, the day's tours were fully booked. The last tour, incidentally, is at 3:00.)

Three things really struck me while I was there. First, I was distraught at how the museum glossed over the gross inequities among servicemen. For example, it mentioned a brand new club that military men could enjoy, but neglected to mention that only white servicemen were allowed in, since the military was segregated. As usual, minorities got the shittiest jobs. Also, given the number of Hawaiians and Asians who served, I thought more attention should be paid to how they were discriminated against and even illegally rounded up. It's always pained me that while some guys - Asian, black, other "non-white" - were off fighting, their families suffered under Jim Crow and in interment camps. I realize that this is not the point of the memorial, but to me, the people who died serving a country that didn't treat them fairly deserve even more recognition for their sacrifices. (Husband pointed out that the museum is super tiny and they are trying to raise money to expand it, so maybe this will be addressed.)

I was incredibly distressed to learn that the servicemen didn't have to be caught so unaware by the attack. It seems that two guys monitoring the radar equipment noticed a fleet unexpectedly coming in. They checked and re-checked the equipment to make sure it wasn't malfunctioning, and when it still showed unexpected activity, they called it in. The guy at the information center was new - it was his first day - and he told them to ignore it. It seems that a delivery of new aircraft were due from California that day, and he assumed that is what was showing up on the radar. As a result, no warning was sounded. Over 2,000 people died. Incidentally, many Hawaiian citizens died that day as well when anti-aircraft shells misfired and fell on Honolulu. The whole thing was a tragedy that maybe could have been less severe if that info center guy took some time to verify what was going on.

On a positive note, my guidebook notes that the Japanese may have been successful in reaching a high death toll and fucking up many ships, but their focus on ships probably ultimately cost them the war. Turns out that a better target would have been the fuel tanks behind the ships and airfields. These tanks powered all of America's Pacific Fleet. According to the book, "If a single bomb had been dropped on just one of the tanks, it could have set them all ablaze. It would have a taken a year to replace that fuel. A year that our aircraft carriers would have sat idle without any gas. A year that the Japanese Navy would have had free reign." So at least that was a good outcome from a horrific event.

Overall, despite my nitpicking, the memorial was heart-rending and very emotional. I am so glad that we had the opportunity to see it. The USS Arizona is under 40 feet of water, so only the very tips of the ship are visible. Although it continues to leak oil to this day (some call it the tears of the dead), many beautiful fish were swimming around the gun turrets and other areas, almost in tribute to those who lost their lives. It was hard not to cry thinking about that fateful day.

After the memorial, Husband and I explored a WWII US submarine, the USS Bowfish. The recorded audio tour was done by the men who served on the sub, and hey had great senses of humor. It was a lot of fun. The sub sank over 40 Japanese ships, if I remember correctly. (It was a lot.)

Since we didn't leave until well after 1 pm, and my foot hurt a little, and we were really hungry, we skipped today's planned hike up a cliff. We'll try to do something athletic tomorrow after we take a tour of a former sugar plantation. The tour guides are all former workers, and they discuss what life was like on a plantation from their perspective, so I am very excited for this.

The Flying Machine

I was so excited that I hiked up Diamond Head that I completely forgot to mention the flying machine that Husband booked us to ride on Friday. This is the machine and the husband-wife team who took us up (picture from their website, Paradise Air Hawaii):



Seriously, if that is not something drawn up by Leonardo da Vinci in this Codex book thing, I don't know what is. It was raining a bit, and the air was sort of choppy, so I felt a little green around the gills. Had I barfed in my helmet, I suspected the air flow would have pushed it into my eyes, so I concentrated very hard on not puking, which made my ride a bit less fun. Husband LOVED it, though, which makes me happy. I feel like my injury has ruined the trip a bit (which he denies), so I am very glad that he really enjoyed this activity. Our pilots (Denise and Tom) are aerial stunt people and generally super friendly and awesome, so I recommend checking them out if you go to O'ahu and want to go in a flying machine. Denise offered to let me steer for a while, but I'm not even that keen on driving a car and I was trying not to vomit into my own face, so I politely declined. Husband took the reigns on his flying machine and thought the experience was utterly fantastic.

Hang Loose

This morning, Husband and I headed over to the legendary farmers market at the base of Diamond Head crater. We saw Al and Elizabeth and her family, and I ate three of those donut-things-that-are-popular-in-New-Orleans-that-I-can't-spell with lilikoi sauce, which is some very yummy sweet-tart thing that I've been enjoying while here. (Husband had two little mushroom and mozzarella risotto cakes from the same booth.) Husband and I also enjoyed Ewa sweet corn on the cob with butter and garlic powder. Yeah, it is a pretty strange combination, but delicious. We then browsed around the market for a while, and I bought sweet potato mochi (a sweet gloopy rice ball thing), sugar free lilikoi jam, and honey soap.

Powered up from our nutritionally devoid breakfast, Husband and I headed for the hike up Diamond Head. The hike is 0.8 miles each way, climbs over 500 feet, and involves dirt and stone trails and over 170 steps where the climb is too steep for a trail. I was nervous, but determined to not miss out on the views. Despite my gimpy limping, wee made it up, soaked in the views, and were back at the parking lot in about 70 minutes. My foot hurt a little, but I am so glad that I made it. Although I got some blisters from walking on my toes more than usual, it also gives me hope that I can do another hike.

After Diamond Head, we hit the beach outside our hotel. It was the first time we've seen the sun in three days, which was perfect. The waves were very fun to jump. However, the water was a bit cold and my foot started getting numb, so we only lasted 30 minutes before heading back inside for a nap then lunch. Now Husband is watching the Giants-Pats game while I rest my sea-urchin-and-blister-encrusted feet.

Tomorrow: Pearl Harbor and hopefully a hike up another crater.

Ouch

Here are some pictures from my Christmas Eve sea urchin mishap:

This is the two mile trail husband and I hiked down to get to the Capt. Cook Monument and the bay that is known for excellent snorkeling. It is full of loose rocks and over its course, descends 1,300 feet to the water.

The Monument stands in British soil! I thought this was very cool. Given its remote access location, however, it is not so well-maintained.

Although it hurt like a motherfucker, here I am calmly awaiting medical evacuation. Note the completely hideous sunglasses that I bought at Urban Outfitters the day before I left for the trip. They are fudiculous, which is my new term for fucking ridiculous. (Maybe the sea urchin attacked me because it was so offended by my bad taste?)

A close up shot of my injuries doesn't do the damage justice. (A random tour guide/registered nurse plucked out the sea urchin spines that hadn't broken off already before I thought to document the experience. (It's a fuckload scarier to look at when there are long thin sticks poking out of the skin.) The big ink blobs and blood smears cover up all the individual barbs. There are 24 barbs in my heel and six on the side of my foot, plus about seven more near my big toe and four more near my little toe. While I still feel that a helicopter was a bit excessive, there was no way I could climb back up the trail.

All's well that ends well... sort of. Most of the ink from the sea urchin is gone from my foot (but not all), I can put on my shoes again, and here I am posing cheerfully in the lovely lobby of our hotel in O'ahu.

What Time Is It?

December 27 not only marks my birthday, but also that of French scientist Louis Pasteur (you know - he made milk safe to drink through pasteurization and also invented the cure for rabies) and my favorite wooden puppet named after feces. That's right, kids! My mom told me that "The Howdy Doody Show" debuted on Dec. 27, 1947. How cool is that?

Today Elizabeth and Al showed Husband and I around O'ahu's infamous North Shore. Unfortunately it rained all day and the waves were not too big, so there weren't too many surfers out. We did watch some hearty souls giving it their all and also ate amazing hamburgers and shaved ice. Elizabeth showed me where the kid sister attended school in Blue Crush, an awesomely cheesy fun chick surfing movie that I adore.

In other news, my foot is feeling a little better, but not great. (I'll post some pictures later.) I gave up hope that I'll be able to do much hiking on Diamondhead, so I am sad about that. As for my insect bites, I decided that they must be some sort of tape worm nests, as they seem to intensify in itchiness whenever I am hungry. The good news there is that I don't think any new welts developed today.

Tomorrow Husband booked us on some sort of flying machine that I think Leonardo da Vinci invented. Assuming that we don't fly too close to the sun and crash into the ocean, we will stop at the Dole Plantation afterwards. They boast the world's largest maze (100,000 square feet), although some place in Ireland recently topped them. Assuming my foot is OK and it is not pouring rain, we'll wander the pineapple hedgerow.

RIP Benazir Bhutto

I turned the laptop on this morning to complain that my foot still hurts and that I also seem to have been eaten alive by some nasty bugs (my legs and arms have itchy red welts all over them, which began appearing on Christmas day and I am hoping are not from bedbugs...), but then I found out that Benazir Bhutto was assassinated. The first female leader of a Muslim nation, she continued to have thousands of supporters although she was dogged by corruption scandals and power-hungry. Some of this is no doubt due to the popularity of her father, but I was always fascinated by her. She seemed to break down barriers. I only hope that this sad event leads to something positive outcome - more democracy or increased women's rights - somewhere in the world.

It's My Birthday, Too!

It is still Dec. 26 in Hawaii, where I am blogging from, so it isn't technically my 32nd birthday yet, but I was born in the 'burbs of Chicago, not Hawaii, and it's the 27th there. Yay my parents for having me.

My friend Elizabeth grew up in Hawaii and is in town with her husband Al (my friend from college), so we shall be spending the day with them. Elizabeth suggested driving up to the North Shore, which is sort of ironic because the suburban area I grew up in is also known as the North Shore but instead of being a winter surfing mecca, my North Shore is a frozen tundra. First we will eat breakfast at the super cool hotel that Husband and I are staying at (for free courtesy of his hotel points). The Royal Hawaiian was built in 1927 and is known as The Pink Palace. Everything is pink - towels, sheets, etc. It's very cool. I love historic places. Anyway, it is supposed to have an amazing albeit pricey breakfast buffet, but we're going out on a limb for my birthday.

Otherwise, I have been sort of quiet since I can't walk too much since I was viciously attack by a sea urchin on Christmas Eve after falling off a rock while preparing to snorkel. Husband and I arrived in O'ahu yesterday and had a delicious and delightful Christmas dinner with Elizabeth's charming and cultured family. Today we went to the Aloha Swap Meet, a fun flea market outside Aloha Stadium. After that, we headed to the Hawaiian Medical Heritage Center at The Queen's Medical Center to check out a small exhibit. Since we are weirdos, we decided that it would be fun to eat at the hospital cafeteria and buy t-shirts from the gift shop. After that, we went to a laundromat.

Hope that everyone is having a fun and sea urchin-free holiday!

How I Got an Unintended Tattoo as a Souvenir (aka When Sea Urchins Attack)

So... I didn't plan to log on again until later this week, but then again, I also didn't plan to fall off of a slippery rock and land on a very angry sea urchin, which showed its displeasure by lodging dozens of barbed spines into the bottom of my right foot and toes on my left tootsie, rendering me unable to walk without lots o' pain. (Wow, that was a long sentence.)

To save a couple hundred bucks, Husband and I decided to hike a two mile trail that descends 1300 feet to the Capt. Cook Monument instead of booking a snorkeling excursion. (We also were excited for the hike.) Everything began hunky dory. We found the trail (an abandoned dirt road) easily and handled the rocky trail well. It took about 90 minutes to reach the beach, which was already crowded with kayaks and boat tours. As we stripped off our sweaty pants and t-shirts to our bathing suits, we overheard a kayak guide tell his clients that he was a registered nurse. I asked him the best way into the water, and he suggested walking down the lava rocks.

The problem with the lava rocks, I discovered, is that the ones in the water are covered with moss or whatever and slippery as fuck. As I attempted to gingerly step into the water, I slipped off the rock. My feet got caught on a very rocky bottom and my water shoes came off. Then I felt a horrific stinging. I managed to pull myself onto the dry rock pile and discovered many spines sticking out of my feet.

Long story short, Husband went to look for the nurse guide and I crawled onto shore. Clearly there was no way I could walk back up the trail, so I called 911. After an extremely surreal conversation (the dispatcher didn't entirely believe where I was or how I got there, but this could partially be because I claimed stepped on a sea anonomae while I was SCUBA diving), she said she'd send a rescue crew. Then the nurse tour guide appeared and used his first aid kit to pick the remaining spines out of my feet. He said that there is nothing I could do about the barbs, which are made of calcium, and would remain in my skin until they were absorbed. I mentioned that I called 911 and he said the Coast Guard boat shouldn't be too long.

We sat around a while longer and then a Coast Guard guy called me on my cell phone to explain where the helicopter would pick me up. Yes. Helicopter. Seriously. For reasons I cannot understand, they decided to send a helicopter. I explained that I only needed help getting out and probably a helicopter was excessive, but he said that's what they decided to send. This involved hiking back a little ways on the path, which was not fun.

Even less cool, there was no room for Husband. The poor man had to hike two miles uphill alone after I was evacuated. I felt like crap about the whole thing. First, I ruin his chance to snorkel by falling on a sea urchin. Then, he has to hike back alone to meet me in the hospital. And it started to rain. Oy.

So, long story long, I was choppered out and met by an ambulance. I repeatedly told the rescue and EMT guys how mortified I was that they had to waste their time and resources just because I couldn't hike back. The EMT guys were not only cheerful, but adorable, and told me that they were glad I needed help since they were bored. At the hospital, I soaked my feet in vinegar. Husband eventually arrived, and I was relieved that he got off the trail safely. A doctor came in and took a cursory look at my many punctures and barbs and told me I had no infection. I was also told that the ink from the spine may never go away completely, hence my potential new series of tattoos.

That was my last day in Hawaii. Hopefully, the guy at my hotel who told me that the pain goes away in a few days will be right because otherwise the rest of the trip is going to suck for poor Husband since I can't hike until the pain is a little less, which is very upsetting.

Merry Christmas! (Mele Kalikemaka!)

Three Quick Glimpses

On Mauna Kea at sunset it's about 36 degrees. Fortunately, I no longer was faint at that point and enjoyed the view immensely when I wasn't worrying about falling over the edge.


Standing in pouring rain trying to find the way from driveway to cabin in dark. Let's just say it was a challenge, but ultimately worth it.

I love nene!

Aloha!

I've been in Hawaii for four full days and all I can say is, what the fuck is wrong with Jamie Lynn Spears? Couldn't she have the decency to wait to announce that she was knocked up at a time that was more convenient to me?!?! Bah! Ha ha ha.

Seriously, Husband and I have been having ourselves quite the adventure out in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. Since I wasn't able to blog for a few days, I was forced to resort to writing down everything that we've done on a piece of paper so that I would not forget. Since it is a lot, I'll give brief recaps:

Thursday, Dec. 20 - DAY 1
Woke up at 6 am and headed to Hawaii Volcano National Park. Stopped for breakfast and saw cute little green lizard with pink spots at restaurant. Stopped again in Na'alehu and bought a cookie at the southern most restaurant in the US (Hanah Hou) then crossed street and bought malasadas (donuts) and sweet bread pudding in southern-most bakery in US. Noted lack of accent. Stopped at Punalu'u Black Sand Beach - very crunchy! Went on to HI Volcano Ntl. Park. Took tour with ranger and walked into dark lava tunnel with flashlights as well as a small part of Kilauea Iki Trail. Continued on trail after tour to descend 400 into crater and walk on former lava lake. Took driving tour around crater with several stops to take small hikes. Saw nenes (Hawaiian goose that is often a clue in crossword puzzles) on Devastation Trail. Discovered that I can't breath near sulfur fumes. Left park around 6 pm and checked into B&B, only to discover that we were staying at a glass and wood cabin down the street in the middle of a rain forest. (More on this later.) After a few misadventures, had dinner on "restaurant row" (there are four places to choose from!) and went to sleep.

Friday, Dec. 21 - DAY 2
Woke up at 6 am. Excellent breakfast served by B&B owner's hot grandson. Drove to Hilo in pouring rain and got out to see Rainbow Falls (no rainbow while raining) and some stream. Took awesome helicopter ride over lava flows. Due to my height and weight, I was assigned the seat in front next to the pilot. After helicopter ride, we went to Wal-Mart because it is fucking freezing at 4,000 feet at night and I needed a sweatshirt. Plus, the helicopter pilot recommended buying mele macs (macadamia nuts covered with toffee, chocolate, and powdered sugar) there for best price. In the afternoon, we went back to the Volcano Park and had a misadventure along a closed road because turning around and trying another trail. Hiked to and up Pu'u Huluhulu (a shaggy hill) with great views, then hiked to see Pu'u Loa Petroglyphs. Drove to end of Chain of Craters Road, which got covered by lava flow. Had dinner at Thai place on "restaurant row."

Sat., Dec. 22 - DAY 3
More yummy grandson - er, I mean breakfast - at the B&B before checking out. Drove to Mauna Kea. On way, stopped at Mauna Loa Macadamia Nut Factory, then in a creepy cavern left from 1881 lava flow. At Mauna Kea, took ranger tour to summit. (Everyone drives up in their own 4 wheel drive vehicle.) Discovered that the air supply at 14,000 feet is rather thin and nearly passed out. Taking advice of ranger, I sat down and focused on breathing, so I was fine. A teenage boy crumpled and was given oxygen before being sent back down with his parents. We headed into the Univ. of HI telescope, where I discovered that we'd have to walk up 3 flights of stairs. After nearly passing out again, I decided to sit and wait at bottom. Eventually acclimated and stayed at summit to watch sun set. Amazing. Drove down and returned to hotel in Kona along crazy semi-paved road.

Sun., Dec. 23 - DAY 4
Slept in (until 7:30!), then drove to Pu'uhonua o Honaunau National Park. Site was former sanctuary for religious offenders, defeated soldiers, and other people. Walked around re-created site and also out on lava flows to ocean. Saw many adorable sea turtles! Hiked on 1871 Trail and saw more ruins, but had to turn back due to improper footwear and increasingly rough terrain. Ate macadamia nut ice cream at antiques store with small Hawaiian ice cream counter in back. Returned to hotel and decided to take advantage of big fancy pool. Had dinner and then began preparing for tomorrow's big hike to Capt. Cook Memorial (it's on British soil!). It's two miles each way and descends 1,300 feet. If we are not too tired, we will snorkel a bit before heading back up.

Anyway, that's what I've been up to. I hope that everyone is doing well and for those of you who celebrate, Merry Christmas! I'll probably not log on again until my birthday later this week.

Rich People Stink

Hello from the Admirals Club in Dallas-Ft. Worth, where I am waiting out a two hour layover before boarding the flight to Honolulu. One of the many benefits of traveling with Husband is that I get to observe (and experience) the lifestyle of fancy-schmancy business travelers and the wealthy. What I discovered is that these people stink. Literally. (Proverbially, the top 2% live rather nicely, as the convenient free internet stands in the Admirals Club demonstrates.)

The flight to Dallas-Ft. Worth had two classes: first and coach. On that type of flight first class is really more like regular business class, but the hoity-toity have to accept it and sit amongst the hundred thousandaires or be forced to sit in the back with the riff-raff (where I belong). Anyway, not long into the flight, I used the bathroom. It was not smelling very fresh, even at that point. However, when I went back an hour or so later, I nearly fucking passed out it was so damn rank. I wondered who stuffed the dead body into the tiny room and how it managed to decompose so quickly. When I needed to pee again not long before landing time, I decided to wait it out, figuring there'd be a nice potty in the Admirals Club.

I was only half correct. The fixtures were very upscale, but the two stalls had the distinct odor of fresh diarrhea. (Sure that made me laugh when I typed it, but I wanted to cry in the bathroom while I emptied my very full bladder.) As a person with an on and off digestive ailment, I understand that sometimes you can't help where you have an explosion. However, I am starting to wonder if all the expensive food consumed by the upper class leads to more stink bombs in toilets.

Anyway, other than spilling orange juice all over Husband's seat and iPod during the flight, that's about it for now. Good times ahead.

Actually, I just looked out the window and a large fire appears to be ranging on the tarmac. Scary. More to come.

Off the See the (Warm) Sunshine*

For some people, the reason to go to sunny places is to get a tan and lay out on the beach. I hate sand and I try and stay out of the sun. Husband and I have a fun, active trip planned instead.

This is what I looked like before leaving for Hawaii, except more bundled up (maybe even with a scarf knitted by Ev!):


This is what I will look like upon my return from Hawaii:


This assessment of my current and future appearance is informed by previous travels to hot sunny places during cold and/or clammy months. While I do enjoy the sun, it plays wicked games with me. Seeing as I have enough problems with my health without throwing skin cancer into the mix, I always wear hats and sunscreen when I visit tropical paradises or baking developing countries. Thus I come back just as pasty as when I left, although I have as much fun in my own way as the sun worshippers.

More to come, live from Hawaii!

*It's actually been sunny here for the past two days, it's just a freezing cold sunshine.

Xmas Craftiness

Six or so years ago, when I was a gainfully employed do-gooder who was cynical and sarcastic, but not yet burdened with murderous impulses, I went to San Francisco for work. The HQ of the nonprofit for which I toiled (never in five years to be rewarded with a promotion while others around me who did less work and earned less got ever fancier titles and power, but I swear I am not bitter...) was located in the Bay area, which was one of the bestest things about the job. I was able to travel to San Francisco a few times a year! (The HQ of the nonprofit I previously worked for was in the middle of nowhere - Columbia, MD. So not fun, but I digress.)

Anyway, I was out in SF for work and needed something to read on the plane ride back, so I hopped into the Borders bookstore on Powell Street. For a mere $6, I scooped up a Sue Grafton crime novel, Q is for Quarry. Nevermind that I didn't read A-P, I figured that it would be a tasty little diversion that could stand alone. I devoured it on the plane, then stashed it on my bookshelf when I got home, where it remained untouched until this past Saturday.

On Saturday evening, Husband and I met Steph in New Jersey (half way between our domiciles) for a holiday gift exchange. Because I am ill-prepared for things lately, I neglected to purchase part of Steph's gift. She wanted some facocked book about the UNC-Chapel Hill basketball team, and shockingly I discovered on Sat. morning that no area bookstore carried it. (Can you believe that? Ha ha.) This left me to order it for her online, but I didn't just want to bring her a print out of the order, as that would be lame. No, inspiration hit.

Steph loves crime novels, so I thought she might enjoy Q is for Quarry while waiting for her basketball book. At the same time, I wanted her to know that I ordered the damn thing, so I printed a picture of the cover of the basketball book and stuck it on some blue construction paper, which I then made into a new book jacket for Q. I wrote a new blurb on the back, explaining what a great book it will be once it arrives.

When Steph opened the wrapping paper, she was excited. "Oh, you got the book I wanted..." she began, only top stop and stare at the fucked up cover. "What the hell is this?" Then I explained and she read the blurb and we laughed and laughed until I nearly had an asthma attack. Her real book should arrive sometime soon, but she will definitely enjoy they crime book in the meantime. My craftiness led to an excellent two-in-one gift, if I do say so myself.

Way Down Yonder in the... Pineapple Patch?

I called my parents to say good-bye last night before Husband and I leave for our big trip to Hawaii. Here's an actual transcript (from my mind) of part of the conversation:

Mom: Have a great time in Hawaii! While you're picking pineapples, be careful...

Suzanne: That they don't fall on my head?

Mom: No, that they don't scratch your thighs!

Suzanne: What? What do you mean scratch my thighs?!? Pineapples grow in trees!

Mom: No, I think they grow on vines, like in a patch.

Suzanne: Um, pineapples definitely grow in trees. (Laughing hysterically.)

Husband: (overhearing part of the conversation) Everyone knows that children grow in patches!

Mom: That makes about as much sense as coconuts growing on trees. Those things are heavy!

What's the Frequency, Kenneth?

While on a quest for hiking socks (which should not have been as difficult as it was, but it seems that only children's shoe stores carry hiking socks for women with size six feet - what the fuck, yo?), I passed a sign outside a salon. The sign read:

Free bikini waxing with every eyebrow waxing.

Does anyone else think that seems like it should be the other way around? The world baffles me.

Guantanamo May Be on an Island, But It's No Hawaii

Living in Manhattan is generally great because I don't have to drive anywhere to accomplish daily tasks. This is not such a good thing, however, when it is 27 degrees with a fierce wind. I'm spending most of the day running drugs - er, I mean, errands - so I sort of wish that I had a nice warm car that I could retreat to while I go from store to store. Oh well. It'll only make me appreciate the warm breezes in Hawaii all the more.

Assuming, of course, that I make it to the Aloha State. As I was chatting with Dianne on the phone this morning, I heard the annoying digital beeping of an alarm clock. "What the fuck is that?" I thought, and wandered around the apartment until I traced it to the bulging backpack that Husband packed for the trip. The sound came from somewhere deep inside. "Fuck, I'm going to have to dig through it," I told Dianne.

That's when I saw the orange blinking light. "Aha!" I pulled it out. The alarm was still beeping inside the backpack and I was holding a survivalist flashlight with crank charging mechanism, AM/FM radio, and blinking orange light functions. It occurred to me how fucked up this would look going through airport security if an alarm went off and a light began blinking in the bag.

It's "The Most Wonderful Time" of a "Wonderful Year"

While showering this afternoon, I stood for a few moments in the hot steam and reflected on my 2007. Damn, it was one hell of a year. From travel to getting a book deal to having awesome friends and family, I am pretty sure that I'll never be able to top it, although there is plenty to look forward to in 2008, like when the book actually comes out.

I've been a stress basket for the last few weeks, but now that my MFA applications are complete, I feel better. This past Friday, I pursued a lead for a potentially kick ass job for next year. (I'll know more about that tomorrow afternoon.) At 6 am on Wednesday, I'll be on a plane heading to the Aloha State. Yup, as of this moment, I am sitting pretty.

Even though there are a million little errands to run and ends to tidy up before I leave (including a marathon leg shaving session, since the gams have gotten furry over the past few months), for once, I am not riddled with anxiety. It's great.

It's Not Like In "Ghost," But Better

"I love you," the Demi Moore character said to the Patrick Swayze character in the film Ghost, which always makes me bawl my eyes out whenever I watch it, which it is why I should not do so while I am at the gym, even if it is on the TV right in front of whatever machine I am using.

"Ditto," the Patrick Swayze character would respond.

Ghost is the first thing that came to mind when I stepped into a bathroom in a diner that I stopped at with my parents last week on my way to O'Hare. I realize this sounds odd, but there was a giant pink tampon machine attached to the wall that dispensed "Ditto Tampons." If this is not enough to make you fall on the ground laughing, I will add that the pink machine also noted that there are inspirational messages printed in their boxes. For a mere 75 cents, not only can a menstruating woman protect her underwear from blood stains and receive inspirational messages, but help support breast cancer research. Yes, the machine claimed that a portion of their proceeds support this worthy cause.

Sadly, the photos I took on my dad's cell phone camera did not make it to my inbox when I tried to email them to myself. It was fun, however, standing in the women's room taking pictures of a ridiculous pink tampon machine. Ditto!

Not Hail, Snow, or Heavy Rain Can Stop the Silicone Vagina (Yes, There's a Graphic Picture)

Yesterday was one of the weirdest days I have had this year. It began with a 9 am post office call. As it is the holidays, I knew that I'd be waiting in line for a long time, so I prepared to spend an hour there. I brought plenty of reading and a crossword puzzle, so when I finally left the post office after an hour and change, I didn't feel like too much time was wasted as I departed to buy dry food and hay for Tycho's country estate visit.

Long story short, my quest for Tycho's sustenance led me to three different pet shops over a mile long walk through a hail storm. Not expecting hail, I wore a pair of clogs, which meant I had to walk extra slow (i.e. - at the pace that most people in this country consider normal) for fear of slipping and breaking my ankle. I pictured myself trying to clamber up the side of a volcano in Hawaii next week with a broken ankle, and it seemed even less fun than wandering around in a hail storm looking for Oxbow Bunny Basics T rabbit food.

Mission accomplished, I returned home in a snow storm, only to find myself in the midst of seething hatred and resentment between the residents of my co-op apartment building who are rich and those who are filthy rich. "Thank the hell god I am going to go hang out with Des at the Museum of Sex later today," I thought to myself as I fled the raving lunatic woman in the laundry room who told me to fear "the people with the big apartments." Des is normal, and a sex museum promised fun.

An hour later, I stepped out into a raging hail storm to head to the subway. When I got out of the subway and headed a few blocks over to the museum, it was in the pouring rain. Fortunately, the museum provided a different type of crazy refuge from the insanity of daily life. A big sign for the museum read, "Impressionism. Objectivism. Cubism. Jism." Oh, this made me laugh and laugh as I sat under it on a bench waiting for Des.

In the current exhibit on Kink, Des and I were disturbed to learn about very extreme kinks like cannibalism, where people get off on pretending to be cooked on a spit and then consumed. On the other hand, I was delighted to read more about furries and plushies, the subcultures of people I learned about on my very favorite ever episode of CSI. Furries are people who dress in sexy animal costumes and have sex. Plushies are folks who fuck actual stuffed animals. According to the museum, their motto is, "In Plush We Thrust." In order to do this, they add an SPH or SPA (strategically-placed hole or strategically-placed appendage) to a yiffy (a sexy plush toy). OK, I admit that this does gross me out and makes me want to hide Theo to protect his innocence, but it is far less troubling to me than being tied up on a pole next to space heater, having a meat thermometer shoved up your ass or vagina, and then being slathered with sauce and "eaten." I'm not even going to go into the balloon fetishists who inflate and pop the items on their genitals. But to each his or her own, right?

Anyway, Des and I were then treated to an exhibit on porn. While the big hairy snatches of '70s and '80s porn were fun to see, the highlight of this was far and away clips from celebrity home movies. Watching the Pam Anderson/Tommy Lee (holy shit, his dick is big) film and Paris Hilton sexcapade with Des and two dykes was good fun. One of the dykes kept saying that, while not into penises, she could not get over how hot Colin Farrell is. (All I can say is that he really likes close ups.)

Finally, we happily ended (heh heh) in the permanent collection. This includes some very freaky sex machines that sometimes involve the engines from $300 KitchenAid mixers. Said machine's inventor felt it would be wasteful to tie the use of such an expensive appliance to only a sex machine, so buyers of the machine can detach the motor from the fleshy dildo apparatus and put it back in the mixer if they want to bake up a nice cake or something.We also saw a display of sex dolls, one of which was touchable behind a plastic sheet. Des is a very gifted cell phone photographer, as the torso was mounted on the wall vertically, and the photo of her fingering its silicone vagina does it look horizontal, doesn't it? I think her true career calling is as a porn photographer. I got nearly my whole hand up the silicone cooter, but neither Des nor I could figure out how deep the hole went, so I stuck my pen up it. Coincidentally, my pen is six inches (the size of he average erect dick), and a little bit stuck out of the cooter, so I think the vagina was five inches deep. As long as I am repulsing people, I will also mention that the silicone breasts were both ripped where they meet the body. I'm not sure if I am saying that this indicates poor craftsmanship or overly rough handling, but it disturbed me a bit. More so than sticking a pen up a fake vagina to measure its depth.

Anyway, so that was my very strange day yesterday. I'm sure this post will lead to an increase in visits from people looking for fake vaginas or plushies. Yay!

Class Warfare, Upper West Side Style

My apartment has a separate kitchen, a dining room, a living room, a bedroom, and a bathroom. All of the rooms are quite reasonably sized. In any other city in the United States, none of this would be remarkable. But for Manhattan, my apartment is a palace. The only reason we were able to afford it is because it is on the ground floor. The sidewalk runs right up to the windows in our bedroom and living room, and our door is just a few steps into the lobby. We have no privacy, but that's the trade off we accepted for a place where we could fit our collection of furniture that we found on the street, books, and other important crap, like Husband's fake mustache collection, a helmet he purchased from eBay on which he wrote "Born to Finance," and his Vegas lounge singer costume.

Thanks to the absurd real estate market in Manhattan, only millionaires can afford to buy apartments in our building now. (I just realized that I live amongst millionaires. Craziness.) Many of them have moved in and run for the co-op board. (Incidentally, no one bothered to oppose them because no one wants to deal with the responsibility and shit that comes with being on a co-op board.) As a result, changes are taking place in how the building is run. Some are very good and important changes, other are stupid and wasteful. No matter what, however, the hundred-thousandaires (you know, the po' folks) who've lived here for over a decade are up in arms.

There is something very insane about living in a place where the haves and the have-mores do battle to see who is less fortunate in life. I often wonder what planet I am on when I witness a woman living in an apartment that she bought for about $200,000 and is currently worth of $850,000 complain that people are "stealing" from her by raising maintenance fees to pay for the higher cost of heating oil. Then I listen to the millionaires complain that their budgets are just as pinched since they leveraged every cent they earn to buy a $1.5 million apartment.

Poor babies. Maybe we can set up a relief fund for them or something. None of them might be able to afford their family trips to Europe otherwise, and I just can't stomach such tragedy. Brother, you gotta dime or 250,000,000?

That's Not the Stocking Stuffer I Had in Mind, But Thanks Anyway

Nothing says, "Happy birthday, Jesus!" like these fine items available from the British "toy" purveyor Ann Summers:





Someone must have been a really bad boy to be punished with something like this. I hope there's not a lump of coal in there, too, as I imagine that would be uncomfortable. Or could it get more uncomfortable?

Damn, I love those wacky Brits. Oh, this is such jolly fun to laugh at. Ho ho ho.

(For real feminist gift ideas, check out my list at BlogHer and add your suggestions!)

Foreskin and Seven Days Ago

Last week, I attended my first bris. Given my semi-rigid belief that generally people are born with what they need and we should just accept that bodies are hairy and not typically in need of improvement (e.g. - breast or butt implants), it seems like I should be against circumcision. Oh contraire, mon frere. I'm no connoisseur when it comes to penises, but I do prefer them to be foreskin free. The whole smegma thing just grosses me out too much and I don't trust most guys to be clean enough. Yeah, it makes me a big fat fucking hypocrite. Oh well.

Despite my support for circumcision (not that I am against the uncircumcised), I was a little queasy when I thought about attending a bris. Due to my incompetence (I forget that cars need to be cleared of ice before they are safe to drive and one must budget time for the task), I arrived at the bris a wee bit late. As I was taking my boots off in the hallway outside my friend's parents' apartment, I heard the baby begin to wail. "Oh, I guess I missed it," I thought with a mixture of relief and regret. I was wrong - who knows why the baby was screaming his sweet little head off at that point - and eventually witnessed part of the procedure. Oddly enough, the baby barely cried as his foreskin was removed. He was then given a nice rag soaked with liquor to suck on, and drunk, he slept like, well, a baby. It was interesting.

This past weekend, Brother-in-Law (BiL) and Sister-in-Law (SiL) borrowed our PT Cruiser, Fred the Red, to drive to New Jersey for their new nephew's bris. I'm pretty sure that this was the first bris that BiL attended, other than his own, which I am sure was a very different experience. I don't know exactly what happened at this bris, but BiL must've been either overjoyed at his nephew's pact with God or distraught at the penis chopping, because he had an overenthusiastic encounter with a curb that circumcised Fred' wheel well and prevented him from driving straight. (While none of this was funny on Sunday, the little scenario I postulated here is sure slaying me now.)

My point is that I don't think circumcision really hurts anyone (unless its botched, which is always a possibility), and at the same time, I completely understand why a parent would not circumcise a kid. When I wrote on BlogHer a long time ago about a study that showed some very minuscule health benefits from circumcision, some extremists accused me of being a callous genital mutilating monster.* Yeah, yeah, yeah. I also help kill unborn babies. What can I say? I'm just a bad character all around when it comes to the defenseless.

*It strikes me as hilariously ironic that one women yelled at me about the sanctity of preserving genitals as nature intended and months later emailed me about her scheduled Brazilian wax, but I digress.

My Cover is Out!

The cover of Off the Beaten (Subway) Track now appears on amazon.com and it looks bitchin'!!!!!

Quiescence*

Hard to believe, but taking the GRE seems to have sucked me dry. I seriously have nothing to say today. Nothing is going on. The big news is that I plan to send my applications off tomorrow. I am sure that postal wackiness will ensue. My friend, who sold a ferociously fugly handbag through my eBay account, went to the post office this afternoon to send it to the lucky winner and waited 10 minutes just to use the automated machine. I am half contemplating walking the application across the park and dropping it off in person. It might take the same amount of time. I wouldn't want anything to interfere too much with my ability to watch Hunter on DVD. I'm almost done with season 1 (two more episodes!) and then there are 23 episodes from season 2. Not to mention that I am weeks behind in CSI and Heroes! Such is the life, as Bubbe would say.

Speaking of Bubbe, I didn't write about our quality time together on Friday afternoon because she was shockingly well-behaved! She didn't slander any ethnic groups, made no nasty remarks about my mom or granny, and only once cried during lunch. She even told the flaming gay waiter at the restaurant that she hoped my dad would bring her there to eat again, and when he walked away, she didn't turn to me and "whisper" that he was a fagele. The whole experience was very pleasant. I did, however, discover that she had three telephones hooked up in her bedroom and three more in the kitchen and living room of her apartment. She gave me two of the extras from her room because it annoys her "when they ring all at once." I was curious why they were there in the first place, but decided not to push my luck.

See? Quiet and motionless here.

*Since I had to learn all these exciting new words for yesterday's exam, I thought I should incorporate them into my daily life.

Smarts

The word smarts really does function for me on two levels: I want smarts, and it smarts when I don't have them. Standardized tests always leave me smarting. No matter how well I do, I feel like it's not good enough because I know too many really smart people who do better. I'm the idiot, which honestly says significantly more about how damn smart all my friends and loved ones are than it does about my lack of smarts, but it still smarts.

Back in the last century when I took the SAT, I "only" scored an 1100 1110 (thanks for the correction, Mar - I'll chalk it up to a typo or being brain dead after the exam). (This was before they jiggered up the scoring a few years ago.) I earned a 600 on the verbal section and a 510 on the math. Thinking I could do better, I sat for it again and decided to answer more math questions. Unfortunately, I answered them all wrong and thus got only a 470 on the math while the verbal remained the same. Compared to my peers in high school (and later college), I was a total fuck up for scoring under 1200.

How ironic it is, then, that I got an 1100 1110 on the GRE. This time, the test is administered on a computer so you can't skip any questions and if you answer a question incorrectly, it gives you an easier question next which lets you earn fewer points if you get it right. (The upside is that you get your score immediately.) That left me with a 470 on the math, which quite frankly, I'm sort of proud of because its been a damn long time since I've done algebra, geometry, or any of that other crazy stuff. My goal for the verbal was 650, and if you just did the math, you'll know that I fell slightly short of achieving that, racking up 640 points.

So that's that. I'm glad it's over with, I'm more glad that writing programs don't care about math scores, and I'm hoping that I never need to take another one of these horrific tests again. Thanks to everyone who wished me well!

GREat Day

At 12:30, I'll be sitting down to take the GRE. In preparation, I have learned words like peregrination, turgid, vituperative (a word I just saw in an actual newspaper article!), and occlude. I also refreshed my memory of how to calculate the area of a triangle (1/2 base x height) and some other cool math tricks that I may not have really learned in the first place. If glory hole also happens to appear on the exam, I'm totally set.

My goal is to get a 650 on the verbal and a 450 on the math. The good news is that even if I don't accomplish this, it won't matter because the writing program I am applying to does not care what the GRE score is. However, the university at large requires that everyone submit a score before they matriculate. I just don't want to completely embarrass myself, so we'll see what happens.

In other exciting news, a story about my blog friend Eddie of Chicken Fat appeared in the Marietta News. I've enjoyed Chicken Fat's liberal and hilarious observations about life for awhile now, and I am very glad that he's getting lots of recognition. He also just celebrated his 40th wedding anniversay! Yay Eddie!

Replaced!

Husband was out at the 2007 edition of the annual Beer & Deer Tour (this involves going to bars around the city and playing the game Big Buck Hunter; t-shirts are sold to those who participate and prizes are awarded in various categories at the end of the event. I wish I was making this up, but alas, I am not.), so no humans were home when I came back from Chicago last night. Tycho the Rabbit greeted me by shoving his ass in my face when I went over to pet him. I went into the bedroom, and discovered that Husband replaced me* during my short trip to my parents' house:



I guess Theo-Suzanne is nicer to both Husband and Tycho. Theo probably also didn't eat the cinnamon roll he meant to bring home for Husband from Ann Sather restaurant, or a hot dog at the airport, or large quantities of holiday cookies, or chocolate that expired a year ago but still was luscious, or Halloween candy, so I guess he also has less gas than I do. I can't say I wouldn't prefer Theo to me under those conditions, either.

*Husband claims that they were playing dress up when I was gone, and Theo wanted to dress up like me in my pjs while Husband dressed up like a pirate. I still think he replaced me.

Thirteen and a Half Years

Summer 1994

December 2007

My So-Called Sartorial History (No Pictures)

As I was falling asleep on Wednesday night, my mind drifted over to the closet at the other end of my room. Mostly I was thinking about the hideous white peasant shirt that I wore in that picture of myself from 1994 that I posted a few days ago, but somehow that brought me to my super favorite, long gone outfits from when I was in 5th grade.

{Time warp}
My mom and I are shopping at a low end department store. When I spot the pink sweatshirt covered with little hearts overlaid by a huge heart with a giant white cat head wearing a bow in the center, I know it must be mine. The matching pants also have little hearts all over them. In fact, I love the outfit so much, I also buy it in blue. On days that I feel especially daring, I can wear the blue shirt with the pink pants or vice versa. Awesome!!!
{Time warp back to present day}

As I reflect on the Gitano debacle, it occurs to me that I was sometimes, in fact, fashion forward in my Jewish white trash couture. The sweatshirt I am wearing at this very moment has an environmentally friendly message. At the top, it reads, "DO YOUR PART," and has six little scenes with Peanuts characters depicting green acts. The sweatshirt admonishes those staring at my chest to: "Pick up litter for a cleaner environment;" "Recycle to conserve;" "Carpool for cleaner air;" "Don't pollute for cleaner water;" "Plant trees for future forests;" and "Educate for worldwide awareness." If only it also mentioned "Vote for Al Gore to prevent global warming."

I picked this gem up in the early '90s at Venture, a Chicago-area chain store. Venture is like the poor man's Wal-Mart, if that makes any sense. (It doesn't, I know, but just go with me here.) As Venture's days dwindled, the store didn't even bother re-stocking shelves. Unfortunately, this phase lasted for years before it finally went out of business. (For reasons that befuddle me to this day, it was also my sister's favorite place to shop.) Before its painful demise, Venture had some bitchin' clothes. Now I like to think of it as the Target of the 1980s, but at the time I shopped there for outfits, it was way uncool to admit that you bought clothes there. I always lied to the snooty little assholes who asked me where I got my shirt, saying, "Oh, I think it was Marshall Field's." (For non-Chicagoans, Marshall Field's was a nice department store that Macy's recently took over and decimated.)

Anyway, thanks for sifting through another self-indulgent blog post. I hope it brought back equally amusing/horrifying childhood fashion memories of your own.

Stuff It in the Glory Hole, Mate

As I looked up the word gonfalon in "The World Book [Unabridged] Dictionary" circa 1987, my eye fell on the guide word at the top of page 908 - glory hole. I tried to not fall down laughing, as dropping the heavy book on my foot would be rather painful, and felt that I needed to share. According to this foolish dictionary, glory hole means:

1 (in certain sailing ships) a space aft between decks, used as a storeroom. 2 sleeping quarters on a ship, especially those of the stewards and stokers: sailors slept in the glory hole, a long open dormitory... (Atlantic) 3 an opening in a small furnace used to reheat glass when shaping it by hand. 4Dialect. a drawer, closet, or other place, where things are untidily dumped.

For those of you who wound up on CUSS expecting a different type of glory hole, I'm sorry to disappoint. For the rest of us, I hope that you are laughing as hard as I am now as I think about the sailors sleeping in the glory hole or what is untidily dumped in it.

Cutting to the Chase

For a variety of reasons, I recommed not holding a bris on a very cold day in Chicago. (Insert your own immature shrinkage joke here.) My personal bias against frosty bris events is that I will have to drive to them. Since I don't normally drive, I will forget that cold weather means that ice forms on windshields. Then I will be 10 minutes late to the bris because I didn't budget enough time to scrape the windshield clear.

When I finally did arrive at my friend's parents' apartment for the bris, there was a little sign on the door telling people to leave shoes and boots in the hall. As I removed my non-snow appropriate leather boots, I heard the baby crying. "Shit," I thought. "I'm missing the first bris I was ever invited to." I knocked on the door and discovered that the ceremony was just starting, but no cutting was yet happening. The baby was just crying for no reason. Or maybe it was because he saw the contraption that babies get strapped into for the procedure. I'd cry, too.

Since I arrive late, I hovered in the doorway behind the table that the circumcision was being performed on. The mohl (a rabbi who specializes in foreskin removal, which I possibly spelled wrong) took the baby's pants off. His little socks came off at the the same time, and the mohl put them back on, explaining that he didn't want the baby's feet to be exposed and cold. We all shared a hearty laugh. Then the baby was strapped into the stabilizing contraption. He didn't like this and began crying. More things that I could not see took place, although at one point I noticed a clamp thing. If I had a penis, I'd probably cross my legs at that point. The baby's crying never intensified, so I was surprised when he was declared kosher (not the mohl's words) a few seconds later. Grandpa gave baby a wine soaked cloth to suck on, and soon the kid was peacefully asleep. Happy words were spoken by a non-mohl lady rabbi, the guests sang a happy song in Hebrew which I knew half the words to (they also sing it at the end of Jewish wedding ceremonies), and then the eating commenced.

After hanging around for a while, I left the bris and headed over to Granny's. Since she usually keeps the temperature in her house somewhere in the 80s so that she can hang around in her "diaphonous dusters" (as my mom described them) with no undies on, I brought a t-shirt to change into. I was quite surprised when she answered the door fully clad in a sweatshirt and pants. "I turned the heat down a bit so you wouldn't be too hot," Granny explained as I hugged her. (When I told this to my mom later, she said that I must be my Granny's favorite person in the world, as she turns the heat down and dresses for nobody.)

We had a very pleasant visit, except for when I found out that she leases three telephones from AT&T for $27 a month. The woman struggles with money, and she's throwing away over $300 a year on phone rentals?!?! I felt like she was a victim of elder abuse (who else fucking rents phones?), and made her promise me that she would cancel the lease and return the phones if I bought her ones. Sigh. Then I ate too much chocolate, which was left over from the stash we brought her back from our August 2005 trip to Israel. Although it expired in June 2006, it was still delicious.

Tomorrow morning, I plan to share a fashion epiphany that struck me last night as I was dozing off. (Not long after that, I decided that I needed a snack and nearly died in the kitchen, where I swear my feet froze to the floor, but I digress.) In the afternoon, I'm taking Bubbe to lunch and then to return a down coat that she bought a few weeks ago, which she insists all the feathers came out of after only two wears. (I believe this based on my own coat.) I also hope to pick up a new pair of Dansko clogs. Then I'm going to see my friends Rachel and Jenny for dinner. Sadly, Sister and Sister's Husband will not be coming in from Iowa, as it is supposed to snow like a mad motherfucker. Bah.

Suzanne, the Snowperson

Motherfucker, it is cold in Chicago. In fact, I'm not a snowperson, although there is snow all over the place. (Apparantly, it snowed about 6-9 inches yesterday and last night. Somehow I missed this and neglected to bring snow boots. Sigh.) It is so damn cold here that I am an icicle person. Now my outside matches my cold heart. Ha! I kid. But seriously, folks, it's damn cold.

Tomorrow is a jam-packed day, so I suspect that I will not be able to blog until later at night. In addition to bringing you a detailed report of the first bris I am attending in my 31 11/12th years, I will also carry the humanism/feminism conversation over to BlogHer. Does the excitement never end? I thought not.

I Mugged You and Now I'm Fleeing Town

For those of you who responded to my NaBloPoMo post on Nov. 30, I sent you a mug.* Instead of watching your pocket, keep an eye on the mail for it. I mugged some of you for your birthday, others for the holidays, and everyone else in some sort of pathetic attempt to reward/bribe people to be my friend and read my blog. So sue me.

I'm heading to my parents' house this afternoon, although I expect massive weather-related delays and general chaos at the airport. My time at home will be spent: shopping for a treadmill to replace th one ruined when my parents' basement flooded in August; attending a bris (my first - expect a good post on that one!); hanging out with Granny; shopping for new clogs with Bubbe; dining with my friends Rachel and Jenny; and generally spending time with my parents, sister, and brother-in-law. Plans also call for an updated picture of me in that hideous white peasant blouse that I wore all the time in 1994. While I was at the gym yesterday, I also decided it would be fun to re-read the stories I wrote when I was in 5th grade and post the best one(s) on CUSS.

Yes, stay tuned for lots of unshaved excitement.


*Country Mouse: If you would like one, please email me and let me know where I can send it.

Come Light the Menorah

Hanukkah begins tonight at sundown. Over the last few years, Husband and I have become less and less interested in Hanukkah. We managed to get each other one small gift this year. I hope he will like the $10 glass Mets mug that I picked up last week. I have no idea what he is giving me. I'm sure it will be far more clever than a $10 glass Mets mug.

Husband and I may not be taking the religiously insignificant holiday of Hanukkah seriously enough for the likes of the Holiday Sales Industry. Cartier, Macy's, Lord & Taylor, Bloomingdale's, Saks Fifth Avenue, and Barney's all have ads on pages 2,3, and 5 of today's New York Times wishing me a Happy Chanukah. They all spelled it "Chanukah," too, which makes me wonder if the Times issued some sort of guidelines for luxury good purveyors who wanted to sell me shit. Macy's, Lord & Taylor, and Bloomingdale's went an extra step and wrote little Chanukah poems and greetings. The sentiments bring a fucking tear to my eye, I tell you. Tiffany's has an ad, but it doesn't wish me anything. Instead, it reads, "'Tis the Tiffany Season," and depicts a "dreidel in sterling silver, 3" high, $200."

After seeing all the ads, I realized that I never again need bother look up when a gift-giving holiday officially begins. (Last night Husband and I debated whether Hanukkah kicked off tonight or tomorrow night, and I googled it.) From now on, I'll just look at the ads in the paper and go from there. None of the department stores or jewelers would let me forget an important religious occasion, would they? How thoughtful of them.

Husband the Humanist and the Radical Notion that Woman are People

One of the many reasons I love Husband is that we have a variety of interesting conversations. Sometimes they are about farting. Other times they are about work, friends, family, and/or whatever is happening in our lives. Many times we discuss sports and politics. Once in awhile, we debate philosophical differences.*

Yesterday I wrote on BlogHer about the case of a woman in Saudi Arabia who was gang raped by seven men. Her husband bravely encouraged her to press charges (which led her brother to try and kill her) and while the men were convicted and sentenced to prison, the woman was also sentenced to 90 lashes for going out in public with a man who was not her legal guardian. Her lawyer, a famous human rights advocate, fairly protested that it is absurd and wrong to punish a woman who was gang raped. World attention and pressure ensued. The authorities responded by increasing her punishment to 200 lashes and six months in prison, claiming that she confessed to having an affair. More outrage from the civilized world thus far has not made any difference.

After I wrote the essay, I was depressed. Somehow this led Husband and I to discuss the difference between feminism and humanism. If feminism is, at root, a belief that women and men deserve equal human rights (which is how I define feminism), how is that different from humanism, which is essentially that all people have basic human rights? Husband felt that because feminism (by necessity) primarily focuses on the rights of women, it is easily manipulated by conservatives and right-wing lunatics into a movement that tries to put women above men. Thus we get a lot of bad publicity and all manner of people saying things like, "I'm not a feminist, but I believe that women and men are equal." For example, a humanist will point out that domestic violence is wrong. A feminist will note that, according to the Family Violence Prevention Fund, 85% of victims of intimate partner violence are women and 15% of victims are men. As a result, feminists focus on women first and demand that the resources proportionally go to women victims. It's not that we dismiss violence against men, its just that we look at the history of violence against partners and statistics and demand that women get help in proportion to the situation. Some (like Husband the Humanist) would say that because there are not enough resources to go around, insisting that women get priority denies male victims, who are even further stigmatized by partner violence than women because they fail to meet masculine stereotypes of being strong, the resources they need, and thus does not treat men and women equally.

It's an interesting discussion. What do you think?**

*Many times these discussions end with me shouting, but not always.
**And if you write about this on your blogs, put a link in the comments, because I'd like to explore this humanism-feminism topic more in depth at BlogHer on Thursday.

A Taxing Situation

Someone's gotta pay for the Iraq War, and it sure as hell isn't going to be the uber-wealthy. Instead, they get special tax cuts for being so special. I mean, everyone knows that God shows His favorites by making them rich, so it would just be totally wrong to make them pay for God's blessings. It would be punishing them for things that weren't their fault, you know?

The working poor can only pay through indirect means, like cutting programs that help them make ends meet. Check. Still, we need more money to pay for the Goldy tax cuts and Iraq War. OK, squeezing the middle class will shake out a few more pennies. Who does that leave? Oh, the self-employed! Yay!

Seriously, I don't mind paying my fair share in taxes. As a person who has seen the benefits of an excellent public education, tax write-offs on owning a home, and other general good fortune, I believe it is my responsibility to support the same opportunities for other people. My commitment extends, however, to all classes. It strikes me as insanely unfair that I am for some reason paying a higher share of my earnings than people who made 10 or even 100 times more than I did. Last night I calculated how much I managed to eke out this year (and was impressed that my high priced consulting gigs yielded about 30G! Go me!) and then Husband informed me that 60% of that is going to taxes because of FICA.*

I understand that people like Paris Hilton need their hard earned money in ways that I don't, and that their valuable contributions to society's entertainment via porn tapes leaked to the internet completely dwarf anything I might be doing. But is it not a little fucked up that their tax rate is about half of mine? I guess I'll need to screw some little people over so that I may earn God's favor and exempt myself from taxes. Better luck to us all next year.

*Our income disparity does not help my situation. Hello, marriage tax penalty, which gives me a double whammy!

1994: The Year of Hair

Damn. My friend from high school recently posted this photo of me in his Facebook album. I think this was taken in 1994 somewhere in suburban Chicago.


Those sunglasses were my mom's from the 1970s. (One of the lenses cracked or I'd probably still use them today. They rock!) Today I'm about 30 pounds less than I was when I was 18, and now that I look at this shot, I think about half of that weight came off when I cut my hair. (I do miss those long, long pigtails.) Another 6 or so pounds came off when I had my breast reduction. That surgery resulted in my shoulders looking about half as broad as they did back then. Craziness.

Sweet December

I'm finishing out 2007 at home in New York, at my parents' house (get ready for grandmother stories next week), back home in New York, and then in Hawaii and Oahu. In that time I will also finish my grad school applications, take the GRE, and watch hours and hours of Hunter on DVD. (Man, the guest stars from season one - Frances McDormand, Drian Dennehy, Ed O'Neil, and Dennis Franz, for example - rock my world.)

Not only am I fortunate enough to have a semi-easy end to my year, but I am lucky to see December 1st at all. As I have complained many times, drivers in the city seem to believe that red lights do not require them to stop their vehicles. They just cruise right through, even after pedestrians get the cheerful "walk" light and venture into the crosswalk. As I mentioned on Ev's post about hitting a deer (excerpt: "As I was standing on the brake, fishtailing towards a ditch, watching the deer's head and neck fly over the roof of my truck while the front half and the back half of the torso broke apart at the ribs, and I was thinking, 'Huh! I never would have expected it to do that!'"), I was nearly run down by a shiny new BMW that neglected to follow traffic laws. I was eating a Trader Joe's 100 Calorie pack of oatmeal chocolate chip cookies, and I hurled one at the car as he narrowly missed my toes. I smashed against the front passenger side window with a satisfying, if small, noise and shattered into a million pieces. (That's when I realized I should carry little paintballs in my pocket with me from now on...) The other guy crossing the street while I was agreed with me that drivers are fucking maniacs.

Another disturbance in the balance of the world happened when I read that The Red Balloon is being re-released. I cannot explain why that fucking movie vexes me so much, but it was always 34 minutes of hell when they forced us to watch it in grammar school. Every damn year. For reasons that are beyond me, my beloved Entertainment Weekly gave it a grade of A. Tarnation!

Last Chance Before December

When I was a wee lass growing up on the "wrong" side of the Edens Expressway in Wilmette, IL, my dad had a t-shirt that puzzled me. It had a picture of a cartoon women who (according to my partly unreliable memory) was scantily clad and had big titties sitting on a bale of hay with a piece of hay in her teeth. Above her, it read, "Last chance before the freeway." My dad also had a t-shirt with McDonald's golden arch logo that parodied the fast food purveyor. It read, "Marijuana: Over 5 Billion Stoned."

Of course, these memories have nothing to do with NaBloPoMo, a scheme to encourage people to blog at least once every day in November, but as today is Nov. 30 and thus the last day of NaBloPoMo, it's people's last chance to create posts and backdate them if they didn't make the daily postings. In my case, pretty much post at least once every day, every month anyway. However, as I decided to enjoy myself in London over Thanksgiving weekend and not pay the outrageous internet connection fee at my hotel, November happens to be the one month I didn't post every day. Some may say I lose, but I say I win. Dude, I got to go to London!!!

I tried to offer a prize for those who successfully completed NaBloPoMo, but the organizer never responded to either of my emails. I guess it's OK for others to offer their blog merchandise, but not offensive little old me. However, if you are a CUSS reader who successfully completed NaBloPoMo, email me (my email is on the right side of the blog), and you can have any short sleeve t-shirt or mug from the CUSS store. If more than one person is a NaBloPoMo champ, I'll do some sort of random drawing at the end of next week. Just because the official NaBloPoMo people rejected me doesn't mean I shouldn't try and make good on my offer. Holiday spirit and all that shit.

Back to growing up in the suburbs of Chicago, this last day of November brings the news that former member of the House of Representatives Henry Hyde from Illinois died. Rep. Hyde did everything he could to ensure that low income women had few options for terminating pregnancies by blocking federal Medicaid funds from paying for the procedure. On the other hand, at least he was slightly less hypocritical than his anti-family, pro-forced-childbirth colleagues, as Hyde supported the federal Child Care and Development Block Grant. This important money helped low income parents pay for safe places for their kids to stay while they worked or went to school. I won't call it even, but at least he tried to help families even as he coerced them into living by his religious beliefs.

Hunter-thon

I promised myself that I would celebrate finishing Off the Beaten (Subway) Track by watching seasons one and two of Hunter on DVD. Hunter was my favorite show (tied with The Golden Girls) when I was in junior high. Every Saturday night, I babysat and watched Hunter with my friend Jeremy Weiner* over the phone. (Meaning: we both sat in our respective domiciles and watched TV while we were on the phone, discussing the action.)

So four weeks after I was supposed to engage in my TV fueled bacchanal, I finally stopped all my various little other projects and sat down for fun. Man, this show is fucking priceless. The quips, the action, the extraordinarily dated plots - all
joyous fun. Not to mention Det. Didi McCall's super hot '80s high waist pants and blouse sets are better actors than the people. Delightful fun.

Now I realized that both my posts today are about my TV watching habits in the 1980s. Yep, it's definitely time to do more consulting jobs.

Update:

Sample dialogue from the third episode:

Bad guy: You guys were suspended.

Hunter: I know. But we love this city and hate injustice.

****

McCall: I just hate throwing garbage out and watching it blow right back in the wind.

Prosecute the Prosecutors

Back in the dark days of the late '80s, when greed was good and Bush continued Reagan's work of systemically dismantling governmental mechanisms put in place to ensure at least a small measure of fairness and equity for all living in the US,* L.A. Law ruled the airways. I was in junior high, struggling with the bullshit of adolescence and developing a moral radar for political and religious hypocrisy. L.A. Law highlighted all these issues. I was hooked.

Mostly I loved Susan Dey's character. She was a prosecutor who worked to protect women and communities from evil criminals who preyed on them. Although she didn't make nearly as much money as the vile divorce attorney Arnie, she was doing good for the world. I decided that this was exactly the job for me.

More than a decade later, I dropped out of law school on my third day. While I still wanted to help people, particularly those living in low income communities, I learned that there were many ways to do this that did not involve the torture of law school's Socratic method. It also came to my attention that the mentality of many district attorneys was far less noble than L.A. Law led me to believe. Time after time, evidence would appear that indicated that a defendant was innocent. The Cult of the Prosecutor, however, refused to acknowledge that they might have the wrong person. Instead of trying to serve justice, they stubbornly insisted on continuing cases. Even after DNA evidence exonerated those wrongfully convicted, the Cult insisted that the person did the crime.** Nope, I wasn't cut out for the District Attorney's office.

All this ran through my mind this morning as I read a story in today's New York Times about a woman released from prison after serving 13 years of a sentence for killing her teenage daughter. DNA evidence revealed that her boyfriend's blood was mixed in with the victim's body. Of course, the DA's office doesn't apologize for her conviction, partly derived from her boyfriend's testimony against her, which they secured by granting him immunity from the crime. No, instead, the DA is planning to retry her on a charge of second-degree manslaughter. Even better, even if she is convicted of the lesser charge, she won't return to prison because she already served the maximum sentence that charge carries. No, there's absolutely nothing wasteful about a second trial. Really, a second trial would not just be about vindictiveness. It's about justice. For who, I don't know. It sure is way too late for the poor kid, who was neglected at times by her mother, abused by her stepfather, and then killed by someone who is immune to prosecution for her murder.

*The more things change, the more they stay the same. Sigh.
**This is why shows like Law & Order are my favorite forms of escapist entertainment. The cops and ADAs always drop charges against people who are innocent so that they may find the real perpetrators and justice can be served. If only real life were like TV in these cases...

Trucks and SUVs and Mini Vans - Oh My!

For those of you who drive on a daily basis, you are very brave. Between the trucks, the SUVs, and the mini vans that I can't see around to the speeding maniacs (which admittedly includes me as I zip down the road at a brisk 80 mph in a 55 mph zone), driving practically gives me a heart attack every few miles. For the rest of the day, I'm very glad that I'll be running my errands on the subway. Even though non-discounted rides are $2 a pop, that sure beats $3.47 per gallon in gas. (OK, it sort of doesn't, but a monthly public transit pass with unlimited rides for $72 definitely kicks the ass of a month's worth of gas.)

Driving Me Crazy

My drive up to Alex's house yesterday was mostly uneventful. The worst part was driving in the area near the city. It's a little absurd when I am driving 70 in a 45 mile zone and people give me dirty looks as they pass me in the left lane.

Alex and I made excellent progress on organizing an official call for submission for Congratulations, You're a Woman Now!. Her husband (aka Big Giraffe) will put up a website for submissions in the next few weeks. I'm pretty gosh darn tootin' excited.

I'm also exhausted. I don't know how people spend a full day with kids and don't fall asleep by 4 pm or need to be institutionalized. Just pretending to be a squirrel for five minutes this morning left me out of breath and in need of a nap. All you parents out there - and teachers - are amazing.

You're a Woman Now, so Demand to Read about It

Since Husband is in San Francisco for work (poor dude got back from London on Sunday night and took off for the West Coast bright and early on Monday morning), he doesn't need the car to drive to his office in Connecticut. I decided that I will take advantage of the availability of our automobile (which I always think of as his since his work pays for it and I never drive it for a variety of reasons, the primary one being that I hate driving and fear the maniacal NYC traffic) and motor up to see Alex. We plan to work out more details for my idea to put together an anthology of first/early period stories, tentatively titled Congratulations, You're a Woman Now!.

Not long after I first conceived of the need for an anthology of this nature, I emailed my friend who also served as my agent for Off the Beaten (Subway) Track and told him about it. Oddly, he was not nearly as enthused about the idea as I was:

I've read a few proposals for this very idea for an anthology and think it is a tough one. The problem is 1) to put an anthology together for sale you need some pretty big names, or at least recognizable. 2) the subject matter for most people is a bit squeamish, even for girls. I had two female interns read the proposals and both did not like... I could be wrong, so if you're passionate about it, sell me on it.

My initial reaction to his response was not constructive ("Well, those female interns are obviously cunt-face bitches who read shit like Devil Wears Prada while staggering around in their pointy-toes stilettoes getting snatch waxes, so they wouldn't know a good idea if it hit them in their Sephora-made-up faces."), but then I buckled down and realized that what my friend was saying is that I need to show that girls aren't squeamish about their first periods because the topic is fucking funny in retrospect. I think the outpouring of interest that is still emerging on my original blog post is a good indication that people do want a book like this.

Anyway, the goal is to come up with a framework for proposal submissions, a plan for compensation, and a website that organizes the whole thing. In the meantime, the more I hear from people who are interested in reading a book of funny essays about the early days of getting a period, the better. (For an example of the types of writing that would be in the book, see 1980 was an interesting year by Jessica.) The first battle in the war for this book is to demonstrate that it is a commercially viable product.

She's back! She's back!

If, like me, you miss the blog formerly known as One Weird Mother, you will be as ecstatic as I am to know that K. is back at MomVoyage! Hurray! Hurray!

If You Say So

More wisdom from replies to my inquiry as to why people google search "Jewish pussy" even though it looks no different from other pussy:

What's so surprising? Everyone has their preferences. Some search for "black pussy," while others search for "white pussy," or "latina pussy," or one of myriad other possibilities. You're right in that, physically speaking, there isn't anything especially different about Jewish pussy, but Jewish women do tend to be an attractive bunch, In my opinion. Don't make more out of it than needs to be made!

There are two things about this reply that crack me up. The first is that this person acknowledges that Jewish pussy is "physically speaking," not different from other snatch. Although I like that my anonymous horny commenter pays compliments to us Jewish ladies (stereotypically, we are not held in high regard for our appearances), it slays me that people just believe that porn model is Jewish merely because a site says so. Since we all acknowledge that Jewish vulva looks like any other vulva (and comes in a variety of colors - Jews aren't all white), why bother searching for Jewish pussy? I guess porn is about buying into a fantasy anyway.

Someone else, however, has less flattering things to say about the hunt for Jewish pussy:

men only have enough blood in their bodies to have a thought or an erection yet not both. you can figure out your hit rate from that

This makes me laugh for different reasons.

On a semi related note, I read a book this weekend ("Maps for Lost Lovers" - very interesting; reminded me how all religious zealots are equally evil and batty in their misogyny) about a Pakistani Muslim in small town England. At one point, their is a section about pubic hair. According to the book, women must keep their snatch hair clipped very short or shave it all off. I guess if someone searches for Muslim pussy and sees a hairy snatch, he will know that the model is a doubly bad woman. I don't really take this so lightly, but I'm still mulling over the whole forced shaved snatch thing. I never thought my blog "protesting" the popular Western pressure for unshaved snatch would have religious implications.

British Adults More Evolved than American Adults

While cooking a Thanksgiving meal for 12, my ever talented multitasking friend Mara also presented me with a book of matches.

"What's this?" I asked.

"Look closely at the picture on the back," she replied and went back to cooking up a storm.



I understand that I am not supposed to fall down laughing when I see a stick figure's arm on fire. It is even less funny when one considers that the stick figure on fire represents a child. After all, as the warning clearly states, fire kills children. Howver, this dramatic warning makes me think that as British children go through puberty, they develop fire proof skin. How awesome is that? Yet another reason* our friends on the other side of the pond kick our American asses.

*Reason 1 is that they have extremely delicious chocolate bars. (However, I am sad to report that there are no longer candy machines on the platforms of tube stations. The extent of my disappointment is enormous.) Reason 2, which may be related to Reason 1, is that the scale in my hotel room told me my weight in stones. I suspect that the sale of candy on tube platforms may be a contributing factor in the increasing average stone weight of the British populace, so perhaps that is why candy bars are no longer sold on tube platforms. I don't know. What I do know is that I weighed 8.8 stones on Friday night, which sounds cool.

Bless Your Stomach

It was a jolly good weekend! So as not to bore folks, here's the quick recap:

Thursday: Had an amazing Thanksgiving dinner with Mara and her delightful friends and family. Fabulous food is even better when shared with Kiwis and Brits who are confused about why we are stuffing our faces. Mara's turkey was perfection.

Friday: Began the next day of overeating by meeting Mara and her cute baby and hubby for "salt beef beigels" (aka thick and juicy corned beef on a little bagel with spicy mustard) at the oldest Jewish bagel shop in the former Jewish slum area of London. Wandered around Spitalfields market and had yummy hot chocolate before splitting up with the friends. Husband and I went to the Geffrey Museum in a former alms house. The museum shows different parlor decorations from the late 1600s - late 1990s. It was fun. Then Husband and I headed all the way west to the Museum of Branding, Packaging, and Advertising. I ate an amazing cheddar and apricot chutney sandwich that I picked up from some cheese stand earlier that morning in Liverpool station. Later, we met Mara and her hubby for a scrumptious pan-Asian dinner. (Thursday was Mara's birthday! Happy birthday and thanks for inviting us to visit you and celebrate!!!!)

Saturday: Husband and I went to Borough Market and froze our asses off while eating delicious foods in the outdoor market. We then bought tickets to see Glen Gary Glenross, which thrilled me not, but Husband really wanted to see it, so I figured at worst, I'd just fall asleep during the show. Tickets were only 15 pounds, which thanks to the shitty dollar, is about $30. (Not bad for a show, though. Even if Broadway wasn't shut down here in NYC, you can't get a ticket for under $45.) We wandered around more, then met a friend for decent Indian food. Although it was cold, we decided to take a walking tour of Victorian London, but got there a few minutes late and the group had left. I noticed a sign that Sir John Soane's Museum was around the corner. Mara and I had just discussed it the previous day, so I took it as a sign. Basically, Sir Soane was an architect during the Regency era and built a totally wacked out house to house strange artifacts like an Egyptian sarcophagus in a fake basement crypt. The museum is the dude's house and they only let in 50 people at a time, so we waited outside and my nose ran a lot. It was worth the wait. We parted ways with Husband's friend after tea and scones at a nearby cafe chain. (Speaking of cafe chains, I think London has even more Starbucks locations than NYC, which doesn't seem possible.)

After the play, which was WAY better than the movie, Husband and I had a late dinner. We went to a Turkish place near our hotel (which we stayed at for free, thanks to Husband's hotel points). Our table in the teeny restaurant was jammed between two others. On my left, a woman with pink jeans that were covered with rhinestones was being told by her dinner companion about the exhilaration of jumping horses. To the right, two one man told his friend/companion about how he dined out with the head of the cooking section at Bloomsbury Publishing and this critic and that critic and blah blah blah. The dinner came with a starter and main course for 11.99 pounds. I stuffed my face with my starter, feta and spinach phylo pockets, and my eyes nearly popped out of my sockets when my main dish arrived. I didn't expect two HUGE hocks of lamb. Mr. Food Critic was very impressed. "Oh my!" he exclaimed as the meal was placed in front of me. "I doubt I'll be able to finish it all!" I remarked. He smiled. "Bless your stomach!"

A more perfect Thanksgiving weekend could not be had. Hope you all had blessed stomachs as well.

This Thanksgiving, Don't Forget to Eat Hard Food

As Husband and I learned this afternoon at the British Dental Association's Dentistry Museum (yes, a punchling in search of your joke), it is important to eat hard food in order to prevent cavaties. The second most important tip the BDA issued in the earlier part of the 1900s is to avoid leaving food between your teeth. Finally, brush your teeth every day.

If this is not a helpful Thanksgiving hint from our friends across the pond, I don't know what is. Happy Thanksgiving!

Glutton

Tycho the rabbit is taking a spa vacation at his vet's office while Husband and I visit Mara for Thanksgiving. Since he loathes being stuffed into his carrier and taken on the load and lurching bus (Tycho, not Husband, although I suspect he would resent such indignities being inflicted upon him as well), if the weather is conducive, I carry him the 17.5 blocks (nearly 1 mile). Although the vet reported at his last check up that Tycho weighs 12 lbs, 15 oz., when I put him in his carrier and haul his extremely furry ass up there, I am sure that he weighs closer to 954 lbs.

By the time we arrived at the vet's office this morning, Tycho was in full pissed off mode. When he's angry or scared, he sheds enormous amounts of white fur at an alarming rate. Thus I was covered in rabbit hair and sweating profusely from the effort it takes to carry him. My arm muscles were protesting loudly, and I was a bit shaky. Thank the hell god I decided not to go to the gym after I woke up. My legs were already sore from running yesterday.

After checking Tycho into Howliday Inn (OK, more like Symphony Vet Center, but how awesome is that book and Tycho is a white rabbit, even if he doesn't suck veggies dry), I stopped into the deli next door to get a drink. I was parched from the Herculean effort of lugging him around. So this is what I looked like as I left the deli: sweaty, red-face, covered with white fur, clutching a Diet 7Up in a shaky hand. With all the blood rushing in my ears, I swore I must've misheard the hip-hop guy who passed me on his way into the store.

"Hey lady. You look pretty," he mumbled.

"Huh? Wha?" I was confused. He looked at me, expecting that I would acknowledge his compliment, so I said, "Thank you," although I still wasn't sure if that was what he really said. He nodded. There's no accouting for taste, I tell you.

Since I hadn't punished myself enough, I headed a block over to Petco to pick up a bag of litter. I figured I should be prepared for Tycho's glorious homecoming on Monday morning. (He's probably going to have to deal with the bus.) As I heaved a 30 lb. sack over my shoulder, I thought about how much I deserve the Thanksgiving feast that I plan to indulge in at Mara's flat tomorrow. Mmmmm, cornbread! Sweet potatoes! Cranberry sauce! Definitely desserts galore! Now if only I'll be able to lift my arms to get the damn food into my mouth....