I Am Going To Hell

Last night I pretty much made the final payment on my first class ticket to Hell. As many of you know it's Rosh Hashanah, the beginning of the Jewish High Holidays and I had to go visit my grandparents for dinner. You may recall Passover, long descriptions of which can be found in my April archives over in the sidebar. Rosh Hashanah, the New Year is similar, except with the addition of bread and apples and honey. My grandmother always makes a beautiful table setting and I wanted to photograph it, my reasoning being that my grandparents are not long for this earth. Pop's death in June has made me feel even more keenly that I must preserve as many memories of my older relatives as possible. I want everything of them. I want pictures and movies and recordings to keep them alive because I will miss them so much one day and the one day will be soon. I wanted to photograph the beautiful table settings my grandmother makes and which I feel are not as appreciated as they should be. No one in the younger generations will ever spend the long hours that she does making sure everything is perfect and this makes me a little sad. At the same time no one has ever photographed any of her tables.

I decided that since we were finally, for the first time ever, allowed to photograph the Passover seder, that if I snuck a picture of the table before anyone even arrived that the world would surely not end. I was, however, deeply mistaken. My grandmother, Savta, caught me and freaked the fuck out. I then tried to lie and dug myself deeper into the pit of hellfire I was already in.

"I'm photographing it for my cousins who couldn't come," I said, lying. Sort of.

This caused her to freak out more because they would not approve and they would be shocked and appalled at my abomination of taking pictures on Rosh Hashanah which is like Shabat (the sabbath) when mechanical devices like light switches and computers and cell phones and cars and pretty much everything that makes life convenient, are prohibited. I was screwed.

Then she panicked at the thought that maybe the mirror over the table had reflected an image of her in the background which would surely cause her to go to Hell. I assured her that she was not in the picture and she was deeply relieved. I was mortified and felt a combination of pissed off, resentful and ashamed of myself. Albeit this IS the way I feel most of the time during these events anyway.

All night long I felt like I was doing everything wrong and the truth is that there is so much about this religion that I don't know and don't understand and it's to the point where it begins to seem absurd after a while. I hate that in my grandparents' house that I have always felt like I was doing something wrong that was going to cause a major disaster. I have never lived down the time I used a dairy glass with a meat plate.

Because I was already going to Hell I snapped a picture of my grandmother's linen closet which I think proves that maybe her fervor is more than simple religious devotion. I've long suspected that in some ways Savta is batshit insane and has a raging case of OCD. She measures each of these sheets and towels so they are all the same. I should post a photo of MY linen closet for comparison. It is nothing like Savta's. I almost feel like a bad person. I don't measure my linens when folding. I lack this degree of devotion and precision.

I understand OCD. Cousin Bella has it. I was once diagnosed with it during a period of great stress. When I get stressed out even now I notice little neurotic symptoms creeping back, but my brand of OCD relates to germs and illness and I start to think that everything I eat is going to kill me. I think Savta suffers from scrupulosity.

Just last week I read Jenniger Traig's memoir "Devil in the Details" about her struggle as a teen with this condition. She too, was Jewish. I think we Jews are predisposed to OCD. The religion to me seems to encourage it, although Traig makes a distinction between religious fulfillment and pathological behavior. I think Savta kind of crosses that line though. I really do, as much as I love and admire my grandmother. I feel like her life would have been happier if she had been born in a different time and diagnosed and helped with the condition. I could be wrong.

But OCD is a fascinating topic. As the illness runs rampant in my family on several sides I have a lot of experience with it and the good thing about it is that as far as illnesses go, it's pretty freakin' hilarious sometimes. Bella and I laugh at ourselves constantly and Traig, in her book does too. The memoir is hysterical, on a few different levels. You gotta laugh at yourself to heal I think. Now let me go make sure my Purell bottle is full before I leave the house.

Jennifer Traig's book can be found here and if you are interested her website, which is not updated a lot is here. I really recommend the book if you have or love someone with OCD or even if you don't. It's just a good, funny, compelling and interesting read. I hear she has a new book about hypochondria which I plan to read too. Lord knows I definitely have that.

Happy New Year. See you all in Hell.

How I Met My Husband Part 3

I'm sorry for writing this story in so many installments. It's because I keep having to leave, so I stop when I run out of time. That may happen again, but I want to get as much done as I can this morning. We're almost to the end anyway.

The next morning I woke up and had breakfast and started to feel guilty. I kept thinking about this poor guy who thought I was interested in him who flew all the way across the country only to see my family get into a fight and act like utter white trash. Then after all that I consented to cuddle with him (and why I would cuddle with a guy I had zero attraction to whatsoever I had no idea), and then refuse to kiss him. I felt like a royal asshole. I decided to spend lots of time with him that day while making it very clear to him that we were definitely going to be friends but nothing more.

Two things stood in my way. One, I was bringing Ethan the sunflower tattoo guy to the Boat Parade party at Abe's house. Obviously that was why he had called me three times the night before, right? To tell me he wanted to come as my date. The other issue I had was that I promised Abe that I would cater his party of 200 people myself and I had barely started prep work on that. Of course my family was helping me, but none of us had done anything and it was already ten in the morning. This is fairly typical behavior for us. Just call us the Last Minute Lawns.

I had a cup of coffee and called Ethan Sunflower.

"So you're coming right?" I asked.

"Umm, well. Last night I thought I was, but, ummm, well, I don't know if I can borrow my mom's car tonight because she's going to a party too and yeah. I'm kind of hungover. I got so wasted last night."

I could actually hear him doing bong hits and at that moment I decided that I didn't really want Ethan to be my date after all.

"Well that's ok," I said.

"Maybe you could pick me up?"

"No, I don't really want to. I'm too busy. I don't think I'll have time," I replied.

"Oh, well. Yeah. I didn't think I wanted to go anyway. Sounds lame. A bunch of boats with Christmas lights on them, whatever. Boring," he said.

After I finished my coffee I felt even guiltier for some reason. This is an inherent personality trait of mine. I feel guilty all the time. Sometimes I feel guilty for no reason and search desperately for something to feel guilty about. Like tsunamis.

I drove down the road to Abe's house to get San Francisco. I figured the least I could was hang out with the guy, who was, as I remembered, sweet and easy to talk to. I found him in Abe's backyard, blaring Christmas music and dancing around and singing as he decorated Abe's backyard with Christmas lights and garlands of plastic holly and fake pine for the party.

Gone was the nerd of the night before. This guy had his cute, mussed up hair back and he was dressed normal. I have to admit he looked a little skater-ish and I found that really cute.

"You look totally different!" I said.

He taped a glittery star to the back door.

"Look," he said, "I wanted to make a good impression on your parents, so I tried to clean myself up for them. I don't normally look like that, even when I go to work."

I nearly fell down in a fit of hysteria at that comment.

"MY PARENTS!!!! HA!!!!"

"Well I quickly realized and I spent the whole night feeling like an idiot in that outfit with my hair combed over."

"You look way better now," I said.

"Thanks," he said and I swear he blushed.

I explained to him my situation with the catering and he said that he would love to help me out. He had to finish decorating, so I went back home and within an hour he was in the kitchen beside me chopping and sauteeing like a professional. We listened to Christmas music all day as we rolled meatballs and made fruit platters. He made perfect risotto (it was an Italian themed party). All day long we laughed and cooked.

Later we realized that somehow we had forgotten to buy rolls for the sandwiches so we drove to Publix, but there was no parking and we had to drive around the block. Do not ask me how I managed this but I parked behind a fence that had no gate and the straightest shot to Publix was over the fence. I'm still trying to remember how this all worked and I can't remember exactly.

What I do remember was that it was late afternoon and the sun was the color of ginger ale. It was one of those chilly December days we have here where the temperature never gets above sixty and where you have to wear a sweater at night. There was a lot of traffic and noise because everyone was in a festive mood and people were rushing around at the last minute like we were, getting ready for parties.

I remember we came to the fence and I said that I had gotten confused and had lead us in the wrong direction and that we would have to walk a couple of blocks out of the way to get to Publix. When I said that he, very nimbly, jumped over the fence. It was a barbed wire fence and I was scared of it. It wasn't that tall, a little below my shoulders. If it had been waist high I would have stepped over it, but shoulder high scared me. I imagined getting hung up on it and flesh and clothes ripping, which after everything else would be just my luck.

"I don't think I can do it," I said.

"I'll help you."

He held out his hands and somehow lifted me up with such grace that before I realized what was happening I was safely on the ground on the other side of the fence with him.

"See," he said, "That wasn't anything."

"Do it again!" I said.

And so he lifted me up and put me back where I was on the other side of the fence, never once questioning my weirdness at wanting to do it again.

He did it again so I was back on his side of the fence.

"Wow!" I said, "That was fun!"

"You want to do it again?"

I said no. Twice was enough. And then we walked to Publix.

Looking back this was the moment when I knew that this was different. I knew that I wanted him to lift me over every fence I encountered. And while we were in Publix squeezing the Kaiser rolls, I made a very conscious decision to go against all of my stupid habits and patterns of going after bad boys and guys who used me, said I wasn't good enough and didn't appreciate me. I decided to give the good guy a fair chance. I wanted a life where I would always be carried over fences, and let me tell you, I am not a petite girl. San Francisco was only two inches taller than me, so lifting me over the fence was no small task. I'm no pixie waif. But he wasn't deterred by my height or my size or anything. So on the way back to the car he put me over that fence a third time.

To be continued... (I know, sorry, but I have to go to school!)

A Brief Public Service Announcement

I am sitting here literally made nearly immobile by the piles of papers I need to read and comment on before tomorrow when it becomes Rosh Hashanah and I am subjected to another round of Eastern-European cuisine, when all of a sudden Aunt Kiki calls me.

Aunt Kiki is one of the number one drunk dialing offenders in my family, but in all fairness she is definitely not the only one. So when I see her number popping up on the screen I always feel a sense of doom and dread because you just never know what on earth you're going to hear or if it will make sense. At times she makes perfect sense and sounds like an ordinary housewife. It's like she has multiple personalities - housewife in the suburbs Aunt Kiki or crack whore on the street corner slurring fucked up Aunt Kiki. Today I got an odd combo of both.

It seems that Domestic Housewife Aunt Kiki was making chili when Drunken Lush Aunt Kiki took over halfway through and decided that margaritas go great with chili - 16 of them to be exact. The resulting voicemail, which I have transcribed for you is the result.

A Public Service Announcement From Aunt Kiki:

"I made a big pot of chili today and I cut up about eight kinds of peppers, halla-peenas and them little ones that look like pumpkins and then my hands were burning and just would not stop. Then I went to the bathroom and my pee pee started burning. Then I picked my nose and my nose started burning. I accidentally rubbed my eye and I just about went blind. Now everything on me is burning and I wanted to tell you that if you're going to cut up halla-peenas to make sure you don't touch your pee-pee, your eyeballs or your nose afterwards. My whole body's on fire and I thought because you were a cook maybe you could help me out, maybe you knew a remedy. Can you call me back if you know of something to stop the burning?'

The moral of the story here, a lesson learned the hard way, wear gloves when handling hot peppers. And for the love of god do not touch your pee-pee afterwards, even by accident. No one wants a burning pee-pee. It's a terrible thing.

How I Met My Husband Part 2

It was November (or almost) when Abe said the guy from San Francisco, the one in the hideous Hawaiian shirt called him.

"He's going to Brazil in December and he's got a long layover in Miami. Called to ask me if Gabriella wanted him to take any Christmas gifts to her family for her. I said, ain't that thoughtful," Abe said.

"Did you ask him about me?"

"He was asking about you. He wanted to know if you had a boyfriend. I said I thought she was dating that lawyer. God damn is that guy an asshole, I said."

"NO!! I'm not dating him! I don't have a boyfriend!"

"Oh," said Abe, "I thought ya did."

"NO!! Tell him to come back!"

Abe was already planning his boat parade party, since at the time he lived in a three story, peach-icecream colored mansion on the main Intracoastal waterway, right along the parade route. He doesn't live there anymore.

"All right. I'll try to remember next time he calls. I told him call Gabriella closer to the date he'll be here and ask her again about the Christmas presents."

I was about ready to give up. I was also very busy. At the time I was busy with school and busy volunteering in both my school's garden and at a wildlife rescue facility where I cooked dinner for bunnies, squirrels, vultures and pelicans. One day I'll write about that experience.

Everyone was still bugging me to "GET OUT THERE." Finally after Thanksgiving I decided, what the hell, I'd go back on Jdate.

I ended up meeting a guy named Ethan who was profoundly good looking and liked Radiohead. We had long conversations where he told me all about his job as a graphic artist and finally we decided to get some thai food one night. I went out and bought a new shirt which I later was realized was extremely ugly and had quite a loud pattern. I don't know what I was thinking, except that it showed my boobs.

Ethan drove up in his mom's station wagon. I mean this literally. It had his mom's dirty travel mug with her work's logo on it, in the cup holder and her Celine Dion and Basia cds on the floor.

"I don't have a car," he said, "And since I'm living with my mom and all she says I can borrow her car on the weekends."

"So how do you get to work?"

"Oh, yeah. Umm, I don't work."

"You said you were a graphic artist."

"I used to be a graphic artist."

Readers, how many red flags can we count here? OK, so how many red flags did I count here? None. Because he was hot and liked Radiohead. No really, he was tall and had black hair and green eyes. So I decided to overlook the station wagon and the fact that he somehow convinced me that I had in fact asked him out and therefore was responsible for paying for the thai food. Yes, but he was hot. And wow the goodnight kiss. After that I almost asked him if he wanted me to take him out for some ice cream too and then maybe take him shopping for a new car. Shoot, I almost offered to give him MY car.

That same week I got myself heavily involved in planning a big Christmas party for a bunch of underprivileged children. There would be a Santa Claus, crafts, candy, games, caroling and a Christmas dinner. Then each child would get a real, wrapped present to open under a tree. I was beyond excited about the event and spent lots and lots of time wrapping and decorating and preparing for the party. Then Station Wagon called and asked for a second date and I decided that my life was finally complete.

For the second date he decided that we would have dinner and then drive around and look at Christmas lights. An hour after he was supposed to pick me up he called and said he was late because he was helping a friend move. I said that was fine and he said he'd still go out as long as he could take a shower at my house. I said that was fine too.

This was especially fine because I got to see him in nothing but a towel. To my surprise his whole back was covered in one big tattoo of a sunflower garden. I found this intriguing. It kind of made up for the station wagon and Basia cds and I began to call him Sunflower.

Sunflower couldn't decide where to go for dinner so we went to God damned Subway which I hate and I wouldn't eat anything (ughh the smell of Subway turns my stomach). Then we did actually drive around looking at Christmas lights, but we had nothing to talk about and he asked me if I wanted to get high and I declined. We had nothing to talk about so I invited him back to my room and we made out. I found him surprisingly gentleman-like and reserved in the making out department.

Then Sunflower tortured me by not calling for several days. Just when I thought I'd never hear from him again, he called. Then he did the same thing. Men, please understand that this is actually a form of torture. Don't do this to us.

One night I was driving around at night listening to Jeff Buckley and feeling the weight of the world. Sometimes I get really sad at Christmas and do this. I drove to the first house my parents ever owned together and looked at that. Then I drove to the house where Evil Ex grew up and I thought about how he was going to have Christmas with his wife and baby and I was going to have nothing. This was so unfair. Evil Ex lied and cheated and stole from me. He shouldn't be rewarded with everything I wanted while I had nothing but some idiot who drove his mom's car and wouldn't pay for my pad see ew. Maybe, I thought, maybe I would never have anyone. Maybe every Christmas I would be alone. Jeff Buckley was not helping, and a word to the wise here. When you're sad do not listen to Jeff Buckley. It only makes it worse.

Finally, the Christmas party for the kids came and was a huge success, which made me really happy, again proving my theory that when you're depressed doing something for someone else or something greater than yourself will make you feel a lot better. The Christmas party for the kids was the Wednesday before the boat parade. Each year the Christmas Boat Parade is two weekends before Christmas and always on a Saturday night. It's huge around here and everyone has big parties. It's really the event of the season for us.

When I got home from the kids' party, all tired and covered in frosting and sprinkles, Abe was hanging out with my parents.

"I got good news for you!" he said, "San Francisco's coming this weekend for the party!"

"He is?"

"Yeah, he'll be here Friday. He leaves Sunday and heads off to Brazil Monday. He's going to Brazil for a month."

"Really!!!!! He's really coming?" I asked. I was so excited.

Abe picked him up at the airport Friday night and brought him to Casa Azul. From there the plan was to go to a Christmas party that my parents' friends were having at a local restaurant. I decided to drive on my own for two reasons. If it sucked I could leave and if I wanted to be with SF alone we could go do something on our own. Because I knew I was going to want to be alone with him. Because he was my soulmate. I just knew it. And everything was going to work out and everything was going to be perfect.

The guy Abe showed up with was not the guy I remembered. He had been replaced with some kind of uber-dork doppelganger. As soon as I looked at him I knew I was in serious trouble and was about to be stuck for an entire weekend with some doofus guy that I would have no interest whatsoever in and who would certainly get on my nerves. San Francisco was not wearing a Hawaiian shirt this time, but he would have done better if he had. He was wearing a plaid shirt, tucked in, a brown belt, black shoes, white socks, strange black sneakers, ill fitting blue Dockers and the Buddy Holly glasses. All he needed was a pocket protector. I'm not kidding you. And his hair which had previously been kind of hipster tousled, was oddly parted on the side and slicked over with cowlicks preventing it from lying flat. His hairdo looked a bit like my uncle's (Bella's dad who is no bastion of style let me tell you). I was deeply troubled by this turn of events.

Once in my car alone with me, SF started rocking out to Jane's Addiction. I was embarassed for him.

"I love Mountain Song!" he said, "I used to listen to this when I went snowboarding."

For the life of me I couldn't imagine this dork snowboarding. Seriously, I thought snowboarders were cool.

Once we got to the restaurant I went in the bathroom and called Sunflower and begged him to be my date to the Boat Parade party the next night. This was my backup plan. This would also make the San Francisco dork see that I was not interested. Sunflower said he'd think about it.

But you know, he had opened the car door for me. He was really quite sweet, I thought. I should do my best to be his friend because, as I said before, it's good to have friends in cool cities. But then again he was putting his hand on my back as we walked through the restaurant and that was not ok. I didn't want people to think we were together or something.

I really hated the restaurant. You don't even know. Local readers will instantly know where I'm talking about. It's a Greek place where everyone dances on the tables, drinks Ouzo, screams and yells to bad Greek techno music and throws piles and piles of paper napkins. It is the most obnoxious tourist trap I've ever seen.

And then who was there of course but Free Food Larry and his new girlfriend. This wasn't that random as I got Larry jobs with several of my parents' friends who were all criminals in some way or another. The friend had invited Free Food Larry, I guess. More than likely he had recognized the potential for more free food and had invited himself. We decided to sit at a different table, and I was visibly disturbed. I hate seeing exes, even those that I dumped. I especially hate seeing them with 19 year old, 85 pound, anorexic, half-naked Puerto Rican hoochies. The girl looked like a hooker. Not a classy one you order from a website, but a real streetwalker.

As we picked at some moussaka Larry, because he was an arrogant asshole, came over to our table.

"How do you like my new girlfriend?" he asked us.

We all looked at him and blinked.

"How fucking hot is she? Oh my God, the body on her. And you know what, she eats like a horse and doesn't work out. She was born with a perfect body. Ad her tits are real. 32 Ds. Like a little Spanish goddess. Look at her."

We all couldn't help but look at her. She was dancing on a table in five inch, clear platforms and licking her lips at several of the waiters.

"Larry," my mother said, "You are the biggest fucking asshole I have ever met. How dare you bring this whore when you knew we would be here? What disrespect after all the free food we gave you and after how you treated my daughter. Have you no class or tact whatsover? I mean really. You know what I think of her. I think she's a fucking prostitute and that's exactly what you deserve."

And with that my mother stood up, grabbed a handful of ice out of my Sprite and busted Free Food Larry square in the face with it, giving him a bloody nose. It really was one of the finer moments of my life. It really was. We should all have a mother who would do something like this.

Right then Larry's girlfriend saw that he was in distress and clamored down from the table top and stormed over to our table. She assumed that I, being the ex-girlfriend, was the one who had injured her lover. She got right up in my face. The five inch heels helped. Without shoes she would have had to have stood on a chair to get in my face.

"JEW GOTTA PROLLUM WIT MAH BAW-FREN BEETCH??"

Oh my Lord the girl sounded exactly like Rosie Perez. This is not a good thing. A translation of what she said was:

"Excuse me please, but do you have a problem with my boyfriend, female dog?"

Very calmly I replied:

"No. I do not have a problem with your boyfriend bitch. You are the one going out with him. You have the problem now. I dumped him."

And then she decided to kick my ass right there in the restaurant, but before she could take a swing (and oh was she about to) San Francisco who remained silent up to this point, likely due to shock, grabbed me and ran out of the restaurant with me. Somehow in the melee he managed to get my car keys, so he gave them to the valet, with money and asked the valet to bring the car immediately.

Personally, I think I could have taken her on. I think I could have actually kicked her ass pretty good and my mom would have had my back. I've never been in a fight, but I've imagined a lot of them and I really think I could have done it. But dammit, San Francisco had to go and carry me out of the restaurant and now we'll never know what could have happened.

Once in the car my adrenaline subsided enough for me to realize that I should be truly mortified. This poor guy flew all the way to South Florida from San Francisco to see a girl he thought was interested in him only to witness this same girl, after less than an hour, nearly get into a public brawl. And the language. And her mother busting some idiot in the face with ice. It was like the Jerry Springer show. He must have thought we were total, absolute white trash. I felt guilty. This guy had paid a lot of money to come, so I thought I should make it up to him. I decided to take him to dinner. And I apologized 785 times along the way.

"I swear I'm not a redneck, really," I said.

"I hardly ever get in public fights like that," I said.

"I do volunteer work! I listen to NPR!" I said.

I took him to a restaurant that I love. Even though I don't drink, I needed a drink and this place has award winning prickly pear margaritas.

The hostess sat us in a booth and San Francisco did something in this booth that horrified me to my very core. He sat on the same side as me. I scanned the crowded restaurant to make sure no one I knew was there. I didn't want anyone to see me with this guy. As if he weren't dorky enough he was a same-sider to boot. A same-sider. It was unspeakable. I had spent years making fun of cheezy couples who were same-siders in restaurants. No one had ever same-sided with me until that moment. I was deeply self conscious about it and I didn't want him to get the wrong idea. We were not on a date. I repeat. We were not on a date. I was showing a tourist a local hot spot. That's it. NOT. A. DATE.

Except we were kind of having a really good time. Perhaps it was the margaritas, but this guy was really sweet and really funny. He refused to let me pay. Then he drove us home in my car because I had a drink and was smaller than him. He also smelled good. And wow, he was so nice. That meant that he would definitely let me crash at his place if I ever wanted to go to San Francisco. And we would probably be good friends.

I invited him inside because he was staying at Abe's house down the street and the door was locked because Abe was still out. We sat in my bed for a while talking and listening to music and he was pleasant and easy to talk to. Canela jumped up beside us and began to ferociously head butt him. He picked her up and kissed her. Did I melt right there? No I did not. I thought to myself: "I can't believe this dork is kissing my cat like this."

By then I had layed down and stretched out. It was late. I was exhausted. He took this as a signal to lay down beside me and spoon me.

Oh Jesus H. Christ, I thought. This dork is spooning me. How do I get out of this? This is awful. Except it's not that bad and he's not really making moves on me. Oh God. His hand is accidentally on my right boob. I don't think he realizes it. Does he know his hand is on my boob? I wonder if he means to be doing that? I don't think he does. How can I get out of this? Do I want to get out of this? I think I do. But it's a tiny bit nice.

Luckily my parents came home, noisily and I had an excuse to jump up and greet them. San Francisco jumped up too and before I could do anything he grabbed my face and tried to kiss me, although I quickly averted this by turning my head so that he kissed me on the cheek. I acted like this hadn't happened and opened the door.

We found out that Free Food Larry and his girlfriend had been escorted out of the restaurant by security for threatening people and causing a scene. My mother, inexplicably was left alone. I think this is because everyone, even the waiters, knew that Larry needed to be busted in the face with ice. He was just that big of an asshole.

San Francisco went back home with Abe. I looked at my phone and had three missed calls from Sunflower. I decided to call him in the morning and take Sunflower to Abe's party as my date so San Francisco would know I wasn't interested. I went to bed, plan firmly in mind.

To be continued again...

How I Met My Husband Part 1

You all wanted to know how I met my husband. I will tell you, but I'm afraid it might be boring.

The summer of 2002 I half-assedly dated a guy who was a total fucking asshole and I knew it. I've already written about it and you may read it here. In fact, go refresh your memory with that story which tells how I dumped the idiot. I like that story.

So I was on a bit of a sabbatical from dating. I also had The Psychologist. For nearly two years The Psychologist and I had been going round and round and round. I met him on Jdate. He was cute and made great mix cds and played the guitar not that well but enough to impress girls. For far too long The Psychologist and I carried out a charade in which he said we were "friends with benefits" and I believed we were pretty much a couple except for the fact that he would not call us a couple. We were dating in everything except name. I had even met his family multiple times and he took me out at least twice a week and I slept over regularly and seriously, everything about us was a relationship except that he didn't call it one. I loved this. I loved this because it was agonizing and filled me with angst and woe and drama and because it provided me with a perfect arena to play out my whole saga of "I WILL NEVER BE GOOD ENOUGH!!!" If I had had any sense I would have dumped him the very first time he told me I couldn't be his girlfriend and that I wasn't his soulmate. My dumb, sorry ass thought I could change his mind if I worked hard enough and if I did everything right he would stop dating other girls and realize that he was truly madly in love with me. This never happened but I definitely gave the fantasy that it would a thorough work out. By the time Labor Day of '02 rolled around and I had about had it with both The Psychologist and The Asshole (whom I had really only dated to make the Psychologist jealous, which only kinda worked) I decided to swear off any further contact with men for a good long while.

I was busy with school. I hadn't been going for very long. The main reason I was going at all was because The Psychologist pissed me off by saying that part of the reason I couldn't be his girlfriend was because I was uneducated. Sometimes I hope The Psychologist knows about this blog and is reading it because I'd very much like him to know that in a few short months I will be just as educated as he is. At least comparatively, in my own field. In some ways I will be more educated. And this pleases me more than you can know because I have worked for six long, difficult years to prove him wrong. I'm crazy like that. If someone says something about me I take it as a challenge. When he told me I was uneducated I was so hurt and ashamed but at the same time I took it as a challenge. I was like "Oh yeah motherfucker. I'll show your ass some education. It may take me six years but by God I'll show you." And I did. Because I am that nuts.

But I'm digressing as bad as my grandmothers here. Anyway I was busy with school and swore off men and their games. Everyone who knew me felt that this was a bad idea. I was getting older after all. I wasn't getting any better looking. I needed to "Get Myself Out There." I heard this ten thousand times.

"You'll never meet anyone unless you put yourself out there. You've got to get out there!" everyone said.

I didn't even know where "out there" was. Wherever it might be, I didn't want to go. I had been on Jdate for the past 2 1/2 years and it hadn't resulted in anything but some consistent and emotionally painful sex with The Psychologist and about seventy five funny stories (which is something I admit). Dating had been exhausting and grueling and often depressing. I felt terribly about myself because I had been rejected a lot and often with a great deal of callousness. So many men lack compassion. I will never ever forget the guy who told me I didn't have the body type he preferred. But still everyone said I needed to "Get Out There!"

"I'm not going anywhere," I said, "Except to school."

Looking back this was one of the smartest decisions I have ever made.

"You're never going to meet anyone sitting in the house all the time," everyone told me.

"The perfect man isn't going to come walking through the front door, you know. You have to go find him."

I didn't really care.

One day I was sad and lonely and I sat down and made a very long and detailed list of all the qualities of my perfect man. I envisioned him so completely that I felt like I knew him and I did this because it made me feel less lonely. It was like I was Dr. Frankenstein, creating a real person to make myself feel better. I became very absorbed in creating my fantasy man so I included everything on the list, right down to his eye color (green) and the fact that he wore glasses and would speak more than one language. He would also like cats and have good taste in music and have traveled. He would be smart and kind and not a player. I wanted him to have a nice family and parents who were still married. I went on and on. The list was several pages. When I finished I put the list away and stopped thinking about it.

Labor Day weekend came and The Asshole came over looking for a free meal. We called him Free Food Larry. Another friend of mine, The Jamaican, was in town. At this time I lived at Casa Azul with my parents and The Jamaican stayed there. He is the friend who named Bomboclaat. The Jamaican said he would cook us an authentic Jamaican meal and he made a ton of food - jerked chicken, callaloo, peas and rice, escabeche fish and every yummy spicy, coconutty island food you can imagine. It was wonderful.

My parents decided to call Abe Kirchener who lived down the street at the time and had yet to marry Gabriella the Brazilian gold digging whore who has since cleaned out his accounts and financially ruined him. They invited Abe over for dinner and he said his friend's son was in town from San Francisco and wanted to know if he could bring him too. Of course that was fine.

Before dinner was served Free Food Larry the fucking asshole got sick from taking Vicodin and passed out in my bed. I was in my room trying to get Free Food Larry up and coherent enough to drive so he could leave when I heard a bunch of people talking outside my bedroom window. I peeked out and there was Abe with his friend's son who was sitting on a lawn chair with my mom smoking a cigarette. He looked to be about my age and he was wearing a God awful outfit of red shorts and a strange Hawaiian shirt with clogs and Buddy Holly glasses. He was the weirdest looking boy I had ever seen. I didn't know he could see me peeking out the window at him smoking cigarettes with my mom.

Although he was dressed peculiarly there was something really kind of cute and naughty about him. He looked eccentric and this appealed to me.

At dinner (Free Food Larry ironically missed the free food because he was still passed out) Hawaiian Shirt and I sat at opposite ends of the table and only shared a very brief exchange regarding music and then San Francisco. I thought I should get to be friends with him, whoever he was, because it's always good to have friends who live in cool cities. Also he was cute.

He's probably gay or a freak or something, I thought.

Abe had to leave early because he had to take Mr. Hawaiian Shirt to the airport in Miami and by then I had kind of dismissed him. He hadn't seemed interested in me and he didn't make any other gestures of wanting to know more about me so I was all like "Whatever, he dresses funny anyway."

Then I ended up having to drive Free Food Fucking Larry home and get him back in his apartment. And really I did this not out of any real kindness but merely to get him out of my damned bed.

I couldn't stop thinking about the guy in the ugly Hawaiian Shirt. I had no idea why. I was probably desperate. I didn't know anything about him. I could barely remember his name.

A few weeks later I asked Abe about him. Abe was from California and had been friends with this guy's parents just like he was friends with my parents.

"How old is he?" I asked.

"Your age I guess," Abe said.

That didn't really help because to someone who's sixty anyone younger than that is the same age. I feared Hawaiian Shirt might be too young for me.

"He's a great guy," Abe said, "I've known him since he was in kindergarten."

Then he told me all about how he had been a snowboarder and was in magazines and how he spoke three languages fluently and liked to cook and how he had moved to San Francisco a few years ago after college and had gotten a really good job.

"He just called me up and said he'd be in town and we could get together. How many kids do you know who'd remember their parents' friend and make the time in their vacation to come see them? He's a great guy."

"Tell him to come back," I said, "Can you call him and ask what he thought about me and if he might want to come back and visit again?"

"He gave me his number. I'll see if I can do that," Abe said.

"Don't forget!" I said.

"You interested in him?"

"Maybe."

"All right. I'll call him soon as I can."

A month or so later, maybe a little more Abe said that the guy in the Hawaiian shirt had called him.

To Be Continued....

A Guest Post...From My Mom!!

This morning I got an email from my mom after I asked her on Monday to write a guest post and let me know what was going on. This is the result. You will all be able to see her on TV next week. She thinks I descibe her as, I don't know what, but I don't. She's tall and beautiful and blonde and looks at least ten years younger than she is and way younger than Aunt Kiki who is actually 48 to my mom's 53. You'll notice it was my mom's birthday last Friday and apparently my father is now drinking absinthe. I don't even want to know. For real. To refresh your memory, they have this guy named Dougie living with them and he's been there for the past six months or so. They also have a friend who rented out this house in Malibu that sits on a bluff overlooking the Pacific and they've been going there on the weekends because when you have a friend who has a 30 million dollar house on the beach it would be stupid not to. I know I would. So that's where they've been going. Here is her post:

"I decided to write a little update. As you know we've decided to stay another month. Actually I fear we will stay longer. The reason being is we are in the middle of so much right now it would be stupid to leave. We are going through very crazy times and it appears the stars are perfectly aligned. Everything that we ever dreamed for seems to be happening at triple speed. In the middle of market crashes, financial devastations, bad news 24 hours a day, there is a crack in the sky where the sun is shining directly on us. I am thanking God almost every hour. I'm not even religious but when thanks is due we need to remember there is something out there much bigger than us.

Anyway this weekend will prove to be incredible. We are staying in Malibu starting Thursday night. Brooke and her family will be staying there too and we will all cook together. This amazing 30 Million dollar home right on Malibu Beach is a definite retreat from bad nerves. We all rock in old time rocking chairs with a fine crystal champagne flute filled with the finest of bubbly spirits. Oh how I love that. I don't care how bad your week was it disappears within an hour and life is just filled with goodness running over. The more bubbly the more stories people seem to tell. It goes from story telling to all out hysterical laughter. People don't seem to laugh as much as they should so I cherish these times. Being in Malibu is always an event because you never know who might stroll in. This weekend the cameras come out and pictures will flow. I will make sure, being you are not with me that you can at least experience the weekend through pictures. I am also going to get Brooke and some of the others to write you some letters for your blog. If you promise to help Brooke I will send never ending stories and pictures. Maybe it is time to notch things up a bit.

I also got the call today that I will most definitely be going to see Dancing with the Stars next week. We will be right next to Brooke's husband so you will see me often. They always direct the cameras toward him when she is dancing. You can do some freeze frames at home and freak the hell out. OH yes it is me live on ABC! You know I will be looking HOT! Your readers will be shocked by the way you describe me. I just had my 53rd birthday Friday as you know. I ended I do not know where but after your father drank two shots of absinthe, (He did not have a clue what that was, but I sure did). Coming from the country that wasn't much about liquor I didn't know. I decided I didn't want my face planted in a toilet a two in the morning so I stayed with a much weaker drink. Glad I made that decision after watching your father try to hold on to a tree then missing it by a mile, nearly hitting the pavement. Good thing Doug was straight as an arrow. Someone needed to drive that car. Anyway, he was fine the next day like nothing ever happened. My birthday was a blast. We spent most of it at Besos, Eva Longoria's new restaurant. The place was packed with partiers from all over.

Boomba has settled in Beverly Hills and is saying he hates Florida. He has 100s of friends and went from being totally antisocial to being the mayor. He can walk to the dog park at speeds unbelievable. He cannot wait to go and believe it or not, at 5:00 he knows it is time to go. He socializes with everyone and when he gets tired he just sits on a strangers lap like he has known them his whole life. This is amazing because this dog likes NO one but me. He is nice and thin, looking incredible. His breath still smells like a skunk's ass but hey, he is 13 and I should be thrilled he still has teeth and can still see.

I have an incredible story to tell you. It seems Doug met up with a few trans-sexuals that he thought were women. This whole debacle has been going on for six weeks now and it is so bizarre that I feel it is a story in itself. I could almost write a book about it. I will save the story for next week. I swear to you it will be incredible and your readers will freak the hell out. So will you! The reason you haven't heard about it is because I can't talk on the phone to tell you because he is always here and I really do not want to hurt his feelings. The story is so damn juicy that it is killing me. I want to tell you about it.

Next week your Papa will be home for the holidays. Enjoy it, I will be relaxing in Bev. Hills eating sushi and looking for new adventures. "

The Polls Are Now Closed!

So the polls are now closed on the first ever Wide Lawns reader's choice post topic. I had fun. I was all impressed with my sorry self that I could manage to paste some html into my blog. That's very hard for people like me, you know.

So the winner is that you all want to hear about how I met my husband and that's what you're going to get, but not right now because I have to get ready to go teach two classes. Maybe I'll write it tonight or tomorrow morning. In any case, I'm going to tell you all how I met my husband. I fear though that you might be disappointed. It's not that interesting perhaps, although on our first date a Puerto Rican girl threatened to kick my ass in public. Which was at least entertaining, even as it happened. I will warn you that, to quote my dear husband "everything about this flies in the face of all dating conventions."

A close second was what happened to my sister. I have decided to write about these topics in the order in which they placed in the poll. My sister has given me full permission, encouragement even, to write her story as long as I fictionalize the ending. She wants a new ending where she killed the guy and chopped him into pieces and threw him into the Everglades where alligators ate him. This fictionalized ending would make her feel very good as she read it. I said I'd write that for her.

After that it looks like we'll be hearing about the Chiropractor and the Toe Sucker.

But first we need to talk about my parents. Really, we need to talk about my parents. Ok, I need to talk about my parents.

They were supposed to come home October 1st. Their lease was up and they'd been out there for a while having the time of their lives. To me it seems that they live a healthier and more pleasant lifestyle - always at the dog park and taking walks and hanging out in beachfront bars in Malibu. Also the Ross is much better and they are only three hours from that mystical trailer park in Vegas that they love so much. But I do miss them a lot and I kind of wanted to go back to my apartment. Not that I don't love living in a gigantic waterfront home with a bathtub, a pool and oh good god a grill. I love that dang grill. I'm as bad as a man. I was out there making BBQ chicken the other day getting such a thrill. But anyway, I wanted them to come home for at least a little while, but at the same time I feel like they're better off in LA. But I was looking forward to having them come home.

Then my mother called and said they were staying and extra month. Then my dad called and asked me if I was TiVoing "Dancing With the Stars". As if.

"Why would you ask that?" I asked him back.

"I thought you loved that show."

"No, I watch 'So You Think You Can Dance', totally different."

"Oh, well you need to watch 'Dancing With the Stars'," he said.

"And why is this?"

"Your mom's new best friend is on it!"

"OH MY GOD IS SHE HANGING OUT WITH KIM KARDASHIAN AND HER BIG ASS TELL ME THIS IS TRUE PLEASE IS THAT ASS REAL????????" I said calmly.

Because I could really see my mom and Kim Kardashian getting along very well and then my mom could FINALLY be on that reality show she was meant for.

"No," my dad said, crushing my whole world, "It's Brooke Burke."

"Julian's ex-wife who dated Bruce Willis?" I asked.

I was referring to Julian McMahon because of course he and I are naturally on a first name basis and all. Ok, well, we were on a first name basis. I don't think he'd remember me now. Julian and I spent Thanksgiving weekend of '03 together in Mexico. Ok, while every word of that sentence is true, it is also written with a great deal of fantasy involved. Let me clarify. Julian McMahon and I were in the same place and ate dinner at the same table every night (breakfast and lunch too!) and really did sort of hang out for Thanksgiving weekend of '03, but I confess that I think he thought I was a Mexican maid and that he was so insanely hot in real life that neither my sister nor I could carry on a coherent conversation with the man and that whenever he came anywhere near us we would turn red and giggle and act like jackasses and have to leave the room to gush to one another about how hot he was. That is the real truth.

But I was mistaken, alas. Julian's ex-wife was Brooke Burns who was apparently on "Bay Watch", which should not be confused with Brooke Burke who was on "Wild On." To me there is almost no distinction whatsoever between these women. But Brooke Burke is now my mom's new friend. They met in Malibu and Brooke has like twenty-five children and my mom held her new baby and they just had a fabulous time and Brooke never even mentioned she was on "Dancing With the Stars" until she had to leave and her husband (baby daddy? not sure) told everyone present that she was going to her first rehearsal and they were all like, for what? Then he told them about it.

So my mother would like you all to please vote for her new friend Brooke Burke on "Dancing With the Stars" because she said Brooke Burke is a lovely woman, a very good mother and extremely warm and friendly and one of the sweetest people she has ever met.

Later I called and asked my mother if she was going to go see the show being taped to watch her friend.

"No," she said.

"Why not? Even I'd do that."

"You gotta wear gowns and tuxedos to that mess. They make you get all dressed up to go."

My mom is not about the gowns. She doesn't like skirts and dresses. Personally I think she should make the sacrifice and get herself a nice long dress at that fancy Ross and just go.

Also, I completely forgot to tell you this. My parents were back in Vegas last week at that trailer park and they were in a restaurant and who rolls up in his special little cart but Vern Troyer (aka Mini-Me) and he was with a very flashy, sexy girl who may or may not have been a hooker.

So to conclude, I don't think my parents are coming home. Please vote for Brooke Burke on "Dancing With the Stars" and umm...Julian McMahon thinks I speak great English for a Mexican maid.

More Excitement From the School Parking Lot

I took this picture in the parking lot at school. I couldn't believe it honestly. What the hell is this person thinking? I wonder if he or she is related to the other flag truck I photographed at Publix on Fourth of July. What is it with truck owners and flags? Or is it just easier to fly a flag from the bed of a pickup? Is this person just asking for an ass kicking here or what?

In The Spirit of the Election I Thought This Would be Fun

What Do You Want Me To Write About Next?
	How I Met My Husband
	What Happened to My Sister
	The Toe Sucker
	The Chiropractor Who Offered Me Money To...
	When I First Knew I Wanted To Write...Rap Songs
pollcode.com free polls

I am all alone right now. This week, and I apologize, I decided to take a couple days off from writing because my arm hurt after writing two 30 plus page stories. Then I had two sets of friends who didn't know each other before, but now do, come to see me. Today I made a totally vegan lunch and they all ate it and it was good. Ok, well, it wasn't totally vegan because some of the appetizers had goat cheese and/ or smoked salmon. The rest was vegan.

My husband has gone to a wedding and I had to work and it was far away so I stayed home. Also partly because the friends were all here. One set of friends are in town because they are filming a documentary. For the past few days I found that more interesting than blogging. Right now everyone is gone - the sets of friends and my husband. My cat is having a fight with the neighbor's cat through the glass door. The cats are hissing and howling and throwing themselves against the glass. Cats have brains the size of almonds. Did you know that? Watching cats fight through a door, this seems obvious.

Because I was alone I decided to call my grandmother because she too was alone. I also called because all week long the baboon story had been bothering me and I wanted to see if she could confirm it for me. I had some trepidation about this because both of my grandmothers have this terrible habit of swearing that things didn't happen. You'll be reminiscing and then all of a sudden they'll break in with a "THAT DIDN'T HAPPEN" which no amount of "Yes it did"s will sway. There have been events that everyone else in the room remembers quite clearly but which my grandmothers will swear up and down never ever happened or even close to happened. I don't know why this is. I guess this happens when you get old and start to see merely an idealized version of the past because that's more pleasant. Maybe they perceived things differently. I can see my mother doing this here and there as well. We had a conversation last week where she told me a totally different version of a story that I remember as happening otherwise.

But the baboon story was bothering me, especially with the supernatural element and I want my stories to be as true as they can be so I called her up.

For fifteen solid minutes we talked about a curtain rod. She needs a curtain rod. The drapes are falling down. My aunt and uncle were going to take her but they had to drive down and they said there wouldn't be traffic and then there was traffic and she had bought a two liter of Mountain Dew because once they had said they liked it but when they finally got there to take her to get the curtain rod, after being stuck in traffic that they said there wouldn't be, they didn't drink the Mountain Dew and it's still in her refrigerator and also she got some chocolate popsicles and she was going to eat them. My grandmother's conversations are endless run-ons branching off into interminable tangents. If you were to draw a chart of a conversation with Mommom Jewel it would look like one of those glowing ball things of static electricity that have hundreds of mini lightning bolts branching out from a metallic center. You put your hands on them to feel the energy and your hair stands on end which is never not funny. I don't know what this thing is called but this is what my grandmother's conversations look like. And they also make your hair stand on end. Then she started going on about drapes and how she was getting her curtain rod at one store but a new Macy's had opened up an hour away and everyone had started going there but they have the same exact things as her store except every single item at Macy's is marked up exactly five dollars more than her store and she's not going there and she's going to her store instead because it's exactly the same and she doesn't care what anybody says about it. Like who would say something? Sometimes I want to ask her that. Who would say something? What would they say? That Jewel Holland buys her curtain rod for five dollars less? Would someone really say that? My mind drifted off and suddenly we were talking about Dr. Pepper. Perhaps it was a compare/ contrast between the Mountain Dew and the Dr. Pepper. I have no idea.

"Did you ever get the curtain rod?" I asked.

"No I most certainly did not," she said.

Then she told me why in exhausting detail. I will spare you what I had to listen to. By the end I wanted to tell her she should have tried Macy's. Finally I asked her if the baboon story is true, but I left out my theory about her being hung over because she would take that to the grave. I can't see my grandmother ever admitting to having had a hang-over.

"Oh yessir. That story most certainly was as true as I'm sittin in this chair," she said.

I can't confirm that she was sitting in that chair since we were on the phone, but I'll take her word for it that she was, indeed, sitting in that chair that she said she was. I guess that makes the story true.

"The car was really attacked by baboons?" I asked.

"Yessir it was. Oh it was awful," she said.

I asked her if I had exagerated the damage in my mind, being that I was little and all. It could have seemed worse.

"No. It cost us hundreds and hundreds of dollars even back then. Pop was so mad, he said he hoped we'd seen enough wild animals because he'd be damned if he'd ever go back to that place again."

"And the storm? That was true? And how I said rumble rumble-"

"NO DON'T YOU SAY THOSE WORDS!!!!!!"

"Really?"

"Yes it happened but DO NOT say those words. I have never seen a storm like that in all my life. To this day I've never seen a hail storm like that."

"Did I ever do anything else supernatural?"

"Oh Lord have mercy on you, you were the strangest child. Used to give me chills. I'd put you to bed, even when you were in your crib, just a toddler and as soon as I'd shut that door you'd start having full conversations. I asked you who you were talking to and you looked at me like I was a blamed fool and said to my face like it was obvious I should have already known and you said 'Mommom I'm talking to the people' and I said 'what people sweetheart' and you said to me and I will never forget this, you said to me that you were talking to the 'people from before.'"

"I said that?"

"Yes you did. And you would come and tell me things there was no way a child could have known or understood and I'd ask you how you knew these things and you'd tell me that angels told you or the people from before told you. I asked you who the people from before were and you said they came in the window and talked to you all night long and they were real nice and played with you and everything. It scared me so bad I quit asking you about it and just let you do it. One day you came to me and I was in the kitchen and you told me you remembered everything from before you were born and the people were your friends from then. I asked you if they were angels, these people, and you said I could call them that if I wanted to. Now what kind of child?"

Frankly, even writing about this conversation is creeping me out. I don't know what to make of it. But someone had asked in the comments if I had any other supernatural experienes as a child and I guess there's the answer. I apparently did. I don't remember it at all now though and I don't have these experiences now thank the blessed Lord in Heaven because I don't want to.

After that I decided to call Bella. This was a mistake. You always know you're in for trouble when the conversation starts with thirty seconds of background noise and a hip-hop song playing, followed by some shrill WOOOHOOOOs and then a bunch of semi-coherent hellos because whomever is on the other line can't hear you.

"BELLAA??" I yelled.

"WOOHOOOO yeah? HEY!!!! OH MY GOD IZZZ YEWWW!!! HEEEYYYY"

Bella was to' up. Bad. I guarantee you if I had not called her she would have drunk dialed me within the hour. I don't know why this is but I am a drunk dialing magnet. Whenever my friends and relatives get wasted they always seem to feel that it's the perfect time to call me.

"Bella, where are you?"

"BIRRfFDAY PARTYAYYYY"

"Oh ok, I'll let you go."

"NO I HAS SO MUCH TA TELLL YEWWWWW!"

When Bella gets drunk she talks like a lolcat. It's actually very funny. She sounded like she was having a great time whatever she was doing so I persuaded her to hang up and call me at another time.

Then my sister called me. Last night I hung out at her new job. She's working at the Brew Bayou, a Cajun themed bar. While I was there I witnessed an altercation involving six cops and four suspicious young men in a souped up red Mercedes. At one point the suspects were all on the ground but then they let them all go. Tonight she told me that there had been another incident while she worked where a woman locked her infant in the car and someone had to break the window and the woman was in hysterics.

The cats are fighting again and I have managed to sufficiently creep myself out while alone in the house. Maybe I'll watch the rest of my Tivoed episode of "True Blood." Can I just tell you - new favorite show. I'm about to be obsessed. I can already tell. It's that heavy goth streak I can't get rid of. I feel like I'm 16 again, all about the sexy vampires. And oh, the vampire guy on this show is very hot. He instantly gained the number one spot on my top five. Sorry Mark Ruffalo, you are now at number two, also bumping Dan Abrams to the number three position. I don't know who the other two are right now. I'd have to think about it because I broke up with Clive Owen, who has nothing on a vampire. No, maybe if I watched that I'd get scared again, although I haven't found it scary just yet. Hmm, I'd consider making Casey Affleck number four. I don't know. I think my top five needs some work.

Ehn. Saturday night at home alone sucks. I'm going to go make a Whole Foods gluten-free pizza which will probably be as fantastic as it sounds.

I'm feeling bleh as hell. What do you all want me to write about next? I'm stealing this idea from Green. I'm just wondering what you all would say. Inspire me, dear readers.

I'm Going to be Rich

I'm always coming up with brilliant ideas to make myself a gazillionaire. I just got another one.

This morning I caught Canela licking water droplets off the shower doors. Afterward she spit up on the floor and I don't know if that was from a hairball or soap residue, but she seems ok now. This cat, and for that matter, ever single other pet I've ever had has preferred what I like to call "alternative water sources" to the fresh cold water I put in their dishes several times a day. I am vigilant about giving my pets fresh water. I change it three times a day and wash the bowl in between. Husband has even spoiled Canela to the point where she won't even look at it unless it has ice in it now too. So now the cat gets ice three times a day. If it melts she stands next to the dish and looks at it and she'll do this for hours until someone relents and gives her new ice and new water. Then she'll take two little sips and go drink out of the toilet.

So I thought I should come up with a line of special, and extremely expensive, bottled water for pets (because dogs are even worse about this than cats) and that it should come in different flavors. The flavors would be: toilet, mud puddle, shower residue, human's glass of water, melted ice cube that fell on the floor, faucet, other pet's water dish and last but not least, fish bowl.

Then I decided to take it a step further and decided that I also needed a line of cat food that represents what cats actually want to eat, because in the wild cats don't go salmon fishing or haul home dead chickens and cows. So my new cat food line, which is still in development, will feature flavors such as: Blue Jay Dinner, Mole and Vole Combo, Garter Snake, The Other Cat's Food (the one who is on the special diet and has to eat separately of course), Dog Food, Gecko Surprise (allows the cat to leave the tails) and Ground Hog (meant for multiple cats only and also suitable for some dogs). Other flavors such as People Food, Extension Cord, Christmas Tree, House Plant and Every Poisonous Thing in the House That Cats Shouldn't Eat are also in development at this time.

Great Adventure

When I was four, my family was attacked by baboons.It happened in 1978 when I lived with in a small white ranch house with green shutters with my biological father and his parents, my Mommom Jewel and Pop Byron.

It was late Spring and my father returned from a trip to Japan with the idea that we should all visit a wild animal park in New Jersey together, as a family. We should take the child to see wild animals roaming freely in New Jersey. She should see giraffes and lions and zebras in their natural habitat. Of New Jersey. After we take her to the wild animal park we should take her to a restaurant that has stone animals standing all over the roof because after seeing real animals walking around in New Jersey it's good to see stone versions of the same animals standing on the roof of a restaurant. Also in New Jersey. She should have this experience, he insisted.

New Jersey was far away. We had never been there, but my grandfather was up for a road trip because he had just purchased his dream car - an olive green, vinyl topped Chevrolet. He wanted to show it off, to really take it out on a highway, to go somewhere in it and what better place to take a brand new Chevrolet than on a safari? He was also enthused about the trip because he had heard that the restaurant with the stone animals standing on the roof was world-class, gourmet cuisine and he loved going out to dinner. His favorite thing in the entire world was taking the family out to eat and we always went to nice places; places with full salad bars and crocks of cheese spread to dip breadsticks in and spread on packets of melba toast.

We left for the wild animal park at six in the morning. It was still dark and my grandfather brought a camping thermos full of coffee with him that was nearly the size of a pipe in a drainage ditch. He wanted to stop at Mister Doughnuts and get breakfast but Mommom threw a fit. She had a headache and an upset stomach and the thought of smelling those nasty, greezy fried doughnuts would make her ill. This annoyed me tremendously because Mister Doughnuts had little doughnuts on sticks like lollipops and I loved them more than life itself. I would behave for weeks on end if someone had promised me a doughnut on a stick.

While we drove, I amused myself with my sketch pad and pencil. I drew a large thunderstorm with scribbled tornadoes, darkly shaded clouds and jagged lightning bolts that looked like unbent wire clothes hangers poking at a landscape populated with generously striped, stick zebras and stick elephants with trunks like graphite garden hoses. I showed Mommom the storm.

"Rumble rumble rumble. Pour pour pour," I said.

"Is that the sound your picture makes?" she asked.

"Yes," I said.

"What sound do the animals make?"

"rumble rumble rumble pour pour pour."

"No, that's the storm. What does the elephant say?"

"Rumble rumble rumble pour pour pour," I repeated.

Later, I remember my father getting into an argument with my grandparents about something. I also remember that the drive to New Jersey was longer than I had ever been in a car and we had to stop twice at rest areas. We crossed a huge bridge and the wind over the spans shook and slid the car, hundreds of feet above a blur of water and barges.

I recall wanting to eat at McDonalds and not expressing this desire because I had learned early on never to ever say that I wanted something. I really did want to eat at McDonalds though. I'm not sure why. We didn't have a McDonalds at home yet so I had never been to one. Perhaps I liked mustard color of the arches.


We didn’t get McDonalds. My family brought coolers on road trips, full of sandwiches that I hated, on white bread, dripping with mayonnaise. My father and Pop had Old-Fashioned Loaf while I ate peanut butter crackers with Mommom. We drank cans of 7-Up which is too fizzy out of the can and needs ice that we didn't have. McDonalds would have been much better.

Finally we arrived at the wild animal park. A huge sign at the entrance warned us, explaining that the animals are wild and could be unpredictable. Driving through the park was done at the guest's own risk and the park would not be responsible for injuries incurred to guests who refused to keep their windows up and their hands inside the car. Feeding and petting the animals was strictly prohibited. Getting out of the car would result in arrest or even death. Drivers must drive at ten miles per hour or slower and look out for animals darting out or crossing the roadways. Cars with vinyl tops should not drive through the safari at all and the wild animal park was not responsible or liable for any damage done to any car.

"I don't like the sound of this," my grandmother said.

Pop said he didn't want to drive through either and maybe we had better go straight to the restaurant with the much safer stone animals on its roof.

My father was upset about this and they all argued for a long time about how it would be a waste of a trip and how I would be disappointed and I had wanted to see the animals for so long. It wouldn't be fair to make a child sit in the car for all that time just to go to a restaurant and he kind of wanted to see the real animals himself for what it was worth. Those signs. They had to put them there in case something happened but nothing had ever happened. Lawyers made them put up those signs. They were there for stupid people who didn't have enough sense not to try to get out and pet a lioness or toss Funyuns to a jackal. Finally my grandparents gave in because it looked like it was clouding up and we had better just go ahead and do it before it started to rain and then we wouldn't have a choice anymore.

The lions were fucking. Lions don't mate or breed and they certainly don't make love. If you've ever seen lion sex it's definitely straight up, dirty and fast. It takes less than thirty seconds and then they do it repeatedly, so as we were stuck in traffic in the drive through safari we got to see the lions get it on at least thirteen times. "What are they doing?" I asked."They are giving one another piggy back rides and don't ask about it again," my grandfather said.

We saw distant gazelles, sheep with long, saber-like horns, giraffes who seemed to be looking for something and then we saw some disenchanted cheetahs. Elephants rolled in mud, all of the animals pooped as we passed, hippos lolled in a shallow pond that prevented them from completely submerging and finally, after all of this we arrived at the baboons.

A large group of baboons conferred as we approached and then without warning they descended like a raging dust-devil of red-assed ape. Later a park representative would tell us it was because the chrome of the new car was so shiny and enticing to them. Baboons blotted out the sun, hanging and humping; throwing themselves on and off every part of the Chevrolet. They dented the hood, weighed down the roof and shredded the automobile’s elegant vinyl top with their nails. They peeled off the chrome edging and emblem; attempted to make off with the license plate. They jerked off in front of the windshield and took hot yellow shits which ran down the windows. We couldn't do a single thing because the traffic was backed up and there was nowhere to go. Pop laid on the horn to scare the baboons but this just riled them up. He crept forward and slammed on the brakes to throw them off but they just jumped back on and pounded with their fists. Inside the car I huddled on the floor with my hands over my head to drown out the thumping, thudding and whooping of the baboons. My grandmother screamed and my grandfather swore in a way I never heard him swear ever again. In a last ditch effort I bellowed from the backseat:

"RUMBLE RUMBLE RUMBLE POUR POUR POUR!!!!!!!!!!!"

"Holy mother of God," I heard my grandfather say.

Suddenly the thumping, thudding baboons stilled. A deafening peal of thunder scattered them. I looked up through the dirt and crap smeared windows and the sky was green and bruised as a black eye. Then another thudding began but this time it was hail stones big as quarters. Later when we told the story it became fifty cent pieces and at one point years later it was Susan B. Anthonys.

The hail started like Jiffy-pop; a small sporadic crack here and there exploding into a roaring white noise of ice, streaking towards and slamming into the ground on sixty mile an hour winds. Though she would deny it later I remember my grandmother actually crying. No one else said a word. Rain like a real monsoon replaced the hail and the road was clear enough that we could creep along enough to get out of the wild animal park to the safety of a parking lot where we waited out the storm.

It ended about twenty minutes later. What the baboons hadn't dented and destroyed the hail had. The Chevrolet drove fine, but the outside was ruined. The mirror on the passenger's side was ripped off so as we drove off my grandmother had to keep looking over her shoulder and rolling down the window to check and see if it was safe for my grandfather to change lanes.

After all of this my grandfather said he was still going to go to the restaurant with stone animals on the roof. It was at least an hour away from my memory and he said before he dealt with the car and my father he needed a good steak dinner and a couple of Manhattans. No one else said a word, but as we pulled into the restaurant parking lot my grandmother turned to me in the backseat and pointed her finger at me.

"Don't you ever say those words again," she said with such seriousness that I nodded.

By then I had even scared myself.

The restaurant was closed. They were on vacation. My father had wanted to photograph the stone animals on the roof but now refused.

"Go on, you wanted all this so bad you better remember it. Go ahead and get a snapshot of it why don't you," Mommom said.

The ride home was silent. We stopped at a diner on the other side of the bridge and had fried chicken dinners. No one talked. I fell asleep so I don't know what happened when we got home. I don't know if my grandfather stormed in or if my father stood in the yard and looked with guilt and regret at the remains of his parents' car. I don't know if my grandfather went in and poured a drink from his stash by the basement laundry room. I imagine that my grandmother dusted a powder puff over her body and changed into an imitation silk, lace-edged nightgown and sprayed herself with Chanel #5 like she always did before bed. I don't know who put me in bed and flicked on my night-light. I don't remember what happened to the car. I just remember that when I was five my family was attacked by baboons and that I saved us by conjuring the worst thunderstorm any of us had ever seen.

Barack Obama Eats Spinach Dip, Tips Well

I'm still busy, but the good news is that I finished one of my long pieces I was working on for my other, non-blog writing. Now it has to be edited. You all know, obviously, I think that I write a whole lot more than what I put on here in my real life, right? Some of it is for school and some of it is or aspires to be published elsewhere.

I debated about writing anything today, as I thought maybe today should be a "post of silence" but then I thought it wouldn't be irreverent to write a little something before I run off for another long day. I've been getting home after 10:30 every night lately.

So last week one my close relatives in another state, who does not wish to be identified right now, had the privilege of serving Barack Obama and Joe Biden when they came to the restaurant where he works. They were on their way from one city on the campaign trail to another and stopped for lunch, being that they are actual human beings who get hungry. Secret Service scouted the place out for them an hour before they arrived, so apparently politicians can't just be all like "Hey that place looks great, let's eat there!" Everything has to be planned out. This would drive me insane. Remember to tell me never to run for office. Oh wait, I think I've long since ruined any chance I've ever had at a career in politics anyway.

By the time the whole entourage arrived at the restaurant the place was in a tizzy. A bunch of employees had called their relatives and told them to come in and eat so they could see the candidates and the place got really crowded. Barack and Joe ended up sitting down at a table with some regular patrons instead of taking their own table and since it was a table of old people, the patrons were awfully excited about this. Then everyone wanted autographs and pictures and they didn't turn down a single request and spent a lot of time talking to every person who approached them. Now I would have hated this, but again, politics is not for me. I would have shouted something like "God Dammit can't you all people see I'm trying to get a bite to eat over here?? Jesus Christ!!!" And then I'd be on CNN and Fox and on the cover of every national newspaper and no one would ever vote for me. I hate somebody trying to bother me when there's food around. I'm like one of those nervous dogs from the pound who growls over the food bowl and swears everyone wants to steal her kibble.

Barack Obama likes spinach dip. He also enjoys a good pretzel on occasion. He drank water, didn't smoke any cigarettes and held some girl's baby for a long time and played with it and kissed it on the head. The best part of all is that Barack Obama and Joe Biden each tipped my relative, MY RELATIVE, 50 percent. That's pretty nice. They also took a picture with him. My relative also reports that he found Barack Obama to be a pretty regular, nice guy who was very outgoing and had all the old ladies in the restaurant blushing and gushing. He also said that Barack Obama was very natural with the baby, who very much wanted to be held by him and that he didn't hold the baby in one of those fake politician ways and when he kissed the baby repeatedly on its little fuzzy head he did it in a sort of instinctive, not on purpose for a photo-op kind of way. He just liked the baby. I admit, I was touched.

Unfortunately I can't be very objective about this as it is highly unlikely that John McCain and Sarah Palin will visit the same restaurant. It was just a freak event. I'd also like to add that I had really wanted to be able to hear both candidates speak in person, but to date I haven't been able to do that because McCain hasn't been down here yet, at least not in a capacity where I could have seen him. I'm on both candidates' email lists so I can compare and I rarely get anything from McCain and get something from Obama at least every day. Barack Obama was texting me so much that I felt like he had a crush on me. John McCain sent me something in the mail the other day addressed to me as if I were a Republican, which annoyed me because I am an Independent. Isn't my vote crucial to this election? Shouldn't I be courted and wooed and all that? McCain needs to step it up a little. Maybe take me to dinner or something? A nice lobster perhaps.

The Worst Product Name I Have Ever Seen

Yesterday I was talking to my friend Emma about hair care products. Emma is my friend who works as a journalist, has written a novel which is not yet published but will be, and who is the classiest person I know. She is so classy that a few weeks ago she announced that she had purchased her stationary for the year, meaning that she puts some consideration into her correspondence and that she actually has correspondence. Compare this to just about everyone else I know who can barely manage to shoot out a decent email once in a while. I aspire to "purchase stationary for the year" myself one day. I always imagine that it will have actual ribbon bows on it somewhere, but then I end up feeling great about myself if I manage to pick up a late birthday card for someone at Target.

But I digress. Emma told me she had seen an infomercial over the weekend advertising a new line of shampoos which does not lather and that all the stars are supposedly using. We were skeptical about that part though because all informercials say that about their products and if there is a star touting the goods it's always a star who hasn't worked in years and is only on the infomercial to pay the rent since they got passed up for Dancing With the Stars and since Hollywood Squares went off the air.

The line is called Wen and has all sorts of shampoos and conditioners and the like and they're made from revolutionary new formulas and you have to use like 27 squirts per wash or something and when you wash your hair it won't foam up. This is not what interested me about this line of products. No. What got me was the name. Emma explained that they were spelling "new" backwards and that apparently had some meaning to the founders of the company although I can't imagine what that meaning would be. Also she speculated that they thought it was cool because it sounded like zen. But the word "wen" has an altogether different meaning to me.

Some years ago, and this is just one of those odd random things that sticks in my head for all time with no explanation, a friend of mine mentioned to me that her mother was having a terrible time with wens. When I asked her what that was she said that a wen was a cyst of sorts and that her mom's were making sores in her head.

So naturally I put two and two together here and realized that these people had named their fancy new brand of shampoos ironically after a head sore. I swear I even looked up the definition of wen and there it was - a cyst on the scalp or face. How's that for advertising, jeez.

See for yourself. Here is the website for the Wen shampoo, complete with cute puppy photos of the owners' dogs. Ok? Now here is the definition of the word wen. A line of hair products shares the name of a cyst with fatty secretions, and I don't even want to think about what that might look like. Did I mention that the shampoo and conditioner is really expensive? I saw one bottle that was $52.00. For conditioner named after an unpleasant scalp condition.

I think this may well be the most unfortunately named product I have ever seen. Note to the owners of this company - maybe you need a better research department. And what's next? I suggest a line of skin care products called Zoster.

Another Party Tale - This Time More Appropriate

I feel like I haven't been in top form with the quality of my posts lately and it's making me a little guilty. The deal is this, and I apologize for being boring or a blogging cliche or not writing at the standard I prefer, but I am really busy. It's the first couple weeks of school, I had freakin' jury duty this week which caused me to miss school, which then caused me to have to make major adjustments and I'm writing two long pieces which have looming deadlines. I had to edit two other pieces and of course I've still been trying to sell all of my worldly possessions because that's just fun. I am not kidding you all, I made over four hundred dollars this week selling my old junk and it was junk I didn't even hardly know I had. Can you believe that? I wish everyone would sell their old crap and experience my same joy. But anyhow, usually when I'm busy I just don't write at all, but this time I thought maybe I should try something different and try to blog through the busy-ness, even if it isn't at the standard to which I aspire. I thought, maybe that's ok. When bloggers I like don't post for a long time because they're busy it makes me mad (umm, I'm thinking specifically of YOU Miss Doxie). I'd rather have a little something to read than nothing at all, and plus when I write on here it keeps my writing energy going. Plus, when you write even when you're busy or you don't feel like it, sometimes you end up surprising yourself with what might come out of it.

I'm still busy as hell today. I have to work and then I have to come home and PREPARE FOR MY IMMINENT DEATH at the hands of Hurricane Ike. I've been working myself into an anxiety attack over this storm the past few days. Being at school doesn't help because the campus is like a giant game of "telephone" and the rumors go flying. Yesterday I think I overheard that it was a Category 6 and was going to actually detach Florida from the rest of the country with its 295 mile an hour winds and blow it clean over to the Abacos. I wouldn't say that my anxiety over Ike comes from fear per se. It's more a great and horrific dread of the inconvenience I will inevitably suffer due to this storm. After Wilma we went over three weeks without electricity and there was literally no food in the grocery store, mass hysteria, looting, a curfew, soldiers all over the streets and no one could get any gas. It was truly a disaster. It wasn't on the national news a lot because it was after Katrina and it was like a birthday party with pony rides compared to what happened in New Orleans so we didn't get a lot of press and we all felt like a bunch of ass-wipes even complaining because at least we weren't in the Ninth Ward. But if Katrina hadn't happened I'm pretty sure Wilma and South Florida would have at least gotten a short telethon. So I'm not all that excited to live through that again, and partly because Bella doesn't live here anymore and she and I had a world of fun during Wilma's aftermath and she kept me occupied while my super-hero Husband hooked up a generator for a local gas station.

In preparation for this storm and my imminent death I took stock of everything in the deep freeze last night. My parents have one of those freezers that is about the size of a small coffin and sits in the garage. I love this thing. I swear that one day I will have a garage too and I will have one myself. I love freezing things. In the bottom of the deep freezer I found three whole chickens and I was reminded of another story my mom often tells amongst gatherings of friends. This one is G-rated, involves no penises and although there is a chicken, it isn't getting toilet paper shoved up its ass.

Many years ago we lived in a pink house. I was in my late teens when this happened I think and at that time we had two dogs and a black tuxedo cat named Purrmachine - Purrma Jean for short because that's more feminine and she was a girl. The dogs' names were Toots and Gaga, because we can't give our pets normal names in this family. Toots was a pomeranian and Gaga was a yorkie.

One day my mother took a chicken out of the freezer and put it in the sink to thaw. Then she went out and although I don't know this for certain I bet she went to Ross. Several hours later she returned and the chicken had simply vanished from the sink. First she thought she was going crazy. Maybe she had just thought she took the chicken out of the freezer. She looked back into the freezer and there was no chicken in there either. She looked in the refrigerator and all over the kitchen and there was no chicken. She asked my dad if he saw the chicken and he hadn't. Then she came to me and because I was a teenager and full of angst, drama and paranoia I think I said something to the effect of:

"WHYYYAREYOUBLAMINGME???? You blame me for everythiiiiiiiinnnnng. What would I do with a chicken oh my god I hate you you are so mean like what would I do with a chicken????"

My mother then concluded that the only possible explanation was that someone had come into the house, walked directly into the kitchen and had stolen the chicken. Now why a thief would make off with a half froze oven stuffer roaster I don't know, but my mother swore that's the only thing that could have happened because there was no evidence whatsoever left behind, not even a drop of water. The chicken had simply been spirited away. It could have been a segment on Unsolved Mysteries.

For a long time we told the story about the chicken that had just gone and poof, disappeared. We imagined the entire crime scene. My mother thought maybe she had accidentally left the door unlocked, someone had wandered in, found the chicken and thought it might make a nice dinner and so had ignored the TV, the stereo, the Lladro figurines of children in their pajamas and had just taken the chicken and left.

A couple months later my parents were upstairs (the pink house was two stories) lying in bed when they heard a terrific row going on under the bed. The dogs were growling.

"GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR"

My mother told them to shut up.

"GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR"

"God dammit why are the dogs fighting under the bed in the middle of the night?" my mother asked.

Then she heard the cat getting in on the action and hissing at the dogs who both growled back.

For an hour this went on:

"GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR"

"HISSSS"

"GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR"

Until my mother had had enough of their nonsense and decided to once and for all see what the hell was going on under the bed and put a stop to it so she could sleep.

All three animals were under the bed huddled together and clearly not getting along and involved in a serious power struggle over a mysterious object that apparently held great value to each of them.

It was the chicken.

Except it no longer resembled the chicken that had once thawed in the sink. It was a clean, white chicken carcass - a dry, smooth collection of bones. Toots was licking the spine, and it was so old and dried up that it couldn't possibly have even had any taste left, and Gaga was holding steady to one of the wings and trying to pull it away from Toots. Purrma, the cat, had one white paw claiming the bones that had once framed the cavity. None of them wanted to let go. And really when I tell you that this chicken was licked clean and dried up and couldn't possibly have had a speck of flavor remaining, I mean it. This thing looked like something you'd find in the middle of Death Valley.

My mother got the broom and shooed all the animals out from under the bed and then she used the broom to drag out the chicken carcass. Mysteriously and troublingly missing was the chicken's original vaccuum sealed plastic wrapper. Had they eaten that too? My mother disposed of the chicken carcass while all three animals gave her the stink eye for taking away something that had obviously provided them much joy over the past couple months. She had really rained on their parade.

In the morning we tried to figure out what had happened and we tried to mentally reconstruct the crime scene. How could this possibly have happened. It had to have been an elaborate, premeditated scheme on the animals' parts. We figured the dogs probably told the cat to get the chicken down and the cat jumped up onto the kitchen counter and got into the sink, but how had she managed to push a frozen chicken that weighed nearly as much as she did, out of the sink and onto the floor? After that how had two small dogs, who were smaller than the chicken mind you, dragged the chicken up a flight of stairs? And of course, where was the plastic wrapper? Worse yet, how had all this gone on for over two months right under our very noses without any of us finding any evidence? What kind of animals were we living with who would be capable of such a complicated deception?

Many questions remain. All three pets have since died, taking the secret of what really happened on the day the chicken disappeared, with them. We may never know the answers to our questions. Did they hide it downstairs and wait until it thawed to tear it open? Had they all at least gotten to eat some? How had a little kitty gotten a big Perdue chicken out of a sink and onto the floor? Had they licked up the trail of water it must have left? Did they hide the chicken somewhere downstairs until they had eaten enough of it to make it light enough to haul upstairs where a fight had then broken out over it? Most of all, over the years I've asked myself, how the hell did we not smell it? Surely it would have stunk, right? But it didn't.

My Cocktail Party Story

Everyone has a cocktail party story. It's the story that when you're scouting out the hot appetizer section and you're wearing your little black dress and you have to talk to people you don't really know or don't know at all you bust out to entertain total strangers. Usually cocktail party stories are appropriate and interesting and involve a safe amount of harrowing detail. My sister's cocktail party story is about how she went sky diving. This is a perfect cocktail party story. A bad cocktail party story is about how you just had your third divorce and got out of rehab and how you'd really like a glass of Chardonnay. Often cocktail party stories involve travel, sometimes mild travel disasters that end well or epiphanies one inevitably has while in a foreign land taking pictures of quaint poor people washing their laundry on a stone in a dirty river alongside some water buffaloes.

Except for my sister's ideal cocktail party story about sky diving, which you can borrow if you want - it uses the words awesome, wind, upside down, free fall, parachute, peaceful and beautiful in any combination you desire - no one else in my family has an appropriate cocktail party story. Oh we can all tell a story, let me tell you, but usually our stories are so outrageously IN-appropriate that we can stop a party dead in its tracks and leave the other guests either wanting to go home immediately or snickering about what characters we Lawns' are. Those Lawns' you just never know what they're going to say, I tell ya.

One example is my mom's story about the time when she was growing up she caught her brother stuffing wads of toilet paper up a chicken's ass. My dad has one about how when he was in high school there was a girl named Porky and a Puerto Rican girl named Mucho Chesto who were into gang bangs with all the boys in school. Neither of these stories are nice to talk about at parties and my story isn't much better, but people always seem to love when I tell it. It's strange I haven't busted it out for you guys, but I guess that might be due to the lack of cheese fondue, crudite platters and champagne on the Internet. So go pour yourself a glass of wine, put your little black dress on, or your little black suit and I'll tell you about the worst date I ever had.

I know what you're saying. I do know. You're saying what about Barry Schitt and the guy with the hairy back and the salt shaker and the guy who just got out of rehab and the guy with fibromyalgia who wanted to be held? Of course there was the guy who gave himself a prostate exam in front of me too, but that wasn't a date. No, this is worse than these. Maybe not the prostate exam story, but like I said, that was not a date. That was an unfortunate and traumatic incident. This was a date and everyone who knows me knows this story already and many remember when it actually happened.

I was thinking about this story over the weekend because the story happened around this time of year in the peak of the hurricane season on a particularly wet and stormy night when we were in the middle of a tropical wave that had stalled over South Florida.

A couple days earlier I had been at Kinko's making color copies of some Hindu prints that I had gotten the brilliant idea to decoupage onto some chunks of particle board I found lying around my parents' garage. I was standing in a long line and there was a guy in front of me who looked to be about my age or slightly older and he was talking on his phone. I noticed he had the peculiar accent of Millpond. People from Millpond and surrounding areas have a strange and immediately identifiable accent and dialect. You can't mistake it. So when the guy got off the phone I asked him if he was from Millpond and he said no he was from another town near Millpond and then I said I was from Millpond and he said I didn't sound like it and I said that was because I had spent years trying very hard not to sound like I was from Millpond and this made him laugh. Then we got to talking about how we both ended up in South Florida, because usually people from the Millpond vicinity don't ever leave. To make things all the more outrageous he claimed to be Jewish.

"There are no jews in Millpond," I said, "What the hell are you talking about?'

And he said that was why his family had moved and now they all lived in the Jewish paradise that is South Florida where there are bagels in every grocery store and real delis almost like in New York.

All through the line at Kinko's this guy and I talked although he was clearly on the dork side and not someone I could see myself dating. He was one of those guys who wears tee shirts, usually from some event like a work conference or a festival he might have gone to a few years back. The tee shirt is then tucked into high waisted jeans which may or may not be acid-washed, but usually are. There is a belt of some sort. In this case it was a skinny belt. White lace up sneakers finish the look and these are worn with athletic knee socks but you can't see those because they are under the jeans. It is safe to bet that also under the jeans are a nice pair of tightie-whities.

I knew that this guy was going to ask me out. You know how sometimes you can just tell and you can't get away but you really want to make those copies because you're excited about your decoupage project so you don't want to pretend to have an asthma attack and go running for your car? When this happened I was at a stage in my dating life where I had finally realized that I was not as hot and desirable to men as I had previously imagined myself to be. For a while in the beginning I didn't realize my competition down here was girls with a 16 BMI, melon-y implants and waist length sheets of platinum hair. By Millpond standards I'm hot as sizzling hell. By South Florida standards I'm kinda plain and frumpy and teacherish and when this story happened I was worse because I hadn't even fixed my teeth yet. So I had just realized that my options were limited and that I could no longer metaphorically shop at Neiman Marcus when I could only afford Wal-Mart. I was trying to accept this and learn to acquire a taste for Wal-Mart. I figured I was being a picky asshole and that I was shallow and that I should learn to give guys who were less than movie star faced doctors and lawyers because those guys didn't like girls like me. That's why I said yes. I was being humble and generous and trying to prevent an awkward situation. I could have given him a fake number I suppose, but someone had done that to me and it was crushing. Perhaps, I thought, he was a nice guy and what do clothes matter? If things worked out I could go shopping with him and give him a makeover.

He picked me up in torrential rains and promptly gave me a super-sized bag of jumbo reese's cups. Everyone knows that if you want to get on my good side that reese's cups are a good tool towards that goal. I was impressed.

We went for pizza. I like pizza. Pizza is fine. We made small talk, the usual date talk and then it started to get ugly. He was a recent divorcee and his wife, who he claimed was out of her mind, was an anorexic who weighed 80 pounds and had an addiction to prescription drugs. After a suicide attempt she was institutonalized and then from the mental hospital she filed for divorce from him. That's pretty bad. He was heartbroken. Red flags began to flutter. Now he lived with his parents and his brother and he couldn't stand any of them and they fought all the time and as soon as he started getting paid from his telemarketing job he was going to start thinking about moving out. By now the red flags were shredded in gale force winds. I was finishing up my pizza when conditions really started to deteriorate.

"I need to tell you something," he said, "In case we get serious I want you to know this about me now."

There was already no chance of us getting serious but I prepared myself for the following possibilities: herpes, a child, a prosthetic leg, a terminal illness or a complicated learning disability.

He looked down at his pizza and knit his eyebrows. He rubbed his nose, cleared his throat and looked at the pizza for a very long time. He cleared his throat again as I waited for whatever could be worse than being divorced by an 80 pound drug addict and working in telemarketing. Because to me, that stuff was bad enough.

Finally he came out with it.

"I have a four inch penis."

He couldn't look me in the eye. He seemed to tremble as he stared at his pizza crust.

I didn't exactly know what to do. Normally my brain doesn't function properly in situations like this and I'll say some stupid shit like:

"OH MY GOD THAT'S TINY!!!!"

But I didn't. My brain was functioning that evening, for once, and I realized that for some reason this guy had a major complex and that my reaction could potentially make this poor soul's life even worse than it already was. So I said:

"Oh that's average size isn't it? Every one I've ever seen has been about three or four inches. Totally normal."

And then he just about sprinted to the jewelry store to get me an engagement ring, so perhaps that answer was a mistake after all. My ass, on the other hand, couldn't get home and away fast enough and not because he had a four inch penis but because he TOLD me on a first date that he had a four inch penis and this is not acceptable behavior on a first date. You should not discuss your weiner on a first date. Save that conversation for the second date, please.

At the end of the date I decided that I had to be honest and not string this guy along so I said I didn't feel a spark. There was no chemistry and then he began to weep and say he knew it was because of his penis, which it kind of was, just not in the way he thought. It took me over an hour to comfort him because I couldn't just let some weeping dude with a four inch penis cry on the front step in the middle of a tropical depression. We had some reese's cups and when I thought he wouldn't run the car off a bridge in despair I sent him home.

When he left it occurred to me that I had no idea how big or how small four inches even was. He acted like it was problematically small so I studied the tiles in my bathroom, having remembered that they were, indeed, four inch tiles. I got the ruler out to be sure and what I found was that four inches wasn't all that alarming really. One could probably work with four inches. Two would be an issue. I could see weeping over a two inch ding dong for an hour, but four wasn't so bad. Maybe I'm generous. I've also been know to have dreadful spacial reasoning skills, so who knows. In any case, we didn't see each other again, but not because he had a four inch penis. Instead, it was because he told me about it.

The moral of this story is thus: do not decoupage on particle board that you find in your parents' garage and if a guy in any way discusses his genitalia on a first date that is a red flag. Yes even if he brags that he has a ten inch schlong. That would hurt.

The Food of My Youth or Why I am So Well Versed in Nasty-Assed Recipes

Yesterday The New Girl wrote a post that I rather enjoyed about the foods of her youth and it got me to thinking too. It wasn't a meme (I hate memes) but was just a list she made up on her own, even if it was somewhat meme-ish in form. It reminded me of a recent conversation that I had with my cousin Fallon and my sister about "Poor People Food" in which we concluded that our mothers all along had been feeding us things that poor people could afford and we had been totally oblivious and had loved mostly everything they fed us. Now, as a result we have some odd quirks of the palette and find ourselves craving things which are out of the range of our healthy diets because they bring back good memories. I think everyone has these certain dishes that when we get sad or lonely or reminiscent we just have to have.

I eat very differently now than I did growing up. My parents do too and often we'll start feeling nostalgic and talk about things we used to eat and just crack up that we ever ate that badly. Even now there are things I eat regularly that are very different from what my parents eat. Mexican and Thai food for instance. My dad will eat a green curry, but my mom isn't real keen on Thai at all and she doesn't like Mexican at all. I could eat it every day. Give me a burrito or a bowl of pad thai and I'll be happy. I even eat the thai food that Americans generally don't like green papaya and sticky rice. I've only met one other person who likes sticky rice. Sticky rice and mango is good, people.

I also eat healthier than I did when I was growing up, but you know, it was a different time. People didn't know as much about healthy foods as they do now and better choices weren't as readily available. Plus, a lot of the time we were poor anyway. I think if I ate anywhere near the way I did during my childhood that I would have heart disease and adult onset diabetes, but luckily I don't think it did a lot of damage and throughout my childhood I was skinny as a rail anyway, so it didn't matter what I ate as long as I ate period.

I wanted to share some of my food memories with you in the form that The New Girl started because she came up with some good categories. I'm not really meme-ing or stealing her idea. I'm extending her idea. She's nice though so I'm guessing she won't care. You should extend it too. Because we all know I'm food/ kitten obsessed and if you have some stories about food and/or pictures of kittens on your sites then I'll be entertained for weeks and really this whole blogging this is just about entertaining me anyway, right? If only someone would come up with a blog about kittens AND food. I'd be in heaven. Heaven people. I'm easy to please in a way that brings to mind the mentally challenged (and I mean that in a nice way).

Meals That Were in Heavy Rotation: Baked Ziti. Once my dad went to Italy on business and brought back the most enormous wheel of parmesan cheese ever. It was the size of a truck tire and I have no clue how he got it out of Europe. We used that cheese for, I shit you not, two and a half solid years. So we had baked ziti a lot. When we got sick of that we had homemade french bread pizzas, which is now Husband's favorite thing that I make. We also had beef cubes on rice, hamburger and gravy (all it was was onions, oil, hamburger, flour and water) on rice (total poor people food), tuna cakes which were cans of tuna mixed with mayo, eggs, mustard onions and crackers and then fried in oil, hot dogs cut up into baked beans and baked, sloppy joes, meatloaf which I still don't like, Sprite Chicken (baked chicken with a can of Sprite poured over it while it bakes), Coca-Cola chicken (more of the same), plain baked chicken and finally in the summer if someone caught it we'd have fried fish or boiled crabs.

When My Mom was "Phoning that Shit in": Well, my mom was pretty good about not phoning shit in believe it or not. She made dinner pretty often and even though we endured a significant amount of chaos we always had family meals. If my dad was away or if we were tired we would have soup and sandwiches - bagels with tomatoes, salami and melted cheese dusted with garlic powder and Italian seasoning. I ate a lot of ramen and Kraft Mac and Cheese too. A big treat was a TV dinner. I like the fried chicken one with the mashed potatoes. My mom liked the turkey dinner one, which had a better dessert than the fried chicken one.

Popular Side Dishes: Lipton fettucine alfredo in the blue envelope, butter noodles from an envelope, Birds Eye frozen Spanish Rice (this stuff was great and they don't make it anymore. It had peas in it), sliced fried potatoes made in the frying pan, cole slaw (STILL), frozen candied sweet potatoes.

Foods My Mom Made When We Were Sick: Yeah ok, ha. She wasn't that type of mom I guess and she was sick more than we were anyway.

Memorable Mentions: homemade peach ice cream, angel food cake with strawberries, chicken and dumplings, fried squash with breadcrumbs not stinkin' corn flakes New Girl, tacos on extremely rare and special occasions, stuffed peppers, cherry lime rickeys, gingerbread.

Weird Snacks: Hmmm. I can't recall anything all that weird. I liked apples with peanutbutter a lot. I also used to make boil in bag rice for myself and eat it with cheese on it. Oh my God, I just thought of an abomination my mother used to make - Ham, Egg and Pickle. It's leftover ham ground up with boiled eggs and sweet pickles in a food mill and then bound with mayo. It's horrifying. My dad used to make an omelette that he invented that contained burned onions and green pepper, minced hot links, worcestershire sauce and muenster cheese. That was pretty good but I've never seen anything else like it.

Food We Had at Our Grandparents' House: This could be a post in and of itself. Memere Marie made a nice apple cake that I still like and sweet and sour mini meatballs. But then she made a lot of hamburger/ rice variations. My family was big on hamburger and rice it seems. Mommom Jewel made spaghetti sauce out of a powder that came from an envelope, as well as a similar chili and an eye roast that could wear down one's dental veneers after one bite. She also used to make a cole slaw in the blender, so it was a kind of cole slaw puree with vegetables out of a can and a bad salad that had a lot of minced green pepper and onions in it. She made the best desserts though - pistachio cake, peach cobbler, strawberry shortcake and sweet potato pie. She also made good chicken and dumplings, peas and dumplings and fried chicken but she didn't like making fried chicken "cuz the greeze splatters all over the durned stove." At both grandparents' houses we were often subjected to atrocities like oyster fritters and oyster stew which is like hot milk with hockers in it. I do not like oyster stew. Hamburger Helper made regular appearances. I swear hamburger must have been cheap when I was little. I bet I've eaten a total of 7900 ground cows in my lifetime.

What I Want My Mom To Make For Me Now (I added this category) - Chicken cutlets and mashed potatoes, rosemary roasted pork with roast potatoes and coleslaw with apples in it, fried tilapia, chili, tomato and goat cheese salad with macadamia nuts. Oh and chicken paprikash too.

Best Thing I Ate as a Child By Far (I also added this): A couple times when I was about six before my sister even existed my mom got a wild hair and made homemade crepes which left such a profound impression on me that I think of them often even now. The crepes were filled with vanilla ice cream, sliced bananas, chocolate syrup and walnuts in syrup (wet nuts, as we called them). Words can not describe readers. I should try to make this again and see if it's still as good as I remember.

What'd y'all eat? And to my mother, if you are reading this, I know I forgot something, so if you can think of anything else you remember that we had a lot, leave me a comment about it so I can remember too.