I love my dad

There are two wonderful things my father did for me today.

1. He drove me home, at longest last, from New England back home. It was an eight-hour drive, but I'm thrilled beyond all possible expression to be here.

2. He presented me, God bless him, with a copy of the 2009 Poet's Market!!!! Over 1600 listing for presses, magazines, journals, contests and more! WHERE AND HOW TO GET YOUR POETRY PUBLISHED! Oh, I am so happy.

very very little italy

It's like my dad said--once you've lived in New York, you can never appreciate anything. And I hate to admit it, but it's so true. I went to Boston today, and we went to the Museum of Science all day. We saw the computing exhibit (which, of course, my dad found greatly interesting), a little of the heart-stopping electricity show, the childish 3D bugs-going-to-the-moon movie, the planetarium presentation, and the Imax sea monster movie. Wanna hear something bizarre? We also breezed through the baseball exhibit. How much more out-of-place could that possibly be? Are they seriously in that much of an idea rut?

Then for dinner, we went to The Pour House, a bar and grill with a cool casual atmosphere--paper towels on a holder adhered to the wall instead of napkins--and good food, but absolutely horrific musical choices on the radio. It hurt to listen. Plus it seemed like if we'd gone there anytime later than we did--around five--it would have been packed with partying yuppies. However, my taco salad was delectable.

Then for dessert, we headed to Mike's Pastry in "Little Italy," which made me sad about not being in New York. It was cute in a way because of what I described to my dad as its "non-Little-Italy-ness," but mostly just funny. The Italians there seemed to be trying really hard to be Italian, whereas in the NYC part of town with the same name, Italian people are just existing, being and speaking Italian. I got a great apple square--sounds stupid, but it was quite tasty--which I vowed to save for breakfast tomorrow morning but liked so much that I ended up gobbling it all. Mmm.

Related Links (click away, please!):
Boston Museum of Science
The Pour House
Mike's Pastry
Paul Revere House

We wanted to get a quick look at Paul Revere's house, but it was sadly closed. Did you know it's the only 17th-century building remaining in Boston?-->

poignancy

So we're in the post office, sending my little sister at camp four packages, and my brother finishes his root beer, the purchase and consumption of which my mother strongly discouraged. She's kept talking about the 14 teaspoons of sugar in one soda and how models' number-one way to stay skinny is to abstain from drinking soda, as if my 8-year-old brother would care. Anyway, though, he finishes the root beer, and he's looking for somewhere to recycle it (he's an eco-friendly kid). He spots a blue plastic receptacle labeled "Recycling" by the table and heads over to pitch his soda can. Unfortunately, it is only for paper products, which my mom begins to say, when a woman standing by the table stamping her letters says, "It's for recycling, not trash."

Trash. Even my little brother knows that can wasn't trash. It's a recyclable material. But not to the people of this state. Oh, no.

Five seconds later, we're walking through town, and we pass the souvenir shop. Beneath the blue awning of the store lies a small platform with a dog bowl of water. However, people have been using it as a trash receptacle, and it's full to the brim with garbage.

My mother and I are simultaneously struck by the same thought: Oh my God. Does it get any more sad and poignant than this?

You know, in this state, you have to pay for recycling? That's right, you have to drive a while to the recycling plant and pay to recycle. I can't wait to get home.

All right, I'm done with my italics. Comment on the poem, please.

Bailey, you suck.

Bailey is my dog. A cockapoo, to be exact, is what she is, a five-month-old cockapoo. She makes me insane. Try six hours of the morning alone in a tiny cabin in the middle of the woods with no electronics, a five-month-old cockapoo, several different insect infestations, and an eight-year-old boy, and you will see what I mean.

Or try three and a half hours in the car driving to the animal hospital after said cockapoo has consumed a plate of 70% cacao truffles and is spazzing and panting and jumping up and down on your knees, giving you scratches and scars that look like you've been cutting yourself, and you will probably get the same drift.

Or better yet, try eating the first real food you've had all day while watching this very same dratted cockapoo vomit intensely for a very long time, and the same state of mind will most likely begin to grow on you.

Lucky me, I got to do all three yesterday when the fifth of a series of six guests to visit my family this summer left a gift arrangement of truffles on a low-lying table after--and this is the killer--already having seen Bailey jump onto that table. She, of course, had to promptly fly into disaster mode and interrupt my mom's class, yelling about "an emergency with the dog," which made my mom think Bailey had run away or been hit.

So we ventured off to the animal hospital--of course it had to be a Saturday, when the vet was closed--and the guest ventured off to the airport. Yes, she left. She stayed for one night, poisoned our dog, and left. Quite a pleasant woman.

Basically, I had such a wonderful day yesterday that I don't even have the energy left to tell you about it, especially because I'm working on some typing for my mom that she's paying me 20 bucks for, and I need the money.

Uh-oh, ominous wind. Sounds like another tornado, almost. Bye.

more about hair (hey, I'm bored)

Well, once my mom gets out of her close-to-the-end-of-the-summer-school-session faculty meeting, we're going to go into town and possibly get the dog groomed. Mom keeps asking about whether I remember the name of the groomer, and I keep reminding her that I didn't even know there was a dog salon here. Then tomorrow, I'm going to get my hair cut, yippee! I have miserable split ends. Weirdly enough, there are about six different spas, salons, etcetera here in this miniscule place. I guess little New England towns have to really have everything right there within a one- or two-mile radius, because when it's winter, you're completely snowed in.
That reminds me of my mom's friends. They've lived in Brooklyn for years--one of our Brooklyn friend-families--but they just recently decided to move to a tiny town in Canada. They have two small children and a yippy dog. They've also got an amazing house. (In fact, it turned out to be such a good investment that the father stopped working.) I wonder if they realize how totally removed from the rest of the universe they are going to be from about November to March. I mean, that's a long time to be crammed together in what looks from the pictures like a very small house with a screaming 9-year-old, 2-year-old, and puppy.
Not to be morbid, but the puppy may die.

Speaking of New York, I've been harboring this weird wish to move there. I mean, it would be a two-hour commute to school, but especially considering the fact that I have to wear a uniform, it would make me really feel like a student, which I like to feel. It would be like, oh, I'm getting up at 5 a.m. and leaving the house at 6 so I can catch a bus, look at me, in my plaid skirt and polo, I'm so devoted! I would love to feel that way.

All right, obviously I need to calm myself. Ooh, Nilla Wafers. Yum. Bye.

part of my short story, "Why I Am Iris" - middle

That night, I dreamt my parents got divorced. It was bizarre, a mix of Little Manhattan, which I'd just watched, and my mom and dad's fight over Bailey. It had been the middle of dinner when the dog's leavings had been spotted on the front hall rug. My dad loved that rug. He'd bought it as a Christmas (which we celebrate for fun) present for himself, along with the cell phone for my sister and new curtains for me. My mom and I, however, hated the rug with a passion and wanted to get rid of it, expose the beautiful, golden hardwood floors with honey-colored diagonal slats that ran a constant throughout our entire house. To put it simply, the rug was ugly and reminded us of stewed tomatoes; the floor was pretty and reminded us of caramel; basic human instinct appeals towards physical attractiveness.

My dad was to this rule, as with every other, an exception. He went for tattered Converses, paint-spattered jeans, leaving cobwebs trapped inside the windows because they provided "character." He adored the tomato-sauce rug with the polluted-ocean border and was terrified to remove it lest the wood floors' glow become diminished by thunking backpacks and stomping feet. When he spied, out of the corner of his eye, the dog turd on the carpet, he got that look in his eye. The look he got when talking about putting his dad's huge old Poughkeepsie house on the market, the look he got when my sister talked back, the look he got when my brother left the seltzer uncapped or I didn't say hi to him after he got home from a week in Boston. This was what we liked to call the don't-look-at-me-like-that look. If only looks could kill.

So he sent the death glare to ten-week-old Bailey, eating the strap on Hannah's flip flop, and stormed over.

"Do it how the vet said," my mom piped up. My dad, of course, grabbed the thing's neck so hard that I screamed. I am not a scream-y girl, but when I heard Bailey squeal like that, I admittedly got scared. He shut Bailey in the crate and returned to his seat at the head of the table. At this point, my peaceful night of chicken and rice became Dinner Theater.

"I would really like it if the dog were paper-trained," Dad said angrily, eyes glistening.

"Well this is how I'm doing this," Mom replied, still calm. "I raised four dogs, all paper-trained like this. I know what I'm doing."

My dad's face hardened. "I'm getting sick and tired of my house getting ruined by the damn thing." He was pulling the man-of-the-house card. Don't do it, I mentally cautioned him, don't do it, she hates that, don't...

"Fine. Do you want me to put down the paper and station myself in the kitchen and watch it all hours of the day? 'Cause that's great. I'd do it. I have nothing else to do." This is what happens, I telepathically told Dad. She has unearthly amounts to do. Don't even go near that nerve. She's gonna kill you. Or worse, she might even cry...oh Dad, please...

He rolled his eyes at the speed of quicksilver. "I just don't see much of an effort being put into it."

That was it. Right to the chase. I could sense what was about to happen. "You don't see much of anything." Ouch. I felt a vibe; I knew Hannah and even little Nat were both thinking about Dad's other life in Boston, how much he was never home and we missed him, how much Mom must have missed him. It was almost like she was a single mother. I remembered how, last winter, Dad had promised to tell his boss Mary that the traveling had to stop or he would quit. Since then, the flying back and forth had increased so much that every single week, without fail, Dad spent two, three, maybe even four nights a week in Boston. Whatever happened to promises? I could kill Mary.

Mom went upstairs. I looked at my chicken. Nat looked at Hannah. Dad had the look.


So the day after that fiasco, when I woke up from the divorce dream, I ran downstairs to make sure my dad's other promise hadn't been broken: that he would not repeat his parents' actions and put us through the turmoil of divorce. I breathed a sigh of relief when I saw Dad bent over an Ampad Evidence legal pad. His arm rested at an odd angle. I tilted my head to further examine it. I must have turned my head too much, because he glanced up momentarily and yelped, knocking over a carton of orange-mango juice with his weirdly bent elbow. He let out a colorful streak of swears. "Sorry," I offered.

"Jesus Christ." Apparently he'd spilled most of the juice onto his lap.

"Don't use that language, please, Brett," my mom sang, appearing in the cupboard with Bailey in her arms. She'd walked from the landing to the kitchen by using a short stairwell we'd dubbed the "secret stairs." I never understood why it was ten steps shorter than the staircase we used to get from the same landing to the front hall. I probably never would.

"Don't let the dog—" Dad stopped short at Mom's warning glance. "There's decaf in the second coffeemaker," he sighed with a tone of slight defeat.

"Great." She smiled and put Bailey down, who promptly dove into her Ikea food bowl. I walked around to the kitchen table and pulled a chair over to the cabinet with the plates, reaching for the highest shelf. I needed to wake up. Hopefully pulling a muscle or two in my arm would do the trick, since I couldn't make my own coffee and obviously no one was offering.

"What the hell." Hannah made her charming entrance.

I jumped down from the chair. "Iris, your father hates when you do that," Mom said drearily. Was this supposed to be news? As four- and two-year-olds, my sister and I had been disallowed to even jump up and down for fear of knocking down the plaster on Dad's precious basement ceiling. Thus I ignored her.

"What the hell yourself, Hannah." I punched her carelessly on the head. "What are those, like, swim shorts or something?"

"They're called Soffes, idiot." She kicked me in the back. I grabbed my spine in pain.

"I know they're Soffes but those are, like, obscene. Where'd you get them, Maggie?" Maggie was her tiny, scantily clad best friend.

"Shut up," Hannah retorted, all-knowing. She selected a coffee granola bar and pulled off the wrapper lazily.

"Hey...those are mine...I need caffeine..." I halfheartedly tried to grab it from her, but Hannah crammed it in her mouth. "Twit," I groaned.

"Butthole," she responded, mouth full of coffee beans that were rightfully mine. "Whereza ice cream?" she demanded, opening the freezer. She found it and commenced eating Rocky Road with a tablespoon.

I resigned myself to position of eldest-child bottom-feeder.

Mom had ignored the entire interaction between me and Hannah but thankfully picked up the word 'caffeine.' "Iris, would you like some coffee?" My eyes widened. "Can you make it yourself?" I opened my mouth to respond that she knew I couldn't make my own. "I mean add your own sugar and Lactaid and whatever." I nodded dolefully. "Here." She handed me a steaming mug of coffee and a sack of sugar. I dumped as much as would fit into my cup.

"Thanks." I started up the stairs.

"Go get dressed," she yelled after me. I sighed and jogged up the three flights of stairs to my attic room.


School that day was uneventful except that I fell up the stairs on the way to science, making me late for the test. Luckily my entire class was also late because the school administrators obviously had no idea that they were putting one huge clique together in the same science class. Except me. I was not part of this clique. But that was probably good for my health in the end.
When my mom pulled up the car at home, I jumped out of the passenger's seat and flew over the porch stairs to check the mail. Frantically, I flicked aside Oriental Trading, Pottery Barn, ShopRite coupons, Vanguard bills, and various other unwanted junk until I got a paper cut on my thumb. Sucking on the bleeding finger, I looked down at what had slit me open: a tiny envelope. "Yes!" I called out to my mom.

"How many today?" she asked, climbing up the porch steps—with much effort, due to the four bags of grading I had not helped her with.

"Um..." I turned over the envelope. "Crap." I hate when she does that, I thought.

"What's wrong?" She turned the key in the door.

"Nothing..." I muttered. Hannah skipped through the front hall, kicked me in the shin, and leapt over the couch. "You know," I called to her, grabbing a piece of cold pizza, "I really appreciate that you open the response cards for me."

"No problem."

"I mean, why would I want to know who's coming to my bat mitzvah? I mean, like, duh." I sifted through the trifle bowl containing the 'yes' response cards, looking for the one that had come today, whose envelope had been left out on the porch. Aha—oh. Into the 'yes' bowl, Hannah had put a response card saying that the Anand family of five could not come.

"I know you love me," Hannah said in a singsong voice. "And also, hey, did you notice the envelope I left out there?"

"Ya think?" I shoved my bleeding thumb in her face. She shoved an exaggerated toothy smile right back in mine.

"Help me." She walked backwards on her heels, sort of dancing, to the dining room table, where a red binder completely obliterated by the name 'Hannah' and a myriad of smiley faces lay uncomfortably underneath a math textbook with a tie-dye Book Sox cover. "Now."

"No." I heaved my backpack onto my left shoulder and began trudging upstairs. Nat's iPod lay on the third stair. I swiped it; mine had gotten destroyed in the washing machine.

"You suck," Hannah yelled up to me.

"Love ya too." And as was customary of my sister and me when we were trying to get back at the other for something minor, I taped the picture of Kevin and Brennan, the dorky family friends who were the same ages as us, onto her bedroom door. Above it I scrawled the words 'Hannah + Brennan' in a heart. It was immature, but even the slightest, most ridiculous suggestion that we would like one of the Hughes boys irked us to no end. I smiled at myself and went upstairs to work.

M&Ms, maturity, and lots and lots of money

Although I may have supposedly reached the age of responsibility, maturity, and all that jazz, the bowl of M&Ms sitting seductively on my living room table, left over from the after-the-fact brunch, still lures me to the point at which I cannot help but get up every 5 seconds to grab a few.

There is enough "Jewish Mother" gum in my mouth for the US Army to chew. In my mind, chewing this gum keeps me away from the M&Ms and other threatening puddings, cookies, cakes, candies, pies, pastries, quiches, and bread on the first floor of my house right now. It's very difficult not to shove it all down my gullet, but I've experienced enough food regret this weekend to force myself to know better.

My family and I will be eating cake for the next year and a half or so, I expect. As you can see above, Colette Peters created a sick cake for my bat mitzvah. Simply sick. My mom and I met with her a few months ago for three hours, deciding finally on this design (the books are my favorites). She in turn made this magnificence materialize. In fact, many years ago, she created the groom's cake for my parents' wedding. We have a thing going, us and Colette.

So, I have to say that the expected--and certainly real--relief is overtaken by complete disbelief at the fact that the whole thing is over. Not just the service and the party, not just the day itself, not just the bat mitzvah itself, but everything that went into it. I will never practice again. I will never read my Torah portion again. I will never stress about who is seating where and whether or not Kaitlyn or Darria or my dad's important colleague, who sent me a tzedakah box that I didn't recognize as a tzedakah box until after a week.

Incredibly wonderful as it is, it's also slightly disconcerting.

Then again, who am I kidding, I'm thrilled. I'm ecstatic. And I've got the thousands of dollars, gold earrings, sign board, and "life cycle portrait" to prove it. I couldn't have imagined a day more ridiculously perfect.

Someone up there likes me...not to mention Uncle Lenny and Aunt Rhoda, who sent me $724.12 to boot.

taking advantage

Sorry, but I had to take advantage of the five minutes I have and the fact that I've posted very little this month.

I know I told you I was charmed by White Noise by Don DeLillo, but I've found a new love. It's not just the son's addiction to crystal meth, not just the father's addiction to his son's addiction: Beautiful Boy by David Sheff is an addiction in itself. And I don't say that lightly; I haven't read a book this enchanting in a long time. All the other ones I've read lately have just been forced upon myself.

My mom started reading it before me. She's on page 81. I've got about that many pages left to read. THANK YOU SO MUCH, MOM!! I LOVE THIS BOOK LIKE MY OWN SISTER.

Oh yeah, and I just saw The Nanny Diaries--cute, but the ending's so unrealistic.

spring cleaning (can you say ick)

Dear everyone,

I guess this is why we pay $10,000 in taxes every year: our garbage collectors ROCK. Our public schools? Honestly, we could use some more tracking. But the trash guys--and gals--kudos to you.

This morning, while I was still blissfully asleep, my mom apparently called up the garbage collectors and asked them if, for two hundred bucks, she could have them pick up anything we wanted to dispose of. They agreed, and at 10 in the morning, she was standing in front of my recently woken-up self with a looming box of Hefty bags, saying, "We have a project."

Well, we then spent over two hours (until my mom had to go pick up my brother and sister from their half day) pulling out dirt-covered sleds, wooden planks, too-small clothing, and other equally pleasant items from a garage, where we had to stop when it started raining; attic; and sunroom slathered in useless stuff. Yes, I feel like I've accomplished something, but I also have the horrible urge to vacuum.

See, a couple of months ago, I discovered our cleaning ladies had stolen not just several hundred dollars from me, but also a gold ring with a good-sized ruby and six small diamonds. It wasn't the kind of thing you can replace. My mom found it on the streets of New York City years ago. So even when my advisor kindly offered a gold ring with a ruby and diamonds that she "didn't want," it wasn't the same, and I just couldn't take her jewelry.

So my mother fired them, and, long story short, my stairway and room became dust hell. While in a cleaning frenzy a couple of days ago to make my room acceptable before a friend came over, I pulled a rather unfriendly-looking wad of dust out from under my overloaded and tilting bookshelf. It's disgruntling to see layers of the stuff sitting around the place where you live, especially when your little sister has horrible asthma triggered chiefly by dust mites.

I have to go--my sister's got two friends over, my brother's got one, and I've got up the motivation to vacuum.

Adios amigos.

tall vs. short

The world's tallest man, as I just learned, is 8 foot 5 and still growing, his physician says. Leonid Stadnik, living in Ukraine, and the various issues that accompany his vast height are described in depth right about here. Now, I find this fascinating, especially things like how his shoes have to be custom-made because of their rough length of 17 inches, or the constant knee pain he suffers from. Guess how much he weighs? His height affects so many different and unexpected aspects of his life. You might think being in the Guinness Book would be fun, but I wouldn't wish this body and all its setbacks on my worst enemy--and that's saying something.

Cool as it is to be tall, shorter stature is also fun. My favorite shortness celebration, tall though I may be, is the song "Short People" by Randy Newman. I don't care if it seems offensive. It's just so funny. If you're a littler person, I apologize, but can't you take a joke?

Thanks and bye for now.

PS: My brother's back to normal.

retail therapy

My brother's been having some health-related issues, but I won't get into that here for a few reasons:

1. I'm sick and tired of explaining it
2. All my friends know about it by now
3. It would sound tacky
4. There isn't a reason to

Instead, I will discuss Target, every suburban girl's dreamland. (I hate to exaggerate, especially in sexist and classist ways like this, but this particular stereotype is so fun to say and I really do need a picker-upper--and it includes me, so honestly I don't think I'm trying to offend anyone here.)

I went shopping there earlier this week with my mom and brother to do some "retail therapy." I got one hoodie, two swimsuits, and two pairs of shorts, in addition to various bat mitzvah shenanigans that I didn't even consider, like centerpieces, which I realize only now is kind of vital.

Well, I'm getting tired. So that's all for now, thanks and come again.

murder on the orient express

I'm hungry. Hopefully the carton of strawberries I'm working on eating will suffice.

My sister's dress rehearsal for her play, my mother's adapted version of Murder on the Orient Express, went interestingly today at her school. I sat behind the 8-by-8-foot sheet, stapled to a wooden frame, projecting this image onto the sheet throughout a production that was slightly over an hour long. Around me were four fifth-grade boys, walking back and forth in front of the projector, irking me to no end. Everyone kept forgetting their lines and speaking in mouse tones, but all in all, it was pretty funny, what with all the stuff they improvised.

Hey, if I get a chance, do you think I should try to go for middle school president?

chocolate whipped cream

My mother enlightened me recently on the many virtues of chocolate whipped cream. While it may sound less than scrumptious and more than a little tasteless (as in tacky), it actually gives off the taste of something resembling chocolate mousse. How deliciously--if you'll excuse a pun--ironic!

Well, I should probably go do something worthwhile and important now. More soon.

sick on break

Hello literate beings of the world:

I'm sick and miserable, with my stomach killing me, as well as my throat and ears. I have a relentless cough, and even when I clear my throat, the congestion comes back immediately.

Anyway though...I truly do apologize for not posting for a week; this time it wasn't of my own accord. I had a punishment that stated I wasn't allowed on the computer because I've been so mean to my brother lately. I'll try to be more consistent.

Is anyone else on spring break? Tell me about it--unless you're one of those people who are actually going somewhere on vacation, like everyone else I know.

By the way, it's been a great week for my mom. She got a promotion and a brand-new, bright red, shiny set of laundry machine and dryer! (YES)

hepatitis c scare

I was watching the news last night with my mom, brother, and sister--my dad is away on a business trip--and as we were trying to find a channel that had something about the elections on, not just weather or health food, we found CBS News and their shocking broadcast about the Hepatitis C scare at a Las Vegas medical center. (The article can be found here.) Apparently, the clinic has been using previously-used syringes. Six patients have already been found to have Hepatitis C, and 40,000 more have been informed that they could have it, or even HIV.

And it doesn't stop there: as these conditions can be transmitted sexually, there is widespread danger already about the high numbers of other people, people who weren't even patients at the clinic, who could have HIV or Hepatitis C.

I find this unbelievable. I mean, of course I do, but really it just makes me mad. What are we as a country if we can't monitor the actions and procedures of our medical treatment centers and make sure our doctors aren't breaking the Hippocrates Oath? After all, this is violation of the first rule, do not hurt a patient [knowingly].

Please, please respond, I am so eager to hear your opinions on this incredibly horrible story.

regrets and updates

Dear browsers,

Sorry sorry sorry for not posting for over a week or responding to your comments or updating any HTML or anything. My life has become completely crammed with stuff between social problems, fluctuating grades, bat mitzvah insanity, midterms, the school play, piano, and the fact that I am now restricted to one hour a day--with supervision--on the computer because I put videos on YouTube, which I was not supposed to do.

My bathroom recently got revamped. My dad got new curtains, a rug, a caddy with frosted glass in the door, a soap dispenser, and towels. The whole thing looks really coordinated because everything is white and therefore matches the walls, bath, toilet, sink, floor, and each other, but also the dark trimming on the curtains, large mounted mirror, and towels all match in this really great way that I just can't pinpoint.

Perhaps the best way to say it is that the perfectionist in me is deeply excited.

Has any portion of your house/tumbledown shack by the old railroad track/apartment/whatever else you've got gotten redone?

our domain

Aha, they've finally printed it: girls are more technology-savvy than boys. Especially in the blogging department, where the numbers are very feel-good towards me and other teenage girls.

The only area in which male use surpasses female is that of video posting, and that's not because women lack the technological talent, but because video posting is more about impressing others than expressing oneself. Teehee.

Check out the Times article:

Sorry, Boys, This Is Our Domain - New York Times

To all my female blogging friends, blog on!
And thanks once more to Dad for showing me this article.

deer

The deer! They escaped from the crazed hunters in the South Mountain Reservation! Well, three of them did, at least. I'm so happy. My mom is too. I pointed them out to her from our landing window. They did look pretty huge to me from there, although they do appear admittedly small here. I fixed the photo, though, so that it's brighter and better quality, and you can see them better. This is all in my backyard (and my neighbors behind the fence and to the far left). Doesn't it resemble a wonderland?

Their new names are Sleepy, Dopey, and Grumpy, after my three favorite dwarves. Not counting Kai.

books and movies

Don't worry, this time there's a reason for the title of the post being "movies."

BOOKS:
-The Hotel New Hampshire The end, even if it wasn't ugly or big or violent enough, even if it didn't have enough fatalism or barbells or did "not merit so much as a moan from Screaming Annie," despite all these supposed flaws, it was definitely right.
-1984 Just started this one, as opposed to just having finished the previous book, but I'm convinced that it's got just the right amount of confusing to make sense. (I wonder if I can say "just" one more time in a single sentence.)
-Discordia: The Eleventh Dimension I read this all today. It was pretty short and very difficult to read but easy to get through, if you know what I mean. This book was written by my the mother of one of my mom's favorite old students; the mother's name is Dena K. Salmon (how cool is that?). Actually, it hasn't even been published yet; what I got to read was a sort of pre-edition, a draft, a mock-up. I liked it very much all the same.
-Jane Eyre Look, maybe there was a rather interest-renewing murder right where I left off, but Brontë is going to have to try just a little harder to keep my attention span on its toes. I have to abandon this one until there's really no reading material left, at which point I will finally burn it and make a beeline for that great used bookstore in Princeton.
-The Mayor of Casterbridge Tom...Tom...Wake up, man. Where'd you go? I thought you'd changed. I thought this novel, maybe, was going to get the plot going before the last three pages. It did, too, and I was so proud, even optimistic for once in my life. Unfortunately, though, I have hit a wall. Hopefully, this dull and wordy section is just a bump in the road, as there were many of in Tess. So to be fair, and also because I otherwise love your work, once I finish 1984, I'll give this one an honest second chance.

MOVIES:
-JUNO Yes, I saw this a while ago, but I finally ripped the soundtrack from my mom's officemate's CD to my laptop, and I can't stop listening. Unfortunately, I can't transfer the songs to my iPod either. Oh well, can't win 'em all.
-27 Dresses I have to say that my least favorite dress in the whole thing was that of Katharine Heigl's character at her own wedding. I'm sorry, but the overly heavy overcoat-like layer of embroidery just does not do it for me. I prefer the Southern Belle dress; at least that one's got a sense of humor.
-South Pacific I'll admit it, I've seen it roughly a quadrillion times, but my grandmother and I, what with the combination of my deep and unnatural mind-craving to hear the earworm My Girl Back Home and her slightly nauseating nostalgia for the flick, we just had to watch it.
-Schindler's List Sorry, sorry, the list is getting long, but believe me, I'm omitting some. (Obviously I've had nothing to do over President's Day weekend but sit around like an oaf, eating and watching movies.) All I can say is that I'm honestly not as much of a night person as the me that watched this movie until 2:30 in the morning without having had any coffee whatsoever since noon that morning--and I'm especially not the me who cried like she was mourning the death of her own mother watching the part at the end where Schindler's Jews today put stones on his grave. If you haven't seen it, you're either living under a rock or you're full of pitiable ignorance. Or, of course, both could be the case.

I'll try to make links out of these tomorrow, but right now, I've got a dystopia and a Winston to catch up with.

hebrew stuffings (no sausage allowed)

YAY.

Contrary to popular opinion, one really can get what one wants through incessant whining and complaining.

For example, I've missed the past two sessions of Sunday Hebrew school purely of my own accord. The first time, I coaxed my mother into letting me stay home because the day before that had been Groundhog Day--February 2nd--and my argument was that it was a "holiday weekend" and we should "celebrate," and that in addition I was "tired" because of the party I'd gone to the night before. Seriously, I'm good. Then yesterday, my mom let me miss it because she said she'd rather just not wake me up and not have to listen to all my lamenting. She let me stay home and sleep. How cool is that?

Of course, I don't go to the night sessions on Wednesdays because first of all they are completely pointless and I usually end up getting bullied, and second of all because they start at 7:30, but my sister's play rehearsal starts at 7 on Wednesday nights. Convenient, nu?

Now I'm going to miss this Sunday too because Hebrew school is actually canceled on account of President's Day. (Four-day weekend too...whoopee.)

By the way, my aliyah is so long that even the tutor couldn't get all the way through it. And I've got one and a half weeks to learn it.

At least I'm doing OK with my Torah portion.