1. Today i'm the kind of girl in a peasant blouse and tailored cropped pants with good hair i am soon to mess up.

2. Suddenly i really want a cigarette but it's too much of a hassle. This essential laziness in how i weigh effort and need is an element that keeps me from addiction.

3. Before five pm i should be making myself a cocktail and making merry piles of data and unholy messes to keep me from molesting the delicate sensibilities of the youth. i may need your help.

-- It's Bele Chere! Yee haw! Our booth is right next to KISS Country! Help me, bebby jeebus, before I shoot out their speakers! At 3:00 they're starting karaoke and that will be even worse! I hate Bele Chere!

-- My slacker boss pissed me off so bad this morning that I yelled at her. Then I told her exactly what to do and she got all meek and did just what I said. Something is seriously out of whack here.

-- Third and final offer has been informally made to the agent for the house I want. I'm freaking out. I can't really afford this. Maybe I can. I'll need a roommate, probably. That's doable. But oh I want this house so bad, oh please, oh please, let it happen, let it happen, let it happen. I told my agent that if I needed to sign more papers today she'd have to bring them by the booth and I'd sign them in between selling agate slice pendants and cracking geodes.

1. It stopped raining!

2. It's also the first time in days that I've been fully mobile, so I plan to get outside soon for a brief walk.

3. I'm hosting an online Sandwich Party running the whole weekend --- and you're all invited to play along!

1. Dinner last night was sooooo good.
2. Going to the Mid-State Fair today. Yeehaw!
3. I'm tired of my foot hurting. I seem to have developed tendinitis on the top of my left foot. It's very hard to not use the top of one's foot in order to give it adequate rest to make tendinitis go away. Stupid hurty foot.

1. My father reminded me today that my mother's birthday is next week.
2. I called my mother to discuss what she wants for her birthday. "For all my children to be happy, healthy, and holy... well, holy for sure, I don't care if you're happy..." My mother is such a kidder. We also had a good gossip session about some family stuff.
3. Despite saying she doesn't really need or want anything, I wish to get my mother something nice for her birthday. So that's my plan for the evening- go to Bloomingdales or some store in that area and find something nice for Mom. And maybe take myself out to dinner.

1. String of bad meals lately- bad dinner with my dad last night at a veggie place I won't be going back to and a bad sandwich from the deli today

2. Work has been really stressful with a lot of ups and downs, but on the plus side I love the new author I got to replace the rude late one and I hope she does a good job

3. I am wearing 3 pink things today: shoes, headband, and hoodie. Over a gray dress. I am liking it.

(yay for strays being adopted, and yay for MGL's house getting one step closer to hers!!!)

1. Got my house professionally cleaned this morning. My bathroom looks like it belongs in a hotel.
2. While my house was being professionally cleaned, I got to hang out with my favorite 10 month old, who has got the drunken sailor stagger down pat. He is quite the smilely-drooly little guy.
3. More family coming to visit this weekend. I am glad I can welcome them with a clean home.

1. The bug guy returned, yay!
2. The idea of everything here being professionally cleaned makes me giddy like a far off dream where nanites invade and eat away all the grime and coat everything in a protective sheen.
3. i wish i could be mgl's roommate and we could get funded to make it an art house.

1. Scrubbed kitchen floor. Scrubbed every tile and grout line in shower. After dealing with scrubbing gross things, did not clean the glider cage (wee and poo ew). Cuticles wrecked.

2. Farking fake front tooth loose again. Very bummed about this. Will go see expensive dentist as soon as I can.

3. London tomorrow: museums! But now: garlicky bean soup simmering. Beer. Boy home soon yay!

1. I woke up with a headache. Icky.

2. I am feeling quite thirsty today.

3. I'm gonna go lie back down. OW.

1. Just fulfilled all of my occupational duties; all accounts reconciled, all receivables received, all invoices invoiced. Putting sixty-odd kids on planes back to their home countries is someone else's headache, not mine. I get a new bunch on Monday, most from Taiwan, most all paid-up and accounted-for.

2. Got a new couch, on which I dozed off last night; mighty comfy, I tells ya! Nothing beats free (okay, maybe free and delivered, but that's asking way too much. It's white, and all it really needs is a steam cleaning, but I'm gonna get some pretty fabrics (probably at my friend Goyal's lace, the Dress Shoppe on 2nd Ave & 5 St)) and drape it anyway.

3. My kickball team lost two in a row and faces the league leaders on Sunday night. I've worked out some kicking strategies, but practice is what I need most. I have a pretty big foot, but aggressive baserunning from the first inning onward is really the key to victory. Kicked a triple last week, driving in two runs. A buddy is working on a mascot costume based on Mr. Met, with a big red bouncy ball for a head. We'll have a mascot and no spectators. Play ball!

Uh, that should read "my friend Goyal's place," though maybe my subconscious is telling me what sort of fabric to look for.

1. Drove Momdonley to LAX this morning for a family wedding she's attending in Wisconsin, and on the way back saw a six-car accident. It looked as if the first car had stopped short and the five cars following on the first car's ass (oh, how I love thee, 405!) had no time to stop. It also looked as if a giant six-year-old had come down from above and just squished the fronts and backs of these cars together, interlocking-Transformer style.

2. Must fill out insanely long Schengen visa form to turn in to Polish consulate next Tuesday or Wednesday. I have visited Schengen zone countries no fewer than 20 times on this passport and must list every stay with exact dates. Hope they accept a typed list, because there's no way I can fill all the dates and places into the fracking two lines they give you.

3. Brodonley doesn't want to go on his driving lesson today, which is fine by me. The perils of teendom!

3a. Specklet: the Sir John Soanes and Hunterian/Royal College of Surgeons Museums, in Lincoln's Inn Fields in London (tube: Holborn) are delightful and full of amazing, amazing things, and their delectation takes but a few hours.

1) JEB MAGRUDER
2) JENNIFER ANISTON
3) CORY DOCTOROW

1. Junior Mints
2. Mac & Cheese
3. Starbucks mint mocha chip crappafrappacino

I'll take "things gaspode is craving" for 100, please Alex.

My manuscript got finally accepted!
That pretty much made my week.

Wow, congradges, special-k!

1. My brother-in-law's sister's little boy died suddenly yesterday. He would have turned 8 next week. He had a number of serious disabilities (he'd been born very prematurely), but had been doing pretty well lately, so this was very sudden and unexpected. We're all kind of in shock.

2. Work is busy busy busy, but we're sort of in that zone where there is no option except to power through. I have another 5 weeks of working nonstop nights and weekends, but then it will be OVER (well, OVER till the *next* crazy phase comes along), because I've got a deadline with both my U.S. and German copublishers that are set in motherfucking stone.

3. Looking forward to seeing Eddie Izzard (two weeks from tonight) and Paul Weller (39 days, but who's counting?).

1. Home from work. I'm working more than usual this week. A coworker is on vacation and I'm filling in. A patient asked me today if we were running a swingers club because we have a bowl where people put their keys. I laughed a little but I'm afraid I didn't get the joke. Do swingers put their keys in a bowl?

2. The neighborhood kids are here every day. I like the activity and I like that my kids have their friends over a lot. But, they know not to enter the house or I'll have to kill them. At the moment one kid is threatening to take his water balloons and go home. Other kids are ignoring him.

3. The kid is continuing to threaten to go home when he doesn't intend to. My kid likes this kid very much. After he threatened again my kid put his head down on the edge of the trampoline and looked like he was going to cry. Which is unusual because my kid isn't usually this sensitive. I don't think my kid understands the idea of empty threats. After he said it again five minutes later. I said, "Hey guys. If you want to go home, go home. Don't threaten to go home to get your way. OK? All of you. Be friends. Be nice." I couldn't help myself. I very rarely butt in but I had to say something because everybody was miserable.

scody, I am so sorry.

3a. My kid came in for some waters for the kids. I asked him "what was up? Were you crying?" He said, "no, I was just sad." I asked, "how come?" He said, "I didn't know how to make a water balloon."

This is what I get for jumping to conclusions.

1. I braved the vendors on Canal Street today to buy some gifts for the people feeding my cats. And what, Mr African-Selling-Crap-From-A-Suitcase, makes you think that grabbing my arm and trying to drag me back to your crappy collection of contraband will change my mind and will make me want to actually buy something from you?

2. Ohio was great, but I'm very happy to be back in NYC with my boo.

3. Picnic in Central Park tomorrow! Yay!

Oh, scody -- I'm so sorry.

1. Just found out this morning that one of my songs got selected as song-of-the-month at my church songwriter's group!

2. Got a call from my son who is doing some traveling before he has to check in for officer training stuff in Alabama this weekend...he is in Pensacola, Fl (his birthplace) and was even able to drive by our old house. The pecan tree he and his sisters used to play under is gone-I presume from one of the ensuing hurricanes. He also was able to assuage my curiosity re the Batman movie as he saw it opening night. (I wanted to know about the pencil/magic trick scene but no way in Hades am I gonna see the movie since I am, shall we say, oversensitive with certain types of cinema.)
3. I need to go to walmart this weekend. The prospect does not make me joyous.

Scody, my sympathies...was your brother-in-law's sister a blogger? I think I was at her blog earlier today when their family friend posted for her...so very sad. And apparently, yes, a huge shock.

bunnyfire: yes, that's her. I had never really realized till recently what an online presence Vicki has, and how many people knew about her and her amazing family. Thank you for the kind words.

So sorry to hear about your family's loss, scody.

1. I did searches for a real client today! Coupled with the searches I'm doing "off the books" for some interns from Canada who want a 4 month lease starting in September, I feel like an actual real estate professional now. Hot diggity!

2. Went to see The Dark Knight yesterday, and on the way home, bought my friend a beer at McCann's in Port Authority as a "thank you" for his picking up my ticket when I didn't have enough money in the bank to get it on Fandango. It was karaoke night, and so before I left I knocked out a version of "The Lady is a Tramp" which had everyone hootin' and hollerin' for me. They asked me if I was staying longer; I jokingly said I would if someone bought me a drink. Five seconds later, I had a whiskey and water. Awesome.

3. Going to see a co-worker's band play at a bar near NYU tonight, and I hope to run into the cute guy I saw the first time I went to see him play.

All three of these things are a nice antidote to the suckiness that happened earlier this week.

1. at the store we stop buying books at 6pm. at 5:40 we had a line of 15 people on the sidewalk. I asked the buyer if he wanted to cut off the line. he said no. by 5:45 the line had grown. me and him went outside and told the wiating throng that we might not get to all of them. There were moans and groans (and as usual, a fair sampling of them were about as sharp as a bowling ball, but I digress). A few minutes later, I look out the side door and one specimen waiting had started tearing his books apart and screaming obscenities (including "I ain't never comin' back here no more, motherfuckers!" Break my heart, why don'tcha?) Mr. Pottymouth eventually took off, leaving a mess on the sidewalk in his wake. I managed to soothe the jangled nerves of the other sellers (Believe it or not, on my job, I'm considered 'the diplomat.') and finish the whole line by 6:30. My boss wound up being late for a birthday party, but I warned him... anyway, I figured I deserved a beer after that and treated myself to a few.

2. essexjan dropped by and gave me a goodbye hug just as I was beckoning Tony, one of my regulars and a heavily nedicated street person, into the store.

3. pips is entertaining her mom and has promised to bring back grub for me from either this place or this place. Either way, it'll be good.

a) My Tuesday will begin on a 7 hour red-eye flight into Frankfurt, to a connecting flight that will be cancelled due to a strike at Lufthansa, followed by 4 hours waiting in a queue with a hundred thousand other stranded passengers to get a train ticket voucher, followed by 4 hours waiting for an available train, followed by being the unlucky sap who gets on a regional train that stops in every podunk village between Frankfurt and Munich, followed by arriving, drunk and hungry, at my home in the early evening.

b) My thoughts are consumed with how much Tuesday will suck, and how much alcohol I will have to drink to keep from screaming at people.

c) Over the last few days I have met several really attractive women with whom I have much in common with, and they're all married. I think that's how you know you've gotten old.

1. I just realized I needed to renew my license as of Monday. OOps. Guess I'm going on Monday morning before work. I don't think anything will happen in the meantime, since it's only a couple days.

2. going to a party tonight.

3. I got some super cute shoes today. (they're $5 less in the store, too). Near-identical to a pair I got at Target a couple years back that I wore until they fell apart.

Scody, I am so sorry for your family's loss.


1. Had a really great day at work again today; the biggest whiner was transfered and the other whiner was off. Work was a breeze!

2. Told Mr. V that I will not compromise on his doctor's visits - dammit, I am going with you!!! (his meds are making him emotional and distant).

3. My stepson J has decided to quit football and concentrate on track. They will never put him in a game, and he doesn't want to spend his senior year sitting on the sidelines like last year. So he'll continue with track, where he's had much less grief, anyway.

3a. Since I don't have to rush home any longer to get J to football practice, I started walking again after work. It was a beautiful day; and I didn't see many people using the park I like to walk at. Plus, now I ache slightly, in a good way!

1. Posting my first comment. Huzzah!

2. Bought a six-pack of Smithwick's to share with co-workers on the train ride home from work. I get off before Ravenswood, when it will get swamped with stragglers leaving the Cubs game, so they'll need it.

3. Making the final preparations to move the lady's birthday present into the apartment while she's at work tomorrow morning. Hope it doesn't rain!

Lori, the keys in a bowl = swingers thing is a reference to key parties, when all of the husbands drop their keys in a bowl, and then the wives cover their eyes, pick a set, and go have fun with the owner. See The Ice Storm (book or movie, both good) for details.

(Note: I originally posted this earlier this afternoon, but it didn't get up until now. All still applies. One of the beers broke on the train, only minor catastrophe. Which leads to up-to-the-minute point 4...)

4. Slightly drunk!

1. Stained 77 feet of bookshelf dark brown and stacked them to dry; I need to bring them in tomorrow before the farmer's market so they don't get rained on.

2. Found a book from my childhood at the local used bookstore. It made me happy.

3. Wishing I was going to Pacific Yearly Meeting this year. I feel weird about missing it.