Uma is a Movie Star?

The nanny I had growing up is a part of my family. We don't call her by name, we call her Ah-yee, which in Chinese, means that she's my mother's sister. We love her like someone who will love you unconditionally without expecting you to become a surgeon. Because my parents...their love is conditional.

Everyone loves Ah-yee, in fact, when my sister was looking for a summer job, Ah-yee found one for her at the best cancer institute in the country. How? Well, she just happened to know the lady who is director of the program. And of course, she loves Ah-yee because everyone loves Ah-yee.

Now, an unbelievably lucky little girl named Anna gets to have Ah-yee five days a week. She's the granddaughter of a world-reknown architect and attends a really posh school in Manhattan.

So the other day, Ah-yee told my sister that she went on a bowling playdate with Anna and Anna's friend, Maya. Ah-yee said that she didn't want to play, because she never bowled in her life, but then Maya's mom Uma said, "C'mon Kathy, just try it one time." So Ah-yee did and bowled a strike her very first time.

"Did you say Uma?" Jenny asked.

"Yes."

"Does she have blond hair?"

"Yes."

Jenny showed her a DVD of Gattaca and said, "Does she look like that?"

"Uma is a movie star?...Wait, Mr. Hawke is a movie star too?"

The Neighborhood Dog Whispering Bitch

I was walking down the street today when I saw the cutest little brown chocolate lab. He was so sweet and squishable. What was really amazing is that he was completely well-behaved.

When my Scout was a puppy, she was a problem child. She was the craziest thing on four legs, I could not walk her at all because she would pull so hard, she was practically walking on only her hind legs. Cute, she was. But she behaved badly. She chewed up my dining room table, destroyed my couch pillows (along with my sister's fleece pullover), and ate half a spatula. (When I took her to the vet and showed him what she ate, he looked at it, shrugged his shoulders and said, "Don't worry, she's fine.") She also ripped open a bottle of Advil and licked the orange coating off of 150 Advil tablets.

I praised the puppy's behavior to his owner, and told her how crazy Scout used to be. She said:

"You have to show her that you're the pack leader, or she's going to treat you like dirt."

It wasn't what she said, but the way she said it. She was so smug I wanted to kick her in the head and steal her puppy. I took Scout to a dog trainer, who admitted to me that Scout was her "challenge dog." I think, dogs, like children, come in many different flavors, and I just happened to get one that had a bit of crazy in her.

Neighbor Kid

Every so often we hear a strange, repetitive noise coming from our neighbor's yard.

"Thunk" (2 beats)
"Thunk" (2 beats)
"Thunk" (2 beats)

We've discovered that it is the neighbor's son, wacking their tree with a large mallet-like tool that is not sharp enough to do anything but make thunk noises.

We've decided that he is:

1. Younger than we thought.

or

2. Crazy


The arguments against him being crazy is that we've seen him with his friends, who seem like normal kids. But, then again, we've seen him do some pretty strange things, like ride his teeny weeny, extremely loud-farting dirtbike up and down the block for about ten minutes, every once in a while.

Sorry, This Spot is Took'en

Peter and I went to Hollywood, FL for a conference and we stayed at the Hard Rock Cafe Hotel, which was lots of fun - most especially because things are open 24 hours, which is important to us since we never go to sleep. They upgraded us into a hotel room which had the most gigundous tub, which could easily have fit four people. The last time I ran a bath was five years ago, when I lived in my old apartment in Queens. All the tubs we've had since then have been so small it wasn't worth the bother. It was so great to have a real bathtub and we've decided that even if we have to put a tub in our bedroom, that it is worth it.

One thing that happened in Florida is that after Peter and I settled into a prime spot down by the pool, a girl across the way says to me:

"Sweetie, you've got to move, those chairs are took'en."

"You mean, these chairs are taken?" I asked.

"NO! They're TOOK'EN!"

Peter was convinced that she was foreign, but she did not speak with an accent and I don't think foreigners would have called me sweetie.

Stop Signs, People

I don't know why people in Westchester blow by stop signs. Not only do they ignore stop signs with impunity, but people around here don't seem to know the etiquette for a 4-way stop. The FIRST CAR has the right-of-way, people!! That means that if I get to the 4-way first, that the car coming up the street on my right should STOP his car so that I can drive on. IT DOES NOT MEAN that, "Oh, she's stopped, so I can keep going." (Which is how almost everyone in Westchester thinks) The other day I was caught at a stop sign for five minutes because people kept blowing by their stop signs, assuming that I was just "letting them go."

Spring is HERE!!

This is the gorgeous magnolia tree in my backyard. Isn't she lovely?

Online Dating

So my friend Angela sent me an email the other day that she has been trying online dating and last week, she went out on a date with my old friend Bryan (who I haven't seen in about ten years). Bryan and I went to high school together and we were pretty good friends. I wrote Angela that I knew Bryan back when I was taller than him.

Later, she told me that it was funny that I wrote that because it was one of the first things he said about me.

I was so excited, I asked her, "So, what does he look like now?"

Her answer: "Uh, well, I didn't know what he looked like then."

For purely selfish reasons I would like this to work out because I would love to have a couple friendship. Peter and I do not have one couple friendship because everyone we know who gets married just drops off the face of the planet and never calls us again. We only get the yearly Christmas picture-cards with their stiffly-posed progeny holding holiday ornaments and staring off into space. Very. Cute. Not.

And every year I say, "Oh, that's nice. Here's a picture of the kids we had that you've never met because we've stopped calling you."

Last year I wanted to pose the dogs and send cards out to people as a joke, but Peter said that we couldn't do that, because there are actual people who do that and it's not a joke to them and our friends would think we were one of THOSE people.

My other idea was to send Christmas photo cards of other people's children as in:

"Here's Vinny and Gretchen's Daughter Katie Wishing You All the Best This Holiday Season!"

Peter said that people would not think it was funny at all, that in fact, people would think that we were AWFUL people if we did that and will finally pick up the telephone to call us for the first time in three years to berate us for being jealous of their wonderful progeny-rich lives. These are people whose sole purpose in life is to create children to paste on photo cards.

Anyway, it would be nice to have a couple friendship with another couple. A couple that is fun and reads novels once in a while and who volunteered for the Peace Corps in Africa. A couple who would never, EVER, send me a Christmas photo card unless it was a joke. A joke that everyone got.