Fluid Pudding

On January 20, 2012, Meredith finished her school spelling bee in the third place position. The word that took her down? Defiantly.

On January 31, 2013, Meredith tied for the position of first runner-up. The word that took her down? Evaluate.

This year Meredith once again won her class bee, making her eligible for the school bee. Once again, she studied her butt off to prepare. Once again, before leaving the house I grabbed a hot tea and a notebook to keep me busy so that I wouldn’t fidget, cry, or chew off my own arm during the assembly.

I arrived at the school at 1:50, and the spelling bee was scheduled to begin at 2:15. At around 2:00, the participants arrived, drew their order numbers, and took their seats. Meredith was lucky number four, and I would show you the photo of the kids lined up, but I didn’t have model release forms with me, and I have a funny feeling that a photo with Meredith and nine “hidden” children wouldn’t stir up much excitement.

Here. Wait.

Moderator: Meredith, your word is Gorgon.

Meredith: GeeOhAreGeeOhEn. Gorgon.

Moderator: That is correct.

Now wait a second. In case you didn’t follow that first link at the top of the page, look at how much Meredith has grown since her first appearance at the school spelling bee.

Oh, my heart and songs from Fiddler on the Roof and in ten years she’ll be 20 and my hair is so gray and my neck is starting to look like a gobbler neck and my ankles are the same size as my knees and every other sentiment that involves somehow saving time in a bottle, Jim Croce.

Anyway.

After Gorgon, which was a Round Five word, the other participants started dropping fairly quickly. Meredith hung in there with words like Infringe and Disarray and Vouch and Bolide and Forbidden.

When it got down to the final two participants, Meredith was given the word Vitriolic.

She spelled it correctly.

Moderator: Fourth Grade Boy, your word is Pontiff.

Fourth Grade Boy: Pontiff. P-O-N-T-I-F. Pontif.

Moderator: I’m sorry, but Pontiff is spelled P-O-N-T-I-F-F. If Meredith spells the next word correctly, she will win the spelling bee.

Meredith approached the microphone.

Moderator: Meredith, your word is Piety.

Meredith (without hesitation because she’s cool like that): Piety. PeeEyeEeeTeeWhy. Piety.

At that point, I grabbed my tea and started chugging it while writing PIETY! in my tiny notebook and my eyes welled up and I was clapping by slapping my legs and when did I lose all of my coolness? Because, honestly: It’s all gone. All of it.

(By the way, today is National Pie Day, and Meredith won the spelling bee with piety. I love that. Because I love pie. (And piety isn’t so shabby, either.))

Because the Puddings tend to celebrate all of our accomplishments with some sort of burrito or another, this evening we braved the freezing temperatures and burritoed it up. And burritoed is not a word. Until now.

When we last spoke, I mentioned that I wanted to pick the girls up from school and take them to Disney World. This was just my way of telling you that I was about to pick the girls up from school and take them to Disney World. Jeff was there for a sales meeting, and because the girls had a four day weekend, hooking up in Orlando made sense.

David Sedaris has taught me a lot of things, but one of the most memorable is this: No one wants to hear about your travel stories. No one wants to know that our flight was delayed to the extent that we were going to miss our connecting flight, meaning we would be at least a day late to Orlando. No one wants to hear that I had to pick the girls up earlier than I wanted and that we had to run like jerks who run through the airport and blashen blashen blashen ofdiuvhdvfkneipr98yshoa.

When we arrived in Orlando on Thursday night, Jeff picked us up from the airport and broke the news to the girls that they would be sharing a bed during the first night of the trip. To Harper, it suddenly didn’t matter that we were in Orlando. It didn’t matter that Jeff had a huge stack of snacks waiting for us in the hotel room. What mattered is this: Apparently, Meredith is a kicker. A KICKER.

(When Meredith was in kindergarten, the art teacher wrote her name on the back of one of her projects. Instead of writing “Meredith” she wrote “Meredlo”. It’s Harper’s favorite misspelling EVER, and sleeping with Meredlo is not hashtag how Harper does.)

I shared a bed with Meredlo on Thursday, and there was no kicking. The End.

Because the temperature was below freezing in St. Louis this morning and because freezing St. Louis people don’t want to hear about Florida, I’ll keep this short.

On Friday, we went to the Magic Kingdom, and the sky was amazing.

(Please know that castle cleaning crews were cleaning the castle and I really needed them to move the crane so I could take some decent photos, but they wouldn’t. So I didn’t. I did, however, almost get run over by at least 3,291 strollers that carried children who should have been walking. Let me just say this: If you have a child who is over the age of four and that child is perfectly capable of walking, please don’t rent a stroller. Your eight year old may be tired and cranky, but that doesn’t mean she needs wheels. There are other kids (and adults, for that matter) who need the stroller/wheelchair space. Don’t take up more room than you need. Someone please change the subject because I could go on and on about this and I’m starting to not like myself.)

On Friday evening we went to the new hotel, and it was a place where no one had to share a bed unless they wanted to.

Saturday was for Universal Studios, and Hogwarts was breathtaking.

My only recommendation? Buy ONE butterbeer. There is a good chance that the thought of butterbeer is much better than the actual butterbeer. And maybe you’re the only person in your party who really likes the butterbeer so you end up drinking most of the butterbeer because you don’t want to waste money and then you end up feeling really sick. Like, so sick that you are unable to go on rides because the thought of vomiting in public terrifies you. I’m 43. I know.

On Sunday, we went to an outlet mall and purchased absolutely nothing and then we went back to the hotel where Jeff and the girls swam and I watched the end of one of the Twilight movies and worked on a cardigan. That evening we went to Downtown Disney and ate at the Rainforest Cafe. Also, I made out with a statue.

Here’s the thing. If you give me a statue, there’s a good chance that I’ll make out with it. It’s hashtag how I do.

On Monday we checked out of the hotel and drove to Cocoa Beach to spend some time with the Atlantic Ocean.

At 6:40 we jumped on a plane and flew back home. After we went to bed, it began to snow. School was canceled. I cleaned out a cabinet and a closet, made fake steak veggie burritos, and set up an appointment with a new dentist.

(Edited to add: Thanks to Beth’s curiosity, I did some research and I now know that the statue with whom I was making out is a statue of Patrick Kavanagh, a colorful Irish poet who died of bronchitis in 1967. The statue is outside of Raglan Road, an Irish pub named after one of Kavanagh’s poems. Thanks, Beth!) ‘ ‘ ‘text/javascript’>

Everything on this week’s calendar would make you yawn: Piano at 6:00. PTO meeting (not going). Check-in at 4:20. NH after 4:30. Note for girls. No school. PAC (can’t go). Kitty litter. Pup treats. Parking. 6:00 Oz?

It looks like Jeff is out of town for a few days, which means I’m not going to cook anything that can’t be flipped directly from the freezer into the oven. Similarly, because a week without the possibility of Jeff coming home is a struggle, I tend to reward myself for every tiny accomplishment. Laundry finished? Pedicure! Sink cleared and cleaned? Molasses puff!

Everyone who knows me on more than one platform knows that I finished my striped scarf. I’m wearing it today for the first time, and it shows off my gullet quite well.

(I just used the internet to see if gullet is gullet or gullett, and one site describes the gullet as an invagination. I’m almost looking forward to the next time I get all red-faced and impossible while choking on popcorn just so I can boast of an invagination abomination.)

Speaking of corn (because we WERE), this morning after the pedicure (I really wasn’t kidding about the pedicure. Also, please know that I’m speaking of edible corn and dear Lord let’s not talk about how some people want to talk about feet and corn in the same sentence. Wait. I’ll be right back. I need to go shake my head and vomit.) the woman who had touched my feet (I know. I don’t want to talk about it.) asked if I wanted a manicure. When I told her that I’ll wait until the spring (this is a common “putting it off” statement for me), she got up, walked over to her station, and started eating corn on the cob. This is not the first time I’ve seen the employees at this particular place snacking on corn on the cob. I can’t even imagine how I would have to reward myself after touching someone’s feet, but I’m assuming it would take a lot more than corn on the cob. (Please know that I’m a good tipper at the nail salon. Please also know that if we had a cleaning lady, I would clean my house before she came over. I do the same dance before a pedicure.) Can we change the subject?

On the day that Jeff left for his business trip, Meredith asked me to wedge an apple for her. When she was full but still had a wedge left, she asked if she should throw it away. I told her to put it in the microwave and I would find it later and eat it like a nice apple surprise. I just now reached into the microwave to warm up some coffee (invagination caffeination!) and I found one of her wedges from this morning. Such a nice apple surprise. Suddenly, I want to pick the girls up from school and take them to Disney World. ‘ ‘ ‘text/javascript’>

Do you remember a few years back when I posted that photo and then I said something like, “Ha ha ha! Dogs and their owners really DO start favoring one another!!! HA HA HA!!!” What I didn’t realize is that I was tossing all kinds of foreshadowing your way.

This morning we took Scout back to the vet for her corneal ulcer. (After receiving nearly a foot of snow on Sunday, today was the first day we could leave the house.) Anyway, the ulcer isn’t getting any worse, but it’s also not getting any better. This means the next step was to draw blood, spin it in a centrifuge, and then create a serum out of platelet-rich plasma for us to drop into her eye four times each day.

(She’s a happy girl despite the fact that she has EYE PAIN. With that said, she’s smart enough to know that eye pain equals cheesy scrambled eggs for breakfast. Lemons into lemonade and how can you NOT make cheesy eggs for that face and so forth.)

We left the house at 8:45 and returned home at around noon and I won’t even tell you the story about how I should have been happy that the plow came by but it was impossible to be happy because the plow left a 35-foot mountain of snow in front of our driveway and I’m already scared of driving in the snow because of an accident I saw when I was 20 (trailer came unhitched from the car in front of me on an icy bridge and I had to swerve to not be hit by it and it scared the crap out of me (mostly figuratively) and the PTSD is always poking me when I have to deal with snow on the roads) and I tried to “jump” the mountain (I’m exaggerating on the height of the mountain, by the way) and my car got stuck less than two feet up the driveway so I sent Scout and the girls inside and I proceeded to shovel and shovel with snot running out of my face and bad words streaming out of my mouth (F word! S word! Such a classy shoveler!) and shortly after I shoveled myself loose and maneuvered the car into the garage ANOTHER PLOW CAME BY AND LEFT ANOTHER MOUNTAIN and I said I wasn’t going to tell you this story!

Let’s take a break and focus on the breathing.

Okay. So, I came inside and decided to clean the syringe that we’ll be using to extract Scout’s plasma out of the vial to drop into her eyes. (The vet tech showed me how to work the syringe when she applied Scout’s first drop.) Anyway, because I work on medical textbooks in my spare time, I tend to suffer from grandiose delusions when it comes to performing medical tasks. I know the vet tech told me to be careful when removing the needle from the syringe. I know she told me to squeeze the cap to create a suction that will keep the needle protected. I KNOW. I still grabbed the thing completely incorrectly and the cap jerked off and I stuck myself with the needle that was coated in Scout’s plasma.

Yes. That’s what I said. I stuck myself with a dirty needle.

According to the veterinarian, this happens all the time, and I don’t need to be worried unless I start feeling weird.

“Don’t worry unless you start feeling weird.”

And then I suppose it’s time to worry.

Scout and I are blood sisters.

(I just ran outside and sniffed a tree.)

‘ ‘ ‘text/javascript’>

Happy New Year and good luck and stay warm/cool and so on! (Insert noises from buzzy horns and clackity spinny things right here!) Our New Year’s Eve was low key and perfect with something like a dozen kids and eight adults and tons of food and golf and no pressure. It really doesn’t get much better than that.

2014 has been around for about 88 hours now, and in that time I’ve spun some yarn, started a new cardigan, worked on a scarf, saw Frozen, and took Scout to the ER for her Eye o’ Yuck.

The following words and photos will provide elaboration on Paragraph Two. If none of those things were of any interest to you, go straight over here and know that although I carry a lot of baggage, nothing compares to the baggage of Isaac Newton. (He stole cherry cobs from Eduard Storer and then beat ARTHUR Storer! I would pay $4 for more information.)

This is Cormo and it’s been on my wheel since July and that is UNACCEPTABLE, because Cormo really is fun to spin.

The first two ounces were chain-plied on July 19th. I will eventually have handspun rainbow socks.

This is the cardigan I started a few days ago.

It will eventually be my second February Lady Sweater. The yarn color is Violets in the Grass, but because there are no rules, I’ve renamed it Frogs in a Blender. I’m hoping my February Frogs in a Blender Sweater will be finished sometime in February, because: FEBRUARY Lady Sweater.

By the way, if you’ve been wanting to figure out this whole knitting thing, Very Pink’s scarf tutorial is free until January 9th. Staci is a GREAT teacher and her videos are my favorite knitting videos. (2014 is The Year of Knitting a Scarf, by the way. I just made that up, but doesn’t it sound good? So much better than The Year of Unfiltered Camels…)

The thing about knitting is that if you’re anything like me, every time you finish something you’ll say to yourself, “This is my favorite thing.” The scarf I’m getting ready to finish is My Favorite Scarf.

And it’s sort of funny, because just a few weeks ago I finished My Favorite Scarf. (It’s one of the very few things I’ve made from my handspun. I’m still scared of knitting with my handspun, because I lack confidence when it comes to spinning. I’m working on it.)

Okay. I’m not normally one to gush about Disney princess movies, but: Frozen. Go see it. We met up with some friends to see it, and although I was VERY nervous that I would sleep through the whole thing, I didn’t doze once. (I was sitting on a lounge chair and eating fries, and that’s a recipe for disaster in a dark comfy room.)

Okay. Scout. Three days ago she looked like she was wincing, and it broke my heart. She was wincing even more two days ago, and at 10:30ish at night, I had a hard time waking her up, so OFF TO THE VET CLINIC WE GO! As soon as we got there, she perked right up and befriended everyone which sort of made my whole Lethargy claim seem silly, but still: No scratched cornea. Nothing stuck behind the eyelid. All vitals were normal. Diagnosis? Conjunctivitis. This morning her eye looked really cloudy, so we took her in to see her regular vet. Her cornea IS scratched, and the vet did a debridement and an atropine application and we now have antibiotic drops and the next 24-48 hours are crucial. If the injury starts to look deeper or if she starts holding her eye closed, we have to go straight to the emergency vet clinic. We’re expecting 10 inches of snow in the next 24 hours. I can’t even begin to tell you how crazy stressed I am about this.

Actually, I can. I’m so stressed that I’m about to go to the J and walk on a treadmill for the first time in nine months to try to get my head around the possibility of the extracting and spinning of blood or anesthetization and too much snow to drive and blergh. Please take a few minutes to stick your head outside this evening and blow a stream of air away from St. Louis. We are powerful. We can prevent this snow from being a factor. We are butterflies.

I’ll keep you updated. ‘ ‘ ‘text/javascript’>

I received a Fitbit Force for Christmas, and that puts me in a club with all of the other Fitbit people out there who are trying to unlock Achievement: My Pants Aren’t Too Tight. (When I got my nose pierced, I suddenly noticed every single person with a nose hole. Lately I’m focusing in on just how many people have tiny tattoos on their arms. Soon, my awareness of black plastic bracelets on non-dominant wrists will increase. Always be aware of your surroundings.)

After wearing the bracelet for a little over 24 hours, I’ve learned the following things:

1. The stairs in our home are one inch shorter than the required measurement for the Fitbit to register them as stairs. As a result, I’m now exaggerating my stair trips in order for them to count. In other words, I should probably take some sort of circus class to learn how to fall down stairs appropriately because carrying a basket of towels while marching down the stairs like a clown is not going to end well.

2. I’m even pokier than I thought. The average me takes less than 2,000 steps on an average day. I’m glad the Fitbit doesn’t send little “Get off your butt, Pokey!” messages to me throughout the day, but maybe that’s exactly what I need. (I have no idea what my needs are anymore.) I’m finding that although the Fitbit is embarrassing me into wanting to walk around more, it is not influencing my food choices at all. Here’s hoping the next model is able to shoot a little serotonin directly into my veins when I’m about to tube some Ritz crackers for no good reason. (Similarly, I’ve also considered how nice it would be if the Fitbit shocked me just enough to disable my arm for an hour when I seem to be using that arm as a vehicle to get too many cookies up to my face.)

3. I’m actually sleeping much better than I thought I was sleeping. I’m one of those people who wakes up every single hour during the night. Because of that, I tend to complain a lot about not sleeping well. Last night the Fitbit registered every single time I woke up (12 times total), but STILL rated my sleep at 97%. (I was in bed for seven hours and thirty minutes. I slept for seven hours and ten minutes. 97% is a fairly strong A. I’m failing on the exercise side of Fitbit, but sleep? I AM THE CHAMPION OF SLEEP. I challenge you to sleep as well as me. (I have no secrets: Lately I’ve been sleeping with a warm lavender-scented hippo on my left shoulder. I believe she might be my Land of Nod ace in the hole. Warm lavender shoulder hippo!))

4. This morning I actually logged a food on the Fitbit app. Instant coffee! (Don’t make talk about why I’m drinking instant coffee. You already think I’m a weirdo, and I don’t feel like shooting hairspray into that fire.) In other words, I now have movement goals (which I will fail until the weather warms up a bit), sleep goals (I rule the world), and food goals (I’m starting to hate myself). Faster, better, stronger, awake-ier, panache-ier on stairs, et cetera.

Once again, I’m starting to wonder if I’m becoming a caricature of myself. The Fitbit doesn’t measure that.

I’ve taken 98 steps today, and it’s 8:12 in the morning. ‘ ‘ ‘text/javascript’>

Christmas was nice and warm and strange and perfect, despite a clogged kitchen sink (the plumber will be here at 1:00) and a weird stomach thing. (I’m not sure if I’m ill or if I’ve just made too many bad choices. I keep telling myself it’s the bad choices. Weird layer dips covered in apple cranberry French toast washed down with instant coffee and spinkled with snickerdoodles. Why am I eating like such a jerk?)

The girls would probably not agree with me, but I think this was yesterday’s gift of the day:

My sister had one when I was a kid and it seemed larger and sturdier, but this one will do just fine. A lot of people in my life talk about how the day is coming when we will no longer have electricity and all hell will break loose. When that happens, we will have our labyrinth. (Clarification: When I say WE will no longer have electricity, I don’t mean just the Fluid Pudding family. To my knowledge, we are up to date on all of our payments. With that said, the thought of all hell breaking loose just because I don’t have electricity but everyone else does is sort of funny. And then it feels sort of sad and dirty because more than half of the world population does NOT have electricity, and here I stand plugging in a mixer because I can’t be bothered to stir.)

One of my goals in the coming (insert obscure reference of time here) is to improve my handwriting style. Yesterday I received a flex nib pen, and I’ve been playing with it nonstop. I’m like an adult with a new pen over here, because I’m an adult who has a new pen.

Although it felt strange to receive a gift of massage oil from my 8-year-old daughter, it was actually the most thoughtful gift of all. It’s the season of dry skin, and I sometimes have days when I can feel the weight of the lotion. On those days, I can dive into this. Figuratively.

Enjoy your week between. (Someday I hope to get a call from a person who whispers, “Hey. Make a batch of apple cranberry French toast and get to such and such street. John Roderick is telling stories, and the price of admission is breakfast food.”)

‘ ‘ ‘text/javascript’>

This morning I attended an orchestra/band assembly at the elementary school.

It’s no secret that I tend to cry when kids sing, but I figured I was safe at a band concert. Just music. NO WORDS!

HYPOTHESIS: If I attend an instrumental holiday concert, I will not experience water dripping off of my chin (from my eyes, obviously. I’ve got the drooling thing under control. Mostly.).

TESTING: The first few songs were totally safe. Choral of the Bells with the fifth grade violinists and the eighth grade string orchestra. Some sort of boogie thing that was nice and short. Something Scottish. I was strong and smiley and was actually one of the (very) few parents who enjoyed the show without holding a phone or tablet out toward the performers. (How many of these people will actually watch the concert again? Any of them? How ridiculous do we all look because we can no longer just enjoy something without feeling the need to somehow archive it? I am not free of guilt when it comes to feeling the need to prove that I attended an event or ate at a restaurant. It’s all so weird, isn’t it?)

The string orchestra finished up and the audience shifted focus toward the other side of the gym where the eighth grade band had set up. After a quick introduction of the instruments, the show kicked off with a medley from The Polar Express. I looked up toward the stage and made eye contact with Meredith. She opened her eyes and gave me an “Oh No!” gulp before whispering something to her friend. (What did she whisper to her friend? I’m guessing she whispered, “My mom has no spine and will probably start beating on her legs very soon.”)

It wasn’t long before I detected a musical segue into the  When Christmas Comes to Town portion of the medley. I hate When Christmas Comes to Town. HATE it. Sadly, if I’m unable to turn it off and I hear more than 15 seconds of it, I have to start blinking like a frequent blinker and patting my hands on my legs and contemplating Whitey Herzog in order to fight off the tears. BUT: NO WORDS. This is  just an instrumental! You can’t stop the band from playing, so you may as well just enjoy and DON’T THINK ABOUT THE LYRICS! I need to get coconut milk and avocados at the store. I should probably switch to a different moisturizer during the winter months. I really need to think more about doing unto others the way I want them to do unto me. AND, now we’ve arrived at the part about “Presents for the children, wrapped in red and green. All the things I’ve heard about but never really seen.” (Why do I even KNOW the lyrics?! I can never remember who provides our health insurance, yet I retain this sort of crap.) Damnit. Damnit. It’s happening, and no one will stop the song, AND: Tears jumping out of my eye holes, and me without waterproof mascara. WHITEY HERZOG! WHITEY HERZOG! (Here’s an actual photo of me taken after the assembly by one of the iPad moms.)

ANALYSIS: It doesn’t take much to destroy me, does it? AND, apparently it doesn’t even take the voice of a child to make me squirrely. Further experimentation will need to take place in order to figure out the source of the emotion. Am I stirred by all songs featured in motion capture computer animated fantasy films based on books written for children? Does a holiday song written in the key of E-flat affect me more than one written in the key of C? Do I have seasonal affective disorder? Epiphora caused by upper lacrimal drainage system problems?

RESULT: HYPOTHESIS REJECTED. Can someone please bring me a fluffy blanket and an avocado sandwich?

‘ ‘ ‘text/javascript’>

During the summer months of my college years, I worked at a place that helped companies fight paying unemployment benefits to former employees. My job as a claims representative involved things like calling the manager of Denny’s to find out why Todd Greenhorn was no longer employed. Many of the calls were easily coded as Poor Performance/No Misconduct. BUT, sometimes they were a little more hairy. “He peed on the floor in the break room and then told me to go to hell before walking off the job in the middle of his shift.” “I caught her having sex in the bathroom. She had already received a verbal warning and a written warning for having sex in the bathroom.”

Although it paid fairly well, I knew that the job wasn’t a good fit for me.

During my first week there, one of the managers called me into her office.

Manager: So, how are you liking it here so far?

Me (feeling cocky and wondering if she was going to promote me during my very first week): Things are going great!

Manager: Have you had time to read the dress code?

Me (not so sure I knew there was a dress code): I’m sorry. I didn’t realize there was a dress code.

Manager: I have a copy right here of the form you signed stating that you read the company handbook. The dress code is in that handbook, and it clearly says that you are required to wear socks or nylons every day. No bare ankles.

Me (wearing khaki pants and flats with no socks or nylons): Oh. I’m really sorry.

Manager: Be sure you’re wearing socks or nylons tomorrow.

I walked back to my desk feeling deflated and silly. Luckily, a co-worker named Joan had heard the whole thing.

Joan: I heard the whole thing.

Me: I feel pretty stupid.

Joan: Don’t. It’s bullshit. Let’s go get Chinese food.

That was how my friendship with Joan started, and from that day forward I had lunch with her every single day during the summer months. When I went back to school we corresponded with letters, and when I came home for the summer we would make a not-so-great job bearable by turning everything into a joke in the cafeteria. She introduced me to Dorothy Parker and Robert Benchley. She has a son my age who liked the same music as me, so we would occasionally exchange mix tapes. On the night before my wedding, she decorated the site of our rehearsal dinner with crazy fun gourds that were filled with flowers and candles.

She could take a dozen bandannas and turn them into amazing curtains. She could find a piece of junk at a garage sale and transform it into a treasure. She once spilled a huge pot of chili in her car on Chili Cook-Off Day. As I sat at my desk getting ready to sort through my calls, she walked up covered in sauce and said, “I just dumped my fucking chili.” We spent the next thirty minutes sopping up chili in her car and laughing until we could barely speak. (When I told her that I brought in white chicken chili, she asked what I named it. She later removed the index card that said “White Chicken Chili” and replaced it with one on which she had written “Mr. Magic’s Albino Chili”.)

She once called to tell me that I had to get a copy of Le Nozze di Figaro because she just heard the most beautiful song and she needed me to hear it, too.

A few years back, she called me out of the blue to talk politics.

Joan: Well, I just heard from a few friends that if Obama is elected, he’s going to make me kill myself.

Me: You’re right. How will you handle that?

Joan: I have no idea. I’ll think about it next week. Right now I need to worry about losing 80 pounds for the Halloween party I’m going to on Saturday.

Me: Are you dressing up?

Joan: I’m going as Suze Orman. How much do you want to bet that nobody understands why I’m wearing a suit and talking about money?

I last spoke to Joan on May 15th. She sent an e-mail to let me know that her mom had died, that they were having coffee when it happened, and that she was now crying every hour instead of every ten minutes. I expressed my condolences and asked if we could have sushi when we returned from our vacation. We both got busy and we never scheduled that sushi dinner, and this afternoon I picked up a message from Joan’s son. As soon as I heard his voice on the answering machine, I knew. When I returned his call, he verified the terrible news. It was her heart.

There is a new member of the Vicious Circle today. I feel fully confident that Joan is kicking back with Dorothy Parker (Her favorite short story was Big Blonde.), and it’s only a matter of time before Robert Benchley has some quirky bandanna curtains.

Joan will be missed. In fact, she already is. ‘ ‘ ‘text/javascript’>

As you know, Pope Francis is TIME Magazine’s Person of the Year. I’m pleased to report that I voted for him last week when I heard that Miley Cyrus was winning. (Not that Miley doesn’t deserve to win. I talked about her more this past year than I talked about, say, Henry Winkler or Joey Fatone. BUT, that doesn’t mean she’s worthy of a magazine cover beyond maybe Cosmopolitan or Why Won’t People Just Let Her Do Her (Admittedly, Sometimes Strange) Thing?) Anyway, I always feel a bit of a thrill when the person I voted for wins.

The Only Time I Didn’t Feel So Good About Voting for The Winner: When I was in the fifth grade, we had a weird family fun night event during which every classroom voted for a girl and a boy to represent them at the King and Queen ceremony. (Welcome to 1980. I still have no idea what was happening.) Anyway, I somehow ended up winning my classroom queen rep position, and when all of the fifth graders then voted for their overall queen rep, I once again won. I did NOT vote for myself for the classroom queen position, but I *did* vote for myself during the fifth grade overall queen gig. (I was really itching to wear a long dress. You know how it goes.) Anyway, even though it was a secret ballot, my teacher figured out that I voted for myself, and she announced the fact to the class more than once. 33 years have passed, and I still feel weird.

Here’s something that everyone needs to know. If I’m unable to use Oreos as a fallback option, I’m unable to participate in your bake sale or cookie drive or pot luck or whatever it is that you’re doing. There is a good chance that I will want to jump in and bake something amazing, but knowing that I can’t cover up any potential catastrophes with Oreos counts me out. This will never not be true.

Here’s something else that you need to know: I’m cranky. Like, SUPER much so. I like working from a list and right now I’m slammed with things that are spontaneous and not on the list. I know everyone is going through this and everyone is super busy. I do! I wish I handled it better, because when I’m feeling ruffled it feels like I can’t really accomplish anything correctly. (I send lots of e-mails with attachments that aren’t attached. I underbake cookies and then have to throw them away. I take weird opportunities to raise my voice about classroom parties and silly things that Really Don’t Matter and I make myself look and feel like a jerk. I schedule a trip to pick up an ornament immediately after I drop my kids off at school, and then I discover that the store doesn’t open for another hour and I’ve already been driving for thirty minutes, so damnit. All of this happened today along with some freelance, some dog drama, and a fork that is wedged in a weird place and it’s Harper’s favorite fork and I’m already regretting starting this sentence and so are you. The good thing about today? A friend I hadn’t seen in several months met me for lunch at an Indian place and we were able to catch up. Always Good: Friends and Indian Food.)

I have milk boiling on the stove for pies. We have an orchestra concert in 90 minutes. Tomorrow is a half day at school, and then we have a piano recital, and Henry will be groomed on Saturday morning right before a three hour Christmas pageant rehearsal at church.

On Sunday, I get to stand in front of the congregation and say, “I’m naked.” (Maybe someday I’ll tell you about the time I may have lost a job by muttering those exact words.)

Last year I volunteered to read the verse about not being a virgin.

It’s always good to test yourself. ‘ ‘ ‘text/javascript’>