What kind of day are you having?

Because the kind of day I'm having goes like so:

I had to rifle through my garbage can to see if I'd eaten lunch, because I couldn't remember if a recent salad was from yesterday or today.

It was yesterday.

I need a nap.

Weekends in New England

On the corner of 42nd Street and 8th Avenue, just after regaling each other with our favorite and least-appropriate Helen Keller jokes, I told Scott I was a Fanilow.

"My parents had lots of Barry Manilow records," he replied. "If there was a Jew that sang, my parents liked 'em."

How true that is. Jewish parents LOVE singing Jews. I feel this provides a reasonable rationale for the otherwise inexplicable popularity of Barbra Streisand.

Confession: A couple months ago, there was nothing on TV and I found myself watching (shudder) The Mirror Has Two Faces. I would like to preface this by saying that there is ALWAYS something else on TV and one should never resort to The Mirror Has Two Faces, but I must have had an aneurysm or something because there I was, eating peanut butter with a spoon and watching Barbra Streisand stand before a gilded mirror after Jeff Bridges kinda-proposes to her and, because she feels beautiful (which, puh-leeze), open her mouth as wide as possible and bust out her jazz hands.

Jazz hands, people.

Whatever you think of Jews — whether you think we control the banks and the media, or we embrace starchy foods or reverse the wording of statments with Yoda-like dexterity so they sound like questions — we do not use jazz hands to express our emotions. Accuse us of treachery or of being cheap, tell us our noses are ginormous and we have horns like the devil, but do NOT accuse us of using jazz hands. This I will not stand for, yes?

In other news, I spent the last month on a train, first heading to Boston where Lisa was in the hospital, and then vacationing in Providence, Rhode Island, just because. I have pictures to post (mmm, photogenic hospital food ... ), but seeing that Josh's thesis is due in two weeks, use of the home computer is not mine. I'll dazzle you with them soon.

(As a side note, if anybody can tell me why people who live in Providence haven't caught on that it's a great walking city, I'd appreciate it. Because they kept calling me cabs that wouldn't show up, and I could have walked to where I needed to go in an eighth of the time. They're called hills, people. Do not fear them.)

In conclusion, I'd like to say that my book club met last night, and we spent about 8 minutes talking about the book (The History of Love by Nicole Krause; eh) and about 43 minutes talking about porn. I love my book club. But that's not the point of this paragraph. The point of this paragraph is to tell you that just before I left, I went to the bathroom for my pre-train-ride pee. I had consumed about 97 glasses of water and was looking forward to this. However, I turned on the light, looked down at the toilet, and there was a child-safety lock on the lid (my friend who hosted has a baby, obviously). I could not figure out how to unlatch the thing. I futzed with it for, well, basically the length of time it takes to pee, could not find any kind of lever or latch or button, no picture with instructions, and I gave up, flushed the toilet and washed my hands so it wouldn't seem like I was too stupid to figure out how to lift the toilet seat, and left, humiliated and still having to pee.

This tells me many things, but mainly two:

1. I'm going to be the crappiest mother ever, and

2. I just shouldn't leave the house. That is all.

Get yer tickets here!

Lisa was stuck in the hospital this weekend with knee insanity, so we did Mad Libs. You'll all be glad to know that the Duluth Muffins will be playing in the Rotund Bowl. T-shirts to come forthwith. Rumor has it vagina doctor Ronald Reagan will be in attendance!

My proudest moment

Yesterday morning, a telemarketer hung up on me.

Awesome.

I was trying to answer a question on behalf of my husband, The Cardholder, but the caller (whose name, if I remembered it, I would make a point to mispronounce) quickly blurted out an "IcanonlyspeakwithJoshuaBanksI'llcallbacklater" before hanging up as I was trying to tell him Josh was sleeping. I think that may have been the first time in history that a telemarketer beat a phone-answerwerwerwer to the punch. Well done.

Confession:

For three months during my sophomore year in college, I was a telemarketer. I worked for this company that solicited money on behalf of public TV and radio ("Have you enjoyed shows such as All Things Considered and Are You Being Served?"), so the annoyance-to-guilt ratio was far less than it would have been if I'd been calling for, say, a random bank or Nicky Hilton's Whore Hotel or something. I found that people were generous and lonely: There were floods in the midwest, but people who didn't have front doors gave to PBS; old men who lost their wives to cancer would keep you on the phone just to have someone to talk to. But then again, bored housewives would read the contents of TV Guide to you and regale you with tales of how they just bought Kathie Lee Gifford's new CD and how they broke their thumb baking a bundt. Barfy.

Good to know, though: Telemarketers will always try to offer whatever they're offering three times before letting you go, should you be so inclined to not hang up on them first. When I quit, my boss asked me three times to stay, and I laughed (and died a little, for him) inside. Oh! In February 1994, I was Phoner of the Month.

Oh! And my favorite mispronounciation of my name was when someone called my house and asked if José or Maria was there. That day, more than any other, made me wish I had taken Spanish in high school.

The end.