The If Question with all the sneaky.

It’s been a few weeks since I’ve done an If Question, and so I thought what better way to try to find my mojo again than to bring it back. Let’s try to find our my groove again, shall we? Here we go:

If you had to serve in the military, what role would you want to serve (that you haven’t already performed)?

It’s so rare that the If Question is so easy for me to answer: I would be a spy. (I guarantee you that both my sisters and half of my friends said at exactly the time: That’s easy, she would be a spy.) See, I’ve always had a thing for spying and sneakiness and covert operations and secret clubs. What little kid doesn’t go through that phase? Except mine never really ended. I’m not saying I ever really spied maliciously on any one…I just liked being in the know when we were growing up. I’d try to listen in on my mom’s phone conversations my hanging up…and then picking up the extension with the mute button on. Or I’d crack my bedroom door open to see what was going on downstairs. I’d listen at my sister’s (and brother’s) door to see if anything interesting was going on. Don’t even get me started on the tricks my cousin Jonathan and I would get up to.

I tried to instill the same skill set in my sisters. I did it to be nice and big-sisterly, but mostly I needed more trained operatives to carry out my field work. One of our favorite family stories is about the time that we were trying to figure out what our parents were fighting about and whether they were talking about divorce. I had already tried listening in from the top of the stairs and had been sent to the room I shared with Kim. So I had to send her out on a recon mission. She wasn’t even supposed to know that they were having a discussion, so I told her to go downstairs under the pretence of going to the bathroom. Twenty-freakin’-long-minutes later, she comes back up to our room with a bowl of cheese balls and a happy-go-lucky air about her. “Well, what did you find out?” I asked as soon as she walked through the door. “Huh?” she paused, mid-bite. “About Mom and Dad!” I retorted. “I was supposed to be listening?” she asked. ::headdesk::

Yes, so it has taken lots and lots (and lots and lots) of training and patience on my end, but I think I have finally cultivated a superior unit of stealthy, sneaky spies. My sisters are highly skilled operatives now (Kim even executed a super-stealthy surprise visit for my birthday last year, if you’ll remember). We’re even thinking about drafting Crisanna, but I don’t know. She might be too inherently kind. Still. I think if I can convert Kim, anyone is possible.

And I guess it’s a good thing that I’ve always wanted to be a spy, because you know what? I never for one minute thought I’d have to use so many of my spy skills as a mom! There’s Christmas and secret conversations and grown-up stuff and all kinds of things that need to be kept hidden. My kids are very intuitive – and now that Gracie is learning to read and spell, I can’t even spell words out when I’m talking about things I don’t want her to know. Guess it’s time to break out the codewords and secret decoder ring.

Huh. I wonder if that is part of the standard military spy uniform.

Love sometimes means looking a little closer.

You know what? It’s been a pretty crappy week for me in a lot of ways. There have been good things, too, little glimmers, but still – I will be very happy when this week is behind me and I can breathe again.

Want to know what has helped me through? Thinking happy thoughts. Playing with Crisanna’s new puppy, Cleo. [Sidenote: after my teary emo-moment this morning, I may or may not have come up with a plan to run away from everyone and everything...and take only Cleo. Who isn't even my puppy! Ahem.] Glasses of red wine. Glasses of riesling. Inviting myself over to watch QI with Crisanna (prompting the Cleo-lovefest). Jokingly making plans with Jo to send pot-brownies to our parents. Participating in an insanely long email thread with the Altos about chocolate and blue men and fictional songs and Spaniards and Sicilians. And remembering favorite times, like dipping our toes in the lake:

How happy does that picture look? All sunshiney and pretty colors and my two favoritest people in the world. Happy Love Thursday, everyone! If your day doesn’t sparkle, throw some glitter into the air. Because some days you have to try to find the happy.

Randomly…

…you know who I would want to sing like, if I could sing like anyone in the world? Rufus Wainwright. Go watch. So effortless. And that’s not even his best performance!

That is all.

Update on the tragi-comedy that is my life.

What a day I have had.

This morning, I woke completely refreshed from finally getting a good night’s sleep and then quickly ditched “refreshed” in exchange for “panicked.” Having checked the weather radar, and knowing I would probably need to leave work at some point to meet the a/c repair guy, I went in to work at just past the crack of dawn. (Because really – if it’s still dark out when you leave the house? – it qualifies as the very crack of dawn.) There, I quickly blurted a quick break-down post about why there wasn’t a (real) post and then whined to a friend who is particularly good at letting me do just that. (She is awesome, yo.) I let loose about how worried I am for my (ex) mother-in-law who is in intensive care with heart issues, and how I can’t even visit her because certain ex-in-laws would cause a scene if I ran into them (and that is not the place for that). I whined about how hard it is that my Insignificant Other is out of the country, even though I know he’s there for an important reason. And I whined about my stupid, crisis-inducing, house-shaking, non-functional air conditioner! And right as I was reading my friend’s sweet, soothing reply, my IO popped online to check on me and I promptly got all weepy. “I hate this week!” I blubbered.

And then ThePlaceThatShallNotBeNamed got all insane and I was distracted until it was time to meet my service tech. The company who originally installed our a/c unit couldn’t meet me until Friday – and even then, they could only give me a four-hour window during which they might-or-might-not show up would meet me, and they couldn’t tell me if it would be morning or afternoon until Friday morning. Thankfully, another small company I’ve heard advertised was able to meet me between two and four today (and the Tech beat me here by five minutes).

The Tech was really, really nice. He was understanding and professional, qualities I don’t often see in service techs. He joked with me that the a/c probably wouldn’t make the noise for him – and it didn’t. He ran the diagnostic test and told me that he was pretty sure that it was because I was almost completely out of freon. Without it, my unit would be overworking, overheating, and possibly vibrating because it wouldn’t have the freon to cushion the friction. So he added THREE GALLONS of freon to the tune of $200. Plus the $100 diagnostics fee just to come out. I then plied the poor tech with every question I could possibly think of (including what to do if the Mysterious Churning Noise came back). He answered every ridiculous what-if question I could throw at him and didn’t even laugh at me when I asked if he thought this Mysterious Churning Noise and vibrations could make the house catch on fire. He really did go above and beyond. When he asked if the house had been cooling and I told him the girls’ room was always warm, the Tech went around and checked my air filters and my vents. Then he offered to climb around in the attic and make sure “that smooshed duct” I told him about wasn’t too important. (It wasn’t. It was the exhaust fan for the laundry room that I never use.) He was so nice and went so far beyond the call of duty that I will heartily recommend Avery Air to anyone in the metroplex. Seriously.

So that was the good news. I squeaked in just under $300 (which was coincidentally the amount I had mentioned to my sister that I could maybe afford). The bad news: the lack of freon means I probably definitely have a leak. Tech could have run a test to find out where the leak was and if it was repairable; but, he cautioned me that he almost never found a leak that was fixable and the test was $100. So. There went that option. Now we just sit tight and see how long the freon lasts. If it runs out within 30 days, Avery will apply all of the cost towards a new unit. Any longer than 30 days and I’m on my own. That’s the bad news: I’m in a waiting game. When the waiting runs out, I have to replace not only the outside unit, but the inside unit as well because my particular model is being discontinued after this year. All of that shouldn’t cost more than….oh, $8,000. Yes, thousand. Eight thousand, in fact.

There was a small kernel of hope: the Tech mentioned that when he connected the hose to add the freon, he noticed that the connector-pipe thingy (technical term, that is) was loose and he was able to tighten it quite a bit. Hopefully that is where the leak came from. Andwillnotreturn. Because unless the air conditioner fairy comes a-callin’, I’m screwed.

One last little footnote to the craziness that was my day: about fifteen minutes after Tech Guy had left, my cell phone rang. I figured it was a crisis at ThePlaceThatShallNotBeNamed. Instead, it was a number I didn’t recognize. That, turns out, belongs to Tech Guy’s personal cell phone. He was so cute falling over his words (in a very manly, grown up way, of course) as he explained he never does this, but I was so positive and funny about my horrible week (I may have told him my “feral” ants story) that he had to take a chance. If his whole spiel was a practiced pick-up line, it was good. Probably would have worked, too, if I weren’t seeing someone.

And there you have it. Another whole day is (almost) gone. Whatever else it was, it was a very clever distraction.

Well. I guess that’s one way to distract me.

I don’t really have a post for you this morning. See, last night I went to Crisanna’s and tried to watch some QI. (Where did you all go, streaming videos?) And all was well, but no pre-blogged blog post. That’s okay, I could write one this morning, the old-fashioned way.

Except that when my NOAA radio alarm went off at 5:45 a.m. to warn me of a severe thunderstorm, I noticed my kitchen counter was practically shaking. And the kitchen wall was vibrating. And I could hear a loud churning. I thought for a minute that it was just because I had been woken up out of a deep sleep and things just seemed louder…but I don’t remember my kitchen vibrating before. Huh. It wasn’t the fridge. Could it be… Yep. I turned the central air conditioner up a few degrees so it would quit and just as it stopped, the loud churning noise and the shaking all stopped. Not good. I turned the a/c back down to 78 to make it come on again, and the same symptoms came back. So I threw on some clothes and ventured outside with my flashlight. The unit looked okay, and it sounded okay-ish, but I did notice that it plugged into the house just about where all the noise and vibration was coming from. I googled it and found nothing. (Darn, you Google! You’ve never failed me before!) Then I looked for the paperwork from when we had the a/c fixed exactly two years ago; it was missing. Who knows what the Ex did with it, what we had fixed, or what it cost.

But I remember it was not cheap.

One of my friends had her unit replaced and it cost her $5500. Another person I work with had his unit replaced and it cost over $8000. Please, please, please send me happy cheap-fix-for-your-a/c thoughts today because I really cannot handle this.

Book Review: Lost in a Good Book (with spoilers!)

A friend recently started teasing me, asking if I ever read anything that wasn’t historical, or over 500 pages, or quite so serious – did I ever read books that were just for fun? Of course I did, I told her – I just don’t write reviews for those ones! The problem is that my reviews for all of the Agatha Christie’s I’ve read would all sound the same after the second one, the few girly-romance novels I read I would never admit to (oops), and the occasional re-read of Stephen King’s, Harry Potters, and beloved children’s series just don’t seem particularly review worthy given that I’ve read them dozens of times. They’re just…for fun.

The thing is, these Jasper Fforde books are serious and fun all at the same time. For one – how can you not love an author with such a fun name? I call him “Fuh-ford” in my head. For another, the premise of his Thursday Next series is the most unique and ingenious world I’ve encountered in recent memory. The downside to that is, like in the first novel, that I felt a bit overwhelmed at times. It’s been five or six months since I read the first novel and there aren’t many refresher lines at the beginning of this sequel to prompt our memories (which is ironic, given the plot). Nope, Fforde throws you right back into Thursday’s world, watching her character deal with the fallout from changing the storyline to Jane Eyre at the end of The Eyre Affair. One pleasant change with the sequel was that I didn’t find it quite as full of minor characters I had to keep track of (which is just as well since I was constantly straining to remember the previous plot-points). Indeed, not only was I trying to keep track of the plot from the first book, I had a bit of an issue trying to figure out where all of the scenes from this book would fit in to the tasks Thursday had at hand. I felt anxious, trying to anticipate how each errand would help Thursday solve the puzzle and tie all the loose ends together; I felt the first book more neatly laid out (and accomplished) the tasks at hand by the end of the novel. In those regards, the book felt more like work.

But wait – didn’t I say this book was fun, too? If all of those things felt “off” about it, how in the world could I come away feeling so good about Lost in a Good Book? Guys – the good parts were THAT GOOD. Example the First: Thursday hears voices in her head…because a secret operative is speaking to her in footnotes. Literally. You have to follow the conversation via the footnotes at the bottom of the page. A riot, right? Well, that’s nothing compared to Example the Second: Miss Havisham. You all know I adore Miss Havisham, from Charles Dickens’ Great Expectations. Once, I even thought I met her twinner. Well. When Thursday Next is forced to jump into books and join Jurisfiction, a literary police force within books, she is apprenticed to Miss Havisham. A wild, car-racing, sneaker-wearing, cop-dodging, sarcastic, larger-than-life Miss Havisham. I could have died and gone to heaven. She’s my favorite character in the entire series so far. She even delivered my favorite line in the novel, which is Example the Third: Miss Havisham is the arch-nemesis of fellow-Jurisfiction member The Red Queen (from Alice in Wonderland, natch). The Red Queen is just as crazy in Fforde’s novel as she is in Carroll’s. Alluding to such characteristics, Miss Havisham describes The Red Queen as being “a verb short of a sentence.” BWAH! I laughed for ten minutes straight when I read that.

Finally, as Example the Last, I give you this: whilst describing how Jurisfiction members jump into books and then leap from book to book via common threads, characters, etc, the Cheshire Cat (who is the master librarian of the Great Library of All Books Ever) tells Thursday Next that there are several books she must never enter.

“There are some places you should not go!” he muttered in a reproachful tone, lashing his tail from side to side. “Edgar Allen Poe is one of them. His books are not fixed; there is a certain otherness that goes with them. Most of Macabre Gothic fiction tends to be like that – Sade is the same; also Webster, Wheatley and King. Go into those and you may never come out – they have a way of weaving you in the story, and before you know it you’re stuck there.”

When I read that, goosebumps popped out all over my body from the tips of my fingers down the bottom of my feet. If you’ll remember, I wrote once about how I’ve always felt that if I leaned forward just the slightest bit, I might topple into one of Stephen King’s books. Apparently, I was right.

Those are just a few of the reasons why I walked away from Lost in a Good Book waiting to be lost in the next one – despite sludging my way through the first half. It reminds me in a way of driving my mom’s old car up the hill on Hamilton Street; the car would grind and churn it’s way up the bitty hill, and we’d laugh and wonder if it would ever make it…and then the car would crest the hill and “break the sound barrier” as we’d joke, and we’d go whipping down the other side laughing and hollering and having a grand old time. The fun and hilarity makes up for an awful lot, don’t you think?

The sort of magic she’ll remember.

As parents, there are magical moments that you share with your children that you know you’ll always remember. Those moments are awesome; but I’m not always sure if it means anything to the kids in question. Will they remember that moment when they’re teens? parents? or grandmas looking back on their lives? Did they feel that magical jolt to begin with? But every so often, when you get really lucky, you share one of those moments with your child that you’ll know she’ll remember just as long as you will. Today was one of those days: I took Gracie to see her first movie at the theater.

Oh, it was amazing and worth all the back-and-forth arranging and rearranging it took to get us there. You see, back when The Ex and I were negotiating post-separation, pre-divorce child-rearing rules, we decided that we would do the Important Things together with the children. Things like bringing Gracie to see her first movie – which had already been tentatively discussed – was included. Casual talks have been going on for ages. He wanted to bring her to see Hannah Montana, which I vetoed as inappropriate for her age. I countered with the suggestion of Horton Hears a Who! Which never happened. When Pixar’s Up came out and I heard how well it was received, I started pressing. After negotiating which weekend and who could watch Bee and suffering postponement after postponement, the weekend was finally here. Plans were finalized yesterday. And then, I did a very selfish thing.

I told her. I had let her and Bee go with The Ex to a birthday party for her cousins, even though I have hardly seen them this month and I miss them like crazy. I just get so tired of The Ex always being the “fun” parent and hearing about how Daddy takes them to Chuck E. Cheese and Daddy lets them eat Wendy’s for dinner and Daddy does this and Daddy does that. I know I am a fantastic parent, but just once I wanted to be the one who makes a splash, too. So when The Ex dropped them off again and confirmed that his mom could watch Bee this afternoon, I sprang the surprise on Gracie as soon as her sister was in bed. I told her that after church, we could go see a movie at the movie theater: me, her, and Dad all together. Her face lit up and she jumped off the floor and squealed. She asked if they handed out popcorn and suggested bringing our special popcorn containers to be fancy and chattered on and on and on like it was the best day of her life.

She was so excited, she even managed to keep it a secret from her sister, just like I asked. She didn’t mention it a single time when Bee was in the room – and if you knew Gracie, your jaw would be unhinged at that feat. Oh, that girl fairly floated six inches off the floor all the way to the theater, where we ran into The Ex in the parking lot. We waited in the real ticket line so Gracie could see how tickets were purchased before they invented self-service lines. We bought her popcorn and Starbursts and soda. AND it was a special 3-D version of Up – Gracie will be spoiled forever.

Yes, it was worth every minute we had to wait this summer. It was the sort of afternoon that I know she will remember forever and I’m glad that both her dad and I were there. You can’t duplicate that kind of magic and the thought of either one of us missing out on the way her face lit up…

Here’s to the magic of summer and of movies and of the million and one Coca-Cola ads that Gracie pointed out. Here’s to you, Gracie-boo. Long live the magic of the movies.

It could be worse.

Bleh. I’m pretty nauseous right now and I’m hoping it’s not a bug. I mean, it could be stress. The rip-roaring headache that sent me to bed at 8:30 p.m. last night could have been from missing my afternoon caffeine yesterday, and the nausea that started last night could have been from bad meat. Still. Bleh.

I shouldn’t complain. The stresses from this weekend were mostly short-lived – and how often do I get to write that? I never get to write about the crises that weren’t. Like the washing-machine fake-drama. I had washed a load of sheets this past week. I never do laundry mid-week unless the girls come home with super-stained clothes or Bee has an accident. But for whatever reason, I had decided to wash the pile of sheets instead of trip over the dirty mountain o’ sheets one more night. Of course, then I forgot about them and they never made it into the dryer. I finally remembered them when the laundry room started smelling a little musty two days later. Ewwww is right. So I ran them through the washer again with twice as much detergent and the water as hot as it would go. And right about the time when the spin cycle should have kicked in, I heard this god-awful churning and whining sound from across the house. You know – almost like the last time it happened. This could not be happening, right? I mean, I just bought the washer back in March! It’s not even five months old! I started thinking about who I would have to call and whether I’d have to let them fix it or if I could demand a refund and just buy a (better) new machine. I tossed the sopping wet sheets into the dryer and ran another test load the next day. I guess the sheets were just too heavy from not having dried the first time because it ran fine. Crises averted.

Then, on Saturday morning, I packed up the girls and hit Wally-world early enough to miss most of the crazy shoppers. I was juggling an armful of yogurt and noticed some of them were wet from condensation dripping from the top of the refrigerated section. I checked my shirt to make sure the wet splotches weren’t too bad – and noticed a perfect circle that was not only wet but discolored. On my bright red, favorite Patriots’ t-shirt. No. Oh no. Please oh please don’t let my shirt be ruined. It still looked discolored while it was drying, but thirty minutes later it was back to normal. Phew.

And then, before my tshirt crisis was even resolved, I had the biggest scare of them all. I went to pay for the cart-load of groceries…and couldn’t find my wallet. At first I thought I was just missing it somehow: my purse is rather cavernous and it often takes me a while to find what I’m looking for. The cashier watched me freak out and then all-out panic when I realized it was missing. I keep my purse on my shoulder at all times, and I didn’t think anyone could have picked it out…but you never know. The cashier suspended my transaction while I took the girls and walked out to the car to check for it. My heart was beating out of my chest and I promised not to care about any of the other (nearly) averted catastrophes as long as I pulled through this one. There was hope – I remembered throwing my wallet just inside my purse the day before as I pulled out of the Starbucks drive-through. It was possible it had fallen out and was still in the car. And thankfully, it was.

That almost makes the reappearance of the ants after a three-day absence pale in comparison, doesn’t it? Yes, I’ve had my fair share of scares this weekend. Not to mention that my Insignificant Other is leaving today to travel in and out of the country for two weeks of vacation, which wouldn’t be a big deal except he’s stopping to visit an old family friend whomheusedtodate. Yeah. It will all be fine, I’m sure, but it’s going to be a looooong two weeks. When I thought about the ways in which I could distract myself, stress and nausea really didn’t make the list. Bleh.

Book Review: Gone with the Wind (with spoilers).

I was fully prepared to not like Gone with the Wind. It’s southern (and I mean, Southern). It’s pre-bellum, bellum, antebellum, Reconstructionist – and all with a confederate slant. It’s girly. When I started reading it, all of my preconceived notions bore up. Scarlett was nothing but a silly twit whose idea of rebelliousness was to run off the porch without her shall, enjoy eating, and identify with her father more than her mother. And the barbecue scene where she flirts with every single boy present and dreams up ways to win those who weren’t there? Made me roll my eyes and snort with derision more than once.

But then something happened. I started enjoying the book. I started caring who Scarlett ended up with. Ashley or Rhett? Ashley, of course! No! Rhett! And I started seeing themes emerge and paper topics popped up before my eyes. The theme of motherhood, the connection of the motherhood theme with that in Rebecca Wells’s The Divine Secret of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood, fantasy vs. reality in the Scarlett/Rhett/Ashley/Melly love quadrangle. Mitchell’s portrayal of race. Her portrayal of womanhood. Did Mitchell even like Scarlett? Are the readers supposed to like her? Is she supposed to be the ultimate portrayal of womanhood?

Wait – could this be a real book? Not some bodice-ripper with a historical background flapping behind it?

I was shocked. Sure, it could be read as a bodice-ripper (if one were able to overlook the horrific ending), but there was undeniably more to be had. I was particularly struck with the theme of motherhood. Scarlett’s obsession with and elevation of her mother’s role as a martyr, a saint (of which we later see faint echoes of in Melanie’s mantle of motherhood and defense of Scarlett) early in the novel is sharply contrasted thereafter with Scarlett’s failure to approach anything resembling her mother’s example. That Wells continues the theme in Ya-Ya and models her main character in a Scarlett-esque fashion, and then concludes her novel with the message that even flawed mothers can love powerfully, seems to show that at least Wells thought Mitchell was trying to portray Scarlett in a realistic and sympathetic light. (Yes, I know I’m simplifying things here and further analysis and research is needed, but just roll with it.) To compound the discussion, Mitchell throws in a seemingly throw-away description of a minor character early in the novel. Scarlett notes how relaxed the Tarleton girls act around their mother, how convivial and teasing and almost impudent they act, although it’s clear they adore each other:

Scarlett laughed with the rest at these sallies but, as always,the freedom with which the Tarletons treated their mother came as a shock.  They acted as if she were one of themselves and not a day over sixteen.  To Scarlett, the very idea of saying such things to her own mother was almost sacrilegious.  And yet–and yet–there was something very pleasant about the Tarleton girls’ relations with their mother, and they adored her for all that they criticized and scolded and teased her.  Not, Scarlett loyally hastened to tell herself, that she would prefer a mother like Mrs. Tarleton to Ellen, but still it would be fun to romp with a mother.

Nothing more is really discussed about Mrs. Tarleton, especially not about her mothering techniques. However, it is interesting that Melanie, the sweetest, kindest, penultimate “good” character in the novel is a hybrid of both Ellen O’Hara and Mrs. Tarleton’s images of motherhood. And where exactly does that leave Scarlett…? Realistic, but how so?

These are all just first-glance impressions and ideas, all of them from a book that I wasn’t supposed to care about, that I wasn’t supposed to think about – I just wanted to be conversant about it. I will admit, though, that the horrible, thoroughly unsatisfying ending did make me feel the tiniest bit better about all those silly preconceptions I had. Now the only question is whether I can live with the pretend ending I made up in my head…or whether it will ruin my street cred to read the unauthorized sequel Scarlett that was written about ten years back.

Friday Meme: Answer me.

I can’t even remember where I first saw the link for this meme, but I haven’t done one in awhile and so I thought, oh why the heck not. So I grabbed it from SillyDreamer over here. Enjoy. And if you could send me some Stay awake!vibes, I’d appreciate it. Because duuuuuude, I’m dying over here.

1. My uncle once:  twirled me round and round at his brother’s wedding when I was little and made me bump into and kick lots of guests, who were then very cross.

2. Never in my life: have I tried an illegal substance.

3.When I was five: I knew all of the teachers and most of the kids at school and was Quite Popular.

4.High School was: the best of times, it was the worst of times.

5.I will never forget:  all of my sibs surprising me by showing up on my doorstep for my 30th bday!

6.I once met:  a boy who taught me it was okay to be smart and like to read…and still be wickedly handsome and popular.

7. There’s this girl I know who: has never told a man she loves him – and I think that’s rather liberating. And also a little wasteful.

8. Once, at a bar: I got so drunk my boyfriend had to carry me to the car because I couldn’t walk.

9. By noon, I’m usually: hitting my stride.

10. Last night: I baked four dozen cookies as therapy, which didn’t work, and talked to my Insignificant Other for four hours, which did.

11. If only I had: enough money to not stress about things.

12. Next time I go to church: I will marvel at the beauty in the architecture and wonder why I don’t go more often.

13. Terry Schiavo: is someone I’m sure I should know…

14. What worries me most: is that I will be unhappy and unable to fix it.

15. When I turn my head left, I see: pictures of my beautiful girls!.

16. When I turn my head right, I see: a phone with more buttons than should be allowed, Germ-X, two English bobbies and two magnets that read, “Smart is the new Skinny,” and “If beauty is a state of mind, then I’m a freakin’ genius.”

17. You know I’m lying when: I start laughing and ‘fess up.

18. What I miss most about the eighties: is the gobs of free time I had as a kid.

19. If I was a character in Shakespeare, I’d be: deliriously happy.

20. By this time next year:I will be prepping for a week at the Weirs with the fam!

21. A better name for me would be: _Goddess_ (fill in the blank, but be nice.)

22. I have a hard time understanding: people who can’t be sympathetic or tolerant of any sort of difference.

23. If I ever go back to school, I’ll: probably get a degree in Psychology. Or my teaching certificate. Or American Studies, focusing on small town New England history.

24. You know I like you if: I take the time to tease you.

25. If I ever won an award, the first person I’d thank would be: my mom.

26. Darwin, Mozart, Slim Pickens & Geraldine Ferraro: Oh my god, do you know how tired I am and how fuzzy my brain? I barely drove here in one piece!

27. Take my advice, never: marry young.

28. My ideal breakfast is: coffee, bacon and french toast loaded with butter and hot maple syrup.

29. A song I love, but do not own is: Michelle by the Beatles.

30. If you visit my hometown, I suggest: taking me with you.

31. Tulips, character flaws, microchips, & track stars: meh, necessary, tiny, run fast.

32. Why won’t people: just do what I say?

33.If you spend the night at my house: I’ll make you killer coffee in the morning.

34. I’d stop my wedding for: can’t tell you this one. But there is one thing.

35. The world could do without: hate and intolerance.

36. I’d rather lick the belly of a cockroach than:watch my girlies be hurt.

37. My favorite blonde is: my sister. Because even though state authorities might say she has light brown hair, THEY’RE LYING.

38: Paper clips are more useful than: ignorami who insist on giving you ill-advice even though they have no idea about your situation.

39. If I do anything well, it’s: listening.

40. And by the way: commit an act of random kindness: karma will love ya for it.