There is no shame in self-medicating with a Venti Mocha Frappuccino.

I’ve had a bit of a week. But don’t worry – I’m laughing. Okay, yes, the laughter is maybe laced with a little hysteria, and I might be teetering on the razor thin edge of sanity – but, meh. It’s still laughter. That, my friends, is a minor miracle.

Let’s review, shall we?

Last Thursday I bailed early from work because I had been deaf in my left ear for two days and was in a bit of pain. Not enough pain to make me think it was Swimmer’s Ear, but enough to speed dial the doctor and demand sanctuary. Diagnosis: ear infection. Only the third ear infection I’ve had in my entire life. Hunh.

The weekend spared me from too many other catastrophes. We were saved from The Rapture. We went picnicking and swimming at a local state park. The girls and I went to several furniture stores (and they – the girls, not the stores – mostly didn’t make me cry). I found a few bunkbeds I liked, but unless I was willing to empty my bank account, my escrow, and throw in my house AND the children, I couldn’t take any of them home with me. But I did see a nice grown-up chair at one of the stores that I could use to replace the glider/rocker I have in the living room.

Monday! Monday my antibiotics started working – for me and against me, you might say. I could hear! It was a Monday miracle! But my tummy (and…um…other parts) weren’t quite thrilled with my “miracle” drugs. Oomph.

But I rallied! Tuesday I was thrown a massive curve ball at ThePlaceThatShallNotBeNamed that will impact oh only my whole life many big, big things and I’m still trying to figure out how to field it. But that’s okay because then I was distracted by all the tornadoes. Tornadoes to the left of me, tornadoes to the right… So that kinda sucked. But! Hey! No one was hurt and the house was all in one piece! My fence is leaning rather precariously and so any day now my back yard will be invaded by horses, but meh. We were all fine! Huzzah!

And then I woke up on Wednesday to discover my jeepy jeepy had thrown another uppity-down motor. So I rearranged my morning and took more time off work to my local mechanic while I tried to remember if I had made fun of Jesus or the fates or anything at all in the universe lately. Nothing came to mind that was any worse than my usual irreverence, but I’m still compiling lists because I certainly had pissed someone off who has a little pull. Later that day, the mechanic called to say they had run a 32-point inspection and yet somehow found well over 32 things wrong with my car. Then they asked for 1306 of my dollars and I laughed and said I would like that many, too. We compromised on fixing the window and all things brakes-related (hey, those seem kinda important) for $900.

Meanwhile, the nice saleslady from one of the furniture joints had called me and told me they were having a 50% off pre-Memorial Day sale. I know I am not that bright with the maths, but that seems like a big number. So I broke my rule guideline of not running errands on school nights and dragged the kids to the furniture store. I still didn’t like any of the bunkbeds (the ladders all stick out at an angle and have round rungs as opposed to flat slats – my kids’ are accident prone enough without the extra help, thanks), even at half off I couldn’t talk myself into buying one. But I did get my chair. My nice, comfy, chocolate brown, corduroy recliner. I may have decided to name him MMmmmmm because not once did I sit in him and not melt into a puddle of Relaxed.

Anywho…I was all happy for getting that bad boy for $300 all told, but I still had a bit of buyer’s remorse all the way home. I mean, it was a want, not a need; and $300 is a lot to spend on myself; and I still hadn’t even bought bunkbeds! I was still yelling at myself in my head when we got home and I went to take out the mini-pizzas from the chest freezer in the garage. I noticed that a giant icicle was sitting on top of the food and thought how prettttty it looked. Sparkly and perfect and shiny and stuff. And then I noticed that all of the built-up ice on the freezer lid had melted. Nice! I wouldn’t have to clean it. And then it clicked – you clean freezers by shutting them off. Yep – the freezer was definitely off. But there was still an icicle! It couldn’t have been off for long! I reset the breaker, the freezer came back on (thank god), and then I started checking items. Ice cream – melted. Pizzas – floppy. Kids Cuisine (no judging) – gross. Popsicles - goo-sicles. Meat (cringing)…frozen! Huzzah! So all of the meat and the roasts and everything else was still okay. If I hadn’t gone to the furniture store to buy my chair and look one last time, I would have cooked a “real” dinner for the girls and never gone into that freezer. I never would have noticed it was off or fixed it. And I would have lost way more than $300 worth of food. So either way I was out $300, but this way I get a brand new shiny chair! Win! (Finally!)

Fresh from my victory, I decided to run outside and check out the back of the house. None of my other shingles had come off, but I hadn’t checked the back yet. It was twilight, though, and I am prime meat when it comes to mosquito feasting… whatevs, I could deal with a bite or two. I ran outside, did a little dance when I saw the roof was chock full o’ shingles, and started to come back inside…when I saw the billions of sugar ants marching into the gap between the bricks and the doorframe. Great. I grabbed the hornet killer and doused the doorframe, making a note to haul out the atomic ant goo this weekend. Still – only outside for 30 seconds, a minute tops. And a minute later I realized I had 11 mosquito bites on my legs. Sigh. So much for liking Wednesday again.

I was pulling hard for Friday. Silly me. Thursday hadn’t even started messing with me yet. (Why do I even bother with the optimism some weeks?) Thursday I was supposed to go to my dentist’s to get my $1400 bite plate. Yes, I fell over and died when I heard how much it was, too, but my dentist (whom I adore) assured me it would save me from an even more ridiculously priced jaw surgery a few years down the road when my jaw and teeth splinter into millions of pieces. It was only supposed to be a ten minute appointment, so I took Bee with me. She needed to have blood drawn to figure out the cause behind her everlasting hives and the lab, conveniently, was one block over from Dr. Dentist’s place. Fine. Except when we walked into the dentist’s, the assistant had That Look on her face. She started apologizing up and down – the office had been closed the day before because they still were without electricity after the tornadoes and so FedEx hadn’t delivered the bite plate that was expected. She thought it would be in the First A.M. delivery that morning, but when it didn’t show up it had been too late to catch me before I left. Sadcakes and a little annoying, but nothing compared to the rest of my week. See? Perspective! I gave her my cell and left to get Bee’s labs done.

We walked into the lab and saw about four people sitting there already. No one greeted us at the office window. We signed in and waited. And waited. And waited. No one appeared or called anyone back or did anything for 40 minutes. What great customer service. I know they were without power on Wednesday, too, and were dealing with some backlogs, but come on. At least talk to the patients and let them know how long the wait is or acknowledge them in some way! An hour later, we walked out…and found a voice mail from my dentist on my cell. I hoped it was news that my bite plate had shown up – I could just zip right over! But they just wanted to reschedule. Or so the first lady said. Then the assistant I usually deal with took the phone away and asked if we were still nearby. Yes, we were still in the parking lot. “Um…FedEx lost your bite plate. And the place we use doesn’t keep the impressions. So we sort of have to start all over. I’ll take care of you right now if you can come back?” I couldn’t help laughing. Sort of. But I think that’s when the hysteria really started hitting me.

But wait! There’s more! Because! At lunch! the school nurse called! Gracie had fallen at recess and had a seven inch gash below her knee! And might need stitches! HAHAHAHAHAHHAHA! Actually, what the nurse said when I asked if Gracie needed stitches was, “I don’t think so.” Doesn’t that give you confidence and warm fuzzies? No? Me. either.  Long story even longer, the nurse said if Gracie bled through the bandages, she would call me to come get her. (Really, it was filled with more indecision and flip-flopping on her part and revoking of end-of-year gifts on my part. Except not my part out loud.) It was the girls’ night with dad, too, so I didn’t even see the war wound until late last night. Gracie’s dad had covered it with mounds of gauze and tape and I felt a little bad about dismantling it until he mentioned they had dressed it with neosporin. THAT SHE’S ALLERGIC TO. Then I didn’t feel bad at all about ripping it off. And you know what? It was a FRICKIN SCRAPE. A shallow scratch. Not even a slice that could have maybe been deep. I don’t think it even bled real blood!

And that, my dears, is why I am self-medicating with Starbucks. A trip to Half-Price Books to partake in their huge sale this afternoon. And maybe, depending on how many more crises I deal with today, Panera’s for lunch.  If you love me, you will send tequila.

When it rains, it pours (and hails, and tornadoes).

I learned something new about tornado alley last night – like, apparently it runs right behind my house.  Here are some other things I learned last night, by the numbers style (see first item):

Hours of sleep I got last night: 6

Number of tornadoes we had at my house: 4

Number of times the sirens went off: 8

Times I saw the kiddie pool fly by my window: 3

Sizes of hail I saw: 6 (pea, marble, quarter, half-dollar, golf ball and, yes, baseball)

Number of times I screamed: 1 (When a hailstone roughly the size of a frickin cat hit my bedroom window)

Windows actually broken: 0 Thank. god.

Number of tornadoes I saw out my window: 1 (Kim: Why aren’t you in the closet?! Me: It’s moving east! Kim: Which way is east?! Me: Away! Away from us!)

Hours Kim (and Rhi, by proxy) spent on the phone with me: 3  She’s the best, yo.

Number of times I heard my street on the news: 6

Because there was a tornado directly overhead: 2

That was confirmed by spotters: 1

Number of times Fox broke out of Idol coverage to tell us we were going to die: 0  I am. not. amused.

Hours girls spent in the closet: 2ish

Number of cheesesticks provided: 2 each, also 2 Mini Bell cheese wheels, and an entire bag of goldfish crackers.

Number of times I yelled at the girls to stop messing with the flashlights or the batteries wouldn’t work: 10,938

Times Bee asked if skeletons were going to come in the house: 1  (Uh…esplain, Lucy.)

Number of times I thought I heard the weather guy say “nipple-sized” instead of “nickel-sized” hail: 1  (But really, how can you un-hear something like that?! Almost worth the whole experience.)

Minutes I was late to work this morning because my car window broke: 20.  The uppity-down motor for the window went out, unrelated to storm damage.

Dollars that will likely cost: $400.

Amount I really care about it right now: 0

Because I am alive, the girls are okay and the house is undamaged….although we have no cheese.

Growing up on her own time.

There are times that I worry that my Bee-baby is…a little milktoast. Not that the child isn’t stubborn, because goodlord she is! But I just haven’t seen with Bee the same flair for independence that her sister has always had in abundance. I try to just brush it off and let Bee be who she is and not who anyone else is. Most of the time that’s where it ends. Other times – like last night – I don’t have any worries at all.

I think she was confused because when I picked the children up, I told them their dad and I had “switched.” Now, I’m pretty sure I said immediately afterwards that I would have the girls for dinner on Dad’s nights (Monday and Wednesday) and he would have them on my nights (Tuesday and Thursday). See? Switched. Unfortunately, sometimes little children turn their ears off and fill in their own explanation. And Bee’s explanation of “switched” was that the girls were having dinner at our house and spending the night with their dad. Except, no. No they were not.

When Bee found out she was a trifle upset (if trifle means so upset her head almost popped off).

Me: I’m sorry, you’re not going to Dad’s tonight. You’re sleeping here.
Bee: No. I’m not.
Me (slightly celebrating inside the independence, but mostly cringing at the No-ness of it all): I’m sorry. Put your pajamas on.
Bee: Well, I’m just gonna walk to Dad’s house.
Me: I would be sad if you left.

I walked out of the room at that point because, really, children shouldn’t see that you’re happy they’re rebelling. It’s kind of negative training. But Bee wasn’t done. Nope, she had one more thing to say to my retreating back:

Bee: Whatever, Mom. You’d still have Gracie. That is one child, Mom.

See? Showing off her logic and her math skills all at once. She wasn’t bitter, she was just problem-solving. She could go to dad’s and have her own way, and I couldn’t be sad because, clearly, I wouldn’t be alone.

Yep. She might be taking her own sweet time growing up, but she’s gonna get there. Just as soon as she makes up her mind she wants to.

How to spend an enraptured Saturday here on Earth.

Huh. Turns out, we’re still here. (So far, at least.)

And since we couldn’t spend Mother’s Day enjoying our planned picnic, Step-mom and I spent this afternoon picnicking with our girls. It only seemed right, since we had to make our own heaven on earth, and all.

Step-mom wanted to get some pics of the girls in old-timey dresses out at an old-fashioned farm. Since it happened to also be on one of the many lake we have in the region, we bribed the girls: do a good job taking millions of pictures in the humidity and we’ll let you splash in the lake if it doesn’t storm on our heads.

The girls did great, considering it was 93° and so humid you could barely see the horizon. We adventured through wrong turns and sweet-talked our way past a cranky cop who is no judge of how fast a car can travel around tight, hilly curves. Then we changed the girls into their costumes, rigged Gracie’s dress into (mostly) staying put together, and traipsed about a mile and 2,000 pics through Old-Fashioned Farm. We even survived some nasty looking storm clouds that were nice enough to barely sprinkle on us. We ate our picnic and all took turns supervising the girls as they splashed, swam, and twirled their way through the shallows.

It was a rather fabulous way to start the summer, even if I do say so myself.

There were words coming out of his mouth, but I’m not sure what they were.

Just before everyone at Casa de Katie started doing the Happy Dance of Joy over one of our own being declared officially Wicked Smaht, Bee and I had gone on a small adventure to the Hivey Doctor to see what could be done. Because after two months of never-ending hivies, Bee’s pediatrician thought we should call in the Big Suits. So an appointment was made at the specialists’ office 45 minutes away and all was good.

And then Bee’s new specialist walked into the room and things were even better, because great googley moogley he was hott! I mean….just hott!

He drilled me about Bee’s history, our family history, the symptoms, the timing of the hives; he asked about Bee’s environment, whether anything had recently changed – all the questions one would expect when trying to rule out the obvious (and not so obvious). There was a short exam of Miss Bee (during which I unfortunately spotted a ring. Sadcakes) and then there were more questions. I hope I answered them all correctly; I’m quite sure I was paying attention to Dr. Allergist, but I’m not quite sure I was speaking proper English by that point.

After stepping out a second time, Bee started growing impatient. We had been at the office filling out forms, waiting in the waiting room, waiting in the patient room, and answering questions for almost an hour and a half. I was all Dude, what’s your rush?!, but apparently Bee wasn’t digging the whole experience quite the same way mama was. Finally, Dr. Allergist came back and said he thought that Bee’s hivey-diveyness was just some sort of weird anomaly that would be gone in a few months, hopefully. (Yeah, did you catch that “hopefully” too?) In the meantime, though, he wanted to send her for some labs and schedule a follow-up. The labs will check for allergies and also some weirdo 1-in-a-million diseases that sometimes present with hives, just to be sure. Dr. Allergist also approved doubling her allergy medication so she wouldn’t have the infrequent nighttime hives that Bee sometimes gets on her face and arms.

So, our NeverEnding Adventures in HiveyLand keeps on continuing. I feel like every time I get closer to the Candy Palace at the end of the board, I draw a Lollipop Fuzzy and get sent back to the beginning. But hey, with such good eye candy along the way, who am I to complain?!

If I had known it was a bill for Awesomeness, I wouldn’t have freaked.

Yesterday I posted about nearly fainting after opening a $20,000 hospital bill. Funtimes. But, had I known that my return would be nearly $20,000 of awesome later, I wouldn’t have been half as hysterical. Or at least not hysterical in the “Mom are you okay?” sense.

Gracie had some pretty kickass news when I picked her up last night. She met me at the door of her classroom and the way her face – her entire body – was lit up, I guessed (in my head) what she was going to say: she had been accepted into “the smart people program” at school next year. Those are Gracie’s words. I love the real name even better: The Gifted and Talented Program, for we can call it the G&T for short. Who doesn’t need more G & Ts? Exactly.

It’s very incredibly rare that I see Gracie that excited. If she’s Very Excited about something, she’ll chatter. Well, she’ll chatter more than usual. She’ll wake up early, full of excitement. She’ll be nicer than usual to her sister and her mama. She might even say, “Yay!” from time to time. Last night she was lit up, visibly bouncing on her toes, and I’m pretty sure she actually shrieked with excitement when I did a little happy dance right there in the hallway. I am over the moon proud of that kid. That moment is one of the ones I’ll remember for her entire life. I love when you can appreciate those unexpected moments as they’re happening.

I know there will be times over the course of the year when Little Miss I Know What 12×12 Is wonders what she’s gotten herself into. There will be a ton of homework, I’m sure, and while my daughter is clever and brilliant, she is also rather l-a-z-y. I can just hear myself threatening to send her back to “regular” 2nd grade if she can’t be bothered to put in the time and effort. But I think the stretching and the testing of her patience will be good for her. It will be good for her to learn that she can’t coast her way through her education. I think 2nd grade is a much safer time to learn that than when she’s thrown in with all the other super-smart kids in college and hasn’t learned how to study. Not that her mama knows anything about that. Ahem.

Yes, there was much celebrating at Casa de Katie last night. Gracie has been rewarded with iPod privileges at bedtime every night instead of having to read her chapters to earn iPod time. We’re going out to dinner on Friday to celebrate. And there just might be a little monetary reward. Hey – I have absolutely no problem teaching my children that doing well in school and busting your butt equals a monetary payoff. How do you think the real world works, with scholarships, school placement, job placement, bonuses and paychecks?

The bit about being awesome and wicked smart? That’s just the icing on the cake.

A rather convincing argument for never opening your mail.

Excuse the crappy quality. I used my cell phone. And I think my hand was shaking. From the laughter. Ahem.

 And then I fell over dead. From laughter. Or, um, shock.

Gracie looked at it and asked why I was laughing. Then she said we could have a garage sale. And that I could have all her money.

I gave her a kiss on the head and told her not to worry about it for a minute.

(That’s what grown-ups are for.)

Horses, of courses.

I may not have many doors and walls in my house, but one of the things I do love about this little house of mine is that we have the great fortune to live along a farm road right smack dab in the middle of the city. Seriously, you get off a major highway, hang a left before the crappy neighborhood, go past the giant bible church, and all of a sudden you’re winding down a bumpy, twisty farm road surrounded by fields, trees, horse farms, a radio-controlled miniature plane club (no lie), more fields and – randomly – there’s our subdivision. If you go past our sub-division, you’ll see some more fields and horse farms, a bunch of creeks, a bridge over one of the creeks that’s barely wide enough for one car (even though those silly city-planners have it zoned for two-way traffic), horses, llamas alpacas, cows, peacocks, goats, a very sketchy looking river-bottom bar, more woods, more horses, and then bam! a trailer park, a shopping district and another major highway. Really, I love having both the quiet of almost living in the country AND the easy access to the rest of civilization.

Our yard even backs onto one of these many fields. When we first built our house, the owner of the shabby little house that presides over the fields had about a hundred head of cattle and one pitiful looking brown horse. Really – the horse was pitiful. I used to wonder every morning if we’d still see the horse, or if it would have moved on to the great green pasture in the sky – it was that old and sorry-looking. But every morning the horse was still there and eventually Gracie joined our little family and she learned to look for the horse, too.

A hundred times a day, Gracie would demand “Up! Up!” so she could find the horse. No wonder my back muscles used to always be so sore. “Neigh!” she would declare. Most two-year-olds are supposed to be able to speak a couple dozen words. Maybe 100 if they’re quite brilliant. I think Gracie could say close to 1,000 words. (I have a list of them somewhere because that was back when I both had time and was even more neurotic than I am now.) But no matter how brilliant my daughter was, she stubbornly refused to say “horse.” “Neigh?” she would ask with her arms outstretched. “HORSE,” I would intone as I picked her up.  “Say it – “H-h-h-horse.” “N-n-n-neigh!” Yes, wickedly stubborn was my child.

And then all of a sudden, one day the horse was gone. I don’t know if the owner sold the horse like he had long since done with the cattle, or if the owner sold his house because it did look even more neglected (if that’s possible) after that. For five years, all of that land has gone to waste. I’ve worried that they would sell it for housing lots, for natural gas drilling, for apartments. For five years, it’s been a quiet field. The place I stare at out the back door while I’m trying to catch my thoughts or ignore the children.

And then, one day a few weeks ago…there were horses. Three pintos. Beautiful. Young. Frisky little things that chase each other and jump and dance. Gracie doesn’t remember “her” old horse, but I enjoy having a distraction again. “Go see what the horse(s) is are doing,” has again become something that flies out of my mouth when I need some peace and quiet or when I need to distract someone from a meltdown. I like the company. I like having someone enjoy my field again.

I like that at least one little thing in my life at least LOOKS peaceful.

Separate spaces make happy families.

You know what I miss? Doors. Rooms. Walls. Areas of space that can be opened up and closed off. If good fences make good neighbors, then it’s the walls and the doors – the possibility of your own space – that makes for happy families.

Don’t get me wrong – there are many things I love about my house. (Like, for instance, the very fact that I have one.) I love the size of the master bedroom and the master bathroom suite. My yard is a great size for being in the city. And the living room is a very generous size, even with the massive fireplace. But what I don’t love is how open everything is. The kitchen is separated from the living room by a very skinny bar over the sink. The bar is about as wide as a dinner dish, maybe about 4 feet off the floor, and isn’t even long enough on the living room side for me to back a love seat against the “wall.” The living room and kitchen and dining area is all verrrrry open, is my point.

The open floorplan is great for parties. I’ve hosted a few showers for work and being able to mingle between the food area and the seating area was nice. I enjoy being able to clean the kitchen and still feel a part of movie nights on Fridays. And when football’s on, I don’t feel bad making the kids eat dinner at the table because everyone can still see the game. So there are advantages.

Of course, when the girls have playdates, that means I have very few places to hide. The toys are mostly kept in the front room (which also serves as the computer room). But because the front room is tiny (6×10, I think), the actual playing usually spills into the living room. Which is fine; I’m glad the girls have space to play. But unless I go to my bedroom, there’s no way to close off the noise.

I was watching Jurassic Park the other night while I was working on a few projects and I rememberedwhen I was a kid, seeing it for the first time. We never went to the movies when I was little – my parents couldn’t afford it and seeing a movie right when it came out was never their thing. Later, my high school friends and I became movie theater junkies, but this was just before all that, this was one we had rented. I remember it was night, the shades were drawn and it was pitch black in the living room. My brother, Kim, and I (and maybe even my dad?) were all piled into the tiny room, on the couch and some of us sitting on the floor. And what I remembered most was that my mom had closed the two doors to the two front rooms (that were connected) because we were screaming so loud. Mom was in the kitchen doing her thing, and we were in the front part of the house doing ours.

I miss that. I miss the contentment that arises from being one part of a bigger whole; going off and then coming back again. It’s not just a mom-wanting-her-own-peace thing, because I enjoyed it even then. I’m probably a little nuts, but that’s the first thing I’d do with my lottery money: build out a wall (with good noise insulation!) between the living room and kitchen areas, or add a three-season porch to the back of the house, or extend the front room so it was flush with the garage, making it a much more functional, separate space.

Today it’s just incessant chatter and in-your-face playdates….tomorrow it will be teenagers with their teenagery music and on-the-phone-til-dawn conversations that I can hear through the walls. Yep, we might all survive with far fewer scars if I start thinking about doors and walls now instead of later.

There was something about a survey…

First of all, I think it is hilarious that I am even trying to write a post for you. It’s Friday, ThePlaceThatShallNotBeNamed has been invaded by important peoples running amok all week so I am just Frazzled, my friends dragged me out last night to make me have fun damnit(!), and…let’s just say I’m still feelin’ the fun, mkay? I’m still feelin’ the fun and I just heard people who don’t exist at the place I’m not at yell from the next room over that they have a few hoops for me to jump through with a very short deadline. You know – at this place that doesn’t exist.

Oh! And hey! My coffeepot broke this morning (mayhap because someone forgot to clean it this week), and so I had to unclog steaming hot grounds from all the stickity-stuck places, re-brew the coffee, and we all got out the door 15 minutes late. And now my coffee still tastes suspiciously weak.

But! Before all of that! I was going to tell you about this survey that one of my Altos forwarded around that tells you what kind of American you speak. (Here: Go take it.)  It was a fun five-minute diversion for me yesterday…right up until the part where it told me I wasn’t really a Yankee. Then I flipped it the finger and told it to go screw itself. Okay, not really. (I did glare at it, though. Very hard. There might have even been death rays shooting out of my eyes.)

Apparently, I speak 50% General American English, 35% Yankee, 10% Upper Midwestern, 5% Dixie, and 0% Midwestern.  And while I’m in a way not so surprised – my Yankeeisms weren’t that pronounced even when I was living at home – a very big part of me takes issue with the survey itself. I mean – how am I supposed to test Yankee if you don’t give the right answers? Question #6 asks what you drink out of, but only lets you choose between a drinking fountain and a water fountain when the answer is CLEARLY the bubblah bubbler. [I gave someone directions in our building once by telling him to take a left at the bubbler, then stopped and corrected myself. Another guy who was standing in the area stopped mid-sentence, turned around, and asked where I was from. Turns out, he grew up 30 minutes from where I lived.] There is also a glaring lack of questions about what type of sandwiches you eat: hoagies, subs, grinders, or…um…whatever the heck other people call them. (The right answer here is grinder, ftw.) My sister wanted them to throw ‘tonic’ in as an answer to what you call sweetened, carbonated beverages. And, well, then we got sidetracked with a delightful debate over whether jimmies vs. sprinkles depended on coloring, flavor, and shape. (It doesn’t. They are always jimmies, yo.)

But the real point here is that it’s Friday. You probably need a five-minute distraction to help you through your day. Take the survey and tell me what else they missed. Pointers on how I can be a better Yankee earns you extra points. Annnnd GO!