warning:i may nearly lose bladder control this time.

it seems that i have borrowed a CD from the library (which i highly recommend) entitled chapter one: songs inspired by literature by artists for literacy. there is a standout track by aimee mann called ghost world from, you guessed it, ghost world as well as a freaky cut from grace slick that i absolutely adore called reJoyce.

anyway, BC heard a song by ray manzarek (of all people) based on the book waiting for godot. she LOVES this song. i mean, her feet don't stop for the entire song. she looks like a cross between tommy tune and peewee herman. she calls this a “party song;” and at one point, she had BS and i dancing all around the living room.

samuel beckett would be so proud.

well, what with the IMF protests and a conference on sunday, BS stayed home with BC and me, ostensibly to get work done. instead, he spent 8 hours trying to figure out why my new PC was fecking up the entire network. oh happy day. leading me to remark:
1) i hate windows XP
2) i hate best buy
3) i want an easter egg.

okay, well maybe not really #3. just a crank.

that being said, today, a friend of mine came over today with her adorable sons, one 12 days younger than BC and one about 8 months old. duck is a friend of mine from high school; i have not seen her for nearly 20 years. and yet seeing her was like picking up where we left off. i love friends like that. she and her family live in MA but were down for a family wedding. i am so incredibly thrilled that she was able to come and visit. BC adores her new buddy Jack — and can i say what a gentle and well-mannered (and did i mention adorable?) little guy he is. and his little brother is a charmer, with wonderful eyes.

among our memories: we remembered the night we spent in the belmar police station after one of her friends decided to drink beer in front of a cop. we had all gone to see rocky horror, and afterwards, we were going to stop in a diner. her friend pulled out a beer and swigged. next thing you know it, we 16+ year olds are spending the wee hours of the evening trying to get the hell out of the beachy police station. (since my mother reads this, i would like to point out for the record: 1) i was not drinking; 2) i was not in trouble; and 3) i really could not go home until we dropped everyone off; hence why i arrived home at 6 am the next morning. i told you the truth then and now!) what times we had. yee ha.

i hope it doesn't take another 20 years to see her again.

my house is gorgeous. well, at least part of one floor of it is. you can eat off the floor, if you don't mind a healthy helping of murphy's oil soap chaser.

i, on the other hand, am exhausted. why is it two people can do this and so much more in 3 hours for $100, and i started this project at 9:45 and didn't finish up til this afternoon? i am trying to rationalize by saying that the cleaning people didn't do as thorough a job as i have done. and maybe that's true; you'd have to ask BS what he thinks.

but there is a part of my that says “shhhheeeee-it. i went through grad school for this?”

i am all set. i have the murphy's oil soap. i have a new gator mop. and, to boot, it is dark out thanks to the impending storm. so, little miss off-sense-of-humor has decided to put on a disco CD that my big brother made for me and clean the wood flooring in the house.

all i need is a mirror ball and i am all set.

one observation, though. when it was hip, i hated disco. i was one of those “disco sucks” people. over time, though, i realize that disco was certainly a big chunk of my formative years, and G-d knows how many of these songs are now being sampled. i was never keen on the song “staying alive” (i preferred “night fever” actually), but listening to the guitar riff throughout the song (and you do know what i mean unless you were born post 1977), i am actually a bit impressed. that is one seriously clever riff.

ok, enough avoidance. i am off to clean. please pray for me. or knock on wood.

Celine Dion singing “G-d Bless America” at full blast while i am on hold for the pediatrician's office. OUCH!

AOL made it onto the list of 100 best companies for working mothers by Working Mother magazine.

i can tell you from personal experience that it just ain't so.

beware of jokes you make at your child's expense. they will boomerang right back in your face 😉

when i was little, i watched a lot of the tv show The Flying Nun. hence, one day, when i was helping BC take over her t-shirt so we could get her in her jammies, a name was born. the neck on this shirt was a little tight, and when i had it around her head, it looked like a nun's habit. i started yelling, “sister bertrille, sister bertrille!” it continued – every time that happened, i yelled it and laughed.

tonight, an older, nearly butt-nekkid, (and evidently wiser) BC took her shirt off to “habit”-level, and started exclaiming “sister bertrille, sister bertrille!” as she ran down the hall.

boy, i am gonna swing for this.

yep, its official. i am scary.

i just called the 1-800 number and made an appointment to audition for the new Pyramid show starring Donny Osmond. (oooooh!) it is the same show as the old $100,000 Pyramid that i used to watch when i was home sick from school. with my luck, i won't get on the show — but who knows. i already made it onto Jeopardy! and was selected as an alternate for Who Wants to be a Millionaire (i didn't go on the latter because BC had her very first case of croup, so i declined.)

but yes, this does in fact mean i am turning into more of a freak than i was before. be afraid.

i am biting. ok, bethany, here you go. is a fellow (female?) rutgers alum. we “met” because i was randomly looking to see if anyone else thought of themselves as jersey girls. she's awfully nice, and i bet she would have been very handy the day i took my oral spanish final in college and answered my professor's spanish questions in flawless french 😉

there now. you are mentioned. 🙂 (though somehow, i think i misspelled your name. sheesh.)

you know, i used to wonder why charlie brown would continue to let lucy entice him into trying to kick the fucking football. how after years of dealing with lucy's malevolent streak, he would believe her and run up to the football, only to her her pull the damn thing away for the 40 millionth time.

i wonder no more.

every time, every single solitary time i go to best buy for something that is on sale, it is never there. never ever there. i don't buy another single thing, curse the place, and swear i will never step foot there again.

until the next time.

my computer is on the fritz, and since i work from my house, i really need a dependable pc. one that won't eat my novel, my work, etc. BS found one on sale this week at… you guessed it : Best Buy. i went to Best Buy. they moved it from where it once was to this brand-spanking-new building. i must admit, i even had SERVICE. (the crowd says: wooooo!) but, sadly, after the man there told me 6 times that he doesn't work on commission (total number of times i asked him whether he works on commission: 0), he also told me that the only store that still had a computer was in Springfield.

not to be confused with homer simpson's hometown, our springfield is a nightmarish road trip. while distance-wise, it isn't too bad (maybe 15 miles), the place is a driving nightmare. my head hurts thinking about springfield. there is a 10-year-project to fix “the mixing bowl,” the section of highway where 495 meets 395 meets disaster. 10 years. and guess where that is? springfield.

gaah. i hope better luck comes with this sunday's circular.