True Love (and Other Lies) is going to be published in Russian!

Mom: What are you going to name your third book?
Me: The working title is She, Myself and I.
Mom: Oh really. And just when were you going to get around to telling me? Am I the last one to know?
Me: Mom. It’s been posted on my website since January.
Mom:
Me: You don’t actually ever look at my website, do you.
Mom: Well . . . no.

I was lying in bed, reading, when I heard what sounded like my husband screaming in the driveway.
“ARGHHHHHH!”
The front door opened, and George came sprinting into the bedroom.
“Do I have any frogs on me?” he asked, turning one way and then the other.
“Um, no.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes. There are no frogs on you.”
“They were attacking me,” he explained.
“I don’t normally think of frogs as being particularly aggressive.”
“They were jumping on me from all different directions. One landed on my shoulder, and another on my back, and they were clinging to me. It was disgusting. Hey . . . stop laughing! It’s not funny!”
Well. It is a little funny.

Mom: “I have a funny story for you to put in your book.”
She tells me the funny story.
Me: “Ha!”
Mom: “So are you going to put it in your book?”
Me: “Well . . . no. I don’t really have any where to put it.”
Mom: “What do you mean? Just find a scene where you have some room, and stick it in there.”
Me: “Stick it in? But it has nothing to do with my story.”
Mom: “That doesn’t matter. It’s funny!”
Me: “Yes . . . but . . .”

Blueberries in = blueberries out.
And they stain on both ends.

Sam has a new word!
Zee.
Which actually means “tree,” I’m assuming, since he points at a tree when he says it (George has mentioned that Sam also sometimes points to a lamp or the dog when he says, “Zee,” but I don’t think such comments are helpful).

Tonight’s parenting lesson:
He who poops in the tub bathes alone.
George’s commentary: Don’t talk to me. This is disgusting. I’m going to throw up.
Sam’s commentary: Oo-Gah!

The Scene: Lunch with old family friends who have known me since birth.
Whitney, how’s your work going?
Me: “Great. My new book is coming out at the end of August, and I’m about 3/4 of the way through my third book.”
Are you going to stick to writing nonfiction, or do you think that some day you might write a novel?
Me: “What do you mean? I only write fiction.”
I thought Pushing 30 was your memoirs on what it was like to turn 30?
Me: “No. It was a novel. Wait . . . you didn’t read it, did you?”
An uncomfortable silence.
No one ever sent me a copy.

George’s new nickname for Sam: Short Round.
Me: “Why?”
George: “Because he’s short and he’s round.”
Oh.

The house we’re renting is located on a golf course, and about thirty feet behind the house there’s a water hazard, where, I’ve recently learned, lives an alligator. I have to say this freaks me out a little. After all, isn’t an alligator basically a dinosaur? And a vicious man eating predator, at that?

It’s especially scary when our pug, Maddy (aka Gator Bait), makes a break for it, and races out the door as she did this morning. In the past when she’s done this, I usually just start singing Born Free, which Maddy finds insulting. But in light of the alligator situation, I felt obligated to chase her down this morning.

George and I have even discussed what to do if the alligator does come charging out of the water after her, with the intention of having a doggy Hors d’oeuvre.

“Don’t tangle with the alligator, no matter what,” I advised him.

“What if it’s a small alligator? If it’s only a few feet long, I think I could take it,” George said.

Sometimes I feel like we’re living in the middle of a Carl Hiaasen novel.