Hurricane season is over!
I actually thought it had ended months ago, but it’s always good to get the official word.

Jonathan and Victoria from The Amazing Race (aka Blue Hair and Botox) have a website.
They seem just as awful there as they do on the show. But it does have a wealth of important information. Did you know, for example, that Victoria is a playmate/pop artist? Or that Jonathan thinks it looks sexy to display a photograph of himself tearing off his own shirt?
Gah.
Hat tip to Jennifer Weiner.

Am I the only person not watching this show?
And now I don’t want to start it, because I’ve already missed half the season. Please tell me they’re going to release it on DVD . . .

I have a black leather knapsack-style purse that I always use when I travel, and every single time I put it on I think of the line from Swingers, where John Favreau says, “And I’m supposed to be all excited because she’s wearing a little knapsack.”
Every single time.

George, Sam and I spent Thanksgiving break in New Jersey, visiting my step-mom’s family (also known as the least dysfunctional family I’ve ever met . . . my uncle said, upon meeting them, “It’s like walking into a Disney movie.”). We had a great time seeing everyone, and George and I even had the rare treat of being able to spend a day in Manhattan (Note to readers: Never, ever attempt to enter FAO Schwarz on the day after Thanksgiving. You’ve been warned.).
Yesterday we had to get up at the dismally early hour of 4:30 a.m. to catch a flight back to Florida. Sam woke up cheerfully enough, and stayed awake for the hour long car ride to the airport and for the three hour flight home, much to the consternation of our airplane traveling companions (and especially the woman sitting directly in front of us, as Sam was obsessed with pulling the phone on the back of her seat down, then pushing it back up, then pulling it back down, etc, etc).
In fact — and the moms out there who have traveled with squirming tots will appreciate the cruel irony of this — Sam didn’t fall asleep until the plane touched down and was taxiing to the gate. I was tempted to wake him up — out of spite — but George talked me out of it.
We returned to the best present I have ever received . . . my mom had my house cleaned for me while I was gone. By professional cleaners. I’m sure she was trying to make a point (especially when she commented that it had taken a team of two EIGHT hours to clean the place), but I don’t care. It was heaven.

If you actually did decide to gift a loved one with a partridge in a pear tree, two turtle doves, etc, it would run you $66,334.
No, I’m not making this up.

Me: I got the cutest clothes for Sam at Target today. Cute and cheap!
George: Target’s a great store.
Me: Yeah. They had me at hello.

I’m Pride & Prejudice (but of course).

You are Pride and Prejudice (Jane Austen);
intellectually stimulating, romantic, and
sardonic. You are a brilliant love story about
how two people go through a complete change of
feelings, and about how society of the early
1800s was quite hilarious. I’m glad they found
love, because they used to hate each other. Go
say something sarcastic.

Which Book are You?

Big drama here at the homestead last night. Our pug, Maddy, whose eyesight has been deteriorating rapidly, ran off into the night.
And it was all my fault.
What kind of an idiot would let a nearly blind dog out without a leash on?
Apparently, an idiot like me.
In my (weak) defense, Maddy is more potato than she is dog. Her motto is “Why walk when you can eat?” and I normally have to drag her up and down the block for her daily vet-ordered constitutionals (she’s put on so much weight recently that she resembles a furry bowling ball on legs). Even in the days when she had perfect vision, she never ventured far away. Our routine is that several times a day we toddle outside, and I wait while she piddles, and then we toddle back in.
Up until last night, that is, when Maddy suddenly dropped her snout to the grass, and bolted off in the general direction of our next-door neighbor’s house. I dashed inside for my sneakers and a flashlight, and by the time I got back out, she’d vanished.
We sent out a search party, who combed the neighborhood for hours. But there was no pug to be found. We went to bed broken-hearted, convinced that she’d become a tasty morsel for one of the local alligators or bobcats that live in the back wood. This morning I looked for her some more, and when that proved fruitless, I papered the neighborhood with flyers, but it was without much hope. I genuinely thought she was gone forever, and I spent most of the morning in tears.
Right around lunchtime, the phone rang. The tennis pro had found Maddy waiting patiently by the door of the clubhouse when he got into work this morning and called me after he saw one of my flyers. I have no idea how she got all the way over there — it must be at least a mile away, and this is the dog who has perfected the art of loafing — but other than being a little dehydrated, she’s safe and sound.
We had a joyful reunion, involving much slobber and wet kisses, which Maddy tolerated patiently. And now the little wanderer is sacked out at my feet, snoring softly.

Which Disney Princess are you?
I’m Snow White.
“You are sweet and graceful and bring out the best in people. You have lots of friends because of your loveable and caring nature.”
Now, I’m not sure where they got that from, because the questions centered around what color hair I have, what kind of clothes I like to wear and where my ideal place to live is, but hey, I’ll take it. Sweet and graceful it is.