I Crack Myself Up
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| THE MASTER OF HER DOMAIN |
Right Brain, Left Brain, or No Brain
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| FUNNY GIRL |
Avalon, like you, loves to laugh and laugh loud and long. When she was a small child and had just started going on playdates, you began educating her about the possibility of having to deal with perverts. You were sitting out in the yard with your mother, Avalon, and your husband, Doug, talking about what you'd been teaching Avalon. You said that you had told Avalon that certain perverted freaks might try to touch her vagina and that she should not let them. There was much more to this education process that you will not go into at this time. (When talking to your children, you had nicknamed the vagina a "giney," until you read somewhere that it was important to call the genitals by their correct names when educating children about sex.) Avalon was listening intently to your conversation, holding a stick in her small hands. She was unbelievably cute with her red hair, big brown eyes, and fat little cheeks; she was probably about four years old. You turned to Avalon and asked, "No one has ever tried to touch your giney have they?" She thought for a minute, and then pointing the the stick at you, she said emphatically, "You! You tried to touch my giney!" Okay. You are her mother and touched her vagina while bathing her and changing her diaper when she was a baby, but...never inappropriately, not that you have to explain yourself because SHE WAS JOKING. Everyone burst out laughing, of course, at one of Avalon's first attempts to make people laugh. She had to be creative and quick to come up with this. Enough said. This was just the beginning. The girl is a hoot, for sure. Not only does she love to laugh, but she also loves to make people laugh.
Point of View
You recently read that many bloggers are writing in the 2nd person point of view, so you are trying that out. Your started writing for a website called Constant Content, where you are not allowed to submit articles written in first person, so this way you can practice. You once wrote a short story called "Various" in 2nd person. You will try to think of a way to put it on a website so that you can make that title a link to the story, in case anyone would like to read it.
College Tour
Where should you begin? It's been a crazy couple of weeks. Three weeks ago you went on a tour of the University of Maryland with your daughter Alaina and your husband Doug (this 2nd person thing is getting a bit weird, now, isn't it?). It was lovely and lovely Alaina loved it. Some kind of Greek life parade weaved its way through the campus while you were visiting, and this turned your stomach because you dislike joiners, followers, and cliques, or anything that smacks of cliqueyness. As Groucho Marx once said, "I don’t care to belong to any club that will have me as a member." You'd read that College Park--the city that University of Maryland is in--was not so great, but it really wasn't too bad. Alaina is also very interested in the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, which is a beautiful college. Chapel Hill and the surrounding cities are loaded with good schools, and the area is quite progressive, definitely more so (moreso would be incorrect) than where you are living now in Pennsylvania. University of Maryland has its very own dairy in the visitor center of the school, with the most kick-ass pumpkin ice cream you've ever had: dense, cold, creamy, pumpkiny, yumminess. The school is only about 20-30 minutes away from Washington, DC, which is a beautiful city, rich in culture. You love DC, as much as NYC.
The Food Weekend
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| ALAINA AT THE NATIONAL SCULPTURE GARDEN |
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| CAIPIRINHA photo courtesy of Wikipedia |
You drove into Georgetown to have dinner, but you weren't hungry yet, so luckily you had some time to kill before your reservation at Miss Saigon, a Vietnamese restaurant that you like. You walked down the street; it was starting to get chilly. You love to people watch; there were so many interesting faces. Everyone seemed happy to be out and about. You stopped at a tapas restaurant and had a caipirinha, the Brazilian national cocktail made from lime, cachaca, sugar, and ice. Then you had a hibiscus margarita. Your husband was upset about the price of the drinks. (Paying for college for one daughter is killing your budget; with another one going off to college in two years, things are going to get really tough. Hopefully your novels will sell.) Dinner at Miss Saigon was not as good this time. You ordered your favorite dish, the Golden Crepe, which is the national dish of Vietnam. It's a large eggy crepe filled with bean sprouts and shrimp. They serve it with basil leaves and some kind of dipping sauce. You are supposed to cut off pieces of the crepe, wrap them in basil leaves, and dip them in the sauce. You also ordered some Vietnamese eggrolls and squid papaya salad. Everything was good, but not great. Maybe it was because you were still full from breakfast. Afterward you stop at a cupcake shop called Sprinkles. Like you need more food. You cannot get all these foods at home, so you overindulge because you can. The line at Georgetown Cupcake is too long. You are crazy about cupcakes. You order a strawberry cupcake. It is so good, unbelievably good, sublime. You like the frosting better than Georgetown Cupcake's frosting, but you like the cake better at Georgetown Cupcakes.
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Pablito's Restaurant
The next morning you pick up Avalon and Alaina, after stopping at the Starbucks in your hotel for a grande cafe latte--non-fat, of course. You try to talk your family into going to your favorite Indian buffet for brunch, Minerva, but no one is into it. It is the best Indian buffet, and you know your Indian food. The place is always packed with Indian people, which is a good sign. Indian food is too heavy, your husband claims, to be sitting in your stomach on a 3-hour car ride home. So you go to Pablito's, a Cuban, Salvadoran joint that has the best food in the world. Your husband says it's on his list of the top 5 best restaurants. It's just a little strip mall place, with absolutely no atmosphere. It's clean and well-lit. Lots of Hispanic people come in to get eat while you are there, which is a good sign. There are only two women working behind the counter, so it takes a while to get your food. But it's worth the wait (You will begin a sentence with "But" or "And" any damn time you please. It's perfectly acceptable in informal writing). While you were waiting you went next door to a Latin market that was chock full of wonderful Latin foods; you spy a guava pastry in the little bakery area they have inside the store. You love guava, so you buy several. You save it for after your incredibly delicious brunch of yuca fries, chicken empanadas, pupusas, fried plantains, cafe Cubano, and Cuban sandwiches. The guava pastry is so incredibly good, so flaky, buttery, and filled with sweet guava, that it will be on your list of desert island foods (If you were stranded on a desert island and could only eat one food, what would it be?) Wikipedia says this about pupusas: A pupusa (from Pipil pupusaw) is a traditional Salvadoran dish made of thick, hand-made corn tortilla (made using masa de maíz, a maize flour dough used in Latin American cuisine) that is usually filled with a blend of the following: cheese (queso) (usually a soft cheese called Quesillo found in all Central America), cooked pork meat ground to a paste consistency (called chicharrón, not to be confused with fried pork rind, which is also known as chicharrón in some other countries), refried beans (frijoles refritos), or queso con loroco (loroco is a vine flower bud from Central America). The two most common pupusas are the pupusa de queso (cheese) and more popular pupusa revuelta with mixed ingredients of queso (cheese), frijoles (beans),[1] and chicharrón. Pupusas are typically served with curtido (lightly fermented cabbage slaw with red chilies and vinegar) and a watery tomato salsa.
About college: College is ridiculously expensive in this country. Someone suggested you move to another country, maybe England, and send your daughters to college there, but that's not feasible. You had saved to send your girls to college, but then the economy came crashing down around you. Not everyone wants or needs to go to college; some people do very well in life without it. Some people criticize you for paying so much money for your girls' educations, but you don't care. You brought them into this world, and you want them to have an education. It's a choice that you are making; hopefully it will be a choice you can continue to make.
Inspector 9
Maybe you should get your old band back together, Inspector 9, and tour the country. What a wild ride that would be!
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| BUY THIS NOW SAYS THE LITTLE VOICE INSIDE YOUR HEAD |
