Potatoes in the Mist

So we are in Disney World. My mother and I got a bit of a shock on the Pirates of the Caribbean. We both thought it would be a ride where you sat in a boat and "watched stuff." But at one point the lights dimmed and our boat plunged down a steep slope! It was a kind of Space Mountain, roller-coaster-in-the-dark experience - just for a few minutes. I grabbed my mom's arm and yelled and she seized Zoe's hand (on her other side). Zoe stayed admirably calm. There was a baby behind us in the boat who had been shrieking the whole time and he was shocked into silence. At the end of the ride, he was grinning as if he had never been upset in the first place.

Merry Christmas!

No one was teething or vomiting last night! I got a decent night's sleep. Merry Christmas :)

***Don't read if you're squeamish*** A couple of nights ago, Zoe puked all night...then the virus traveled efficiently to Eric and both kids were vomiting...then I lost my lunch today (an unkind reminder of pregnancy with Zoe, when I basically threw up nonstop for the first few months. The fastest food to come up during that time was yogurt. D has been spared...so far. The puking, by some kind of Proustian association, reminded me of a trip to DC years ago when 2 of us were likewise struck by a virus. I remember my friend saying, "It's the loneliest feeling, throwing up in the middle of the night." She was right - it is a lonely feeling even if two other people are throwing up with you. So I waxed nostalgic for the time my friend and her boyfriend lived in DC (they are now married and live in Ann Arbor). I like DC - it is big enough to be interesting, small enough to be welcoming. Our friend A also came with us. He now lives in NJ and we don't see him ve...

A friend of mine is on Match.com. (Well, she used to be my babysitter, but that is neither here nor there.) Anyway, she noticed that everyone's profile was a list of (probably fictitious) virtues: I run 10 miles a day, read the New York Review of Books, have won the Nobel Prize, etc. So she decided to list 27 of her shortcomings, including her overuse of the Oxford comma. She used to get a trickle of responses every day; she woke up to a flood. She's afraid the men will start climbing in through her air conditioning ducts. I thought this was an interesting comment on human nature. Do flaws make people more likable? Or was everyone just tired of perfect profiles?

I saw Kinky Boots on Broadway today - a really neat, fun show about a shoe factory in working-class England and the drag queens who design (and model!) boots for them. I recommend it.

I saw this picture on Pinterest. I really like it. It brings back to mind my hippie days in college. God, I wonder if my college is even hippie anymore. They probably all have cellphones and want to be consultants.

D just called with juicy gossip. His cousin and his wife are splitting. Apparently she had been having an affair for a long time, spending weekends with the guy. I have a few reactions. Disbelief - they always wrote flowery tributes to each other on Facebook - e.g., "You are the best thing that ever happened to me" and "Happy anniversary, my love." Disappointment - she is one of my favorite people in D's extended family and I will probably never see her again. I guess I have no special perception/insight in this area. She is the LAST person I would expect to have an affair and they are the last couple I would expect to split up.

Zoe just pulled off her diaper, said "Potty" and sat on her princess potty. She didn't pee in it, but...this development makes me very hopeful!

So the snow is here. It's pretty, but I feel housebound. Thankfully I don't *have* to go anywhere today, so I am luckier than most. I skipped Zoe's gymnastics class. Because of cabin fever, I might still go out to have lunch with D nearby. Haven't decided yet. We have a friend who lives in Hawaii. He told us a while ago that a box of cereal costs 10 dollars there. Of course, it's not much less in Manhattan...unless you go to Trader Joe's. Am still reading the Tess Monaghan series. I like it when you discover a new series and it gives you an abundance of reading material for a while.

Things are quiet here. We had Thanksgiving at a restaurant, which is probably the way to do it. (Though it did feel a bit like cheating.) I've done all my Christmas shopping thanks to Uncommon Goods (a quirky site with something for everyone). I'm using D's old computer because Z has appropriated mine to watch movies on. (He has his current one at work.) Anyway, using this old one, with its unresponsive keys, reminds me of how the keys always used to fall off his laptop and they regarded it as a security breach at the airport. We would be held up in line while the security guards inspected his poor mauled computer very, very carefully. I discovered a new (to me) series - Tess Monaghan, by Laura Lippman. Tess is a feisty Irish Jewish detective from Baltimore.