I forgot to tell my best joke yesterday about the whole fertility thing!

"In the article, all the women put off having children until too late because they were busy with their careers, and I haven't done that either! I have neither a career nor a baby!"

Thank you, I'll be here all week.

So yesterday was a big day, involving getting up at a reasonable hour, (meaning reasonably early, not reasonably sleeping in, which is much more reasonable, by me), going into the city, buying various presents, then meeting Tracing at Penn to go to Philly.

Peculiarly enough, I actually left the house on time and remembered everything that I needed to pack--I don't know what that's all about, but I didn't argue about it. My first stop was at the HMV on 42nd St. to get a new set of Walkman headphones and a DVD of Bridget Jones' Diary for Tracing. Yes, I know that I was going to Melissa's birthday party, but I owed presents to Tracing as well and figured that I might as well kill two birthday girls with one stone. So to speak.

While I was at HMV, though, I found what I later described as the Holy Grail for David Morse fans, the DVD of George B, a film that has never been released, but played at festivals a couple of years ago and that I have been dying to see since reading about it awhile back. And now I can! Because they decided that it wasn't doing anyone any good just sitting in the director's basement.

I realize that nobody who is not, in fact, related to a member of the cast or crew gives a shit, but I'm thrilled.

Then I had to go downtown to get more presents. More presents! More! Always must be more!!!

I went to Demeter (that's DEH-meh-ter) to get more of my beloved Funeral Home fragrance, as well as some Laundromat lotion for Melissa and Grapefruit Tea bath salts for Tracing. I knew that Laundromat is Melissa's fave, but only the night before Tracing had been telling me about how suddenly she was taking baths instead of showers, and buying all of these grapefruit bath gels and so on, so I took that newfound knowledge and ran with it.

Nothing like knowing you have the perfect gift because they mentioned it a mere 12 hours earlier!

And then, still not actually running late, I went to Penn to meet Tracing. That looks like I am foreshadowing something, but I'm not, I swear, I'm just re-iterating the fact that for the first time in my entire life I was traveling without having to run after the train and dive onboard as it hurtles down the track.

Nope! Not this time! I even had time to stop at K-Mart for wrapping paper and tape and pretty metallic glitter pens! I met Tracing in the ticket queue, we had time to buy drinks for the train, and then we headed off to Track 17, aka The Mystery Track That is Not in Fact There.

It was extremely peculiar, there were signs for every other track and its mother, but it stopped at 16. There was, however, a large crush of people all headed out into the void. Said void was not, in fact, marked Track 17, but it was in the place where Track 17 should have been if Track 17 did in fact exist, so we joined the crush, hopefully. It was like trying to get to Track 9 3/4.

Once on the train, I had to change from my sweater, because naturally it was hot and I was wearing clothes for the cold weather that it had been every single other day this week, so I ducked into the train bathroom to change. Fortunately that was all I had to do in there, because it was foul and I am not particularly picky.

Then I wrapped Melissa's presents and tried to figure out a way to wrap Tracing's without her noticing, but she obligingly fell fast asleep so I didn't have to go back into the Bathroom of Horrors to do it there.

Changed trains at Trenton, stood behind the slowest idiot in the world who couldn't figure out how to work the ticket machine, then proceeded to make the one that we thought didn't work, work, so who's the idiot now? Got on the train to Suburban Station, gave Tracing my presents, she was pleased, then immediately fell asleep again. I read more Watership Down. I think if I could only have one book to read for the rest of my life, that would be the one.

We got to Suburban Station, the gloomiest train station on the east coast, and met Kate by the giant clothespin. Useful as a meeting place, a lovely piece of public art, not so much.

And then we drove out to Melissa and Greg's! It was a lovely drive, especially the parts that we saw three times ("Hey, I usually don't drive here, I take the train!"), and when we got there, we got right back into the car to go to the restaurant.

It was a Moroccan restaurant, which I was a little leery of, but I was assured that it's all lots of dishes being passed around and there was certain to be something for Impossible to Feed Me, and you know what? There was!

Weirdly, it turns out that Moroccan food is my kind of ethnic eats. I startled everyone there who knew me by eating almost everything offered (not the couscous, I do have some limits), but if you analyzed the food, it is exactly what I like anyway. Basically, Moroccan food is big hunks of meat with one seasoning on it. There was chicken with dates and chicken with walnuts and chicken with apricots and chicken with cumin and chicken with some kind of hot stuff (didn't eat that) and chicken with this and chicken with that and chicken with the other, and rabbit. Not chicken with rabbit, just rabbit. There was also lamb with this and lamb with that, but that was a different course.

Everything was flavoured simply, not too many tastes per dish, and is was an extravaganza of big meats! I totally dug it. Even the, and this was a surprise that I tried it, the chicken in a pastry with cinnamon and powdered sugar on top. Weirdly good. O, and the babaganouch! I tried it and ate the whole plate myself!

The only things that I flat out refused were the couscous, the hummus, and the intensely sweet mint tea, which was revolting. "That isn't tea, it's gum," I announced firmly. The only thing I was more firm about was refusing to Tell a Little Something About Myself when Melissa got tired of introducing everyone to every latecomer. I went to the bathroom and cleaned out my purse instead, then dug my heels in when I got back to the table and attempts were made at cajoling me into saying something. I came over All Shy. Because I am five years old.

But besides that regression, it was a great evening. It's fun to sit on couches and eat with your hands and pass plates around and be covered by a big black towel and cheer for the belly-dancer as she tried to make our group stand up and join her. Other groups were much happier about joining in, but we were the No Fun group, until towards the end when a few of us finally decided to represent fun for us.

The thing that made me laugh was the mental picture I got of these Moroccans saying "We are on a mission! We must open a restaurant and share our authentic culture and food and sensibility with the people of suburban Pennsylvania!" I mean, this restaurant was in a strip mall right across from a McDonald's! It could only be more out of place if it were...nope, there is nowhere it would have been more out of place.

What a great restaurant. If I lived nearby, I'd eat there all the time. Or maybe not, since the meal took about four hours, and we could barely stagger out afterwards, if I went there all the time I'd weigh about 500 pounds and never have time to do anything else, ever.

Afterwards, we went back to the house and had cake (yep, somehow we managed to stuff more food down our gullets) and open presents.

I was looking forward to Melissa opening up the book I got her, though I was still worried that she might have gotten it already. Then Melissa mentioned Click Clack Moo, and someone asked what it was, and she explained, then she turned to me and said:

"There's a sequel, did you know?"
"Really?"
"Yes, and it's awful! It's totally stupid and not funny!"
"You don't say!"
"Yes, it sucks rocks, whatever you do, don't buy it."
"Okey-doke!"

At that moment, I couldn't wait for her to open the present. Could not wait! Tracing and Kate were grinning at me from across the table. And not because I wanted to embarrass her or anything, but because I am never on that side of the equation, I am usually the one who says to Richard Dreyfuss when I was ten years old "My Daddy says that the movie of Jaws is going to be awful!" And yes, my father was standing there. And this time, I was in the joyful position of getting to see Melissa's face when she opened the worst book in the world!

And she opened it, and I about killed myself laughing. She turned red and tried to backpedal, "It really isn't that bad..." but it was too late. It was a classic moment. I told her she could return it, but she refused, she said that she would read it to their children, that it would be from their Aunt Kymm.

And the kids will say, "Has Aunt Kymm no taste? This book sucks!!"

heeheehee...

Lenten entries missed:

Jette ran away on a Friday, did a reading, freaked out at crushing watched my fave rave, was stalked by music, and got kicked in the ass.

Hang in there, Jette! You are too cool and fun and smart and pretty to stay unattached forever.

Today's horoscope:
A day for necessary duties and responsibilities. A sense of accomplishment rewards everyone in the home for getting things done.

One year ago today:
"Look skyward, moron!"

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Last Updated Thurs 2 May 19:47:09 2002