Stop Signs, People

I don't know why people in Westchester blow by stop signs. Not only do they ignore stop signs with impunity, but people around here don't seem to know the etiquette for a 4-way stop. The FIRST CAR has the right-of-way, people!! That means that if I get to the 4-way first, that the car coming up the street on my right should STOP his car so that I can drive on. IT DOES NOT MEAN that, "Oh, she's stopped, so I can keep going." (Which is how almost everyone in Westchester thinks) The other day I was caught at a stop sign for five minutes because people kept blowing by their stop signs, assuming that I was just "letting them go."

Spring is HERE!!

This is the gorgeous magnolia tree in my backyard. Isn't she lovely?

Online Dating

So my friend Angela sent me an email the other day that she has been trying online dating and last week, she went out on a date with my old friend Bryan (who I haven't seen in about ten years). Bryan and I went to high school together and we were pretty good friends. I wrote Angela that I knew Bryan back when I was taller than him.

Later, she told me that it was funny that I wrote that because it was one of the first things he said about me.

I was so excited, I asked her, "So, what does he look like now?"

Her answer: "Uh, well, I didn't know what he looked like then."

For purely selfish reasons I would like this to work out because I would love to have a couple friendship. Peter and I do not have one couple friendship because everyone we know who gets married just drops off the face of the planet and never calls us again. We only get the yearly Christmas picture-cards with their stiffly-posed progeny holding holiday ornaments and staring off into space. Very. Cute. Not.

And every year I say, "Oh, that's nice. Here's a picture of the kids we had that you've never met because we've stopped calling you."

Last year I wanted to pose the dogs and send cards out to people as a joke, but Peter said that we couldn't do that, because there are actual people who do that and it's not a joke to them and our friends would think we were one of THOSE people.

My other idea was to send Christmas photo cards of other people's children as in:

"Here's Vinny and Gretchen's Daughter Katie Wishing You All the Best This Holiday Season!"

Peter said that people would not think it was funny at all, that in fact, people would think that we were AWFUL people if we did that and will finally pick up the telephone to call us for the first time in three years to berate us for being jealous of their wonderful progeny-rich lives. These are people whose sole purpose in life is to create children to paste on photo cards.

Anyway, it would be nice to have a couple friendship with another couple. A couple that is fun and reads novels once in a while and who volunteered for the Peace Corps in Africa. A couple who would never, EVER, send me a Christmas photo card unless it was a joke. A joke that everyone got.

So, What Are We Doing for Passover?

For the past two days, I've been asking my husband:

"So, are we going to your mother's for Passover?"

And he just continues staring into his laptop as if I didn't say a word. Finally, today, I said, loudly, so I am sure to get his attention:

"Listen, I just need to know so I don't make any other plans, are we GOING or are we NOT GOING to your mother's for Passover?

He looked at me, blinked several times, and said.

"Why do you keep asking me that? We're CATHOLIC."