The other day A asked me if she could have a bag of Famous Amos cookies.  I felt bad telling her no since I always tell her no when she asks for sweets, so I reluctantly said she could go ask Mark. As she gladly skipped out of the room to find Mark, I remembered:
“WAIT A MINUTE!”  I shouted.  “Nope! You can’t have cookies haha! Nope nope nope! You already had a KLONDIKE Bar!”
A looked at me like “Aw, damn, you remembered.” and knew she had to say something quick to get me to agree to her demands.
She tilted her head down and looked up at me with the biggest puppy eyes, “Well, I barely ate it.” She said in her cutest voice.
“What! I watched you eat that Klondike Bar from the first to last bite, I watched you grow a chocolate moustache and goatee.”
“Nooo….???”  Was all she could spit out.
SHUT DOWN! Tooooo mmmBaaaaad (said like the N64 game, 1080º, when you fall off your snowboard.)

When I was in fourth grade I befriended a gal named Emily who was definitely the coolest around.  Emily was friends with the popular girls (really, there were popular girls in fourth grade?), but she wasn’t an asshole like them.  She had a dork side too, laughed at my jokes and had a few of her own.  She also had great taste in clothing and straight hair which looked way better than my raped curls, which I continued to brush and blow out in an attempt to have nice straight hair like her’s.  I certainly remember going to Kmart that year and buying the exact same pair of black cowboy boots bedazzled with fake silver and turquoise that Emily had.  She came to school one day and showed our teacher her boots “Look Mrs. Donaldson, turquoise, just like the Native Americans we learned about.”  That Emily, so cool.

We were friends throughout high school and most of college but now I just don’t think we have much in common.   There was never any falling out, we just don’t hang out, and Facebook does the job of keeping us updated on how life is going for each other.  I have a new favorite Cortiglia these days – In recent years I have really taken a liking to Emily’s mother, Lori.  Or maybe Lori has taken a liking to me.  Yeah, that’s it.  You see, for years and years Lori was just a strict mom in my eyes, but now she lets her freak flag fly around me and I like it!

Here’s my favorite Lori story:  One time in eighth grade I was having a sleep over with Emily.  Lori bought some chocolate M&M ice cream, a delicacy in my eyes since my dad only seemed to buy plain chocolate when it came to for ice cream.  I seized the opportunity and served myself about half of that carton of ice cream, something no one would have thought twice about in the Mancine household.  But oooh no, not at the Cortiglia’s!  Lori saw what happened to the ice cream and asked WHO DID THIS?!  Emily promptly pointed her finger at me and Lori yelled at me about how “that’s not how we do it here, Katie!”

But that was eleven years ago.  Lots of stuff has changed, and now Lori let’s me drink half a bottle of wine, almost as good as half a carton of ice cream, as I teach her how to use her new blog : Late But Soon.

For years Lori had been sending her writing to friends via email.  Every so often I would be the recipient of one of these emails if Lori thought I might enjoy reading it.  Ah, what a special treat those emails were.   She got the idea in her head that maybe she should try this blog thing out and post her writing for everyone to see, but was still very wary of it.  Lori explained her blog concerns to me one evening.  After reviewing her list of reasons why she shouldn’t start a blog, including “What if the blog gets too popular? I don’t want it to be too big!” I decided these were all terrible excuses and said, Fuck it, we’re setting up your damn blog now!  So now Late But Soon exists for everyone to read and enjoy. Her writing is hilarious, descriptive and a little fucking weird, and even if it weren’t all those fabulous things I would tell you to go read anyway because it’s so grammatically correct it’s enjoyable for just that reason!

Yesterday was the second-to-last day of the school year for Z & A.  A just finished up first grade and Z was in fourth grade – incredible!  I’ve known them for only a little over two years but I guess since they’re so young and grow so much each year I feel like I’ve known them longer.  A was only in preschool when we first met and Z was just a wee little second grader.

A’s first grade class hasn’t had homework for about a month now.  What the hell is that about?  I have never heard of a school who stops giving out homework a month before school ends.  And since I never had the chance to experience this wonderful phenomena, I do not support the idea at all!  Except for the fact I didn’t have to spend an hour a day making her do her homework (ay yi yi! Can you feel me nannys?!)  A’s first grade experience seemed much more awesome than my own.  One example is the no homework rule, another would be that yesterday, the teachers gave out a ton of prizes to kids who were good during the school year.  A won a few of these prizes and she was showing them to me while I was driving.  This is a fun car-ride-home activity for A, where she goes through her backpack full of knick-knacks she values like gold, holds up an object to the review mirror, I glance at it and agree with whatever she says about it.  For example, she pulled out this fake, rubber cockroach her teacher gave her for being a good student:
Me: Oh gross a cockroach.
A: Well I think he’s cute!
Me: Ohhh, yeah, he’s totally cute, really cute A.
I originally picked ‘gross’ because she was afraid of an ant on the garbage can at Applegate a few weeks before – so scared she screamed, threw the left over ice cream behind her started running away. But this fake cockroach that looked realistic was cute to her.

Read the rest of this entry »

I asked Mister about a half hour ago if he wanted to go out, his favorite phrase to hear – his least favorite is “Wanna take a bath?” (said in the same tone).  I planned on just walking him up the block on his usual short route where he is sure to sniff all his favorite trees to make sure he’s still king.   Then I realized we have no fruit at home and I HAVE to have fruit first thing in the morning (or I won’t poop!)  Just kidding, I poop before breakfast. So I decided we should take a longer walk to Bonjour Montclair for a fruit plate and croissant.  Of course if we’re taking this long walk I have to wash my face and moisturize etc. etc. and now it’s a half hour later.  But during these past thirty minutes, Mister has not spent a moment thinking of anything other than taking that walk.  I washed my face, he watched me from the bathroom door.  I sat back down, he sat next to me on the top of the couch, looking out the window behind us and crying.  I got up to put lotion on my face, he thinks I’m going for the shoes and gets right up.  Oh that dog.  I’m dressed now and he’s giving me the stink eye since I haven’t fulfilled my promise yet.  Time to go!

The cereal we buy comes in just a plastic bag and no box, supposed to be good for the environment or whatever.  Mark used his bear claws to open this particular bag of cereal and ripped it, so I have a chip clip on the bag to keep it fresh – I feel indifferent about this.  It’s like I’m an organized adult now when it comes to this chip clip.  This makes me feel uncomfortable and boring.  This is why I don’t want to stay in one place for too long, I start using chip clips and I’m the same as everyone else.  Maybe I need to invent some other way to keep my bags of cereal fresh in order to keep my life feeling fresh….

I was riding the Vespa down Park St., going 35 mph (speed limit is 25) when I noticed the van that was way behind me a minute before, was now only a few feet away.  Another thirty seconds down the road and they’re not only on my ass, but they’re moving into a passing position on my right side.  This really irks me when I’m riding the Vespa because so many drivers count it as a bike and think it’s alright to pass me.  Also, when you ride a scooter/motorcycle, each lane counts as three lanes, and the best lane to ride in is the left lane (so closest to the yellow line is where you should ride).  I noticed this van had out of state license plates, I thought they were from Massachusetts.  I decided if they didn’t back off after I threw my hand up, I would stop before turning onto my street and yell at them, giving me a chance to finally call someone who deserves it, a Masshole.  Well, they were from Virginia, but my testosterone levels must have been up there (just got back from my spinning class) because I stopped the Vespa, turned my head and shouted “DON’T FUCKING TRY TO PASS A PERSON WHEN THEY’RE ON A FUCKING SCOOTER.”  The woman just stared at me with her mouth open.  I apologized to the people walking across the street and made the turn onto my block.  I still wish they were from Massachusetts, it would have gone over even better.

Since January, Mark and I have been living in an awesome apartment in very nice house and bartering babysitting the kids downstairs, for apartment living upstairs.  I babysat these kids on and off for two years before we left for our road trip, and the family has been very generous to us since we’ve been back, especially by graciously opening their home to us.

Anyway, the kids I babysit, we’ll call them Z & A when talking about them here on StopKatie (although some of you may already know their full names).  Z is a ten year old boy and A is his seven year old sister – they are my favorite kids I’ve ever met, by far!  On with the stories:

A had her friend R over for a playdate last week. R, like almost all of A’s friends, was very interested in my relationship with Mark.
R: So Mark is your husband?
Me: No, we’re not married?
R: Is he your boyfriend?
Me: Yep!
R: (shocked) But you live together?!?
Me: Yes, it’s what they call ‘Living in Sin’.
R: (As though that made so much sense to her) Oh, okay! Can we have some ice cream now?

That’s my dad you guys.  He’s the best and I haven’t called him back since he left me this message last Sunday “What? You don’t call your father on Easter?”  Sorry, I did not realize my non-religious father required a call on a religious holiday.  Dad, today I will give you a call, until then, remind yourself of how much I loved you two years ago when I spent hours creating THIS POST for you. Happy Birthday! I hope you have a great day!

This morning my iPhone alarm went off every ten minutes from 7:30 am until 10am.  Each time the alarm would sound, I’d simply hit the snooze button and fall back to sleep.  Then I’d dream about not waking up and how it was MY RIGHT to sleep in!  I would tell everyone in my dream, ‘I don’t have to wake up and neither do you!  You can all keep sleeping in, all you have to do is hit the SNOOOOZE BUTTOOON!!!’  People cheered me on and everyone was doing it, everyone was fighting the man and hitting that snooze button for just a little more sleep.  At one point I argued that we didn’t need five more minutes of sleep, no, we needed another hour!  That was around 9am.  And for an hour myself and everyone in my dream, rallied around a giant iPhone and ignored it’s calls for us to wake up.  Then at 10am I rolled over and realized I was a fucking asshole who slept in for two and a half hours with imaginary people supporting my great protest against waking up.

I hope that somewhere those dream people are real.  Idea: What if in our dreams we really just go to far off planets and interact with those people?  I really hope so…

I have decided I don’t have an acne problem, I have a non-acne problem where I get a few zits like a normal person and try to kill them with Proactiv and instead I’m just getting wrinkles, dry skin and more zits.  I stopped using Proactiv (which used to work, by the way, I highly recommend it) two days ago, and instead I’m using a sensitive skin face wash and moisturizer and GUESS WHAT!? I’m clearing up.  Well, let’s not jinx it.  The zits I have now are clearing up, but I could be brewing a new batch of painful bastards at this very moment…  Anyway, I found that moisturizer really is the answer, I realized this a few months ago.  Mine has SPF 15 in it and I’ve got the whitest face around.

So that is one thing that has been on my mind this week.  The other is studying the motorcycle manual so I can get my motorcycle license and drive a Vespa instead of taking the bus.  Taking the bus was fun at first, but it’s annoying to have to be on a schedule that half the time the bus driver doesn’t even stick to.  I have a car and a driver’s license (actually I lost my wallet in the city last week so I guess I don’t have a license for now), yes, but Mark uses that car to go to and from work everyday and I’m stuck in Montclair 2 miles from anywhere I want to be (actually, that’s a lie, Watchung Plaza and boring ass Valley Rd’s downtown are within a mile, but that is not where the YMCA is located).  I think it’s funny I’m going to get my motorcycle license because I’m going to have to practice on a real motorcycle (since I’m taking a class because, well fuck, I would crash without taking a class).  I never thought I’d set ass cheek on a motorcycle and I’m pretty sure it’s going to give me a taste for blood, motorcycle blood, and a few years from now I’ll be looking into Harleys.  JK OR NOT.  I never know with me.   A few years from now I could be a born-again Christian with tons of kids.  JK that really would never happen.