Thing of the Day: The iPad

It's been a long time since I thought about my iPhone. We parted in the most devastating of ways. The story is tragic and hard to tell, but for the sake of full disclosure: it was May of 2009 when, two connections into the three connecting flights that would take me from Copenhagen to New York, I found myself in the Berlin airport starving and against all will, ordered two double cheeseburgers and large fries only to find that the McDonald's in the Berlin airport (and, as I would soon find, all establishments serving food in the Berlin airport), does not accept credit cards. Okay. I could deal with that. Hold my order, unfriendly German airport employees, as I go to the Currency Exchange window, reach for my iPhone to use my wonderful currency converter application and determine how many of my leftover Danish Kroner coins I would need to convert to Euro coins to purchase any from of sustenance, and...

...realize that I have left my iPhone on the (long gone) plane. And to make things worse, the German Currency Exchange does not accept foreign coins, only notes, which I lack, or my credit card, with a minimum exchange of 50 dollars, which, although it would have bought me a lot of double cheeseburgers, would have certaintly caused Margarita to confiscate said credit card faster than she did upon my arrival in the states (~18 hours). Oops. Hungry, iPhone-less, missing Scandinavia and with four pieces of incredibly heavy and bulky carry-on luggage, I moved on to layover number two, blocking out the memory of that awful day forever.

Until now. I love my Blackberry. I love it almost as much as these people love their Blackberries, (shoutout, Stace!) I would never even consider switching over to an iPhone as a primary cellular device (mine (RIP) was for utilized exclusively for the crucial purposes of taking snazzy pictures, playing extensive games, and utilizing the iCalendar)--but I think I am ready to commit myself to another Apple product with my whole heart and iTunes library--I need an iPad.

For those of you who believe that an iPad in any way resembles a Kindle or a Nook, you are wrong. Kindles and Nooks have made it clear that they are evil robots promoted by genius marketing. Anyone who knows me at all knows I will never have anything to do with the Nook or the Kindle (case in point, frantic BBM from recently turned 21-friend: "Nikkkkkkkkkkkki!!! My dad got me a KINDLE for my birthday! What do I doooooooooo??!"), ever. The iPad is a different story. Despite having a really poor and un-clever name (really, Steve Jobs? I preferred Apple Tablet), it is quite possibly the most useful and wonderful Apple gadget of all time. If you do not take my word for it, watch the video. Although Stephen Colbert just pulled one out mid-Grammys, the wondrous device is not available to us common folk until mid March. Wah. Although (glass half full), that gives me plenty of time to watch the video on repeat and convince Margarita why I need to own one.

In non-gadget related news: being back at school for my last semester ever is good/weird. On the one hand, everything is exactly the same, and on the other, it is so remarkably different. After a less than perfect fall semester, and a non-ideal start to this one, I have decided to make the absolute best of my final one by focusing exclusively on the things that matter and spending less time on those that don't or in the long run, won't. In the past few weeks, I have really tried to focus on that which makes me the happiest--I love 4 out of my 5 classes (Mass Media, Exploring Film Soundtrack, Fiction Workshop, and World Jewish Communities), have gotten a volunteering gig at the Vanderbilt Children's Hospital (I start next week and can't wait, although the idea of working with long-term and permanent patients is scary and devastating), have been taking fitness classes for the first time since this summer (I spent roughly a third of tonight's hot yoga class in child's pose on the floor trying not to pass out), and of course, eating my way through Nashville with my friends (brunch at Allium and dinner at Cha Chah this week were exquisite).

This week, I am looking forward to: my best friend's birthday (and subsequent dinner at Sambuca...mmm), (AH TAYLOR SWIFT JUST WON ALBUM OF THE YEAR YOU GOOOOOOO GIRL), the best TV show of all time coming back for a final season, (LOSTLOSTLOSTLOST---I would like for this to be a separate post entirely so will refrain from going into detail about my feelings/predictions for season 6), the Superbowl (I don't like sports perse but I like organized drinking activities/TV, so this will do), more potential snow days for Nashville (it snowed a grand total of 6 inches this weekend and the entire city has shut down due to there being approximately 4 snowplows total in all of Tennessee), and it being February, which is so superior to January, and contains two of my favorite holidays (Valentine's Day and Mardi Gras) in one weekend. I plan on celebrating Valentine's Day by watching the movie Valentine's Day and eating copious amounts of chocolate and wine. I plan on celebrating Mardi Gras by roadtripping to New Orleans with everyone I know at Vanderbilt and an engaging a Hurricane, Hand Grenade, and bead infused weekend of debauchery. I love New Orleans and haven't visited since Halloween 2008 and can't wait to see my Tulane bestie (hi, Emma), eat street food, and wear costumes for absolutely no reason.

Oh, and I GOT A NEW COMPUTER! Farewell forever, Inspiron...may you rest in my bottom drawer along with coasters I steal from bars, business cards from people I will never call, old Scattergories score sheets (high point of the semester thus far: playing a 12 person, liquor accompanies, game of Scattergories before we all went out mid-snowstorm on Friday night), phones/cameras that have died and are now resting in electronic limbo, assorted candies, and other things that I really should just throw out/recycle but due to some strange hoarding tendencies, can't bear to part ways with quite yet.

Thing of the Day: New Years Eve

I've always had a love/hate relationship with New Years Eve (someone pointed out to me that having love/hate relationships seem to be a quasi-forte of mine: The Jersey Shore, guidos and all things tacky in general, binge eating and drinking, pop culture, most people I interact with on a day to day basis, technology, becoming an adult etc etc)--but New Years Eve especially. The issue that I have with New Years is the same one I have with birthdays--it makes me feel old, and it makes me feel guilty for not having done more since the last New Years Eve/birthday.

This year has been a little different. Over the course of the past year, I have done, experienced, and changed more than I have during any other year of my life that I can remember (which, to be quite honest, isn't saying much--I have an incredibly selective and can't really recall any memories that I may have formed before the age of 16, save for the ones that Mama Bogo has embedded in my head via telling and re-telling of stories. "Do you remember the time you...were 1 and pretended you didn't know how to walk and insisted on being carried everywhere even though I had caught you sneakily walking around your room at least 10 times when you thought nobody was watching? Were 3 and kicked your pediatrician in the genitals and then ran out of the office and down several floors completely in the nude because he tried to give you a booster shot? Were 5 and got yourself banned from the playground and thus myself banned from the mothers-who-gossip-at-the-playground because you stole all the little boys toys and nearly cracked ones' skull with a shovel when he tried to refuse toy surrender? Were 9 and broke both your wrists trying to demonstrate to the playground you had just been re-admitted to how well you could cartwheel on top of the monkey bars? Were 14 and got a one day suspension from school because when your cell phone went off in Chemistry class for the third time that week you pulled it out and answered the teachers' reprimands with "sorry Mr.Banks, I really like this boy and have to talk this call?" NO Mom. I have no memories from before at least sophomore year of high school. But while you're at telling stories can we talk about how I was 4th grade Brooklyn spelling bee champion, or how I once placed at the science fair, or how I wasn't the bane of your existence? GOSH.) But I digress.

I've done more this year than I ever have in the (memorable) past, and I can say surely that 2009 has been an action packed year for the world as well. America inaugurated our first black president. The world got swine flu, one Mexican spring breaker at a time. Michael Jackson died, and everyone immediately forgave him for (maybe?) molesting children. Bernie Madoff swindled millions of dollars from thousands of Jews and caused us to doubt everything we hadn't already been questionable about (which wasn't much). Google, Twitter, and Facebook continued to take over the world. Khloe and Kourtney Kardashian got married and knocked up and all of America got to laugh along. Banks collapsed and were rebuilt. A (maybe?) terrorist's plan to hijack a plane from Amsterdam to Detroit (Amsterdam to Detroit? Cmonnn...that has got to be a plane full of some chillll individuals. Who would wish harm to those flying from Detroit to Amdam?!) was foiled and we cheered for America. A dude landed a plane on the Hudson River, no one got hurt, and we cheered for America. Barack Obama got the Nobel Peace Prize and we booed for America. Sarah Palin "wrote a book." Our favorite d-bags, Levi Johnston and Spencer Pratt, continued to show the world what d-bags they were by posing in the nude and, well, just posing. Iran elected and re-elected presidents. The longest solar eclipse of the 21st century (7 minutes!) came and went. Jon and Kate + mistress + mister + Ed Hardy + 8. The G20, NATO and Hopenhagen summits came and went. People continued to purchase Nooks and Kindles despite this blog. Brittany Murphy died and we forgot to notice. Susan Boyle sang. Kanye West was a jackass. Sweden was named capital of the EU and gave us Tiger Woods' hot thang wife Elin, who will soon be retiring back to said capital. Wars were fought. People died. We passed and subsequently broke laws. People laughed and cried and fought and fell in love and got married and divorced and had kids and kids who had kids who had kids who were paid by MTV to appear on "16 and Pregnant." Life went on.

When I first started this blog entry, it was meant to be a list chronicling my personal best of 2009 moments. Because of my issues with selective memory, however, I found myself stuck and unable to recall specific instances. It was only yesterday when someone tried to help me come up with memories for my list that I came to a terrible realization, a cliche, and the oldest one in the book at that: it's not, and will never be, what you do that matters. It's who you're with.

So off the top of my head, without overthinking and overanalyzing and overwriting, for those best moments of 2009 and those who were there with me: "Black Monday". Our last day in Amsterdam. Mulled wine and the Charles Bridge in Prague. Thursdays (every) at Kulor Bar. Meals consisting solely of "salats" and cold fish. Caiscax and the end of the world in Lisbon. The day of culinary adventures in Paris. Dinner with long lost relatives in Moscow. Norwegian Booze cruise. Our last day as stoweaways in Copenhagen. 4th of July weekend. The day of 9 bottles of wine and a lost camera on the roof. My 21st birthday party. The day of the Brooklyn Bridge/the last day of my internship. The Bourbon and BBQ festival. The first tailgate. The last tailgate. The Jay Z concert. Wine and cheese in the park. Sunday night family dinners. The entirety of the last week of finals. The suite evenings with Pie Cook. Skiing Mt. Mansfield. The Christmas Party. Oh, and Love Hill.

Welcome, 2010. We've been expecting you.

Thing of the Day: Mistakes

Things that bother me: when you order something to go, bring it home, and find that you have been given the wrong order. For instance, when you have been craving a cup of delicious soup in cold and altogether icky weather and get up from your desk at work to go down 11 floors to Panera, make the effort to pick the perfect soup by sampling both the black bean and the summer corn chowder, finally decide on the classic and hearty french onion accompanied by a whole grain roll, go up 11 floors, sit down and find that not only has the fool who has prepared your french onion soup given you the tiniest morsel of cheese (think finger-nail sized rather than delectably spread across the entire surface) but he has given you an apple instead of a whole grain roll. Who would ever want to dip apple into their soup? Altogether infuriating to the point where I actually considered re-making the trek for the sake of perfecting my soup, alas, I have found some questionably expired wonder bread in the break room and am trying to make do. Also, my first lunch today (3.5 slices of Pizza Perfect, Nashville's only pizza place that even slightly challenges New York thin crust, consumed on my couch while watching the last episode ever of the O.C (on that note--why hasn't any television network managed to make a teen drama as wonderful as the O.C in the past four years? Gossip Girl doesn't even begin to compare. And 90210? Melrose Place? Spare me. Give me a relationship as wonderful as Seth and Summer's or as screwed as Marissa and Ryan's and then we'll talk. And Julie Cooper as the evil villianess that you love/hate? Georgina Sparx has nothing on Julie. And Blair Waldorf would be beat down by Marissa Cooper in a second. Josh Shwartz--I really did expect better things of you after this soap opera of staggering genius) and reading gossip magazines was absolutely wonderful so I decided to allow this imperfect soup experience.

But not before broadcasting my deep disdain to the internet. Duh.

Other questionable/mistaken occurencesthat have happened today--the little boy and hot air balloon incident. WTF. I spent an hour literally clutching at my chest almost in tears thinking about this six year old and how cold and scared and lonely he must feel and burst out into actual hysterics of joy when the balloon gently landed only to find A LACK OF CHILD IN IT. I'm thinking one of three things has happened here:

1)The little boy and the sibling who reported he climbed into the balloon decided to play a really funny joke on America. Thousands of dollars and 10 texts from Momma Bogo later, oops, no one ever climbed into the balloon in the first place!

2)The family of the boy, who are storm chasers who like to "conduct experiments" and "search for extraterrestrials" in their spare time and have been on Wife Swap, wanted some free publicity for their really cool UFO/balloon structure and decided to say that there was a child in it.

3)I am a huge bitch and this boy is actually missing. I reaaaaaaaally don't know though.

I am hoping that there will be a lack of mistakes in the latter half of my day--off to see O.A.R , Asher Roth, and Pitbull in concert and enjoy a typically wonderful and wonderfully typical Nashville Thursday. Also--I have been spending the majority of today reading current students abroad in Copenhagen blogs, and I have found one that I really like (no creepy when you Google yourself, stranger--Hi! (also, upon Googling myself the other day I have found that my Google hits have expanded from 347 to 502 since this summer...I'm goiiiiiiingg places, world. Hire me.): Travel Unraveled, by a girl who goes to Tufts and is studying with DIS. After hours of looking at pictures of Nyhavn, Radhusspladsen and Tasingegade (yes, these are real places in Copenhagen) , I have come to two conclusions: one, that I am really really really excited to host my three Copenhagen friends this weekend, and two, that I really want to go back to Europe as soon as possible. Extensive g-chat with a best friend who is studying in Paris next semester (hi, little one!) and active search for a graduation gift has led to the conclusion that I definitely want to travel for a month or so right after graduation. I got to see most of Europe's major cities, but would love to spend several weeks traveling throughout all of France, Spain, and Italy by train, drinking wine, taking photos, and gaining somewhere between 5 and 15 pounds. My Eurotrip experience was very AMAZING to say the least, but it was rushed and I never really got to spend more than a few days in most cities. It would be phenomenal to get the chance to just relax, record, and take it all in.

Researching flights and ways of hinting to the parentals. If you do read my blog, Margarita, please keep this in mind.

Happy weekend!

Thing of the Day: Roller Derbies (and the month of October)

Last night I had the pleasure of seeing Whip It with a good friend--the movie was exactly what I would expect of a Fox Searchlight film--great music, bizarre sex scenes, quirky characters, and losers who become winners. Ellen Page was adorable and talented as usual, although it still wierds me out that she's 22 and looks 16, but supporting roles (Kristen Wiig as Maggie Mayhem and Ari Graynor as Eva Destruction) took the cake.

I first fell in love with Ari Graynor in Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist as Norah's blackout best friend, Caroline. This girl perfected the sloppy-drunk acting manuever. As someone who finds herself around inebriated and otherwise toxified persons at least five out of seven days per week, I always get really angry with actors who play drunk/stoned/enjoying other substances poorly. In fact, I can only think of a few instances (the episode of Friends where Rachel drunk dials Ross to tell him shes over him, the episode of Friends where Rachel and Ross get married in Vegas, the Knocked Up on-shrooms-at-Cirque-du-Soleil in Vegas scene, the Mean Girls Lindsay Lohan vomiting on crush scene...although chances are Lindz was on all sorts of shit) in which I was impressed with drunk/high acting to the point where I wondered if there was any chance the actors actually were boozing (which, by the way directors, would be a phenomenal idea--and certaintly provide for some wonderful ad-lib and contented actors). Anyway--Ari Graynor is either an alcoholic or a terribly talented actress, and the scenes in Nick and Norah where she fishes her cell phone out of a vomit-filled toilet in Penn Station as well as those in Whip It where she plays a delightfully butch roller derby rockstar are hilarious. I hope to see this chick in so many more movies--she'd be perfect as a supporting actress in a f-ed up HBO Original Series.

In addition to fueling a girl-crush of massive proportions, Whip It prompted me to Google "roller derby," and to my surprise and delight, not only do roller derbies actually exist but there is one in Nashville THIS WEEKEND. I have never been more devasted that it is Homecoming this weekend nor have I ever considered skipping a game more, but in the end the desire to drink with beloved graduates won over the desire to see blue-collar shemales beat the crap out of each other on skates (but come on--some teammate names: "Britches and Hoes," "Olive Turmoyl," "Maulin Monroe"?!). I am sinking into a deep depression at the thought of missing this cultural event.

But, alas, other fun events are of course on the calendar--this weekend, my friends from Copenhagen are coming to experience Vandyland. We have planned various festivities, like brunching to the point of nausea, a self-led bar crawl through the honky tonks in dowtown Nashville, and perhaps an afternoon of pumpkin picking and spiked cider drinking. I am a sucker for any sort of holiday-themed activity and have already come home with corn, pumpkins, gourds, and limited edition(a double sucker for anything limited edition) "Fall Scents" Febreze spray. My roommates choke every time I attack our family room with the overly-pumpkin spiced odor, but I will have our apartment smell like October, damn it! I can't wait to get cobwebs and/or spiders for our foyer (roomates--thoughts?), plan a group excursion to a haunted house, have an excuse to go cold-weather clothing shopping, and start working on our Halloween costumes which, obviously, are sexy, but also moderately, if not terribly, clever. Seriously.

Thing of the Day: Other People

Several of my wonderful followers (bored friends whose Safari won't let them download StumbleUpon) have furiously g-chatted me inquiring as to why I haven't been blogging (hi, KR, roomates, my ginger goddess, and fratstars who drunkenly revealed that you read my blog). The truth is, as I have repeatedly told them, that life was very interesting when I was frolicking around Europe in the spring, and moderately interesting when I was eating and drinking my way through Manhattan this summer, but now that I have returned to the dirty south, considerably less blogworthy things have happened to me. Not that I haven't been having fun--daytime drinking, eating on the meal plan, costumed frat parties and going to the same 4 bars every night have kept me wonderfully content and entertained, they just provide poor content.

So, since I am doing nothing worth reporting (short of attending the Tennessee State Fair on Sunday and consuming thousands of calories of white trash, funnel cake, hush puppy, and cheese fries. It's hard being a vegetarian at southern state fairs. Also, Tennessee is the 6th fattest state in the country. Also also, this weekend's television was phenomenal. 100 OH-MY-GOD points for Mad Men. 75 I-think-I-am-really-going-to-like-this points for Bored To Death. About 25 of those because it's filmed in Park Slope (!)) I will focus on the wonderfully reportable things happening to the 6billion + people who are not me. Because sometimes its' nice to pay attention to other people. Courtesy of Twitter.

1. Marilyn Manson has swine flu. Hahahahahaha.

2. Instead of curing cancer, preventing the spread of HIV, or at least swine flu , the world has engineered a smoke-less cigarette. Said cigarette is now being given to passengers on Ryanair flights. For a fee, of course, since Ryanair flights legitimately charge passengers to go to the bathroom. My own experience with Ryanair has been limited and considerably unpleasant--8am flight from Copenhagen to Prague, meeting a friend without a Blackberry arriving from Italy, full bladder, 4 Euro charge for water--however, I think it would definitely have been augmented if I could buy smokeless cigarettes and "smoke" them aboard.....NO. Ryanair. World. Wtf. This invention might be more useless than Kindles. The whole fun of cigarettes is SMOKING them. This is like inventing a macaroni and cheese pill or something. "All the calories, none of the taste!" I think I might start a stupid inventions feature on this blog. Thus far: Kindle, smokeless cigarettes, Blackberry Bold, Katherine Heigl. Stay tuned. But speaking of Katherine Heigl, Grey's Anatomy THIS THURSDAY (Sneak peek first five minutes)! Will I sit through an hour of you pouting and being a poor actress to watch hot doctors eye f*ck? Yes.

3. This one actually very much relates to things that are happening to people who are me. My best friend, in addition to writing an artsy and witty and wonderful blog, has published the following article in our campus lifestyles magazine. (For much less exciting but obviously food-related articles by yours truly, click here). For those non-Commodores wondering about my post Europe/New York life, do read. It's very accurate.

4. Since I have no shame about creepily reading complete strangers' blogs, this girl (a DIS Copenhagen study abroad student this semester who I have never met and probably have absolutely nothing/no-one in common with except for Dane Worthington (swoon). This chick is currently blogging for DIS, which is how I found her page, but before that she blogged about her 4 THOUSAND kilometer bike ride from Baltimore to San Francisco for 4K For Cancer. Her description of her journey is amazing--this stranger makes me want to do something considerably more productive than eating food, watching tv, and writing about it. I have been looking for a project and this has further inspired me to really do something. Reports when I actually do.

Hmm. Two of those four things were actually directly related to me. Surprise surprise. On that note,

Things I am looking forward to this week: Girl Talk AND Super Mash Brothers at Vanderbilt, birthday dinners, Girl Scout philanthropy events (little girls + cookies. EEEE), and drinking on boats.

Thing of the Day: Taxis

Things I dislike: cab drivers who do not have change for really small bills. What the f? How can a cab driver, a person who by profession picks you up, drives you to a location, accepts your payment, and does virtually nothing else (except perhaps the rare breed of excellent cab driver friend--that which consoles you when you are intoxicated and sad, tells you stories of their homeland, blasts pop music and allows you to smoke out the window while encouraging you to find Jesus), not have change for a FIVE dollar bill? This morning, I hopped into my usual Allied Cab, prepared with Starbucks and cab cash (for those of you who do not go to Vanderbilt--cab cash: a genius Vanderbilt University invention that allows you to charge multi-colored Monopoly money to your student account and then pay cabs with this "money") to go to my internship. $6.90 later, I arrive at my destination, hand the driver two cab cash fives, and ask for two dollars back. To which he responds, "Oh, no, I do not have change." SIR. Are you joking. How is it possible for you not to have TWO DOLLARS in change? I may be gullible and impatient, but I was not about to let the scheming no-change driver keep my ten dollars. So I sat at the corner for at least a full minute, scooping dollar bills, quarters, and even dimes out of my purse. I would have considered this a low point had I not found a twenty dollar bill neatly stuffed behind my ID card in my Blackberry case (on this note, I think I am going to start hiding monetary surprises in all of my belongings for such low-point situations). I paid the man, got out, and am now left with a sense of disappointment in Nashville cabbies, impressment (word?) with the amount of money I found in my purse/pockets/Blackberry case, and reminiscent of cab rides past.

So, despite the fact that I love and miss my subway commute and will always be a huge and devoted fan of public transportation, a list of my favorite cab experiences to date. In no particular order.

-Last week, on my way back to campus from my internship, an Allied Cab driver asked me if my weekend plans included church. When I explained to him that I was Jewish, he enquired politely whether Jewish people a)go to church, and b)believe in Jesus Christ our Saviour. My answer of "no" really didn't strike a pleasant chord with this man, who then turned abruptly and demanded I explain how I think we all came to be in the first place and do I believe in anything and don't Jews go to "Jew Church?" After five minutes of explaining/arguing the Big Bang theory in broken English, he accepted my cab cash, hugged me, and encouraged me to find God as soon as possible. Then he gave me his card.

-This summer, en route to meet a friend for cheese fries at 3am, I got into a yellow cab and explained to him that I had no money and really high heels, so if there was any way he could just drop me off at Pomme Frites and call it a night, I would really appreciate it and be sure to send good Karma wishes his way. He did. And waited outside while I entered the glorious french fry establishment to make sure that I was okay.

-Last spring in Rome, when my friend Geneva and I took a cab from the airport to our hotel in Campo di Fiori, the cab driver used the hour-long ride as a guided tour to the city, taking us past all the major monuments in the city and explaining their origins, history, and key details. He then dropped us off at our hotel and recommended a restaurant on the corner that served giant glasses of boxed wine with massive portions of pasta for 8Euro per pasta/wine dish. I believe we got two each. And then free tequila shots which Geneva's friends requested in Spanish, because "they don't really care what language you speak if you're pretty."

-Not a single experience but does anyone remember the Disco Cab? It used to drive around campus freshman and sophomore year decked out in strobe lights, Mardi Gras beads, and surround sound blasting the lastest hits and allowing you to cram as many people as you wish into it's comfy leather seats. I believe our record was 14 girls in two rows of seats, with two crammed into the front, loudly singing/screaming "I'm bossyyyyyyy" while en route to Bar Car. Ugh, on that note, does anyone remember Bar Car?!

-Last winter in Copenhagen, when a cab driver allowed me to not only stop for a gyro (oh, the pre-vegetarianism days of smoked meats, assorted sausages, prosciutto by the slice, greasy fried chicken and onion-ring smothered steaks...despite almost taking a bite out of a tailgate hotdog this weekend, I have held out for almost four months now and feel great about it), but proceeded to let me eat said gyro in the front seat while discussing the Danish system of socialism, universal healthcare, and free education and its' many benefits over the American system. He was a really young and attractive cab driver (due to the Danish system of socialism, 20-somethings often hold jobs they never would in the United States), and I gave him my Danish phone number. I'd like to think that I gave him the wrong number, or perhaps he was just playing me like a fool, but I never heard from Sven(?) again.

-The time in high school where my best friend Rachel and I sat in the backseat and dangled our feet out of opposite windows while our driver stopped at every red light to pray over the wheel--upon third or fourth prayer we realized that in addition to being a religious fanatic, our cabbie had NO FINGERS on one hand. I miss high school.

Off to a delicious lunch at Cantina Laredo with the roommate. We will be driving ourselves, thank you very much.