Aw, thanks for the offer anyways, Nora. There are people in the basement right now fixing and/or replacing the heater, so hopefully a hot shower will be mine before the day is through.

If we put it on a reasonable temperature, the furnace would quit and we couldn't restart it. We weren't paying the gas bill, so we chose 80 degrees.

This seems to be what's wrong with ours. The furnace repair guy turned the thermostat up to 90 yesterday, started the furnace and told us not to turn it down. We were DYING last night. I turned it down this morning. I'd rather be cold.

It's also 2:00 and I haven't heard from him yet. Damn it.

Growing up, we had tacos and lasagna and many foods that our relatives thought were adventurous, and mom made her own tortillas, but there wasn't anything you couldn't buy easily at any local grocery store. I had my first bagel at 21. I'd never heard of such a thing before. It has a hole in it! It's like a very chewy donut, only not sweet!

There is no form of hummus that I do not love. Lovelovelove.

Trader Joe's has kalamata olive hummus. I could live on the stuff. It's my new food obsession.

Trader Joe's has kalamata olive hummus

Oh, god, YUM!

Jen, come over for dinner and we will serve that to you. Hummus is of the vegan, right?

My math score was 30 points higher than my verbal, oddly enough. I tend to think of myself as a math major trapped in an English major's brain.

my glamorous madeover CBS-hogging self gets to have blood drawn, and do laundry, and clean catboxes.

Welcome to the day after the ball, Cinderella.

Kara got a leappad for Christmas. I had bought it on Black Friday and hidden it in the closet. She found it, took it out and was determined to play with it. I hid it again (better), and then gave it to her for Christmas.

Just now she told me that she loves it, and that I got it from Santa, and hid it, and she found it, and I hid it again, and then I gave it to her for Christmas and she loves it!

I wondered how she was reconciling finding it with the existence of Santa. No wonder she told me "nuh uh" when I said Santa came down the chimney.

Clearly, mommy and Santa have a secret meeting site where I pick up the gifts for the family prior to the big day and I was just lying about the chimney part to hide my dealings with the purveyor of presents.

My math and verbal were 10 points apart, both times I took the SATs.

Welcome to the day after the ball, Cinderella.

Honey, that wasn't a complaint; I was grinning as I tryped it. I have no delusions of Cinderellahood. Trust me.

See, I know I'm fabulous, and the occasional ballgown is nice, but I live in the real world, and I actually choose the laundry and catboxes and whatnot. I just don't think I'm trapped in one world or the other. No reason I can't do both.

And I do do both. Today happens to be the laundry/catboxes/go check on our homeless friend and feed our feral cats day.

I was just lying about the chimney part to hide my dealings with the purveyor of presents.

That chimney story is pretty lame, after all. Surely it's more likely that you meet Santa on a corner in a bad neighborhood and hand him a briefcase full of unmarked bills.