I went to the grocery store to fill our water cooler bottles because I is cheap, and they had Clementine's on sale for $3.29 per box. They were like $9 last week. The office now smells divine with all of us munching them. Yum.

So, my niece has been staying with us, getting ready to move into a local college. She is the one with the sunstance-abuse history--she's been through rehab three times and is only 20, but has been sober since October, her longest stint yet. She has been incredibly excited about starting school again nad has been talking about second chances and proving herself, etc. Orientation was yesterday and, you guessed it, we think she went drinking afterwards. She didn't seem drunk, but something was up and she smeeled like alcohol.

We were up all night trying to figure out if we mention it to her or whether that's a waste of time. She moves into the dorm today and I foresee her failing once again. It just makes me want to scream and cry and shake her, but all that's been done.

Do any of you say "an house", because that is still just weird to me...

My understanding is that nearly all of the H words that get "an" are derived from French. (Honor, historical, etc. Not house.) So at least it's not totally random.

so I am not sure that she even knows how to use email or that you actually need an email address.

ow this hurt my brane.

As bad as this is, it's so much better than when this happens when you're trying to go to sleep (or when you wake up in the middle of the night).

FB is me. And Gud. Granted, my family still brings up things we did when we were in grade school as evidence of our character, so I can't imagine why I'm prone to such... I hate that feeling of "oh my god, I can't believe I did that." I like the feeling of "oh well, wouldn't do that now." so much better. It just takes a minute to get there.

that is a pretty corset - though the effect the tails have is a little not-what-I-want-enlarging-my-tush.

Gah, that's tough. Because freshman orientation and dorm life have got to be just about the hardest environment in these circumstance, I'd think. But I'm not sure bringing it up with her would accomplish anything more than making her defensive and stressing things out worse. Ugh.

Oh, Scrappy.

Scrappy, maybe tell her you noticed without any of the emotional stuff-the screaming and the crying. Just a "you came in smelling like alcohol last night--what's up?"

I agree with Brenda. Although I have no actual advice.

I want a taco, dammit! Unfortunately, the taco situation here is grim. Taco Bell makes a better taco than our local Mexican place.

Great thing about Chicagoland is that there are taqueiras galore, even in the suburbs. Now I think I'll stop by the one nearest my apartment tonight that I haven't been to yet but have seen written up online as having really good food.

ETA: Damn, Scrappy, that's tough. I don't have any advice, either, just keeping my thoughts with her and you both.

All these uncles sound sort of mean

My uncle K was horrid. He used to refer to my sister and me as "The Lee Sisters: Home and Ug."