Dear Diary,

I had a strange dream last night, in which I was a naughty fruit vendor who had pissed off the mafia. Now why would I dream that? So I woke up with the intention of doing 2 things: writing in my dream book, and writing in my dear, dear diary. Somehow I am only now getting around to doing so. What a day!

I was in the bathroom this morning, doing my thing, primping mostly, making my hair pretty, and my lips pink.
"What are you doing in there?" yells my husband, as if he doesn't know every second of my morning routine as well as I do.
"I'm tarting myself up!"
"What does that mean?" he yells at me through the door.
"It means I'm whoring it up for you dear," I yell back.
"Yes, Grandma, that was Jamie in the background. She's just being funny."
....
Yup, darling husband took that very opportunity to call his grandma, right while I was yelling stuff about being a whore. Super way to start the day!

I managed to get Jason's new shirt returned. I should have known better than to tust Jason to buy his own clothes! All he needed was was a crisp new white dress shirt. I should have known he couldn't handle such a tall order! Apparently while in the store, he had a mental block as to the size of his own neck. He guesstimated it at 17 inches. Then he called me to ask me what the second set of numbers was...
"Chest size?", he wondered.
"No dear, it's for your arms."
"Oh."

So he came home with the wrong size. He was positively swimming in it. I am not crazy enough to keep sending him back to annoy the saleslady all week, so I got the job done myself. Then I popped in to see my own grandparents. I just wanted to run my selections for Christmas dessert by them, but I ended up having to play referree. They just bought Scrabble so they were busy screaming at each other. Nanny was raised speaking french and is practically an anglo now, which means she can't speak either language very well. So she not only makes up words left and right, she also doesn't believe that my grandfather's words can be real (my grandfather is a notorious game-cheater). When the topic of desserts came up and of course the desserts for which I have all the ingredients already lined up in my fridge will no longer do. I realize that I will have to call my mother when I get home.

When I got home, I have already received an email from my mother. It says: why don't you call me, I will actually be home for a change. I call her, and she is not home. I try to email her, but the phone interrupts me. It's my mother. Here is the confusion that follows, with what my grandmother (Nanny) told me in between:

Me: I have no idea what desserts to make, since it looks like my original choice of the carousel cake and the carrot cake-cheesecake and the snowman cake has been ruled out.
Mom: Well you were making too many desserts anyway. You need to scale way back. Just make one dessert. I told Nanny she is limited to 3 meats this year.
Me: Well, she just told me she's making 4.
Mom: 4!
Me: Yes 4 and she told me she has to make an apple pie and a carrot cake, which is why I can't make my carrotcake cheesecake. And she told me not to make any of the berry cheesecakes because your brother won't eat them.
Nanny: Jim thinks berries waste a perfectly good cheesecake. Make chocolate instead.
Mom: Chocolate wastes a perfectly good cheesecake. Make caramel instead.

She seems to have talked Nanny down to 3 meats, and me down to 2 desserts. She's bringing the stuffing.
"Does the stuffing have meat in it?" asks Nanny.
"No Mom, no meat."

Of course I have a few good stuffing recipes of my own floating around, not that I eat the stuff. I abhor stuffing. I have made it in the past, for Jason, and because I often make stuff I don't eat: cheesecake, for example. On the occasion of my bridal shower, my mother asked guests to bring a recipe for me with them. Jason's other grandmother, a great little lady, brought me a stuffing recipe.
Here it is:

Grandma Tobin's Turkey Dressing
1 cup chopped celery 1 cup popcorn
2 cups bread crumbs 1/4 cup butter
1 cup chopped onion

Mix ingredients in a pan, add sage and poultry seasoning to taste.
Roast at 325.
Dressing is done when the popcorn blows the ass off the turkey.


Special, eh?

So then I was tidying and I see that Jason has left his book at home again. We agreed to both read Thomas Hardy's Tess of the D'Ubervilles at the same time. I am always reading great books, and Jason doesn't even read his own horoscope on a regular basis. So I thought it would encourage him to be able to read together and talk about it together. He insisted that he needed a bit of a head start though, so I read Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale again, and he needed more time, so I also read Faulkner's As I Lay Dying. Then I started reading the Hardy. He was still only on p. 20, so I read only as far as that, and then I read a thick issue of GQ and did a book of crossword puzzles before I started reading again. Currently, I am on p. 142 and he's on p. 26. Only 26 pages, and this from a guy was genuinely excited to get reading; after all, his copy of the book had ambiguous shadow drawings on the back cover that appear to be tree-fucking. And it is subtitled A Pure Woman Faithfully Presented, so he thought he was in for a real treat. Apparently not.

So then I got an email from a really old friend, Anna, who wants to get together over the holidays for 'tea'. I haven't seen Anna in 3 years maybe, but she still remembers that I hate coffee. What she doesn't remember is that I also hate tea. I may sometimes be induced to choke down a cappucino, but in my heart or hearts, I am just a chocolate milk kind of girl.

Yours truly,
Jay