Things I Learned Yesterday

1. Do not paint your fingernails while watching 30 Rock. I think that 30 Rock is the best show on television. And granted, I don't watch that much television (Thank you, grad school! I haven't even seen The Hills in a month and who the hell knows what's going on with Grey's Anatomy. After Meredith kind of went into pseudo purgatory and they kept bringing Denny (really? was he even around for that long while he was ALIVE?) back for random episodes, I started caring a whole lot less about Seattle Grace Hospital. But I digress), and I'm not saying you should trust my judgment, but I kind of am. Seriously, people. This show is so funny I think I might have cried a little bit last night. And laughed so hard that I was shaking uncontrollably, meaning that this is what my fingernails looked like last night after I painted them. Not the neatest job, but I have since fixed them.

2. Always choose sleep over homework. Yesterday for Greek class, my assignments were 400 lines of translation from the Thesmophoriazusae (what a short, compact title, right?) and a presentation on Euripidean parody in the Thesmo. Because I am Mary Frances, I didn't really start working on either of these assignments until Wednesday, which, admittedly, was a bad plan. I got three hours of sleep on Wednesday night, got up at 5 AM and worked right up until 2:05 PM for my 2:00 class, at which point I'm pretty sure my blood had turned to coffee and Sugar Free Red Bull. And then we ran out of time both for me to give my presentation and to get to the translating portion of the class. Sigh.

3. If you tell someone they cannot pet your puppy, you are, no questions asked, the meanest person alive. I was coming back to our building after walking the dogs, when we saw our neighbor and his dog, and the trouble started. As soon as she saw The Other Dog, Ness immediately started yipping and jumping up and down as if all the magic! in! the! world! was on the other side of the street with That! Other! Dog! Callie, on the other hand, just wanted to stare menacingly at The Other Dog, and Ness' incessant jumping! in! the! air! was not conducive to said menacing stares, so Callie decided to attack Ness, resulting in a complicated web of leashes, poop bags (some of them with poop in them), muddy paws, my keys, dog ears, and me. We had just untangled and were close, oh so close, to our building, when we saw yet another neighbor who wanted to say hi. Repeat the scenario from above, only imagine me saying SIT NESS SIT NESS HOLY GOD SIT approximately forty-eight times (maybe with a few expletives thrown in there). As soon as this neighbor left to go inside, two teenage girls came up and said, very sweetly, "We were wondering if we could pet your puppy?!?" To which I, exhausted, frustrated, and with Callie and Ness' leashes bound around me like a straightjacket, said simply, and without hesitation, "No, I'm sorry. They're just too excited." And they looked at me as if I, the meanest person EVER, had just told them, "No, I'm sorry. I have to go kill a litter of kittens." Or, "No, I'm sorry. I don't let ugly people pet the puppies." But after giving me a few death stares, they walked away, I walked back in and felt guilty, so it all worked out fine.

4. Internet, you rock. OK, I totally knew that before yesterday. But seriously. Y'all. Thank you so much for your support re: the Mother v. Mother-In-Law dilemma. I can't tell you how much I appreciate your suggestions, your pixie dust, and your encouragement. You are awesome. [side note: Preston and I are calling the MIL this weekend. So if I die as a result of this future conversation, it's been fun, kids]

5. Fall is a lot more fun with leaves on the trees. This is the view from our study last week (lots of leaves and loveliness, etc.); this is the view from our study this week. BOO WINTER (although since it has suddenly become Indian Summer here in PA, I don't think I can start bitching about winter just yet).

6. I kind of love The Puppy. This isn't something I necessarily learned yesterday; it's kind of been creeping up on me. I realize that, over the last six weeks, I have said many awful things about The Puppy, making her out to be about as awesome as EVERYTHING BAD IN THE WORLD, and I wish I could say that I hadn't really meant it when I said those things, but I did. The first month was not good, internet. It was not good. Readjusting our schedule to six walks a day instead of four, walking two dogs instead of one, cleaning up pee in the apartment every .65 seconds, making sure chewable things (and by 'chewable things' I mean everything we own) were out of Ness' reach, having our den look like this 80% of the time...it was not always fun. In spite of the inconveniences she brought with her, though, Ness, has made me laugh from day one. I've always liked her. But it's only recently that I've really fallen in love with her; I think it's finally sunk in (to her and to us) that she's here to stay. She's becoming an integral part of our family, and I truly cannot imagine life without her (whereas for the first month, I definitely could, and had many moments when I wanted to give her back to Santa).

Ness complicates our lives and has a bladder the size of a very small grape, but I think that she will be a wonderfully devoted dog through the years; moreover, she (as a puppy whose mission is LOVE) is effusively affectionate in a way that Callie, a nobler, more reserved dog, has never been (plus, Ness likes Vergil, making her immediately that much cooler). Our little family of three has somehow, when I wasn't looking, become a family of four. And I wouldn't have it any other way.