1. I was having my students categorize their Chinese vocab words by parts of speech (fascinating!) today, and we were talking about (the lack of) grammar instruction in English classes, and one of them said, “English has always been about how you feel about books.” I told him I would write that down.
2. Is it Chinese to be pushy? Or are other Chinese people pushy because I am also Chinese? This is a work- and life-related question.
3. Sosie will not put on clothes. I blame this on Juan-Boy.
4. I am eating tortilla chips and whitefish dip with wine-from-a-box for dinner for the second night in a row. I blame this on Juan-Boy too.
5. The end of the quarter is Friday, and for this, I am happy I switched departments. I will not grade another essay until my students are in fourth-year Chinese

1. Last night I dreamt that someone was trying to install a scantron machine in our hallway bathroom. I actually got up and went out into the hallway to stop him.
2. Sosie did not sleep in this morning. Maybe she does not understand that it is the weekend.
3. Falafel sounds good today. And soup.
4. We are going to take Sosie to a Halloween party this afternoon to show her that other kids wear costumes and they do not melt. They survive.
5. Darn that Juan-Boy. His slow motion may have cost us a trip to Vegas.

Oatmeal Brulee

1. Good for you, Colin Powell.
2. The Alaskan-inspired rap was pretty good. I am sure I’m not original in saying that I want to be friends with Amy Poehler and Tina Fey.
3. I almost typed “Sarah Palin” instead of “Tina Fey.”
4. Juan-Boy woke up and said that today was my rest day since I was feeling a little ill. It is now 10:55am, and he’s been asleep for at least an hour, while I’ve been feeding pad thai to the Goblin.
5. No Thong Thai for us anymore. It was ketchup pad thai and tomatoey Panang curry. While we were eating, Juan-Boy said, “But I like ketchup, so it’s not too bad.” On the way home, he said, “We’re not going back there anymore.”

1. Piggy Sosie usually wakes up between 6:30 and 7 every morning. Today she woke up at 8:45am. Oink oink.
2. Periwinkle the Cat Next Door is whiny and selfish.
3. Piggy Sosie should not eat mushrooms sauteed in butter. They do not agree with her little tummy.
4. One of the songs on Barney informs the viewer, “You can tell a shape by the shape that it’s in.”
5. I am going to pretend to be a cheerleader too.

1. Eel and shrimp fried rice for breakfast today.
2. I hope that spinach quiche is cooked through! At least it’s not my department that I’ll be sickening.
3. Melonhead woke up in the middle of the night yelping yelping yelping. I thought she was having a seizure, but no, just yelping. She stopped once I started petting her, and then she went back to sleep.
4. Sosie also woke up to say, “NO! No? No?” and then went back to sleep.
5. They did not wake up at the same times, so Mama Bear is pretty durn tired today you betcha.

The Terrorist Barack Hussein Obama

1. Mushroom quiche this morning, but no sleeping in. Sosie woke up at 6:03am complaining of a full diaper. And then she wanted apples and noodles.
2. Schmonster’s baby shower this afternoon!
3. Melonhead’s cyst is no longer pea-sized. It is now nickel-sized. Dr. W tomorrow morning.
4. If we have wooden sushi and wooden pizza, we probably should have bought a wooden kitchen. Instead we have this plastic behemoth.
5. Pedro left leftover NY strip in the car in a take-out box for a whole day. He offered it to me for lunch.

1. Our battery died after leaving Gonggong in the car to listen to his newly checked-out CDs for an hour. We stopped a nice guy to give us a jump, but he (and we) couldn’t find the battery in his car (well, we could see it, but we couldn’t reach it). After twenty minutes, we stopped some high school kids who couldn’t figure out how to open their hood. Gonggong taught them how to jumpstart a car battery (they really could not care less), and we were soon on our way.
2. As I was writing that paragraph, Sosie just spit out the white of a hard-boiled egg she was eating. “Spit out” might be too strong a term. She just chewed, opened her mouth, and let everything fall out. Melonhead is licking it off the floor.
3. Now Sosie is trying to climb into another cabinet.
4. Video of that coming soon.
5. Melonhead is looking for more egg.

John McCain, as told by David Foster Wallace

1. I left school very early today to drive my coworker to the train station. His car door was torn off by another car. It’s the small things you take for granted, no?
2. There are more KFCs in China than in the USA.
3. I told my students that Chinese people call the Mexican busboys “amigos.” I am waiting for the phone calls now.
4. I would like new glasses.
5. I am stuffed full of a bad sandwich.

1. Meat Lite: Eggplant Lamb Lavash Wraps
2. I am glad that my school is Jewish in October.
3. The Chinese Goblin’s newest interests are hiding in cabinets, going to petting zoos, lining up bottles in straight lines on the floor, and batting the Poor Dog’s snout.
4. Don’t feel bad for Poor Dog. She fights back by hopping up and down.
5. Is cooked chicken poisonous 1.5 weeks later? It’s been refrigerated the whole time.

The New Yorker endorses Obama

1. Good news: Realtor says that our house is nice and just needs to be pared down to sell. Bad news: We will probably (definitely?) incur a loss. AND: When do we clean up this place?
2. I can’t find any measuring cups. The Chinese Goblin has absconded with them.
3. No mushroom quiche because I forgot pie crust. And, no, I do not make crust from scratch.
4. Whoops! We have to go meet Pedro’s friends for lunch in 40 minutes!
5. I wonder if Dominick’s has me pegged as the woman who comes shopping every Sunday at 7am with her baby and tries to buy alcohol.

1. Holy smokers! We have a realtor coming over to our house this afternoon. Are we really going to put it on the market? The biggest Yikes is that means we have to clean.
2. I didn’t pass. That explains my rum+Sprite at 11am.
3. Even though we have to clean, I am going to take a rum+Sprite-induced nap soon. Very soon. Before the Chinese Goblin wakes up.
4. Apple cake this afternoon.
5. Mushroom quiche and Pedro’s high school friends tomorrow for lunch.