What luck!

This morning I put on an old brown jacket -- oh dear, that description makes it sound a little meh, no?? Try again. This morning I put on my lucky jacket, a tobacco-brown, nipped-waist number that I bought at a little boutique in West Hartford years ago. Or maybe my sister bought for me because Lord knows I didn't have the kind of money to drop in little boutiques in West Hartford back then, which was 1994, to be exact, the year I borrowed $40,000 from the federal government so that I could earn a graduate degree in journalism and win a $16,000 a year job in Florida.

Anyhoo, this is my lucky jacket because one day, back then in 1994, I slipped it on and sneaked out of work to copy my resume at Kinko's. (Some things never change! Except now I sneak out for chocolate.) I was hurrying down K Street, thinking about job options -- Florida? Idaho? Cincinnati? nah, not Cincinnati, I don't even like chili... -- when a nervous-looking guy with a big camera stopped me and spilled this long story about a missing model, a magazine photo shoot, and would I please, please, just step into this restaurant's bathroom?

Oh my! It briefly crossed my mind that this was actually a sophisticated trap by white slave traders to capture self-obsessed Washingtoniennes. You go into the bathroom and exit in Arabia somewhere... But I could not resist! So I went in, pushed up my lucky jacket's sleeves, and washed my hands, over and over and again, while the camera clicked away. Supposedly it was a story on bisexual bathrooms, which sort of makes sense, those were the Ally McBeal days.

Ha! I know they're not bisexual bathrooms, but that's my secret inside joke that makes me think of my grandmother, who used to buy me Calvin Klein Escape perfume for Christmas and say, "You know what? This is bisexual perfume! The lady at Fox's told me so." And I'd say, "Naaaan! It's not bisexual! It's unisex!"

Anyhoo, they gave me a $50 gift certificate to the restaurant.

And that wasn't its only piece of good luck. This morning, when I reached into the pocket, I found a business card for a big-shot editor at a big-name newspaper. Aha! In 2003, I wore it to a job interview -- and got it! (I suppose that editor is probably panhandling on Biscayne Boulevard now, given the general state of the news industry these days... You know the Rocky Mountain News is publishing its last issue today? I have a friend who works there. Ack.)

So what luck has my jacket brought me today?? Well, we spent a little time this morning at Lucy's school, which was holding an open house for its pre-K program. Very nice. I do not, in general, approve of the use of workbooks in any kind of classrooms, especially pre-K, but I did very much like the fairy village that the kids constructed from lunch bags and imagination.

And then, David dropped me off at the Metro elevator, where I reached into my purse for my wallet and -- it was gone!! Aaaah, babies! (I always blame the babies when things are missing. They are convenient that way. I picture Margaret, sitting on the floor, tossing credit cards to the ceiling. Or Josephine, unzipping the change purse and gleefully shouting, "Monies!") Momentary panic -- but, in the corner of my eye, I can see David's car disappear into the entrance of the county parking garage.

I am off! Flying down the ramp in my brown boots, waving my rolled-up umbrella! I ran three miles this morning (was supposed to run four, but my God, was it warm!?? Three days ago, it was 22 degrees, and this morning it was 51! And me in my winter pants!) And down we go, him in the speedy Saab, me in my tall boots. Down, down, down to...

Level 4. Four! Where he opens the door, grabs his bag, and finds me standing outside his door, huffing in my lucky jacket. "You didn't see me?" "Why would I look behind me?" Realization dawns. "You ran down four levels??" More huffing, but mostly of the self-righteous kind. I take $25 -- Metro fare plus fancy lunch with Auntie Pamela at Il Mulino today. And shuffle off to the elevator.

Get to work finally...

Find my wallet on my desk.

Oh, what luck!!

Happy birthday, babies!

The babies are 2 years old!

I know, I know, they're not really babies anymore... Josephine reminds me of this, as she rips off her Pampers and shouts, "Peepee!" Or refuses to sit in her booster seat. "Big, big!" she protests, and climbs up on a dining room chair.

Okay,little girl -- you are big. Even if you do weigh 22 pounds...

We had a birthday party this past weekend and Margaret got a new soft brown dress from Auntie Sharon. Why brown? Because Margaret makes us think of a chocolate. She is sweet and round. Josephine's new dress is green -- and that's about right too. She's still a little elf.

Finally, the girls have started to talk like little children. They say, "Mooo, Joeshzie!" (You're sitting on my dress!) "Nooo, MINEZ!" (That's Josephine.) "A pees?" (That's a very hopeful Margaret, hoping for a piece of candy.) They sing songs. "Ba ba bakkk seeeee, yeshir, yeshir..." And they say everybody's name: Mommy, Daddy, Lulu, Joeshzie...but not Margaret. You can point to her all you like, but Margaret grins and dips her chin and says, "Noooo!"

Margaret runs around the house with her arms outstretched behind her, chortling, then hops through the kitchen like a frog. She follows Lucy faithfully. Josie perches on top of the furniture, giggling. Everybody wants to be held! But then everybody wants to get down already!

The other day I found cheese in Margaret's hair. Yesterday I found cheese between Margaret's toes. I have no idea...

A Math Problem

Take two packages of dinosaur oatmeal -- the kind with little eggs that hatch into red dinosaurs upon impact with boiling water. Divide into three bowls. Make sure everybody has the same number of marvelous hatching eggs. Give everybody a pat of butter -- then give Margaret an extra slice. Now, the question is: how many minutes until you're late for work (again)?

Who you looking at?

The other day, one of our many aunties -- and that's auuuunties, not annnties, because we are from Connecticut, please -- sent me an urgent email titled, "Baby Contest -- You Must Enter." And here, a real quote from urgent email goes, "YOU HAVE TO ENTER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! YOUR BABIES ARE WAY CUTER THAN ANY OTHER PICTURES THEY'VE SHOWN AND THEY ARE PERFECT FOR GERBER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

Well! It is true! They are way cuter than any other babies in the contest. I mean, let's face it, they're way cuter than any other babies on the fricking Earth. It's their behavior that's a little less attractive. (I'm talking to you, girlfriend! Put down the poopy diaper!!)

Anyhoo, maybe I'll enter, maybe not, but frankly I'm leaning toward not because I think Josephine already displays many of the freakish behaviors associated with supermodels and I need not encourage them.

To wit:

1) She's obsessed with clothes. The other night, I made the enormous, Sarah Palin for VP-sized mistake of putting Margaret into the lavendar sparkly jammies and Josie into the red ones with moose applique. "Minez! Miiiiinez!" screeched Josephine, yanking on Margaret's sleeves, plucking at her zipper. Denied, she eventually collapsed in a sobbing, sleeveless puddle on the bathroom floor. (Margaret toddled off for a baba.) Now I know to say, "Which one?" She points -- "!inez!" -- and then, while I comb her hair, rolls a footie up into her armpit so nobody can take it away.

(Margaret doesn't care about clothes, except she likes to smooth her shirts over her belly.)

2) She's obsessed with accessories, namely the two sets of rainbow-striped "baby legs" that I got for free at last year's Baby Loves Disco. She wears two on her arms and two on her legs. Or, if she's feeling a little more Pretty Young Thing, she just pulls on a single sleeve.

See here...this is sort of her Slash look.


3) The supermodel physique! First she plops a pink strawberry into her water. Then a maple sausage. Then a handful of Cheerios. Fillet of fenny snake, boil and bake... When you exclaim, "Josephine! Stop playing with your food!" she'll take a few defiant sips of her murky brew, brows knotted, sisters gaping.

4) Bottled water. Supermodels are crazy about bottled water!! And so is Phinie-Weenie. When her poor dehydrated sisters clamor, "It's my turn!" she sticks her little tongue into the neck of the bottle and just keeps it there, like, "I may not be drinking this water, but bitches it's minez."

(That makes her sisters cry.)

5) Her penchant for costumes. See here...



So, I don't know. I'm tempted by the fame (and fortune! We would finally buy a gnome-shaped coffee table and apartment in Dublin!) but, all in all, it seems like a largish risk. Thoughts?