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Why I should never drink caffeine after 3 PM

I drank iced tea at dinner last night without remembering the caffeine content.  At three this morning I was trying to convince my dogs to wake up and play with me. They were not amused. Blue got up from my bed in a very disgruntled manner and moved downstairs. (Shades of my marriage!) Blondie refused to even lift her head off the couch and pretend that she heard me. So I was forced to lie in bed and wonder when I lost control of the pets in my life. And then the answer came to me.  I never had it.

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It’s just not the same

I took our family’s Easter ricotta pie recipe and tried to make it diabetic friendly by taking out the rice, not using a crust and substituting fake sugar.  And I’m here to tell you, it’s just not the same.  Not even if I close my eyes and wish really, really hard. Pie without crust, it turns out, is not really a pie and not really a cake and not really something that holds together outside of the pan. But it makes great ricotta pudding.

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Global warming

The more I read about the dire predictions for earth’s immediate future, the more I am amazed at the fact that Kevin Costner might have been way ahead of his time with Waterworld. That statement alone probably indicates the end of the world as we know it.

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Only over my house

I had to take a cab to an eye doc’s appointment this week because I can’t see to drive back after they’ve dilated my eyes. When the cab picked me up, the driver commented that it was raining all over town but when he turned down the road to my house, he noticed the rain turned to snow. He thought that was odd. I think it’s just cruel and that god will have a lot to answer for when I get to wherever it is I go after I die.

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I need to get a life

For some reason, last night I went to a website that let me play Dean Martin singing That’s Amore. The next thing I know, I was singing as loud as I could while my bird Abdul looked at me like he suddenly realized he was in a locked room with a mad woman.  Which he kind of was.  But I didn’t care. I didn’t care that I couldn’t carry a tune with a wheelbarrow’s assistance or that I stumbled over half the words.  Because suddenly I was back in my Italian childhood in Ducktown in Atlantic City and it was

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I have morphed

I looked into the mirror this morning and saw the shadow of a mustache on my upper lip. It was then that I realized I’d totally skipped my mother and morphed into my grandmother.  Now all I need are black orthopedic shoes, a black dress and an apron for the transformation to be complete. I am a nona.

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Columns 2007

Bureaucrats do a needed job

I was listening to a show on NPR about the chaos caused in Iraq by the wholesale firing of all Baathists after the invasion.  While the reasons for the purge will probably be debated for a long time to come, and no one who has an ounce of sense in their heads doubts that some Baathists were very bad people, the result of the wholesale purge was total collapse of the civil service system in the country.

Yes, I can hear the laughter now from those who are thinking that maybe that wouldn’t be such a bad idea here. Get

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My eyes!  My eyes!

If there is any doubt that Karl Rove deserves to go to hell for eternity, it was wiped away by the sight of him rapping and doing what I can only assume he thought was rap dancing in a tuxedo.  They may have to legalize a lot more drugs to help me move past this moment.  I wake up screaming in the night. My eyes…my eyes… NOTE TO ALL MIDDLE AGED AND OLDER WHITE MEN IN DC – YOU CANNOT RAP. YOU CAN BARELY DANCE.  YOU ABSOLUTELY CAN’T RAP AND DANCE AT THE SAME TIME.

And, may I add, BRING

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Recorded messages from everyone!

Does anyone actually listen to all those recorded messages from politicians running for office, special interests wanting you to vote one way or another on a proposition, etc. etc. ad nauseam? I just came back from all of 90 minutes away from my desk and almost the entire recording time on my answer machine was filled up with them because Anchorage has an election coming up on Tuesday. I couldn’t hit delete fast enough.  It’s enough to make me want to vote AGAINST the people who are annoying me so much with these damn recordings.

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