WHEN CHILDHOOD BITES YOU IN THE BUM.....

Hi Y'all. Hope you enjoyed your day off from my blog!

A Great and Terrible Beauty status: I have to admit. I'm taking my own sweet time reading this. And I keep looking longingly at the other books on my nightstand.

I know I should just 'love the one I'm with', but I can't help it. I'm sort of ogling 'Graceling'.

A GIRLS' NIGHT OUT and HOW I MADE THE NAUGHTY LIST:

So, I was out with my lady cousins (A, K and W) the other night for a girls night out. We went to Paradise Bakery for dinner, and then we went shopping at Barnes and Noble, where I told them each to pick a young adult book and I'd get it for them.

Their reactions ran the gamut.

First there was cousin K. Excited about the prospect.
Cousin K: "Great. I pick The Hunger Games."

Then there was cousin A. When I said "I'll buy you a book" she must have heard "I'll drown a couple puppies in your honor." Her face was a mixture of confusion and terror.

Here's the transcript (slightly embellished by moi):

me: "I love puppies. I would never drown them. All I want to do is buy you a book."

cousin A (looking a little scared): "But... but... Libraries!"

me: "That's the whole point. Buying you a young adult book helps me. Stimulates the economy. It will all come full circle. So, pick one."

cousin A: "Which one?"

me: "Well, cousin K is getting the Hunger Games. How about that one?"

A: "Is it dark?"

me: "Um... no. It's about puppies."

A: "Because I don't like dark books."

me (wondering how in the world to describe the Hunger Games so it doesn't sound dark): "It takes place in a dystopian future."

A: "Dystopian?"

me: "Yeah. Kind of like Disneyland. It's about a fun group of teenagers, who were handpicked to compete in a contest-"

A: "That doesn't sound so bad."

me: "-Where they fight to the death."

A: Stunned silence. Awkward pause.

me and cousin K: "On second thought, how about the Goose Girl?"

Then there was Cousin W: "Do they have any Young Adult Kamasutra books?"

me: "How about 'Pants on Fire'?"

So, we each left with a couple of books (some of us more grudgingly than others), and the glowing feeling that we helped the struggling publishing industry.

Cousin Facebook status:

At dinner, we got talking about facebook updates, and discovered that only half of us were getting updates from cousin... um... Z.

Cousin Z finally fessed up to having "naughty" and "nice" lists, and so some "nice" people don't get to see all of her conversations.

Apparently I was the only one who made the "naughty" list.

Cousin K was all, "Why am I on the nice list?"

And I'm all, "Maybe I should be asking what I did to get on the naughty list?"

While we were shopping later, I think I discovered how I made the list. Cousin W started reminiscing about when we were all little kids, and we had sleepovers, and, oh yeah, remember the time Brodi kept drawing all those naughty pictures?

I'm like, "What naughty pictures?"

W: "You kept drawing pics of a certain part of the male anatomy." (Sounds like an ex-tenz commerical, I know)

me: "Like on a piece of paper?"

W: "No. Like on a chalkboard. Big drawings."

me: "Ah man. Did you have to pick that moment to have a photographic memory?"

So, I'm pretty sure that's how you make the naughty list.

Enjoy the weekend. I'm going to my friend's shower tomorrow (this time it will be scientifically impossible to show up a week early).