Girls, Girls, Girls

Here's the secret to the whole slumber party endeavor: have it on Friday night. They will have gotten up at 6 or 6:30 that morning, and by ten o'clock they will be ready to doss down for the night. Or that's what happened here; it didn't work for Sara, who sent me an email about her slumber party at midnight-thirty that said "hoping for quiet by 2am." Hee hee! My girls went up and put on their jammies, completely unprompted by me, at 9:00. Then we turned the living room into a mattresspalooza and they all sprawled out everywhere. It was like a scene from Brokedown Palace minus the drugs or stern Thai matrons.

From about 10-12 they watched Starstruck, a Disney movie about a sissy tween idol who looked barely out of diapers to me, but they were rapt. Pretty Neighbor and I hid in the book room and drank a bottle of wine.

It turned out that we didn't need a lot of activities. Laura did pick out a bracelet-making kit, and we had that set up for them to work on as they arrived. They really liked those. Some of them also decorated their faces.

Then they ran around some, then it was time for pizza, then cake, then presents. Then there was some prolonged squealing, but it was upstairs and I was downstairs so I didn't mind so much, then there was a good bit of flouncing around in jammies, then there was the making of beds, and flopping on them, then there was lots of chatting and some more squealing but did I mention the bottle of wine?

One big event was the opening of goody bags, the inventorying of the Silly Bandz in the bags, and the Silly Bandz trading. (Are Silly Bandz the thing where you guys are? ZOMG they are like oxygen here.) I took a few pictures of the negotiations.

If you've ever seen traders in action on the floor of the stock exchange, you get the picture. Oh, and we only lost one girl, but it was just half an hour after she got dropped off. Her mom brought her in and said that she'd had a palate expander put in the day before, and that it was hurting her. I got the feeling the girl didn't even want to come, but her mom seemed to be pushing her to stay a little while. She sat down with the other girls, but she looked glassy-eyed. After twenty minutes I felt her forehead and she seemed warm to me. She said, "I want to call my mom now," and I said, "Yes, I think that's a good idea." She turned out to be sick on top of the orthodontic pain. I'm surprised her mom brought her at all.

There was no fussing, except one little girl came to me and said, "I need an icepack, Caroline spit in my eye." I was like, why don't we rinse it out instead? And tell everyone there is no spitting allowed. The hecks?

They were asleep by midnight, and I heard them begin stirring again at 7. They got out the bagels and cream cheese, and cold pizza, and helped themselves. I stayed in bed until 8:30. Then they were gone as quickly as they came, leaving only a toxic cloud of some kind of body spray they got into upstairs.

A few more pictures are here. Laura said it was the best birthday ever and nobody cried, so I'm calling this one a success.

Look Who Came To Visit!

It's That Australian Baby, Grace! My sister Amy and her gang landed in Atlanta on Monday night. This girl is like a real, full-sized baby now and not just a little bean. So snackable!

Everyone in the family converged on my house to welcome the Australia crew, and it was a serious, class 1 hullabaloo. We had thirteen people sleeping in the house Monday night. I miscounted how many people would be there for dinner, and I made barely enough food. The sleeping arrangements were carefully orchestrated, yet during the night, two preschoolers wet their beds, and somehow Matt wound up huddled on a little folding steel cot. I didn't know any of this. I was dreaming that I was on a Greek island. There were goats and white roofs and I didn't want to leave.

It was a perfect kick-off to Christmas. We were reunited and it DID feel so good.







On Tuesday we loaded up in one big ass caravan and headed down to Mom and Dad's Pensacola house. Matt and I had four kids, one dog, and the entire set of Rock Band instruments in our van. (Okay, we weren't going to bring the Rock Band stuff, but both my brother and brother-in-law got a little wistful about leaving it behind.) We got out for lunch, somewhere deep in Georgia, and realized that not only was Hank barefoot, we hadn't brought any shoes for him, none. My mad organizational skillz, yo.

Now I'm blogging while my sister and sis-in-law wrap Santa presents. Here's the thing: when we were kids, presents from Santa just appeared unwrapped. That made sense to me. Then I married Matt, and to our union, he brought an expectation that Santa wrapped the presents he left. So it's a mixed marriage, but I've come around to his way of thinking. It means more to unwrap for the kids and more prolonged enjoyment. Is this how you do it? And Santa gifts have to be wrapped in virgin paper that hasn't been used for any other gift. Also, the gift labels have to be written in odd block letters that won't be recognized as parental handwriting. Of course, Laura has not shown much talent as a graphologist thus far, as I've been writing her notes from her freakin' elf all since Thanksgiving.

So I will sign off with a Merry Christmas! I don't know about y'all, but I've been an awful good girl.

Ask Suburban Matron: Guest Room "Relations"

Okay y'all, this one has me questioning everything that I understand about hospitality. A dear reader writes:

Dear Ms. Matron, here's a question that's been bugging me as we make our summer rounds of visiting family. I read in some magazine at the nail salon, maybe it was Redbook, that two-thirds of people think that it's NOT OKAY for their overnight houseguests to have, um, s-e-x while staying with them, like not even in the guestroom. The people they interviewed who were against it said things like, "I don't want to think about that going on in there," or just "It's rude. Gross!" And even more people said they never did it while staying at someone else's house, especially if they were staying with family. Without getting too personal, let me just say that this rule had not occurred to me! What do you think???

Thanks,

Mrs. Newlywed

Congratulations on your nuptials, Newlywed! And let me add that this is the reason that I always reach for Us Weekly or People at the nail salon. They're not likely to lay weird booby traps of etiquette-guilt. Because I'll say right up front that my first response to this was, speaking as a hostess, I don't care what people are up to in my guest room, as long as it doesn't set fire to the house. Opening your house to guests does not come with the power to regulate their intimate behaviors. And speaking as a guest, I think the guest room is a private space, as long as we're not creating a disturbance. If the mister and I have ever stayed at your house, just put your hands over your computer screen right now, but it certainly never entered my mind that business time, behind closed doors, could be bad guest behavior. That said, an overnight stay at someone's house is not the night I would choose to debut, like, my circus trainer/trapeze artist roleplaying fantasy. If such a thing were in my mind.

So have I missed something in the rulebook of hospitality? What do y'all think? If you feel inhibited from pursuing your amorous interests when staying at someone else's house, what does that feeling stem from? And if you would prefer that your guests don't get busy, tell us why. Did you have a really bad experience with guests that left you filing a claim on your homeowners' insurance? We are all ears.

Wedding Party Favors: Just a Northern Thing?

Matt's older brother Chris is going to be married this fall to a great girl from Providence, RI. I am sure you'll be hearing much more about this in the coming months, but in short, Robin is pretty, down-to-earth, accomplished, has a big career, is a mom, and is in the National Guard to boot. Yes, I'm thinking of having her take over my life for me.

So we've been email chatting about arrangements for their wedding, which will be in Boston at a historic building on the harbor. She writes:

Question for you. I was talking to Chris about party favors – little giveaways for the guests – and he says he thinks it is a northern thing – that he has never seen party favors at a Southern wedding. Is that true? Normally it is tradition to put something at each seat like a little candle or jordan almonds, etc. Chris thinks I am nuts.

Now, normally, my money would be on Matt or his brothers just not noticing such a detail, everytime. But in this case, I wrote back that I think he's right. We don't do that down here. Sometimes, rarely, I have seen little boxes of cake stacked on a table for guests to take home at the end of the reception. But not often, and nothing more than that.

I think this could be because actual sit-down meals at weddings are much less common in the South than in the North, and it sounds like the party favor is associated with a place setting at the table. We tend to have these afternoon weddings where people aren't expecting to be fed a full meal afterwards. My wedding was at 2:00, with what they called "heavy hors d'oevre," which is pretty standard around these parts. If your wedding is at noon in the South, it either means that it will be very formal, or that you're Catholic and it's a mass. 4:00 is also a popular time, but then you start to see more buffet food at the reception. However, I think my sister's wedding was later in the afternoon (Amy?), but her reception was still of the hors d'oevre-and-mingle kind. Possibly because there was only standing room because she has always been so freaking popular. But I digress.

Robin was thinking of having little cards next to each plate that told the guests the bride and groom had made a donation to a charity in their honor, but that her sister said people "expect stuff." So I asked Robin, "Would you still expect to see party favors at a wedding that had a cocktail or tea reception instead of a sit-down meal?" She said she didn't think so, but that she had never been to a wedding that wasn't a formal sit-down dinner or a seated buffet. This is so interesting to me! It really is like a totally different set of regional wedding traditions. Whenever I have been to a big nighttime wedding with a dinner and a full bar, it has always been up North. So what has your experience been? Are you reading this thinking, "Oh, totally party favors! It's required." Or are you, like, "What?"

On the interwebs I found this fun article about regional differences in expectations and etiquette for weddings, "A Look Behind the Veil at Southern Weddings." Some of the most interesting points are:

• Brides in the South have a ton of bridesmaids. Duh, I knew that. I think the most I have ever personally witnessed was nine. Anybody seen more than that? Or anybody seen a non-Southern wedding like that?
• Weddings in the South tend to do hors d'oevre or buffet because they have huge guest lists. Hmmm. I don't know, I've been to some pretty big weddings up North that had full meals. I think it might be a deeper cultural thing.
• It gives the same reason--hundreds and hundreds of guests--that Southern brides don't do party favors. Hmmm again. I've been to medium and small weddings down here, with no favors in sight.
• Flowers are a huge big deal for Southern weddings. True. But what bride anywhere doesn't love flowers?
• Southerners are notorious for not RSVP'ing. I think this is probably true.
• In the North, one or two bridal showers is standard. In the South, expect "months worth of luncheons, tea parties and get-togethers." Interesting. I had four showers or bridal events--a tea party, a luncheon, and two more conventional showers, variously hosted by friends of Matt's mom or of my mom. I didn't think that was a lot, because plenty of people have many more.
• "Couples who get married in the South also have to prepare for kids at their wedding even if they weren't invited. Southern guests have a bad habit of bringing their children to weddings regardless of whether they were listed on the invitation." Ha! This is totally true! People just assume that their kids are meant to come, and that there will be other kids there.
• In the North, it is not uncommon for sisters and mothers of the bride to host bridal showers, "here in the South that is taboo." Wow, I learned something. I thought the rule of no sisters and moms hosting showers was just the way it is done, I didn't know it was regional. I thought it was a universal law, like gravity.

Now, the whole subject of the West is interesting. I think they do their own thing on the west coast. What do you say, West Coasters? Maybe in weddings, like in so much else, they combine traditions from all over. I think California and the West in general has a greater influence over the national culture as the years go by, and maybe this will have a homogenizing effect on wedding culture? And the Midwest? I have no idea. What do you think? Do these regionalisms seem significant in your experience? I think they still are, to an extent.

Anyhoo, please weigh in. This topic is like catnip to me.

Instant Party, or, Perfection is the Enemy of Fun

Great Halloween times at our house on Friday, and a big realization for me. That is, to me it was big—this may be something everybody else already knows—but I struggle with issues of, well, let’s just call it perfection, though I’m really, really not a perfectionist. (More on this below.) So the realization was this: kids don’t want to have the Perfect Halloween. They don’t even have a concept of what “The Perfect Halloween” would signify. Because, all by itself, Halloween means you dress up, run around outside with your friends, and get candy from strangers. At night. That is what is called a good time, and it can hardly be improved upon.

My perfection issues center not on things so much as on the desire to create “perfect” experiences for my people. Hospitality, for me, is all wrapped up in this, so if you come to stay at my house, I want to figure out exactly how you want to be accommodated. I want your space to be clean and peaceful, and for you to feel totally comfortable at all times. I want everything about the visit to make you feel good and happy, and I will go to great lengths with this in mind. I probably should worry less about the mental state of others, but it's what I do. And needless to say, when kids visit, and it’s a holiday, I want them to have a super fun time.

We have houseguests this weekend—our friends Houston and Brenda and their three boys. All afternoon the kids were having a great time playing outside and getting their costumes together. Then it was time to carve pumpkins, and part of me was thinking, “Well, we can’t just carve these pumpkins, it has to be a magical, thought-out experience.” I was regretting that I hadn’t planned more of a little Halloween party for these five children. Then I realized that, duh, they’re having a great time with each other, and they were looking forward to getting their hands on some pumpkins. There wasn’t really a lot I needed to add. Also, I didn’t need to do any work on making these jack o’ lanterns look super artistic—a jack o’ lantern with symmetrical features is not more appealing than a jack o’ lantern created by a child with imperfect cutting skills. So we covered the breakfast table with white paper, and Houston, bless him, cut the things open.

All the kids, including the two year-olds, gathered around to help. The kids were already in their costumes. They had fun scooping the guts out. Or scooping some of the guts out. Plenty of guts were left in. We gave the big kids little pumpkin knives, and they went to town.

Hank had a plastic knife to brandish. They really got into it. While they were at it, I remembered that last year, while this same crowd was carving pumpkins, I had made sherbet punch in a punchbowl. I guess I was more awesome last year? So I just grabbed some Halloween paper cups, put a spoonful of vanilla ice cream in each, and poured club soda and cranberry juice on it. I thought it would be red, and punch-like, and that the kids might think it was festive. They seemed convinced. So each kid made a pumpkin to their own specifications, and they were totally wonky and charming.

I love how they turned out, with no adult design help. Laura's, on the left, follows the rules. Gary's has a big crazy smile, and the tiny, tiny features on Solomon's really respect the structural integrity and, I think, the dignity of the gourd. No downloading templates, no dremel, no fuss. Then we trick-or-treated until they were ready to come home. (Kids, when you complain that your candy is getting too heavy, it's time to go home.) It was the first time Hank ever went farther than next door trick-or-treating, and I will never forget the sight of him tramping up to each door, and the way he said "Trick-or-Treat," "Thank you," and "Happy Halloween" so carefully every time. Then he would turn to me and say, "More Trick-or-Treat?" He was, like, how could anything be this wonderful?

So, lesson learned: I need to chill, kids don't need a lot of super-mom organization to have a good time, and it's the process, not the outcome, that is fun. Please remind me of this every day until January 1.

Hope you had a fine time at your place!

Mountain Time

We spent a long weekend in Western North Carolina at the moutain house. We went to an Obama rally in Asheville, and then, fittingly, met some new people who have donkeys.

Barack Obama was in Asheville doing debate prep, and decided late in the week to hold a Sunday afternoon rally at Asheville High School. Apparently people had been lining up since dawn to try to get a good spot, but in characteristic fashion, we found out only that morning and rolled over there about noon. There were many, many people with better spots than us, but we got in just fine and could even see the man himself.

That guy is good--I think he's going places. It was exciting to be in the crowd. Even lining up to get in was fun, because it gave us a chance to mingle with our fellow liberals. Asheville is the Santa Cruz of North Carolina, you see, and while in line I remarked to Dad that everyone looked familiar even though I'd never seen them before. He said, "It's because these are your people." And they were--all 22,000 of them. Don't it make your red state blue?

Later, back home on the mountain, some new neighbors stopped by to check out Mom and Dad's house and the view from the deck. This is how it works up there. It's permissable to go knock on someone's door because you want to see their house. So we made some new friends:

They arrived with beers in hand. The daughter, Jenna, is a senior at UGA. She was wearing her jeans tucked into her Uggs, and she's a Fashion Merchandising major, so I guess we're still okay to tuck our jeans into our Uggs. We recycled their cans for them and offered them another round. Then, when they were leaving, Jenna asked for a third beer for the road, which we gave her. Carry-out hospitality!

She also offered to babysit sometime when we're up there, because both of the kids fell in love with her. Hank kept wanting to hug her, even though she was a stranger. And later, Laura said, "Mom, did you notice how Jenna's hair bounced when she walked?" (Yes, I noticed.) Anyway, I really enjoy the sort-of looser social rules up on the mountain. Like, you're just automatically more sociable because there are fewer people around. We managed to cram a lot of partying into half an hour with these people. The bonus is they have potbellied pigs and donkeys, which we went by to check out. I hope to get a ride in their crazy little 4WD mountain golf cart one of these days.

Livestock, cooler weather, adult beverages, Obama, Uggs. Good times on the mountain.

Dew Drop Inn

This last weekend was the first weekend we’ve all been home together in a long time, so Matt and I were celebrating by scrambling around doing chores. We had received a “friendly reminder” notice from our Home Owners’ Association telling us that our front yard needs work or it will bring all our property values down. The letter said to do three things: Please mow grass; please edge between lawn and driveway; and please “redifine” the planted area at the right side of the yard.

Matt and I decided that the last part meant we needed to tidy up the pine straw covering our planted area, but I was intrigued by the possibilities inherent in the invitation to “redifine” that area. Perhaps we could redefine it as a more wild, less cultivated, natural buffer between our neighbor and us? Or as a place for hoboes to doss down while passing through? Maybe the HOA needs to be more specific if they want a certain result. But we don’t like to flout the rules, and I even appreciate the fact that this HOA keeps my neighbors from having junk cars out in their front yards, or those plywood garden decorations that look like fat ladies bending over. We want the HOA—we need them on that wall.

My part of the chores had consisted of changing all the beds, standing at the top of the stairs, and throwing the dirty sheets down onto the living room floor. The kids thought this was a great idea, and started carrying pieces of laundry back up the stairs to drop them again and again. This created a much wider distribution pattern of laundry across the living room. I didn’t want to spoil their fun by actually taking the sheets to the washer, so I turned to getting supper organized.

At this point Matt came in from a Home Depot trip and invited me to come see a new ladder he bought, so I scampered out there (come on, ladders are cool). While we were standing in the driveway, clad in our Saturday best (mine was a pajama top, Hawaiian shorts, and crocs), a BMW pulls up behind us. I didn’t recognize the car or the nicely dressed young couple inside it, so I thought they were Jehovah’s Witnesses, and I may have been giving them the stink-eye. When Matt greeted them, I realized that they were our Sunday-night dinner guests. Arriving on Saturday. Matt had invited two couples, one couple I knew and one I didn’t, over for a Sunday night dinner. And here were the Hamiltons, whom I didn’t know but who looked perfectly lovely. They were mortified when they realized their mistake. I had to laugh when Kelly, the wife, said to her husband, “From now on, I’m reading all the emails.”

I invited them to come in and have supper with us, because I had just put chicken and cornbread muffins in the oven. As when anyone stops by your house, you do a quick mental calculation of just how messy IS the place—is it fit to be seen or are there horrors too terrible for public view? (Flylady calls this CHAOS—Can’t Have Anyone Over Syndrome.) I quickly decided that we were dealing only with kid clutter. And the fact that I was wearing a pajama top. But nothing was dirty or anything. Then I walked through the front door just slightly ahead of everyone else and saw the giant pile of laundry. Or it had been a pile when I’d dropped it from upstairs. Now it was more of a layer. Following the Suburban Matron Rule of Never Apologize for the State of Your House, I just did a graceful pirouetting all about the room and swept up all the clothes. It was graceful. Or it may have been. The Hamiltons were much too polite to notice any of this.

And I did change my shirt, but not immediately. I whipped up a salad and a veg and we all had dinner. And the Hamiltons were delightful company, and we were really glad that they came over. And I was also pleased that we had our act minimally together enough to be hospitable, and to offer them something besides crackers and the beer they brought. We spent a nice night talking and playing cards, and after they left, Matt said, “Your sprezzatura is beyond words.” A rave review from my most valued critic!

So what do you do with unexpected company? Do you keep special snacks on hand? Sheets to drape over things? Do you enjoy it or does it scare you?

They came back the next night, along with our other friends, and we had another lovely time. And the Hamiltons brought a bottle of gin this time—I really like those people!

Playdates

Laura loves to have people over to play, especially now that the weather is so nice, and she is spending hours at a stretch in the backyard. She would prefer to have a playmate every single day for at least some period of time. As she gets older I find that I’m spending daily mental energy helping her with social engineering—scheduling playdates with school friends, welcoming neighborhood friends who don’t need scheduling, and dealing with other kids who tend to show up here, some we’re happy to see coming, some not so much. This is now part of the actual daily work of parenting for me. I don’t mean it takes a LOT of mental energy, but it’s not nothing, especially when you’re as miserly with mental energy as I am. And then there’s the slight additional work of monitoring extra children (though, when she’s with her age mates, they don’t need looking after), and the parent pick-up and drop-off thing means I want to keep an eye on how the house looks, lest they think I’m slatternly or not perfect or something. ‘Cause we can’t have that. This is truer with some parents than others—some get major extra tidying and some get none.

I’ve been giving this a lot of thought lately—what social rules I’m imparting to Laura, and the way adult social relations impact children’s relationships with and access to potential playmates. I know that some things seem mysterious to her—the way I’ll say, “We left a message for so-and-so’s mom yesterday inviting her; we don’t want to call today because that would be pestering.” Meaning, the ball’s in their court, we don’t want to seem desperate. Or, “I think so-and-so is busy on Thursdays, and it’s getting late anyway.” Meaning, I cannot take the assault to normalcy and good sense that having a conversation with that child’s mother would be, so not today, kiddo. And then there are my (occasional) attempts to influence her choice of who to invite over, usually without letting on the reasons behind my suggestions. I wonder about the ethics of this—how far does my right to control who she plays with extend? Is it ethical for me to consult my own preferences? So, in my mind, her playmates are ranked by type. If you’re saying that this is way too much thought to give to this issue, uh, yeah, it is. Nonetheless, I think the scale would go something like this:

1. Top of the list: the kids who she has the most fun with and finds most engaging, regardless of who their parents are. (This is a dilemma because one of her favorite playmates in the neighborhood has THE freakiest, Amway-sellingest mother. This woman is seriously like an alien trying to imitate human behavior, and she will no doubt feature in future blog posts.)

2. Kids whose parents I really enjoy: these are all too few, and it seems like we just don’t see enough of them. Their kids range from great to okay as playdates.


3. Kids who are the easiest to have over, because they live close by, and their parents are easy-going, or both. Some of them don’t set the world on fire as playfellows, but they come over, get their play on, and do it with a minimum of fuss.

4. Kids who I wish would move. We don’t invite them over but they show up anyway, bringing unpleasant behaviors and/or parents with them. I feel sorry for them so we don’t turn them away. More below.

We’ve had a variety of playmate experiences this week—the good, the bad, and the batshit crazy. The best was a child from category 2, who could easily make it into category 1 on her own merits as a great kid, but I really like her mom so I put her under 2. I adore this girl’s mom. She’s got a big personality, she’s Canadian, and she too used to live in Silicon Valley. The playdate occurred one afternoon early this week, after a flurry of advance emailing and calling to establish a time. She’s not a dropper-offer (I think her kid likes her to stay on the premises), so we took gin-and-tonics down to the sandbox and got drunk while the kids ran around the backyard. I am somewhat short on quality social interaction, so this was a great playdate, and it didn’t end until after 8pm. I totally wanted her to stay over so we could spend all night giggling and watching Bravo.

The worst was yesterday, and it was a humdinger. Two little girls, very near neighbors of ours, love to wander over and play with Laura. One is 4 and her sister is 2-and-a-half. (How long would you let your two year-old go “play” at someone’s house, uninvited, without your being there?) Basically they need to be babysat, either by Laura or me. Sometimes Laura is happy to shepherd them around the backyard, but eventually, it grows wearisome, so my usual policy is to let them play for thirty minutes and then we walk them home. They both stay home with their dad all day. He is a sad sack—that’s just how he strikes me—and he told me that they’re “starved for attention,” which is why, he says, they love to come to our place. None of this would be so annoying if he weren’t such a weirdo—he has a giant “Ron Paul Revolution” sign on the back of his SUV, which is the tip of a very tiresome iceberg.

But they are sweet little girls, if a tad whiny. So yesterday, here were the highlights of the visit, in bullet form:

· They wander up the driveway looking hangdog. I saw them standing on the porch and let them in. I didn’t see their dad outside at all.

· They immediately ask for snacks and drinks, which the four year-old spills. A lot.

· The two year-old is only kinda potty trained.

· As we’re all sitting down by the sandbox, the dad appears from around the side of the house, and takes a seat to chat for a while. Ugh.

· He explains to me that the US Air Force crashed planes into those buildings on September 11, as part of a massive government conspiracy. Also flu vaccines are part of a massive government conspiracy. And microwaves alter food to make it toxic to humans, which is why microwaves are illegal in Russia.

· I made that last part sound more interesting than it really was. Plus it took 45 minutes.

· After they were gone, he sent the littlest girl up to the door with two conspiracy nutjob DVDs for me to watch and “tell him what [I] think.”

· And finally, while the dad was sharing his worldview, the four year old was in my sunroom, filling Hank’s toy train with sand that she’d brought up from the sand box. All over my hardwood floors, which I am admittedly a little freakish about. (One of my favorite bloggers—and my BFF though she has never called me—Heather at dooce.com, was once asked what product she used to keep her wood floors looking so great given that she has a kid and a dog. She answered, “It’s a product called I Have a Mental Illness.” I can relate.)

So, that was that totally awful. Awful, like if I were the queen of the world and had my own religion, that guy would be heading straight to HADES. Am I overreacting here? I am sorry I am such a bitch but I was born this way.

Here’s wishing you many double G&T playdates.