Do You Ever Do This?

Javert and I were in a little coffee shop this weekend, a place where I continually try to go for lunch and can never get a table and therefore rarely actually end up going. I tried last Tuesday when I had the day off, but even at 2pm on a random Tuesday it was full. On Saturday we were there at 6pm and took the last empty table. I ordered a latte and Javert got a chocolate chip brioche, and we sat and read the paper.

Except I didn't read the paper. I held it up and pretended to read while I noticed the two women sitting at the table next to us were speaking to each other in Hebrew. It was fast Hebrew and I couldn't understand it, so I then turned to eavesdrop on the people sitting on the other side of us, a couple and a girl who I presumed was in college and possibly their daughter or niece or something. They weren't terribly interesting, so I turned my attention back to the Hebrew speakers and now here's the weird part--I pretended to understand and eavesdrop on them. I admit I was tired. But I don't think that excuses a weirdo who pretends to eavesdrop on people whose language she can't understand.

Along the same lines, I often put on a show for people who I know are eavesdropping on me. Saturday, before the coffee shop incident, Javert and I had lunch at a bistro-type restaurant nearby our apartment. There was a street fair outside and it wasn't cold out, so we sat outside for the first time since the fall. Halfway through our meal, a boy sat down at the table next to us, ordered a latte and french toast, and then got out a book about or possibly by Freud and pretended to read while actually listening to our conversation. Either that or he is a REALLY slow reader. Javert and I were having a good time discussing the "puzzler" feature on Car Talk (meaning Javert would give me a puzzle and I would fail miserably trying to solve it) and then trying to guess the color order of the letters in his company's name (Initech, remember?). I did better than Javert on that one, which is interesting since he sees the logo way more often than I do. Anyway, I had a good time exaggerating for the benefit of our little audience. I hope he enjoyed the show!

Not a T-Rex this time!

Hurrah! Passover has ended! I spent the last few days of the holiday sick, which was terrible, because who wants to be sick on vacation AND when you can't even have chicken noodle soup? In addition, I suffered a terrible bout of insomnia on Sunday night, which also cut into my vacation enjoyment. Between 12 am and 6am Monday morning, I did some of a crossword puzzle, read the newspaper online, read creepy religious blogs, and freaked myself out thinking we had bedbugs. Mostly though I lay awake in bed or on the sofa (depending on where I thought the bedbugs were) repeating the Golden Girls theme song and wishing I had 3 elderly roommates and cheesecake to keep me occupied. At 4:30 am I drank some port, which is what my grandmother does when she can't sleep (except she drinks Maneschewitz). Javert will tell you that I freaked out as he was leaving for work on Monday morning. I don't know if I've ever cried out of sheer exhaustion before.

Tuesday I celebrated the end of Passover by going to Le Pain Quotidien and taunting myself with glimpses of what I could eat later on in the day (I had a salad there.) Then I went shopping for ladies undergarments.

Can I just say that I will no longer be shopping at Victoria's Secret? How can a store this big and with so many locations not have ladies undergarments in my size? Not to brag (or complain, it depends on how you see it), but I do share 'certain' attributes with the models they feature in catalogues and on billboards. How come they can't accommodate people like me? Am I really that freakish? I went to two other ladies shoppes along Broadway and found a great selection in my size. For around the same price too!

The only downside of shopping at these other stores is the return policy--at one shop you can return only for store credit, and the other will give a refund only within 15 days. They also note that items with animal hair on them will not be accepted for return. Of course when I got home and put my purchases on the bed for further inspection the cats went STRAIGHT for the items from this store, as if they knew (maybe the store sprays eau d'catfood around?). This is a weird policy, because wouldn't you be MUCH MUCH MUCH more disturbed if your new undergarments had human hair on them?

Here are some photos from our Easter dinner Sunday night. Do you see how artistic my eggs were? The ones in the top say "Zolie" and "Paxwell" on the other sides. I must have been overcome with a pre-insomnia burst of artistic talent, because usually everything I draw looks like a dinosaur.