And in other Arab-related news, it looks like other people's feelings may get in the way of my much anticipated junk food festival. Why can't we all just get along indeed. Still, I have no intention of letting rioting groups of hillbillies vs. Arabs get between me and my elephant ear. Priorities, people.

This weekend I'm going over to my in-law's house to take my youngest sister-in-law out to lunch. The oldest sister-in-law is 23 weeks pregnant and just bought a doppler. She'll be in town for a wedding and my mother-in-law called me last night, all excited, about how I can use the doppler and the whole family of in-laws can hear the heartbeat. Yeah, that sounds great, but the baby is low right now, as in so low that the wand part has to be placed in an area that borders on my private parts and therefore this is not something I want to be doing in front of the whole family. I really hope that I am not forced to have this conversation with my mother in law. I mean, I could hardly be blamed for the structure of human anatomy (anyway, she's had 4 kids, she should know), but still...I just don't want to have to say "private parts" in front of her.

Leo will be having a "boys weekend" at the end of the month in Vail. He informed me this morning that 1) they will be camping in the mountains and 2) there are cougars and bears there. Super. I have booked a flight to Clearwater to get in some mommy practice time with Wendy and Olivia.

Oh, and Farmer Jack failed me ONCE AGAIN last night. All I wanted was a box of frozen fried clams, so I could drown them in malt vinegar and eat them for dinner. And, you guessed it, Farmer Jack does not sell fried clams. Of course, I did not find this out until I had already filled my shopping cart and I just couldn't muster the strength to go to another store, especially since we have nothing but cracky Farmer Jack's anyway and the other stores probably wouldn't carry friend clams either. I know. My life is hard.

I desperately want to plan and cook for a party but we can't afford to have one. Anyone want to hire me to cater? If not, I'll be obsessing over the Thanksgiving menu for four months, and that's just not healthy.