OH! My Pretzel!

One of the things I love about NYC is the things you overhear on the streets. This one kid exclaimed 'Oh! My Pretzel!' and while I wondered if it was some new expression that us old people aren't privy to, (One of my favorites was a kid saying 'Yo this block is dumb short!', meaning, I suppose, it's a quick walk) I saw a pretzel shop down the street. Phooey, a much less interesting story. One of the more amusing tidbits from my weekend back east is this book my mother-in-law bought to prepare for her hypothetical grandchildren. I flipped through it and I can't help but smile at the rosy happy picture they portray of an Asian kid's upbringing. Upon hearing about it, My brother added 'Maintain emotional detachment from EVERYONE,' to which my mom feigned deafness. Although, when asked what to do when Grandkid comes home with a B+, Mom-in-law did correctly answer 'Beat them!' I'm kidding of course-I was never beaten over grades or much at all...I'm just naturally nerdy. Ultimately, I'm terribly jealous of this brilliant marketing ploy-what a way to play on the ambitious soccer moms! I can't believe that it actually wasn't done before. This is why my ideas are Kramer ideas. I need marketability.
Friday breezed by with a lovely wedding (and yes, they did play a Thester song) and Saturday and Sunday I was sucked into Long Island open house tours that were supposed to be just a look-see and turned into a 'Are you going to make an offer?!' by the inlaws (sigh, but you can get a cute house for the price of a CA condo there-check out the one we were coveting below)















I did get to see the honorable Melissa, of tying-several-hundred-wedding-favor-bows fame
(aside from those other pesky major personal achievements of hers, but I won't mention them because she hates that) and I DID get to enjoy some good ole' John's Pizza on a quickie excursion into the city, where a cockroach visited me on the restaurant bench. I'm sure all the cockroaches heard I was coming and thought I must miss them, since I'd lived in their company for so many years. I also was treated to some cursory and impatient service, which I find charming in small doses. I did find that I miss NYC a good deal, even though I was in the neighborhood I probably hate the most: Times Square. I finally made my way into a tourist trap and bought a bunch of those


Tshirts. Even got one for me. If I could live in a fabulous condo/townhouse and work odd hours to avoid rush hour trains (or better yet, take cabs), I could really love NYC, but then that's not the true experience, is it? After all, I think every NYer needs to cultivate a decent amount of grouchiness to balance out the fuzzywuzzy...I wonder why we never saw the girls of Sex and the City take the R train...