Fight

Posh and Becks live upstairs from us. They're not the real Posh and Becks, but they could be. They always seem like such an annoying perfect couple, and they make much more money than we do and their apartment is super dope. They live in the duplex part of the brownstone which is the rich people's part of the brownstone. In a way, they're quite irritating.

Anyway, yesterday there was a crack in Posh and Becks land - a fight! First, some commotion. Then, some screaming. Posh: "YOU'RE A FUCKING COWARD!!" Becks: "SHUT THE FUCK UP!!" Wow. Even though it is disturbing to listen to another couple's anger, this was pretty cool. It might be ok to yell like that when you're 20 years old and drunk as hell and fighting with your boyfriend you've had for a month and will dump in a week. But when you're Posh and Becks??

This little incident made us realize, once again, that we are an awesome couple. A fabulous well-balanced couple. We might not have a set of matching wine-glasses, or even matching cups and plates, but we do know how to behave like grown-ass adults. For the most part.

Phew

An unattended 'Dora the Explorer' backpack on the Hoyt-Schermerhorn subway platform stirred up the evening commute, for some.

"Is this your bag?" an anxious looking man asked a father standing close by with his son. It's a pink Dora bag, of course it was not. "Whose bag is that? Does anyone know??" the man called out. A couple of people shook their heads, but nobody owned up to the bag. "Well," the anxious man continued, "you know what they say: 'if you see something, say something'." And off he went, up the stairs, to get help.

Damnit, I thought to myself, is this going to cause one of those police investigations? That's totally going to delay the trains, and I'm one stop away from home. Why would there be a bomb in a pink backpack at Hoyt-Schermerhorn, a station which name nobody can even pronounce? I was waiting for the speakers to go "due to a police blahblahblah" but before that happened, the awesome G trained rolled in.

As I stepped inside and waited for the doors to close, one lone police officer approached the bag. He poked the bag with his finger. When nothing happened, he unzipped the top flap and looked inside. Nothing. He then swung the bag onto his shoulder and headed for the stairs.

And then the rest of us had to ride the G train listening to the all too familiar announcement: "Ladies and gentlemen, this is a message from the New York City Police Department, if you see a suspicious package or activity on the train or on the platform, please don't keep it to yourself, tell a police officer or an MTA employee" ...and you know the rest.

Unfriendly soccer

The USA-Sweden friendly game pretty much sucked - despite my sister and I wearing full uniform.

Cup of Pee

Peeing in a cup is not easy. It's even more difficult when an angry nurse is waiting right outside the bathroom door. "Just a minute..." my voice cracks, and the warm pee hits my hand instead of the cup. How am I supposed to do this? Do other women aim right? Why don't they give us something bigger to pee in when we have to do these stupid drug tests, like maybe a bucket?

Most of my pee is on my hand, dripping down on the floor. How gross. Only a few drops make it inside - not even close to the 40 mL mark that the angry nurse has drawn with an angry magic marker. Shit. More peeing outside of the cup. If I just scooped up some water from the toilet bowl it would contain my pee at this point. But maybe the drug test results would come back funky this way.

Amazingly, I manage to sprinkle 40 mL into the cup in the end. I step outside and proudly hand the nurse my cup of pee. Completely gloved up she holds it up towards the light and eyes it with a frown. But there is enough pee. She checks the temperature of the pee to make sure I didn't bring in someone else's pee and transfered that pee into my cup. She then puts a sticker with 'date and time' on a separate tube and pours my pee into that tube. Then, she hands me the tube.

"Put your initials here!" she growls and points to the sticker on the tube that contains my pee. What? I don't want to touch that tube without wearing latex gloves. She has gloves on - I don't. But then again, given that I just peed on my bare naked hands, jotting down my initials on that tube shouldn't matter too much. Still, I hold the pen as far away as possible from the 'ink-point' and scribble down KE in caps.

Morning struggle

Bentley the cat has gotten into the habit of waking me up by nibbling at my face. He thinks I will feed him if he does this. In the beginning it was cute and all (maybe he thinks I'm the mommy!), but still, who wants to get up at 6am to feed the cats?

I try to ignore Bentley as he wrestles with my head and sinks his teeth into my chin. If I don't respond to his behavior there's no point for him to keep nibbling, is my logic. But no. The nibbling has turned into bites instead. He's not puncturing my skin, but it's very, very close. I have red bite marks all over my face as we speak. Pairs of red dots, like the marks of fangs.

I put him in the kitchen this morning and closed the door, but that encouraged the "door game" where Bentley scratches and meows on one side of the door, and Kompis the cat does the same on the other side.

So I asked Sean to get up and feed the cats so that they'd get quiet. This way - if Sean feeds them - there will be no connection between biting my face and getting food; hence, we're not encouraging the biting behavior.

Unless Bentley's brain starts to think: "Biting her face will make that guy serve me breakfast."