Tales from the East Village

        It's very hard to describe what goes on in our apartment. Granted, most nights it's just Maya and I in one room and Sally and Marissa in the other, all four of us writing essays or learning lines or editing music videos or reading Madame Bovary, with the occasional "Hey you know what happened..." or "Oh, I forgot to tell you..." or "Do you remember when..."
        But then there are the other nights, when things happen.
        The mood has to be just right for such things to occur. Usually it's when one of us has a lot of homework due the next day and it's already 10 p.m. and that person has no intention of getting to work anytime soon.

        So, when these little things happen, I'm going to write them here. Here are two that come my mind.


Sally's Cat Poop Problem:
        Sally has a ceramics class and she was telling us about this one place in France that specializes in porcelain and, in order to differentiate between the different kinds of porcelain, they add this special kind of dye that goes away when you fire it. Sally, because her mind just works that way, was immediately reminded of a time in her life when her family owned three cats and one of them wasn't potty trained. "We would only find poop on flat surfaces, like on top of our upright piano, or the top of our SUV and maybe even the stove", she said. The problem was: they didn't know which cat was guilty. So, they went to their vet, who shall remain nameless but whose name I wish I could reveal because it is a great contributor to the hilarity of this story. The vet, in Sally's words, "is just a really brilliant man, really well-read...". So, naturally, Sally and her mother asked the doctor what they should do about this abundance of cat feces. Without hesitation, the man answered that they should get three different colors of crayons, shave them into little flakes, and gradually add them to the cats' food. You know where this is going. So, having gotten their answer from the wise doctor, Sally and her mother bought some crayons and got-a-shavin'. This is when Sally sat down and showed us how difficult it was to shave a crayon and how they hadn't really planned that it wouldn't take that long and, every time the cats' dinnertime arrived, they would try to quickly shave some crayons, but it was never enough. Long story (relatively) short: the experiment didn't work. "So yeah, if you ever have to determine which one of your cats is the pooper, you should really set aside a time to shave a lot of crayons so you have a good supply".

"With new colors such as Jazzberry Jam and Outrageous Orange you can test up to 64 cats!"

Marissa is a 50s Gal
        A few days ago, Marissa decided she was going to make rugelach for her class so she set about taking everything out of the pantry and getting ready. Meanwhile, I was in the shower. When I got out, this is what I found:

That's right. She had dressed up to bake. A vintage dress and apron to match, along with... heels. All the while, Nat King Cole is playing on the iHome while she hums along.

Charlotte