Anything You Can Do I Can Do... Eventually

I started reading The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo last year when a friend assured me I would love it and loaned me the whole series. But I only read a few pages of the first book before I gave up. I didn't read far enough to cross the threshold from not-that-interested to can't-put-it-down, and so I put it down and returned the novels.

Then, a couple of weeks ago, my older brother Brandon told me he was reading the book.

"I'm almost done," he said, excitedly. "It's such a good book. You gotta read it."

And he was right. Suddenly, I did have to read it--if only so he didn't read it before me.

All my life, I've recommended books to Brandon. Except for Calvin and Hobbes, which he wouldn't let me touch until he finished, I always read whatever it was first and then passed off my dog-eared copy, content that I already knew everything he was about to know. It was some small compensation for the fact that he already knew four and a half more years of life than I knew and always would.

The next day, Tiffany and I went to Target. We had exactly 30 minutes to shop before we had to be somewhere else. We got our normal bulk supplies--toilet paper, Dr Pepper, detergent--and then, on our way to check out, I stopped in the middle of the aisle.

"Can I go to the book section?" I asked.

"What?" she cried. "We have no time. Come on!"

I didn't move. My feet were bolted to the floor.

"Ohhh," she said, nodding her head. She knew exactly what I was thinking. "You're insane. Fine, go get it."

"Thanks!" I screamed, darting away. "It's just... he's almost done! I have to catch up!"

Even my mom unintentionally rubbed salt in my wounds. She called one night as I was tearing through the pages (it really is good).

"How's the book?" she asked. "Brandon was so excited that you started reading it after him."

Try as I might (I read while I ate my oatmeal in the morning and after Tiffany fell asleep at night), my brother beat me. He beat me so bad that by the time I finished, he had already seen the movie and started the second book.

"He finished," I said to Tiffany one night after he and I got off the phone. "It's over."

Then I remembered the remaining two books in the series.

The next day I made us drive 15 miles out of the way to get the second book.

"Here we go," Tiffany said, rolling her eyes.

"What?" I grinned. "Best two out of three."

Good-bye Flip Phone, Hello Flippin' Fantastic

I got an iPhone yesterday, so I should be smarter, right?

I'd been plotting my purchase for months. Then, my flip phone started confusing my speed dialees so that every time I called my mom, it called my brother and every time I called my brother, it called Tiffany. That was the second-to-last straw. The last straw was when the hinge on the flip-part broke meaning that no matter whom I called, I had to hold the piece carefully to keep from hanging up on them. At that point, the phone was more flop than flip.

It was pouring down rain when I made up my mind to upgrade my mobile technology, so it was a horrible day to go iPhone shopping or to do anything else that required leaving the apartment. Still, Tiffany was game.

"Just think, I'll never have to make you take the pictures I want to take because I'll have my own built-in camera," I said, raising my eyebrows.

"Fine," she said.

We have a car, but, as I've chronicled here before, finding parking for it is a disaster, so we took our scooter instead, and climbed into the rain gear we bought for just such occasions. Tiffany took a picture of me, which you can see here. If I'd had my iPhone, I could have taken a picture of her. She was decked out just as atrociously but in black.

Anyway, the first person I called with my smart phone was my mom, but I couldn't hear anything on the other end of the line, so I hung up and tried again.

Then, smashing the device to my ear, I heard the faintest of hellos.

"Mom," I shouted. "I can't hear you. I just got this new f*cking phone and I can't hear you at all."

"Rebecca?" my mom said, as if from the depths of a tunnel.

I pulled the phone away from my ear and looked at it.

That's when I noticed I still had the protective plastic covering both the microphone and speaker.

When I peeled it off, my mom's voice came through perfectly.

I told her what I had done.

"Oh dear," she said. "Was anyone around? We don't have to tell."

Right Brain...Which One is That?

A friend of ours recently treated his fiancee, Tiffany and me to a surprise pottery-making session.

"Bring your right-brains!" he wrote in a cryptic email letting us know where we were supposed to show up and when.

Tiffany and I looked at each other.

"Which one is the right brain?" she asked me. "The one I don't have?"

On our drive across the Golden Gate Bridge to meet our friends, we racked our brains trying to imagine what he had in store for us.

I have to admit I had a momentary panic when he led us into the art studio belonging to his neighbor. The teacher-in-residence greeted us, offering us white smocks and chunks of cool clay. I hated art class in high school. My teacher called me Becky and laughed every time I showed her what I was working on. Nothing I ever worked on was meant to be funny.

This woman seemed different.

"Make whatever you want," she said, tossing molds onto the table. Our friends were making a set of dinner plates.

Tiffany and I immediately went into a huddle.

"What should we make?" I whispered.

"What do we need?" Tiffany said. "That's what we should decide first. We already have plates..."

"Does this clay go in the oven? Because we've always wanted ramekens."

"Do you think we could make ramekens? That seems kind of hard."

The teacher leaned into our space.

"How about you don't worry?" she said. "How about you each make something different, just for yourself?"

I stared at her, open-mouthed.

I had no idea what I wanted to make out of clay. The realm of possibilities spread out before me and I was immobilized. But, then Tiffany and I were inspired.

"A hot chocolate mug!" I cried.

"A popcorn bowl!" she declared.

We spent the next couple of hours rolling our clay out and shaping it into shapes somewhat resembling: a hot chocolate mug decorated with a palm tree and moon, a popcorn bowl with the shape of a pig at the bottom, a fruit bowl with a palm tree (once I found that cookie cutter, I couldn't put it down), and two spoon-ish-looking devices.

Later, when I looked at our clay things laying in the sun, I laughed.

But not like my high school art teacher.

Head Gear

I like to read in bed almost every night before I go to sleep. Tiffany only reads in bed sometimes. So we have the not uncommon problem of figuring out how best to illuminate my book or magazine without disrupting her sleep. My lamp is too bright. Those little book clip lights are too flimsy-floppy.

A few months ago, we bought a camping light that straps around your head. We bought it for actual camping, but, one night, when Tiffany asked me for the millionth time to turn out my light and for the millionth time my flimsy-floppy clip light wouldn't turn on because the battery doesn't stay in, I got up from the bed in a huff.

"Don't pull the covers!" Tiffany squawked.

I ignored her.

When I came back in the room, I had the camping head lamp on. I fumbled for the switch. Our walls lit up in flashing red. It looked like an ambulance was parked outside our bedroom.

"I think I switched on the distress mode by mistake," I said. "Help."

Tiffany helped.

The head lamp works perfectly. But sometimes I forget about it. The other night, just after I got cozy under the covers with my book just so, Tiffany said:

"Light!"

I rolled over to turn out my light and grab my head lamp.

"Covers!"

Sigh. Some nights you just can't win.