very least I should have a beeper.
Note to self: look up word stile.
Four days, fourteen hours and forty minutes until I see Michael again.
Friday, January 15,
Royal Genovian Limo on the Way to State Dinner in Neighbouring Monaco
To Do Before Leaving Genovia:
1. Find a safe place to put Michael's present where it will NOT be found by grandmother or nosy ladies-in-waiting
while packing my stuff (inside toe of combat boot? Inside panties I'll be wearing on plane?)
2. Say goodbye to kitchen staff, and thank them for all the vegetarian entrees.
3. Make sure harbourmaster has hung pair of scissors off every buoy in bay for use of yachting tourists who didn't
bring along their own set to snip six-pack holders.
4. Take funny nose and glasses off the statue of Grandmere in the Portrait Hall before she notices.
5. Give Rommel's mink sweater back.
6. Break Francois' record of eleven feet, seven inches sock-sliding down Crystal Hallway.
7. Let all the doves in the Palace dovecote go (if they want to come back, that is fine, but they should have the option
to be free).
8. Let Tante Jean Marie know that this is the twenty-first century and that she no longer has to live with the stigma of
feminine facial hair, and leave her my Jolene.
9. Go to the beach, just once, and walk barefoot through that famous white sand I haven't gotten within ten yards of
the entire time I've been here. Also, establish Sea-Turtle Nest Patrol so that eggs will be protected.
10. Get crown fixed (combs keep spearing me in the head).
Saturday, January 16, 11 p.m.
Royal Genovian Bedchamber
Grandmere so needs to get a life.
Tonight was the royal ball - you know, to celebrate the end of my first official trip to Genovia in my capacity as heir to the throne.
Anyway, Grandmere's been going on about this ball all week, like this is going to be my big chance to redeem myself for
the whole snip-your-plastic-six-pack-holder thing I pulled during my first televised address to the populace.
So she makes this big deal out of my dress (a Sebastiano design - my dad finally forgave Sebastiano for putting those
pictures of me wearing his designs in the New York Times Sunday supplement. My dad even forgave Grandmere for letting Sebastiano do it without clearing it through him first. Though things are still a little strained between the two of them - I heard him tell her to 'lay off' the other day when she was giving him grief about his latest girlfriend, one of those bendy trapeze girls from the Cirque du Soleil. I don't know what happened to the bareback rider.
And she makes this big deal out of my hair (growing out and so becoming triangle-shaped again, but who cares, boys are supposed to like girls with long hair better than girls with short hair - I read that in French Cosmo). And she makes this big
deal out of my fingernails (OK, so in spite of the whole New Year's resolution thing, I still keep biting them. So sue me.
I can't help that I am orally fixated, the man is keeping me down).
Then, after all this big-deal making, we finally get to the stupid ball. And it turns out that all that fuss was just so that
Grandmere could shove me at Prince Rene, of all people, and the two of us could dance in front of this Newsweek
reporter who is in Genovia to do a story on our country's transition to the Euro!
Afterwards I was all, 'Grandmere, I am willing to cool it with the calling Michael stuff, but that does not mean I am going to start going out with Prince Rene,' who, by the way, asked me if I wanted to step outside on to the terrazzo and have a smoke.
I, of course, told him I do not smoke and that he shouldn't either as tobacco is responsible for half a million deaths a year
in the United States alone, but he only laughed at me all James Spader from Pretty in Pink-ishly.
So then I told him not to get any big ideas, that I already have a boyfriend and that maybe he didn't see the movie of my life,
but I fully know how to handle guys who are only after me for my crown jewels.
So then Prince Rene said I was adorable, and I said please don't patronize me as I am not a child, and then my dad came up and asked me if I had seen the Prime Minister of Greece and I said, 'Dad, Grandmere is trying to fix me upr with Rene,' and then my dad got all tight-lipped and took Grandmere aside and had A Word with her while Prince Rene slunk off to go
make out with one of the Hilton sisters.
Afterwards, Grandmere came up and told me not to be so ridiculous, that she merely wanted Prince Rene and I to dance together because it was a nice photo op for Newsweek and that maybe if they ran a story on us, it would attract more tourists.
To which I replied that in light of our crumbling infrastructure more tourists is exactly what this country doesn't need.
I suppose if my palace had been bought out from under me by some shoe designer, I would be pretty desperate, too,
but I wouldn't hit on a girl who has the weight of an entire populace on her shoulders, and already has a boyfriend, besides.
On the bright side, if Newsweek does run the photo, maybe Michael will get all jealous of Rene the way Mr. Rochester
did of that St. John guy, and he'll boss me around some more!!!
Two days, fourteen hours, and twelve minutes until I see Michael again.
I CAN'T WAIT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Monday, January 18, 3 p.m., Genovian Time,
Royal Genovian Jet, 20,000 Feet in the Air
I cannot believe that:
a. my dad is staying in Genovia in order to resolve the parking crisis rather than coming back to New York with me
b. he actually believed Grandmere when she said that my princess lessons need to continue
c. she (not to mention Rommel) is coming back to New York with me
IT IS NOT FAIR. I held up my part of the agreement. I went to every single princess lesson Grandmere gave last fall.
I passed Algebra. I gave my stupid address to the Genovian people.
Grandmere says that in spite of what I might think, I still have a lot to learn about governance. Except that she is so wrong.