to write this entire year off as a do-over.
Still no clue as to what my secret talent might be. One thing I'm pretty sure it's not is psychology. It was hard work talking
Tina out of giving up her books! And we didn't manage to convince Shameeka not to try out for cheerleading. I guess I can
see why she'd want to do it -I mean, it might be a little fun.
Though why anyone would willingly want to spend that much time with Lana Weinberger is beyond me.
Thursday, January 21
French
Mademoiselle Klein is NOT happy with Tina and me for skipping yesterday.
Of course I told her we didn't skip, that we had a medical emergency that necessitated a trip to Ho's (for Tampax), but
I am not sure Mademoiselle Klein believes me. You would think she would show some feminine solidarity with the whole surfing-the-crimson-wave thing, but apparently not. At least she didn't write us up. She let us off with a warning and
assigned us a five-hundred-word essay each (in French, of course) about snails.
But that isn't even what I want to write about. What I want to write about is this:
MY DAD RULES!!!!!
And not just a country, either. He totally got me out of the contessa's black-and-white ball!!!!
What happened was - at least according to Mr G, who just caught me outside in the hall and filled me in - the filibuster
over the parking fees was finally broken (after thirty-six hours) and my mom was finally able to get through to my dad
(those in favour of charging for parking won. It is a victory for the environment as well as the Genovian Historical Society,
who felt that many of our narrower streets would not be able to withstand the rumble of recreational vehicles that would
ensue if we allowed free parking).
Anyway, my dad fully said that I did not have to go to the contessa's party. Not only that, but he said he had never heard anything so ridiculous in his life, that the only feud going on between our family and the royal family of Monaco is Grandmere's. Apparently she and the contessa have been in competition since finishing school, and Grandmere had just wanted to show off her granddaughter, about whom books and movies have been made. Apparently the contessa's only granddaughter is in rehab in Fresno, so you can sort of see where Grandmere was coming from, although, of course, what she'd been trying to do isn't very nice.
So I am free! Free to spend tomorrow night with my only love! I cat-on-the-roofed Michael for nothing! Everything is going
to be all right, despite my lack of lucky underwear, I can feel it in my bones.
I am so happy, I feel like writing a poem. I will shield it from Tina, however, because it is unseemly to gloat over one's own fortunes when the fortunes of another are so exceedingly wretched (Tina found out who Jasmine is: a girl who goes to Trinity, with Dave. Her father is an oil sheikh, too. Jasmine has aquamarine braces and her screenname is Iluvjustin2345).
Poem for Michael
Oh, Michael,
soon we'll be parkin'
in front of Grand Moff Tarkin
Enjoying veggie moo shu
to the beeps of R2D2
And maybe even holding hands
while gazing upon the Tatooine sands
And knowing that our love by far
has more fire power than the Death Star
And though they may blow up our planet
and kill every creature living on it
Like Leia and Han, in the stars above,
they can never destroy our love—
Like the Millennium Falcon in hyperdrive
our love will continue to thrive and thrive.
Homework:
Algebra: probs at end of Chapt. 11
English: in journal, describe feelings pertaining to reading John Donne's The Bait
Biology: Don't know, Shameeka is doing it for me
Health and Safety: Chapter 2: Environmental Hazards and You
G & T: figure out secret talent
French: Chapitre Onze, ecrivez une narratif, 300 words, double space, plus 500 wds on snails
World Civ.: 500 wds, describe origins of Armenian conflict
Thursday, January 21,
Limo on Way Home from Grandmere's
It takes a big person to admit she's wrong - Grandmere is the one who taught me that.
And if it's true, then I must be even bigger than my five feet nine inches. Because I've been wrong. I've been wrong about Grandmere. All this time, when I thought she was inhuman and perhaps even sent down from an alien moth-ership to
observe life on this planet and then report back to her superiors. Yeah, it turns out Grandmere really is human, just like me.
How did I find this out? How did I discover that the Dowager Princess of Genovia did not, after all, sell her soul to the
Prince of Darkness as I have often surmised?
I learned it today when I walked into Grandmere 's suite at the Plaza, fully prepared to do battle with her over the whole Contessa Trevanni thing. I was going to be all, 'Grandmere, Dad says I don't have to go, and guess what, I'm not going to.'
That's what I was going to say, anyway.
Except that when I walked in and saw her, the words practically died on my lips. Because Grandmere looked as if someone had run over her with a truck! Seriously. She was sitting there in the dark - she had had these purple scarves thrown over the lampshades because she said the light was hurting her eyes - and she wasn't even dressed properly. She had on a velvet lounging robe, a cashmere throw over her knees and some slippers and that was it, and her hair was all in curlers and if her eyeliner hadn't been tattooed on, I swear it would have been all smeared. She wasn't even enjoying a Sidecar, her favourite refreshment, or anything.
She was just sitting there, with Rommel trembling on her lap, looking like death warmed over.
'Grandmere,' I couldn't help crying out, when I saw her. 'Are you all right? Are you sick or something? Do you want me
to get your maid?'
But all Grandmere said was, in a voice so unlike her own normally quite strident one that I could barely believe it belonged
to the same woman, 'No, I'm fine. At least I will be. Once I get over the humiliation.'
'Humiliation? What humiliation?' I went over to kneel by her chair. 'Grandmere, are you sure you aren't sick? You aren't even smoking!'
'I'll be all right,' she said, weakly. 'It will be weeks before I'll be able to show my face in public. But I'm a Renaldo. I'm strong.
I will recover.'
Actually, Grandmere is technically only a Renaldo by marriage, but at that point I wasn't going to argue with her, because I thought there was something genuinely wrong, like her uterus had fallen out in the shower or something (this happened to one