September

Mr. Ben and I diverted ourselves down to Washington DC to see my parents this weekend. They rewarded us with a room of our own, more seafood than we could shake a stick at, even more hugs, and a bag of chocolate truffles that melted on the ride back to NYC.

I'm not kidding about the seafood. My body is, I'm sure, now stockpiled up on protein: lox, chubbs, whitefish (which are technically just chubbs that got bigger), herring, salmon, and best of all freshly and inhumanely killed crabs. Maybe there isn't a humane way to kill a crab and this is my guilt talking, but I personally wouldn't want to be showered with hot spices and then slowly boiled to death. Though at least I could go to my hot-watery grave knowing I was about to taste delicious.

The vegetarians reigned supreme last weekend, since my cousin Pedro and his new wife Sandi were visiting my parents as well and they are cut from the same cloth as Mr. Ben and me. (The cloth smells vagely of tofuti cuties.) We will not eat anything that was once warm-blooded and died for our sakes. We did discuss a bit why none of us are equally bothered by the consumption of fish. My excuse is that when I tried to give up eating fish I discovered it got in the way of religious devotion and community connection. Really! I have only one friend who manages to avoid all culturally mandated Jewish fish-eating and remain a good Jew. It was certainly too difficult for little me.

And once you allow for culturally mandated Jewish fish-eating, you get inhumanely killed and oh-so-tasty hard-shelled crabs too. O, the fringe benefits of consistency.

Two of my friends and one of my brothers are starting law school right now at very different law schools across the country (UW-Seattle, U Arizona-Tuscon, and Georgetown). That's apropos of nothing, really, except that I'm awfully glad Mr. Ben never has to go through that again. And that by "Mr. Ben" and I mean "me." And that clearly my two friends and one brother should be on a reality show. WHO will be eliminated FIRST?