Last Saturday, I was minding my own business, sitting on a bench in anticipation of a friend's arrival, whittling a corncob effigy of a Presidential candidate while nibbling on the edge of an anisette biscuit, a pastime that holds for me the same soothing powers that knitting does for many others, when I was distracted by the sight of this:

To fully appreciate the magnitude of this baby's petiteness, here she is near her mom's foot, because I did not have a quarter to lay by her paw for scale:

This is Molly, a 6-year-old, 4-pound Maltese charmer, whom I had met at least once before during one of her walks with her mom, one of the wonderful much older women who makes her home on the Upper West Side. "Yes, she's a girl," her mom said. "The pajamas only came in blue! But they keep her warm. Doesn't she look warm?" She looked warmer than I did, that's for sure, and I expressed my wish to be able to wear my own pajamas in public without looking like I wandered away from my caretaker. (I left that last part off, because I was seated outside a retirement home.)

I don't know who enchanted me more, Molly or her mom. But either way, it reaffirmed what I've known since moving to this part of the city after a 4-year stint much further downtown, and that is simply this: I'd rather live nowhere else. You can keep your fedora-flaunting slouching tattooed hipsters in your lofty downtown haunts, your meat-packing martini-sipping Manolo'd misanthropes, your too cool for school cadre of compadres who sneer at anything above 14th Street. I dig living where the dogs and invariably unhip non-hepcats hobnob and smile at each other, while a preteen Yid-kid zooms by on one of those new-fangled skateboards that sort of bends in the middle, his tzitzit flapping against his sides, and you half expect to see Meg Ryan holding hands with Tom Hanks in Cafe Lalo.

I've joked, when coming home from a night way downtown, that I'd better hurry up and get there "before they close the Upper West Side," but I find no greater comfort than living here, in a part of the city that not only sleeps but does so soundly. Sometimes in blue pajamas.

I'm not going to beat around the bush*: My birthday is this coming Sunday. Since I never had a bat mitzvah, quinceañera, or sweet sixteen, I decided that this year I will celebrate all of those occasions at once in a super-duper blowout extravaganza. However, since the ages associated with those celebrations only add up to a youthful 44, I am going to claim that my parents' loathing was so profound that they refused to acknowledge my first birthday, and add 1 to the total, for a grand total of 45. (Pause to shudder at the realization that I am not the 28 years old you no doubt thought I was.)

Because this celebration is so huge, it will take an entire week to indulge, so I need to get started as soon as possible. However, before the hooplah commences, I need to know if Sunday is the first day of the week or the last day of the week. Here's the breakdown:

• If Sunday is the first day of the week, then Birthday Week has not begun yet. It will start on my actual birthday, Sunday the 26th, and the week-long festivities will continue through Saturday the 1st. Thus, I will have this entire week to prepare.
• If Sunday is the last day of the week, then Birthday Week has begun already. Indeed, today will be the first day of the week, and the week-long festivities are already compromised by my failure to address this issue in a more timely fashion, and I thus deserve the punishment of one fewer days of ice cream cake roll and piñatas.

My boyfriend and I have disagreed about this Sunday placement for quite some time. With the tearful hysteria that befits someone desperate to cling to a notion she has upheld for four and a half decades, I have maintained that Sunday is the first day of the week. He, on the other hand, with all the calm reasoning that befits someone who can handle a power tool without fantasizing about using it to bore through someone's eye sockets, has maintained that Sunday is the last day of the week. "That's why they call it the weekend," he says, to which I respond that the weekend is like bookends, with one weekend day at the beginning and one at the end.

For the sake of not missing out on a full day of Birthday Week, I am willing to concede, at least temporarily, that he is correct. But what do you say? (Other than, "I can't believe you're not really 28.")

* Yes, I cringe over this phrase.

So, I finally changed Shana's cat litter.

Oh, Jodi, do go on. I'm riveted!

Before I say anything further, I need you to know that this is not something that ordinarily needs a qualifying "finally". I do not neglect any aspect of Shana's care. Indeed, it has been noted that I probably feed her more than I feed myself, given that she is the one who sports a rather ungainly "muffin top" in the jeans she "borrows" from my closet on nights when she goes out on the prowl, while I, ever svelte, can pull those same jeans off my hips without bothering to unfasten them in any way. (My jeans are equipped with a variety of closure mechanisms, ranging from the traditional zipper to a nifty contraption whose configuration I cannot even describe except to tell you it involves a remote control which, itself, is powered by remote control.)

Indeed, I scoop out her litter at least once a day, more if she has been particularly productive, and am so scrupulous about maintaining a tidy household that when friends, Romans, countrymen, and the occasional burglar (cat variety, natch) enter, they are shocked when a cat appears as if by magic(k). At the sight of Shana demonstrating her patented brand of tiptoe-waddle, making her way toward them in a greeting that is part curiosity and part suspicion swirled together into a base layer of disdain as is befitting her species, they invariably say, awestruck almost into slackjawed catatonia, "I didn't know you had a cat!" And then, pinching themselves to make sure they're not in a dream, they say, dreamily, "There's none of that ... cat smell."

So, anyway, I changed her litter. I tell you this also to explain why I have been conspicuously missing for the past two weeks, at least insofar as my representation here is concerned. You see, the acquisition of Shana's cat (she and I agree that the word "kitty" is to be shunned) litter is not as simple as you would think. See, in my attempt to become even greener than I ordinarily am — and greener than any envy I've ever inspired! — I have eschewed ready-made, commercially available litter in favor of an esoteric blend of organic ingredients culled from a hodge-podge of sources found, scavenger-hunt-like, around the globe — clay from the mountains of Colorado; goji berries from the fields of Ningxia, China; gravel from an abandoned quarry in West Virginia; newspaper pellets from The Guardian in London (Shana claims that all New York papers irritate her tender feline flesh) — and because transporting everything back home would require way too much gasoline consumption, I rollerskated, swam, and even hang-glided home with everything, I'd say that given the enormity of this selfless undertaking you're lucky I was only gone for 15 days.

When I finally returned home this morning, I prepared the special blend of litter, chanted a little sing-song-y something over it for good measure, and filled Shana's litter box, knowing that within minutes she would tiptoe-waddle over to inspect and approve and avail herself of the accommodation. I don't know who was more relieved: Shana, for not having to endure my tortured wails at having, yet again, stepped in a random bit of what could pass for a Tootsie Roll on the rug in front of the sofa; or me, for not having to lift my marvelously colorful quilt/comforter up to my nose to determine the origin of the mysterious wet spot that my hand had touched when making the bed mere moments after filling Shana's box with the bounty I'd secured for her greenly comfortable elimination. Very amewsing, indeed.

Next up: I make the bed. Literally. Out of lint, coffee grounds, apple cores, and NetFlix flaps!

I know what you're thinking. You're thinking, "Jodi, why hasn't a savvy, good-lookin' dame like you weighed in on the Sarah Palin ballyhoo? After all, you're about the same age, you sometimes sport a similar updo, and you have been seen around town with a particular older gentleman on occasion! So, why haven't you YouTube'd your way into an overnight internet sensation?"

Sorry to disappoint. But never fear, I can offer you these gems of topical interest, one of which mentions Ms. Palin. Just so you don't think I'm not up on current events or that I'm not passing by Eisenberg's Sandwich Shop five mornings a week on my way home from the gym, where I exercise my right to bare arms ... just another thing I have in common with Ms. Palin! (LOLz!)

 
27 June and today