Haha! Father Phillip, you make my day! At last year’s MOM PROM, Cor (where I just passed out name tags…Can’t wait until little Donny’s a Senior so he can take his mother out on real a date!) I couldn’t tell if Father Phillip here was just in a dance-y mood or flirting with me! The way you moved! 75 and you can still cut a rug! I tell you Father, you can cut this rug any day of the week.

What? You like my hair…oh! And my skirt? Yes, it is new! Thank you! No one’s noticed. Ha! Well, maybe I can wear it to one of your van parties you always take the other moms on. What? You know! The van parties! Don’t play dumb with good ol’ Cheryl, Father. I live behind the school, and I see EVERYTHING! Every Tuesday, you get all dressed up and take the bookstore moms out for dinner or something. They’re all dressed up too. And then you come home alone in a different van- yeah, and- What? How many people saw what? Oh… Oh! I see, now that I’ve busted those lovely chops of yours you want me to tag along now. Hah! Well, you’ll have to do a better than that to win me over! I’ve seen you with hundreds of moms over the years and- OH!
– Well, bye, Father!

That was weird. Well, he certainly looks HEALTHY! I wonder if he still works out at the Y. When he married Frankie and I, Father Phillip was the spitting image of Gregory Peck. At the reception he gave me a couple congratulatory smooches on the neck, and I said, “Peck away, Father!” Haha! Now he looks so old, the boys call Phillip “Father Free Day,” because they think he’ll drop dead at any moment, and the boys will get the day off from school. Isn’t that terrible? It’s a nice way to be remembered though.

Wow, I just can’t put Madame Bovary down! I was reading for the last few minutes before Father Phil walked up so I didn’t hear most of what you just said. “Sorry, my B!” as Donny would say. But you have i-Everything? I might have to borrow one of your iPods so I can get Bovary on tape and listen to it in the bathtub. Some of it is getting AWFULLY STEAMY! I mean, the narrator doesn’t say it explicitly, but the husband and wife, Mrs. Bovary, first touch at her home while she’s bending down to get something…and their sex-life must be JUST wild after that! I think she’ll be a pretty content woman with an “experienced” doctor (he was married once before, you know. And that must have taught him a few things. Not like some people who take their first swing on the wedding night. UUUGgghhhhhhh…Ffff…). I wonder if Kenneth Branagh reads it. He always revs up my engine.

Corinne, are you crying?

Oh, Cheryl, will you STOP already? It’s just my Maybelline™ set, nothing new. And why are we talking about me when you look gorgeous! Where did you get that cute little brown dress? You look like the most beautiful burrito of ALL TIME! Have you been shopping at Bebe again? Always young at heart, you are.

Although I don’t know WHAT Georgie’s thinking right now, and it’s not two peas in a pod, it’s two peas in an iPod! George has gone Mac wild! He’s bought three or four iPods, five G5s, six iMacs, and a whole barrel of iPod shuffles—in all the colors of the rainbow? I, for one, can’t believe we can even afford it, but ever since my dear Old Aunt Emma went on Deal or No Deal and died immediately after the taping, our house has turned into a regular Graceland! Honestly, though, I wish George would cut it out with the Macs, I’m going iCRAZY!

Hahahahaa! Oh that is hilarious, Cheryl! “Dirty Donny, filthy Sanchez,” oh my! Although Horatio was talking to me about this, apparently that wouldn’t be a rhyme, but, oh what’s the word he used? Oh right, smiley. Whatever. Anyway, that Sanchez boy IS beautiful, and so polite too. Do you know his mother? What a sweet heart. Did you know that she used to be a City planner in Mexico? Such a shame, that’s why I like to give her an extra 20 bucks at Christmas. Ah, boys. The friendships they form seem to last a lifetime, I mean, George is still friends with his childhood Argentinean friend, Carlos.

Speaking of dirty! I took little Jordan to his Uncle Mike’s farm in Michigan, you know? Well, he just loved it. We were feeding the chickens, and Jordan kept trying to feed this one red hen, but this rooster kept getting in the way! Pecking up all of the feed that Jordy meant for the hen. I said to Jordan, “Look honey, that rooster is blocking our food! Rooster block, Jordy! Get him out of the way! Feed that hen, baby!” Yeah, Mike was in hysterics. I guess he knows a good smiley when he hears one. Well, Jordan just had a blast. I wonder if Donny and Sanchez would like to go up? I’m sure Mike would love to have them…

Madam Bovary? I’ve never heard of it. Is it French? It sounds romantic! Oooh, Cheryl, you and Frank should read it together with a little bit of bubbly! Hmmmn?

Oh look! Here comes Pastor Phillip! Hi, Pastor! Let’s hope our Wildcat’s beat those Spartans, huh?

Corr! I love that new make-up! Did you go to FACE in that new shopping mall? OOoooo, MWAHH! How is my little rodeo clown? Looking like the Bucking-est Bronco I ever saw! You must be giving Georgie the time of his life with that gorgeous body! He must feel like the luckiest diamond to ever be caught in a clam like you! I mean it, when I think of you two, I just think, God, like two peas in a pod (if the pod is a Tempurpedic, and the peas are gay with young love!) How have you been? I’ve missed you!

Well, now that it’s warmer, Donny finally goes outside to play basketball. He’s been hanging out in the backyard a lot with that beautiful Sanchez boy from down the street. He’s so shy, with that little voice and skinny body. If it weren’t for that mustache, I’d say he was about thirteen years old! But Donny just can’t stop hanging around him: going to movies, disappearing for a few hours “looking for bugs behind the garage.” It’s like Donny’s imagination has sprung back from all that Nintendo now that little Sanchez is around. I ask them every half hour or so: “Can I make you a sandwich? How bout a nice glass of orange juice?” And when they ignore me I just walk back in, take out my afternoon chardonnay and make them some sandwiches anyway, then ask: “Would you like some apple boats with that?” (I cut them up into little triangles with peanut butter sails). I’ve been trying to get them to go on an ice-cream run, but they never want to go with me. I know I’m an OLD HAG, but I still know how to turn a good party around with a Dairy Queen ice-cream cake. But Donny just takes a 20 from my wallet and sneaks off with his buddy. Haha!

Sometimes they come home covered in ice-cream, and I keep saying, “Now I have to deal with dirty Donny!” They laugh and laugh. By the time I get to wiping up that filthy Sanchez, they are on the floor giggling, hardly able to open their eyes! I tell you, I should have been a comedian or a poet, the way I can make those funny rhymes or whatever.

In fact, Horatio this month told me I was ready to start a “real reading career.” He said enough of this phony-boloney Nicholas Sparks stuff (beneath me, really). He said that since I had read the Da Vinci Code a few years back my mind was totally free, and I needed to start reading the Classics, so he gave me Flaubert’s Madame Bovary, which I had already heard of, but didn’t know if it was any good. I’m only a few pages in, but I can tell that Charles is just going to make it big like my Frankie (and someday my Donny!). Charles just seems like a nose-to-the-grindstone type of guy, so I know this book is going to be about him finding that good wife he deserves. It’s not easy! I know! But that’s what books should be about, Corr. The struggle to find that hard-to-get love. Frankie and I had a rough patch Junior Year of high school, but we stuck it out. If anything, this book seems to be telling me “keep on truckin’ Cheryl!” And I am.

What have you been up to?