The Pink Shoe Diaries

i have found the real twilight zone and it is also known as the Umass Language Lab. Since I had some free time on my hands this morning, I wandered over to the lab to work on my tapes (an annoying requisite of all language classes at UMB) and although I had no trouble finding it, upon leaving, I ended up getting lost for about 15 minutes amongst the myriad white hallways and doors with no numbers on them. I felt like I was in a Verbinkski film. When I finally stumbled out of the maze that is the 3rd floor Science Center, I somehow had ended up in the greenhouse on the 4th floor. A freaking greenhouse!

So now that our trip is officially official, my mother is prepping me bit by bit for our sojourn au Liban in August. Whenever we are in Beirut we will be staying with my mom's ex boyfriend Hassan, who is now divorced and whose elderly mother lives with him as well. This woman does not like my mother and refers to her as shitani which is Arabic for "devil- girl". When we are out of Beirut, we will be staying in the mountains with my mom's best friends from when she was in grade school: Katrine is a lawyer/jewelery store owner who has been "hanging out" with a married man for almost 20 years and Lili used to be an actress on Lebanese soap operas and is now married with kids but still has what my mom refers to as "flair". I'm looking forward to meeting these ladies who have known my mom for almost fifty years, I am sure they will have all the dirt I have ever wanted to know on Jacqueline ;-)