A Tale of Two Sissies..

So, I've spent the last 5 days staring at the wall in the dark, consumed by bouts of profanity and ugly-face crying... and pant-peeing. If you know me at all, you know that there are only a few things in this world that can produce this sort of behavior in me. That's right, you guessed it... my sisters came to visit. And on Sunday, they left... sending me spiraling into the bog of eternal stench.

It was a dark and dreary Wednesday night when I got a phone call announcing the arrival of this beauty:

Just look at 'er in all her glory, holding my eldest child in her arms, sunglasses slightly ajar from the headbutting she'd just received at Leah's hand...

Upon opening the door and after an appropriate amount of hugging and kissing and squealing, Bethany said, "Oh my gosh, Nessa, there are some tiny kittens over here on the corner! They're all alone!"

Of course I immediately started purring and kneading and licking myself, and charged out into the night to rescue them... I've been prepared to answer the call of "mama cat" for some time now, you see. Luckily I'm already lactating, I thought.

I could hear tiny "meows" from the bushes. "They're meowing! I hear them!" I shouted.

And just as I turned the corner, a bewitched mass of blankets and garbage came springing from the bushes, screeching and slobbering and belching like a rabid, angry cat.

I wet my pants on the spot. I let out a guttural, primal scream and braced myself for combat. And then suddenly, all my fears melted into blissful delirium as, from out of the dark night and garbage, a tiny face emerged... not the face of a kitten, but of this beauty:

Pictured here, holding my second babe at Trinity Church.

Meradith had flown out in secret to surprise me. Which is the oldest trick in the Collard Family Book of Tricks, Second Edition. But never fails to delight peoples and nations all over the world. But mostly just me.

The very best part of it all is that Sam was out of town on business... so we called up some dudes to watch a movie.

No. No, we didn't. But we did feel like we were getting away with something crazy just being there all together without any of our better halves.

Now, here's what we did!

The first morning, Bethany and I set off on a mission to make it onto an episode of Cake Boss at Carlo's Bake Shop here in Hoboken. We were prepared to go all Mardi gras if we had to. We were going to get some camera time. At present, Mera is baking her third bun in the oven, so she stayed home to get some much needed rest away from her munchkins.

Anyway, Bethany and I walked to the bakery and were delighted to see there were only about ten people in line in front. What luck! We congratulated ourselves on our superior timing and intellect (and looks) and got in line. And then the little wench policing the front of the shop gave us the boot to the back of the "real" line, which was one block down and made up of about a million poor saps who, by the looks on their faces, had had their hopes dashed to the ground as well.

We were undeterred. See how happy we were?

And so we waited... for 3 hours... to get our wee lit'l box o' cannolis.

And we feasted. And were satisfied...

Though I nearly went on a murderous rampage after standing for that long on the sidewalk with my children.

On the ferry on our way into the big city for a girl's night out. Beauties.

We found this cute little hole in the wall in Times Square to eat... so quaint.

Especially that creeper that shimmied his way into our photo at the last minute. So startling.

The real highlight of the evening was when, while we were looking at a table full of handbags on the street, the vendor, we'll call her Bag Lady, pointed at me and said in broken english, "she is not so beautiful." And then she pointed at Meradith and said, "and she is not so beautiful." And then she pointed at Bethany and said, "She is most beautiful."

It was a good sales strategy on her part... I chucked the bag I was contemplating back on the table and stormed off. Then I slapped Bethany across the face.

No, really. We all just stood there awkwardly for a second digesting what she said and then burst into laughter. And then we really did chuck the bags back in her face. Except Bethany. She bought one.

Matching sister pedicure... if you're trying to guess which foot is mine, it's whichever one you think is cutest.

This is, perhaps, my very favorite photo of the trip... there's just so many things I love about it. My face, and Leah's shades. But mostly how thick my neck looks.

What you see here is actually me telling Sam to put the camera away. Because just as he started taking pictures, a voice came booming over the subway loudspeaker saying, "ABSOLUTELY NO PHOTOGRAPHY ALLOWED IN THE SUBWAY STATION." And because I was the only one who actually tuned in to what the guy was saying, I started shouting at Sam that he couldn't take pictures. But he couldn't hear me over "the voice." So he just kept on snapping. And it went on so long that "the voice" ended up being like, "Ummm helllooooo! Dude with the camera! Stop taking pictures!" And then we all started laughing and pointing at "the voice" and then we took a picture of it.

My four favorite ladies on earth. At Trinity Church.

Eve was happy to get out of the ergobaby to stretch her gams...

And then I got completely tapped out lugging my kids around NYC so I abandoned taking pictures all together. But you better believe we did some pretty crazy shiz. And Meradith may or may not have gotten bashed in the head by a rogue, ill-anchored wall hanging at a Subway sandwich shop. But just maybe.

It was a most glorious trip.

Oh sissydoodles. How can you expect me to ever look at my new home with anything but disdain and disappointment after I've beheld it under the glow of your beauty? How can you expect me to go on living when I know that since you've left, my life has no where to go but down?

Now I have no choice but to go and pick a fight with Sam to lift my spirits...