Who has time between flag football and allergy outbreaks to answer chain emails?

Dear Lovely Readers,

Sometimes, when checking my email account, I find messages from Facebook friends and immediately regret joining that destroyer of time and good taste. Creating an account under my real name was a bad call; not only do I have to defend old pictures and what I was thinking at the time (“Coloring hair out of a box was acceptable in 1986!”), I also have to deal with questionnaires from distant cousins and old neighbors designed to “get to know you again.”

And we wonder why we lost touch with these people in the first place.

This afternoon, I couldn’t find my latest copy of Newsweek and had an appointment with some toilet paper. In a matter of minutes, before the time it took my children to create an international incident with a basketball and three out-of-town neighbors, this is what I came up with…

A template, if you will. Because I love you.

Regards and stop emailing me,
Catherine

Four jobs I’ve had in my life:
1) Unlicensed Scientist. Proudest moment – creating a near-toxic cocktail of prune juice, figs, and raisins to cure constipation. Patent Pending.
2) Private Investigator. I can find missing socks and underwear in any dryer, couch, or laundry basket.
3) Grill cook. I sold cheese sandwiches at a Dead Show in the early 1990s for five bucks a pop. (Secret ingredient: Patchouli-scented Havarti.)
4) Teacher. Because parenting isn’t punishment enough.

Four movies I could watch over and over:
1) My friend’s arrest tape from fifteen years ago that has him drunk and belligerent inside a Boston police station. Never gets old.
2) Home movies
3) Paris Hilton’s video to remind myself there’s at least one thing I can do better than a debutante.
4) That one where the good guy gets put in a real bad spot but then gets out of it and life lessons are learned by all.

Four places I’ve lived:
1) Boston
2) Colorado Springs
3) Heaven
4) Hell
Oh, wait, that’s only two…

Four TV shows I love to watch:
Only one: When Children Eat Chocolate and Refuse to Sleep: The Complete Box Set

Four places I’ve been on vacation:
Please don’t ask me to remember a time when I could go on a trip and not pack Children’s Benadryl, four different types of inhalers, and a barf bag. Please.

Four websites I visit daily:
I have twin ten year-old sons and hardwood floors. I don’t have time to visit the bathroom four times a day, never mind more than one website.

Four of my favorite foods:
Anything easily digested between writing, bribing kids to stay in the shower past one minute, and bedtime prayers. Hopefully whatever it is, goes well with wine.

Four places I’d rather be right now:
A place where varicose veins, crows feet, and bunions are hot. And it’d be nice if the socks didn’t disappear.