I will not operate

-It's good to know that if I ever do churn the rest of this massive document out, and if it is approve by a French department, I can go around calling myself "doctor" and insinuating medical expertise. My teaching field for my qualifying exams may have been "Religion and Family," but I minored in "House."

-Tiny, tiny, yet not really that tiny Bisou is too small to have gotten all her shots at once, so we still need to wait three weeks before she is officially free to meet and greet, as in, obedience classes. But she can unofficially begin to do so in the next day or two, assuming she's not attacked by a raccoon. When the vet said this, I thought, what are the chances, but then of course saw a raccoon on the way to the tennis court. Dead frogs, deer dead and alive, and now a raccoon.

-Yes, the tennis court. Other than Bisou, dissertation, food shopping, and a great deal of might I add not at all humbly incredibly successful cooking, this weekend has been about tennis and fine gin. Just call me Muffy, like they do at the club.

There was a social/work event for the geniuses, but as a spouse/partner, I was allowed in, despite my mediocre brain skillz, rendered all the more mediocre by my remembering that I once (age 22 or 23, so not last week) liked martinis, and thinking maybe I'd take them up on the  35% (random!) discount at this event and try one made of the gin the bartender recommended. It had been so long since I'd had anything made with hard liquor that I wasn't sure what gin normally tastes like, although I supposed this tasted better than I remembered gin tasting. More relevant: given my preference for food (and nail polish, and premium hair conditioner, and books about anti-Semitism, watch as I confirm stereotypes) over wine or beer when it comes to shlepping things back, whatever ability to tolerate wine I may have built up living in Paris is long since kaput.

The martini was a generous but not "Bravo" reality show-sized portion, and I had it after a large dinner, and with maybe half a pound of cheese and olives that the geniuses themselves were neglecting. And I didn't even finish it. Yet I still woke up feeling as though the previous night had been something of a partay, which was not so much the case. This, in turn, upped the ante on my already upped-because-of-Bisou-sleep-situation coffee consumption, which, in turn, improved my ability to run after the tennis ball, as opposed to just watching it pass me by, as I had in my more BYU-friendly state the day before. Between the gin, the tennis, and the wildlife, the New York Jew is being squeezed out of me.