New Year's Resolutions

These are my New Year's resolutions from fifth grade. You may be unsurprised to learn that I no longer make New Year's resolutions.

1/11/89

New Year's Resolutions:

#1: To move into the Scarborough house.
#2: To spend more time with Baby, my guinea pig.
#3: To tame Bun-bun, my rabbit.
#4: To get a real baby-sitting job.
#5: To pass my ice-skating class.
#6: To finish my 3 stories I started.
#7: To put on the "Really Rosie" play.
#8: To take the baby-sitting class.
#9: To make improvements with the "school in the basement"
#10: To redecorate my room.

P.S. I'LL TELL YOU ABOUT "REALLY ROSIE" TOMORROW. IT'S FUN!!!

Did I effectively, uh, resolve these? Let's take it resolution by resolution and find out.

#1: To move into the Scarborough house.

My sister and I desperately wanted to move so that we could attend the same middle school as the majority of our friends. The amazing part is that our parents went for it! I particularly wanted to move into the Scarborough house because it meant I would be living just down the street from the love of my elementary school life, Sig. The hitch was that the current owners of the house were recluses and maybe even certifiably insane. However, after months upon months of negotiations (seriously, it took well over six months), we did end up getting the house.

Resolution #1: ACHIEVED! With minimal effort on my part.

#2: To spend more time with Baby, my guinea pig.

Would you care to hear a bit about Baby? I can neither confirm nor deny whether she was named after Jennifer Grey's character in Dirty Dancing. Little did we know, she was pregnant when we brought her home from the pet store—so maybe her name should have been Penny. She ended up having a three-pig litter, and we kept two of her babies, Peachy and Rosie (who was definitely named after Really Rosie; see Resolution #7).

Have you ever seen baby guinea pigs? Unlike baby rabbits, which look like squirmy hairless rats (and which we had more than our fair share of—it turned out we did NOT have two female rabbits after all), baby guinea pigs are amazingly cute! And they lived in my room! So I could play with them whenever I wanted! Well, at first I could. About a week after the babies were born, someone had to stick her big nose in.

9*28*88
MOM

My Mom Is Stupid!

She has resumed full responsibility of the babies. Of course it's "not to make us mad" but she has.

We cannot pick them up without her supervising. "We aren't responsible" she says.

UGH!

She was even going to take my guinea pig (+ babies, of course) out of my room.

SHE MAKES ME SICK!

Hi, mom! There are loads of entries about the baby guinea pigs (two of them suffered through an allergen-induced bout of baldness at one point, and there was serious sibling rivalry between Rosie and Peachy), but there's also this:

11-29-88
Allergies

I am allergic to dogs, cats, mayonaise, penicillan, raw eggs, and
GUINEA PIGS!

[Please note: That list is WAY longer now. And no, avoiding raw eggs hasn't really been a problem.]

You can see that I made the New Year's resolution after this shocking allergy revelation, but seriously? How much time can you spend with something that gives you hives? It's too bad, because Baby was definitely the sweetest of all of our many pets. Although I realize that's not saying much.

Resolution #2: Achoo! Er, nope.

#3: To tame Bun-bun, my rabbit.

Guess what else I'm allergic to? That's right, rabbits. But we didn't know that because our rabbits rarely let us come within five feet of them. Those creatures outright loathed us.

I'm reverting to fourth grade to bring you this gem of a journal entry about Bun-bun:

1-25-88

I have a pet rabbit named Bun-bun. Sometimes she is sweet as honey and other times she's mad as a wet hen. [I'd say it was much more frequently the latter.] Bun-bun has been through a lot with her daughter, Runt, who was killed by a dog last year. I know that Bun-bun misses her, probably.

See, it wasn't that Bun-bun was pure evil, it's just that she was suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder.

Bun-bun is very special to me. She almost died with Runt because they were in the same cage. Bun-bun was found next door. I was so glad that Bun-bun was still alive! Once my sister said that her rabbit was her life. [!!!] I don't know if Bun-bun is that much to me or not.

Usually when a friend comes over we go in the basement to see the bunnies. We talk to Bun-bun, try to pet her [emphasis on the "try"], give her food, and try to get her out of her cage. Sometimes I get mad at her because she knocks a bowl over. Sometimes I laugh because she acts silly. Bun-bun is important to me.

And here's a quick description of our rabbits from the fifth grade journal:

Bun [drawing of rabbit head] Bun: is my rabbit. She's boring. She doesn't let me hold her or pet her. But I won't give her up!

Cottontail [the o's are drawn as fuzzy bunny tails]: is Genie's bunny. He is like Bun-Bun, except sometimes you can pick him up. Though, he doesn't like it.

The fact that I felt I needed to "tame" a domesticated rabbit should speak volumes. Before we moved, we gave the bunnies to some friends of the family who lived in rural Ohio. Apparently Bun-bun was not my life, and I could give her up after all.

Resolution #3: Failed miserably.

#4: To get a real baby-sitting job.

I was 11, and my name is neither Mallory Pike nor Jessi Ramsey.

Resolution #4: Not this year! Thanks for nothing, Ann M. Martin.

#5: To pass my ice-skating class.

According to my journal, I did pass, but I should have flunked. I also hated my ice-skating teacher, Sue, and my woeful inability to execute a "mohawk."

Those creepy kite/stick people are achieving what I never could. And it looks like they're doing it on a tightrope! Show-offs.

Resolution #5: Technically achieved. Way to go! Though I'm pretty sure I did not pass the next class thanks to those accursed mohawks.

#6: To finish my 3 stories I started.

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. Hahahahahaha. Ha ha. Haaaaaaa.

Resolution #6: No way in hell.

#7: To put on the "Really Rosie" play.

I don't know if you've seen Really Rosie, but it is a musical revolving around a 10-year-old animated Brooklynite with an overactive imagination, a very high opinion of herself (sample lyric: "I can tap across the the Tappan Zee / Hey, can't you see? / I'm terrific at everything!"), and the voice of Carole King. In other words, TOTALLY AWESOME.

1/12/89
Really Rosie

"Really Rosie" is actually a movie. My mom rented it [...if by "rented" you mean "borrowed from the library"]. Maurice Sendak made it. The characters are: Rosie, Johnny, Alligator, Pierre, Chicken Soup, and a girl (we) named Jennifer. We wrote [ahem, transcribed] a script and the songs. It is going to be a play. The school in the basement's students [aka my four-year-old brother and his friends] can put it on for their parents.

THE CAST:
Rosie – Sada
Jennifer – Genie
Pierre – Josh
Johnny – Will
Alligator – Luke
Chicken Soup – "Molly" ("Molly" is a doll!)

Molly was a very large doll with a very unfortunate haircut given to her by her previous owners. My dad rescued her at a garage sale.

I was the director and I also gave myself the juiciest role. Josh, as Pierre, had only one line, repeated over and over: "I don't care."

THE SONGS:
#1: Really Rosie
#2: One Was Johnny
#3: Alligators All Around
#4: Pierre
#5: Such An Ordinary Day
#6: Chicken Soup With Rice

– Really Sada

Yes, it "really" says that. Little did I know, HarperTrophy had published a book version of Really Rosie, which would have been very, very handy to have back in 1989. For instance, turns out Jennifer's name is actually Kathy! Who knew?


We definitely slaved away in rehearsals, but our cast of four- and five-year-olds were not really committed to the full-scale production. Molly was a trooper, though.

I just asked my brother if he could remember whether we ever performed this (he could not), and this is what he had to say about Really Rosie: "Yeah, I didn't like that."

Resolution #7: Not even under duress.

#8: To take the baby-sitting class.

The baby-sitting class was offered by the Red Cross, and I believed it would help me to attain Resolution #4. My friend Jessica and I took this class together, and although I didn't snag a proper baby-sitting job for several more years, the baby-saving lessons did help spark a subplot in my (forthcoming) book Quintuple Trouble.

Resolution #8: Achieved with unexpectedly awesome side effects!

#9: To make improvements with the "school in the basement"

My sister and I were really into forcing my brother and his friends to be "students" in the fake school we held in our dungeon basement. Unfortunately, we lost most of our students after our move.

Resolution #9: Vastly unimproved.

#10: To redecorate my room.

Well, I moved in April of 1989, so I acquired an entirely new room! How's that for redecorating?

Resolution #10: Achieved and then some!

Well, what do you guys think? Four out of ten ain't bad. In fact, I think that might be a Meatloaf song. And at least I got to redecorate my room.

NEXT TIME: The guest authors are back! The first installment in Deathycat's Dear Sister trilogy features murder, sibling rivalry, and even more murder.

Happy New Year, everyone! Thanks so much for reading my little blog this year! I resolve to bring you even more embarrassment in '09.