Brunch w/ the Sunday Magazine

Sunday was my turn to host the brunch for the Florence girls. I feel like some kind of dowager-empress-lady-who-lunches octogenarian saying that. Although I love my girls and it was really fun. It’s really special to me that we still have our Sunday brunches even though now we’re back in New York and no longer in Florence. It just felt like a big deal to have friends over at my own place and feed them real food. Alice brought me a cake and a gift certificate to Crate and Barrel. I was super excited about both. I told her it was my favorite store, which is actually entirely true. She told me she had made her decision between C&B or Home Depot. I said I would've been happy with either. A statement that is also true. I feel like this is a coming of age moment. See up until the age of 10, I only wanted toys, and until recently, I only wanted clothes, but now I want home furnishings. I mean, I'm probably going to spend it on silverware. Silverware! If Alice had picked Home Depot, it would have gone toward light fixtures. I should just move to a Florida retirement community right now. I just had to point out something I read in the NY Times. Apparently Rick Santorum, New York Times Magazine cover boy, called Dubya, "''the first Catholic president of the United States." As the Times points out (a) Dubya is not Catholic and (b) even if he was, he still wouldn’t be the first. When questioned Santorum had this to say, "''What I meant was if you look at the two major issues of the church, it's sanctity of life, sanctity of marriage and the family -- and third is care for the poor. And you have a president who is consistent with Catholic social teaching on all of these issues." And oh yeah, according to Santorum, Kennedy was not Catholic, because Santorum is apparently the Pope and can excommunicate the dead. Yet despite this idiocy, many of his Republican cronies are praising him for not backing down. When I was little and would do something stupid or bad and lie to cover it up, my dad would always tell me that lying only made it worse. He was wrong. Now I know it gets you elected to the U.S. Senate.