so my friend amy was in australia like, FOREVER and she finally came back right in time for my birthday. she brought with her gifts of comedy and inspiration, including season 3 of the hit comedy show from australia “kath and kim,” which i had been meaning to check out since i heard there was going to be an american remake of the series on nbc starring molly shannon and selma blair. the show is basically about the misadventures of a tacky mother and daughter team named kath and kim. after watching it i have two things to say: 1) HAHAHAHAHAHAHA! oh my god, this is pure hilarity. it takes about fifteen minutes into the first episode to understand what the hell they are saying and adjust fully to the aussie humor and then you are in for a fabulous treat. i have to watch it on my laptop because it’s region 4 (annoying) but if you have the chance and you haven’t seen it you need to get your hands on this. 2) selma blair as the daughter kim??? no, this will never do. i like selma a lot actually, but it just seems all wrong. i can just picture how she is going to attempt to play tawdry and unseemly, and i just can’t see how it’s going to work. i mean, it would be great if it does though. everyone on the internet who knows the show, particularly the australians, are wailing about it. i tend to agree that american humor doesn’t always have that special zing, but after you have read “OH MY GOD NOOO THE AMERICANS ARE GOING TO RUIN IT LIKE THEY RUINED THE OFFICE!!!!!!” a million times it does start to hurt one’s feelings, patriotic or not. anyway, i like the american version of “the office.” it’s funny. still, i don’t know how i will feel about “kath and kim” without the aussie accents and kylie references.

in other foreign affairs news, i have finally got my hands on a pack of yakult, a probiotic drink sold in asia, europe, and mexico that has recently started advertising on us television. as soon as i saw the commercial i was intrigued, and then i read a bunch of reviews online and it sounded great. it is supposed to help balance your digestive system and support immune functioning. i decided to buy it when i saw it at the ralph’s in silverlake, even though i am trying to avoid unnecessary sugars and this is basically a shot of sugar, dairy, and good bacteria. i read that it tasted really good, but i found it only alright, so if i don’t notice an improvement in my health i don’t know if i’ll buy it more than a couple of times. i am obsessed with these tiny yogurt type drinks because i had one when i was in europe more than ten years ago and i still haven’t forgotten it. it was weird but tasted really yummy, and i can’t remember the damn name… oh well.

all this talk is just making me want to travel. i have never been to australia, anywhere in asia, or even mexico! unless you count that time my friends and i drove down to san felipe, but that’s baja, so i don’t know if it does. we did get pulled over by the terrifying federales (police) and get hideously stomach sick when we got home, but i refuse to believe that is the gist of the mexican experience! after all, i am half mexican! today, beirut’s “postcards from italy” came on my ipod in the car and i was imagining joe and i driving around on a cobblestone road in some hot, seaside town with the windows down. i would be in heaven! in actuality, we were driving the cats home from the vet, the new kitten having crapped in it’s carrier, with the windows down to air out the car. still, it was a kind of heaven. i love running errands with joe, and today was a beautiful l.a. day with perfect weather.

oh yeah, joe’s sister got a new kitten and she is absolutely gorgeous! the only problem is the little kitty came with a little gift known as ringworm, which is not as bad as it sounds, but still unpleasant. it’s not a worm at all, but a skin fungus that causes an actual red ring to form on infected areas of the skin. luckily joe’s sister only had one mark, but i recognized it right away from the epidemic my ex roommate caused when she refused to admit her newly adopted persian cat (which was in actuality a mangy bag of bones and teeth) caused her, our other roommate, and every single person who came over except for me to get ringworm. this even though everyone said it HAD to be the cat because they are the most common carriers! eight months after the epidemic began, she finally took the cat to the vet to get the shampoo and it ended. to this day it is a real mystery how literally everyone who even set foot in our house got it except for me. at first we all had a theory that mexicans must be immune, but then slowly all of my other mexican friends got it too and i was still the only one to not. if it doesn’t appear on me this time, i will be convinced of my super-immunity, because i have been loving up that new little fuzzball like crazy! it makes me itchy just thinking about it, but we got the anti-fungal shampoo for both the cats and the human cure is as simple as athlete’s foot cream, so i’m not going to panic. it’s very common, but i can imagine it does feel strange to have something foreign living on your skin, even if it’s just a fungus and not a worm.

i guess that’s about all. i am obviously able to think of little else other than wednesday and the project runway finale! victoria beckham is one of the guest judges, so as you know i will be entranced for the hour. i’m actually really nervous that my man christian might not win, because rami’s collection could turn out really great and jillian has always been consistently good. i can’t stand her, though, she puts me to sleep. she reminds me of one of those overly-confident nerds with no friends i always hated in school. i myself was your good old-fashioned humble, self-deprecating nerd. and look at me now! oh, wait….