Gina's going to buy a monkey.

I am infatuated with my life.

That is to say, my life rivals Jessica Alba’s sex life, Disney Sing-along Songs, Barack’s staffers on this celebratory day of caucus winning, free beer when you don’t expect it (or a snow day, for all my under-aged readers), Bono’s shades, and all of those people that got cars from Oprah.

My life is Patrick Dempsey on Zoloft and I can’t stop smiling.

Gina and I spent the morning at the NY Consulate Chinese Visa and Passport center which is almost in the Hudson River – on the very corner of 12^th in midtown. As we stood in the freezing cold, we giggled, in that organic, stream-of-consciousness way that we do when we’re together.

Yes, we’ve had to discuss out a lot of uninteresting details (when, where to take Malaria pills, the arduous visa acquisition process, how much do you think we’ll really need an emergency supply of floss?) but we also get gloriously convoluted in these Steve Mollick obsessive rants of hilarity (for those of you who do not know Steve Mollick, I apologize not only for the missed reference, but for the pure misfortune of not having met a most unique individual).

In lieu of the entertainment value that our tangents hold, I present the following conversation, which I have lovingly titled “Boomerangs”.

Gina: You know, I’ve heard women say that wearing a wedding ring has really aided their travel experience and prevented unwanted advances.

JoAnne: Cool. Should we go to Chinatown today and get some bling?

Gina: No, I have some wedding rings. (JoAnne smiles and wants to say something smart-ass but doesn’t because…) But! Speaking of Chinatown, I got a small keychain that says NYC for Eva when we stay with her in Singapore and I was thinking of other small things to take with us to give to people that are hospitable new friends that we make.

JoAnne: Yeah! So I read this book, and…wait, I have to remember how exactly this happened. Ok, it was called “Love and Death in Kathmandu”…and….ok! Yeah! The book was about humans being used as portals for Hindi deities. The royal family worships this one goddess in the form of a 6-12 year old girl, and there are all these specifications – like, she has to have the eyes of a seagull and the feet of a dove and smell like the inner petals of the lotus bud or something like that – and, like, mothers across Nepal really want their little girls to be the next carrier of the goddess – can you imagine all these Nepalese pageant mommies pushing around their Jon Bennett-Ramsey kids to walk more like doves and spraying them with lotus blossoms? Anyways, no one was allowed to see this small girl-child who gets worshipped as a virgin goddess, but these Australian writers managed to bribe the guards by giving them a cheap wooden BOOMERANG!

Gina: But we don’t have Boomerangs.

JoAnne: Yeah, no.

(Brief depressed silence.)

Gina: So what’s the New York City equivalent of Boomerangs?

JoAnne: Stickers?

Gina: Stamps?

JoAnne: Cigarettes? Wait, what we need is something free that has New York City written on it.

Gina (as we are on 42^nd and 8^th): Let’s stop at Port Authority and ask!

JoAnne: Who?

Gina: Police?

JoAnne and Gina laugh as they both arrive at the same conclusion: Condoms!

Gina: I was just thinking that! The ones that the aids activist group gives out that say NYC on the wrapper!

JoAnne: We’re going to ask the Port Authority Police for condoms?

Gina: Uuuuhhhhh…

JoAnne: Stop…wait…I’d like to paint a mental picture of our trip. Me, clad in my pumas that I bought like a dummy without researching the fact that they could’ve been manufactured by one of our potential new Indian friends’ little six year old brother who has diphtheria and a cleft palate, and YOU with a MONKEY (Gina’s latest obsession is traveling with an exotic mammal friend) and we’re handing out condoms while wearing wedding rings and being attacked by mosquitoes (because fate WOULD pair two kids together as travel buddies who can’t feel being bitten by mosquitoes) in the middle of poverty-stricken Calcutta.

Gina: AND! Condoms aren’t always effective in tropical climates. Matchboxes!

JoAnne: We’re going to get shot at. More than once.