Dear God....

...I know it is not in my hands to decide when I have to leave this earthly paradise, but please don’t take me before January. There are simply too many good things coming up!

Berlin! No clients, no family, just me and an old friend, thousands of shoe stores, lots of giggling and La Traviata! My travel buddy said that the only concern will be chasing away all the interested guys. WHAT CENTURY IS SHE LIVING IN?

Hush concert! Even I would prefer to share this one with the Jewish boy, a good girl friend will definitely do.

Paris! And I can tell all about the concert to my Jewish boy.

Sergio! Coming to see me (bringing the wife along though, can't get it all).

Mr P! Coming to fill up my chocolate storage.

Africa! Or...? Is Gianni’s wife still threatening with divorce? What’s the big deal with one’s husband sharing a tent for a couple of weeks with la bionda finlandesa. I wouldn’t mind at all if some crazy woman took away my husband and gave me two weeks sleep free of his snoring. I would even pay a considerate amount of money if the lady wanted to keep my husband.

So God, let me have all this, and then in January you can come and get me, just in time before my French exams. To be sure that I don’t die before January, I won’t open any of my French books this fall; they beat even Hanan Ashrawi’s biography with the most boring content ever. And that would be an awful way to go, to be bored to death.