Six a.m. came too early again, but at least Sophie didn't wake me up at 5 a.m. to put her out. She was out last night when we went to bed and we both came flying out of bed when we heard her screaming. We have a new cat in the neighborhood and clearly it is a male. She came in sprayed - he was marking his territory I guess. I cleaned her up the best I could but she was absolutely indignant about the whole situation. So her days or ruling the roost around here are over. She hasn't even asked to go back out. Poor baby - she was queen of the iguanas for almost a whole year!

I wonder if Innovative will finally get our phone fixed today. It has not been working for almost 2 weeks. The fax machine rings, but not the phones. The repair guy showed up at 7:30 Saturday morning. What a bite! After being woken up the day before by the power outage and then rudely waken from a deep sleep by the light and Steve telling me you have to get up I was not a happy camper. I was sitting in the livingroom with a scowl on my face when the repair guy came in. After all that he never did go into the bedroom and we still don't have a working phone. This is the same company we have our DSL through - our bill would be minimal if we paid them for the days both worked!

The cover on Mariah Fredericks' Crunch Time is wonderfully 3D. I had the book on the floor next to my rocking chair and kept thinking it was a real pencil on top of the book. The chewed up #2 pencil has the words - A novel by the author of The True Meaning of Cleavage, which is my favorite of her books. All girls going into HS should read this book so they know the potential of what can happen if they get a crush on a less than honest upper classman. I also liked Head Games, but really disliked the cover on the hardback. It has a female face with open lips - very suggestive due to the title. In reality it is a great book about two younger teens who meet in real life and continue the dangerous game they play online. The cover on the paperback edition is much better. Anyway, back to Crunch Time. I do remember taking my SAT and bombing the math section, but I don't remember stressing about it. But that certainly isn't the case with the four juniors in this book. Daisy is worried because she needs a high score to be eligible for financial aid. Jane basically doesn't care, but as the daughter of a movie star she is expected to. Max is trying to get a higher score so that, for once, his father will not tell him he can do better. And Leo - he is the one who wants to be perfect, not that his father cares though. These four unlikely "friends" gather at Jane's swanky NYC apartment to study for the SAT. But, Max is thinking about Daisy and how to get her to think of him as other than a friend. Daisy is attracted to bad boys and Leo is going to be her next bad decision. Jane, she just wants someone to notice her (other than her stepdad) and like her for herself, not because she is her mother's daughter. This is no page turner, but it does give the reader insight into the stress teens are under to play the college prep game. The counselor at this school is a little Hitler and manipulates the kids so that his favorites get their applications in to the good schools first. All heck breaks loose when the smart goody-two-shoes steps forward and admits she took the test for one of the other students, but won't say who. Now the rumors fly. Who is the cheater? One of the four?

Off to Montessori for the day.