A couple things:

1. Apparently, now that spring is coming, Jerusalem's snails are starting to come out of hibernation. Every night there is at least one snail blocking my path on my way home. These are the grandmothers of all snails. They are easily 4 inches long. You know that giant snail in the film "The Never-Ending Story"? Well, these snails are like that, only bigger and uglier.

2. Cafe Hillel, my favorite hangout, has eliminated my favorite salad from their menu, and I'm peeved. Being lactose intolerant, I don't have many choices of what to eat there, since almost all their salads and sandwiches have either feta, mozzarella, or roquefort cheese (however you spell that). Their desserts all have either butter or cream cheese. It's sort of sad, how those sandwiches and desserts look at me wistfully. Anyhow, there are three things on the menu I can eat: The salad nicoise, the salad "mikomi," and the soup. That's it.

And now they have eliminated the salad nicoise! Apparently, all those cheese-eaters out there didn't like having eggs and pototatos instead of their lactose-rich feta. Feta. Pheh-ta. Pheh.

In its place, they've created a health salad, with carrots and almonds where once there were eggs and potatos. It looks good, but I'm suspicious. I told the manager, Edan, that the next time I come in and try this new-fangled health salad, it better be as good as the nicoise or I'm going to insist that they go out and buy some potatos just for me. He laughed, but little does he realize that Sarah can be extremely serious about her salad.

I'm in a bad mood. First this whole thing-making-me-angry that I can't write about here, and --oh, yeah -- I had three dates last week with three different guys, and none of them worked out. And --oh, yeah-- the last was with this really great Italian guy, I had a really really really good time, and apparently so did he, but he doesn't want to go out again . . . no wonder he's 37 and not married yet . . . And, oh, yeah, I have an application for a major fellowship that must be postmarked tomorrow morning, but I haven't written the essay yet.

And now Cafe Hillel kills my salad.

Sigh