1) 5 Places NOT to Take a Toddler (Rants from Mommyland)
2) Less Outdoor Playtime for Preschool Girls (NYT’s Motherlode)

Go ahead and read them both. I’ll wait.

Right, so you’ve got one article – which I almost think has be a joke – saying that you should never bring your child ANYWHERE EVER. Seriously, she lists the pediatrician’s office and the library as places that should remain child-free. I can almost understand the library argument IF she were referring to the adult section, but no, this is the kid’s section she’s talking about. And the ped’s office? I ASSUME she means siblings here, and what, you’re supposed to get a babysitter every time you need to bring your other kid for a checkup?

Then you’ve got the other article, which is all YOU ARE RUINING YOUR GIRLCHILDREN BY KEEPING THEM INDOORS (I’m paraphrasing). Apparently the parents of boys are 16% more likely to take their children outside daily. O…kay. This is my favorite bit:

This is a statistic that comes with plenty of caveats. More than 80 percent of the children were in some type of nonparental childcare arrangement, and may have gone outside daily as a part of that arrangement. There was no information available as to the season during which parents responded to the question (one that many people would answer very differently in August than in February).

Yes: don’t trust this statistic, but LET’S TOTALLY TRUST THIS STATISTIC. Because “sometimes kids don’t play outside” doesn’t sound as link-baity as “girls are withering away to nothing while boys run amok in the streets.” (Again: paraphrased.)

The two articles side-by-side, though, pretty much exemplify everything you’re told as a new parent. Don’t bring your kid anywhere that they could bother anyone, but don’t keep them in the house, either. If they make any ruckus in public you’re creating a nuisance, but if you don’t bring them out into the world you’re coddling them. NO MATTER WHAT CHOICE YOU MAKE, IT’S THE WRONG ONE.

Here’s what I think: use your judgment. Bring your kid to the library, YES PLEASE, but don’t drag them through the reference stacks with you. Teach your child to use a quiet voice even in the children’s section, but seriously, anyone who is annoyed by the sound of children’s voices in the children’s section is a dick. (That doesn’t mean your precious snowflake should be shrieking and bopping the other kids with board books; again, judgment. Use it.)

And kids should play outside, YES, but let’s dial back the panic stats, okay? Parents don’t need to hear all the ways that they’re MAYBE POSSIBLY failing their kids. Encourage your children to run around, whether you bring them outside that day or not. Look, I just solved your problem. YOU’RE WELCOME.

So I know you’ll all be shocked, but parenting a 6 year old is HARD. Here I thought that as soon as he started school it’d be all smooth sailing, but he has all these opinions and ideas and stuff. Also energy. My kid will literally run around in circles, for fun. We make jokes about hamster wheels. (They are only partly jokes.)

The kid is a teenager in disguise. He tells us, quite seriously and often, that he knows more than we do and that he’s always right. We explain things, and he dismisses our words out of hand (“You’re wrong. I know.”). There are many, many episodes that involve storming off to his room.

And then he comes and snuggles up and argues about who loves who more, and we wonder how we could ever have thought he was anything other than a very little boy.

Those are my days: hair-pulling frustration followed by heart-bursting affection. Was this what I expected when I was so desperate to be a parent? I barely even remember what it was like to not have a kid. How much free time I must have had! How much sleep I must have gotten! Except I do remember being terribly busy and terribly tired, so there goes that theory.

I do know that I thought it would be easier. Or maybe not easier: more intuitive. Like, for example, the way I know he’s sick by the smell of his breath. That’s something that just happens, without my having to try. Whereas when my hyperactive, physical, reading-averse kid tells me things like “sometimes I just get excited and then I don’t know how to stop,” I honestly don’t know what to do, and I feel like I should. I should just know. I should be able to adjust my parenting style to fit my kid’s learning style, and instead we both just get frustrated and upset. (A really good mom would look at this as an opportunity for personal growth. A challenge, in the best way.) (I am not a really good mom.)

A long time ago I worried that he hadn’t learned to clap. Other kids could clap, but not my kid. Was he clap-deficient? Had I failed to properly teach him how to smack his hands together in a rhythmic fashion? Would he forever lag behind his applauding peers?

He claps just fine now, of course. Surely that can’t be a metaphor.*

*Or is it a simile? I can never remember.

This, I think, is a perfect encapsulation of 2011: the year of suck. Just when you think things are going to get better, you’re cleaning half-digested Cheerios off the carpet.

It wasn’t all bad. Our new book came out, and it rocks out loud. We moved to Sellwood, where we have friendly neighbors and a yard and a house that no one lives above. The kid started kindergarten (!!!), which is just crazy talk, because wasn’t he just a tiny little thing that I could fit under my chin? And we got a new cat, because cats are all good things, even when they pee on the rug, Maru.

So, yeah. Not all bad.

The rest of it was pretty roundly awful, to varying degrees, and who wants to hear about that? Instead I will just refer you to the encapsulated version, above.

I’m not doing any resolutions this year. Fuck resolutions. I’m just working on getting out of bed on a regular basis. Honestly, when you find yourself saying things like “No, I get dressed most days,” there might be some sort of issue there. And maybe not having to declare bankruptcy. That might be awesome, too. (Or maybe bankruptcy is awesome, and I’ll be all, you guys, why didn’t you tell me how great bankruptcy is? And you’ll be all, dude, you just screwed yourself out of all your credit cards, and then I will cry.)

Next year will have to be better, because honestly how could it not? That’s how optimism works, right?

Happy New Year, kids!

(I guess ‘recipe’ is a little bit of a stretch, though. More like ‘suggestions for cooking.’)

Uh, maybe don't click to embiggen - I did and WOW, my stove wants washing. Tomato sauce makes a MESS.

Ingredients:

2 large cans crushed tomatoes
2 large cans pureed tomatoes
2 cans tomato paste
1 lb ground beef
1/2 lb ground lamb
1/2 lb ground sweet Italian sausage
1 large onion, chopped
3 cloves garlic, minced
3 carrots, chopped
2 green bell peppers, chopped
1 red bell pepper, chopped
1 cup red wine
1/4 cup chopped Italian parsley
3 tablespoons sea salt
1 tablespoon pepper
3-4 tablespoons Italian seasoning (to taste)
Olive oil
1/4 cup Parmesan cheese

Optional Ingredients:

Mushrooms
Bay leaves
Olives
Spicy Italian sausage
Veal
Celery

Instructions:

In a large (like, really large) pot, add the crushed and pureed tomatoes. You can add the tomato paste at this point, too, if you want. Bring to a boil and then drop the heat down to low to simmer.

In a separate pan, brown the beef, the sausage and any other meat you may be adding. When it’s browned, drain and add to the tomatoes in the pot.

Sautee the onion, garlic, carrots, peppers and optional other root veggies in some olive oil. Add a generous pinch of sea salt and keep the lid on until the vegetables are softened. Add to the tomatoes and meat in the pot.

Add the spices (except for the parsley) & the rest of the salt, and add about half the wine. If you haven’t already added the tomato paste, add it now. Stir well and ignore for the next hour or two.

When the sauce has been simmering for about two hours, do a taste test and add more salt/pepper/spices if necessary. You can also add the rest of the wine, if needed. At this point you can add the parsley as well. Simmer for another hour or two.

Just before the three hour mark, add the Parmesan and stir.

After around three or four hours, the sauce should be pretty much the most delicious thing you’ve ever tasted. Turn off the heat, make some pasta, add sauce and enjoy.

As far as I’m concerned, the invention of the e-reader is probably the most awesome thing that’s ever happened to books, and possibly the worst thing that’s ever happened to my bank account. (Who am I kidding. 6pm.com and Sephora are the worst thing that ever happened to my bank account.) If I’m reading a series, I can finish one book and download the next one right away! If I’m browsing for something new, I can download the first chapter and see if I like it! If I just finished a series and am feeling bereft, I can impulsively purchase EVERY SINGLE THING THE AUTHOR HAS EVER WRITTEN even though it is 3 O’CLOCK IN THE MORNING and I REALLY SHOULD BE SLEEPING. Not…that that’s a thing. That happens. When I finish a series.

Anyway, aside from the fact that these are all YA (okay, with the exception of the Ridley Jones books), here’s what else they have in common:

• Women authors unite! I’m not saying you have to have ovaries to write books I love with a fervor bordering on obsession; I’m just saying that it doesn’t hurt.
• You know I really liked a book if I get to the last page and immediately turn to the beginning again to start it all over.  That was the case with every single one of these.
• Each of these stories hits the ground running and doesn’t stop until the very end. (Yes, even the Envelopes books…although I suppose running is less accurate in that case than flying off to London for reasons which will be explained.)

Anyway, behold: my favorite books of 2011.*

The Mortal Instruments Series: City of Bones · City of Ashes · City of Glass · City of Fallen Angels (Cassandra Clare)

These books are like crack.

Wait. That’s not a good way to start a review.

I should say: I literally could not put these down, to the detriment of my ocular health and personal sanity, and I am so invested in Clary’s relationship with Jace that it borders on alarming. That’s…better, right?

Seriously, this series is amazing. Well-written, fast paced, smart, WAY hotter than YA ought to be, intricately plotted and did I mention Jace? Because, yeah.

The first three books conclude the initial plot arc, and City of Fallen Angels continues the story with a new trilogy. If you’re wary of works in progress, you can safely stop after City of Glass. I don’t know why you would, but you can. Maybe to pretend that Cassandra Clare doesn’t enjoy ripping the hearts out of her readers and making them clutch, weeping, at the empty hole in their chests? NOT THAT THE INFERNAL DEVICES ARE NEXT ON THE LIST OR ANYTHING.

The Infernal Devices Series: Clockwork Angel · Clockwork Prince (Cassandra Clare)

I stumbled on these books totally by accident. I had just finished Cherie Priest’s Boneshaker (which I loved) and Clockwork Angel was one of the things Barnes and Noble thought I’d like. I’d never heard of Cassandra Clare, but I downloaded the sample chapter for fun and also because I have poor impulse control.

5 minutes later I was frantically clicking the “BUY NOW” button because if I didn’t find out what happened next I would explode. (See poor impulse control, above.)

The Infernal Devices series is a steampunk dream, all Victorian London and secret societies and shape shifters and demons and Tessa and Will and Jem OT3 Forever. Ahem.

You can view these as a prequel of sorts to The Mortal Instruments, or you could view them as a standalone series. Either way works just fine and you’re not going to get spoiled no matter which you read first (though there are lots of cool Easter eggs in both series if you know what to look for).

None of that eclipses the fact that when you get to the end of Clockwork Prince you will probably want to have a very large stack of tissues nearby. Just FYI.

13 Little Blue Envelopes · The Last Little Blue Envelope (Maureen Johnson)

I started reading Maureen Johnson because of Twitter.

True story.

Someone (I don’t even know who now…Wil Wheaton? The Bloggess? Someone else entirely?) retweeted some Maureen Johnson tweets and I thought, ha, she’s kind of hilarious. So I followed her, and she is THE BEST THING ANYPLACE EVER. If her tweets are this entertaining, I thought, her books must be fantastic.

I was right. (That’s not unusual.)

I liked 13 Little Blue Envelopes. I would have loved it when I was younger, in that OH MY GOD I AM GINNY sort of way that you love books when you’re sixteen or nineteen or twenty-three. But clearly I am way too grown-up for that now, right? Then came The Last Little Blue Envelope, and it absolutely blew me away. Partly it’s the complexity of the relationships between the primary characters, which are much more fraught than they were in the first book. But mostly it has to do with Oliver.

The 1-800-WHERE-R-U Series: When Lightning Strikes · Code Name Cassandra · Safe House · Sanctuary · Missing You (Meg Cabot)

Meg Cabot makes me feel like a failure. I mean, seriously, take a look at the number of books she cranks out in the average year. The only possible explanation is that she never sleeps, or is actually comprised of several different people, like Shakespeare. Or Frankenstein.

The 1-800 series isn’t particularly highbrow or literary-minded. It’s fun and fluffy and a little bit dark. Like lots of Meg Cabot books, the heroine is plucky and a little bit unhinged.

For those of us who grew up in the 80s, When Lightning Strikes is a pitch-perfect homage to Escape from Witch Mountain. Which – who didn’t love that movie? But if you take the series as a whole, you realize the story is less about Jess Mastriani’s cool precog powers and more about learning who to trust and figuring out what matters and growing up.

What. I just like them, okay?

The Hunger Games series: The Hunger Games · Catching Fire · Mockingjay (Suzanne Collins)

(I want to apologize in advance to those of you who click that link. Suzanne Collins is an extraordinary writer, but whoever “designed” her web site should have their internet privileges revoked. Authors: beautiful, functional web sites make the world sing in perfect harmony, just like Coke. Or that weird alien invasion from Torchwood. I DIGRESS.)

There probably isn’t anyone on the planet who hasn’t heard how fabulous The Hunger Games trilogy is. I’m just chiming in to say it’s all true. The books are amazing. I tore through them like my life depended on it.

I also highly recommend giving the books a second go while following the excellent recaps on Mark Reads. Are ‘recaps’ even the right word for those? Basically Mark liveblogs each chapter as he reads it, and it is awesome.

Bumped (Megan McCafferty)

THIS COUNTS as a series because the second book (Thumped) will be out SOON. Not SOON ENOUGH, but SOON. I am patiently waiting, see? This is me, being patient.

Megan McCafferty is the woman responsible for the fabulous Jessica Darling series (Sloppy Firsts, etc.), which I loved unreasonably and may still pull off the shelf with alarming regularity. You don’t know.

Bumped has all the snarky teen-speak of McCafferty’s previous series, but also the added bonus of being a dystopian look at a future in which teens are the only members of society able to have babies. Oh no, it’s AWESOME, trust me. It’s like The Handmaid’s Tale meets Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Or…something like that, only good.

(Megan McCafferty’s web site is perfectly acceptable, by the way. See, authors? You do not need Flash intros or SOUNDS or huge, slow-loading graphics or a background that hasn’t been updated since 1998. Web designers are your friends.)

Beautiful Lies · Sliver of Truth (Lisa Unger)

I’m not usually into mysteries – wait. That’s not even true. I thought I wasn’t into mysteries, and then I started reading Lisa Unger and realized that what I’m not into is badly-written mysteries.

Beautiful Lies and Sliver of Truth follow the delightfully-named Ridley Jones through a series of realizations that what she thought of as her life was a series of carefully-crafted lies. How these lies are unraveled – and how much danger Ridley is in – ratchets up the tension, but the real kick comes from the way all the pieces fit together in the end.

And even though there didn’t seem to be any missing pieces at the end of Beautiful Lies, I was amazed to find that Sliver of Truth was able to go back and find the little details I hadn’t even noticed and turn them into a new, even more intricate puzzle.

*These were not all written in 2011. I just read them in 2011. I don’t want anyone thinking I’m skimping on details here. Also, I was in no way compensated for this or any other post because no one actually reads my blog.

This is the midseason finale, which means, of course, that there will be a dance. Isn’t there always a dance?

Oh, you know. Just hanging out. Daggering people. What are YOU doing?

We open on a phone call. Klaus answers, launching without preamble into a speech about how lovely Portland is, aside from the whiny music and the healthy-looking people: “A literal breeding ground for werewolves.” As I am from Portland myself, I can only say, “…that’s fair.”

Stefan gets right to the point. “Your father’s dead. Sorry, not your father. Not dead. Daggered.”

I’d like to mention, before we get too far into this, how very much I dislike the use of the word daggered. It’s just, what’s wrong with stabbed? Skewered? Semi-fatally shishkebabed? You will hear the word daggered a lot in this episode, and it’s safe to say that each time you do I die a little on the inside.

Back to the show. Klaus has a look of utter and total disbelief on his face, like someone surprised him with a pony. A pony made of…blood? Not the best analogy. Also ponies are already full of blood. Anyway, Klaus demands an explanation, and we flash back to an hour earlier.

Stefan, Elena and Damon are hatching the scheme in a very Scooby-Do manner, each of them jumping in to complete the other’s sentences.

Crazy eyes. Couldn't resist.

Stefan: “Say that Mikael followed Elena in here and tried to grab her so he could use her as bait.”
Elena: “And you, what? Vervained him?”
Damon: “We vervained him. Guy’s an Original. We have to make it realistic.”
Stefan: “Okay, fine. We vervained him. And in the process, discovered that he had a dagger.”
Elena: “Which he planned to use on Rebekah, but instead -”
Stefan: “We drove it through his heart.”

See, isn’t drove it through his heart better than daggered?

Then they get to the pesky part about the body, and how if they tell Klaus that Daddy Dearest is dead, he’ll want to see it.

“Then I shall be dead,” says Mikael, because Mikael knows how to make an entrance. “You lure him here, and I will kill him.”

Stefan wants to know how Mikael plans to kill Klaus, seeing as the daggers don’t work on him. Sharing time!

Just how many of these things are there?

“I’m in possession of a stake fashioned from the wood of the white oak tree.” Papa Original says. How interesting. So he turned all of his children into vampires to keep them alive, but held onto the one thing that could make them dead? Nice guy, that Mikael. He then exposits about how if another vamp daggers an Original the vamp gets all dead-like, in case we all forgot, so it’s up to Elena to do the honors. He hands her the dagger and she looks queasy.

Back in present time, Klaus indeed does want to see his father’s “rotting corpse,” oh yes. “Well, it’s here,” Stefan deadpans. “Drop by whenever.”

“If you’re lying, Stefan, your compulsion will expose you,” Klaus hisses. “Is what you’re saying the truth?”

Hour-back flashback: Elena stabs Mikael. He goes all green and veiny while Stefan watches from a chair, his expression never changing. “It’s true,” present-moment Stefan says. “I saw it with my own eyes.”

Klaus demands that they put his sister on the phone. (Oh, did I forget to mention that the larger point of last week’s episode is that Elena figured out that Klaus had been the one to kill Mama Original & had lied and said that Mikael did it? Yeah, my bad. Rebekah is on the side of not-Klaus now.) She confirms Mikael’s deadness and adds “I miss you. I’m miserable here.” That last bit is almost certainly true.

Klaus says he’ll be there soon. After they hang up the phone, everyone looks pensive, and then Damon jinxes it by saying “Was that easy or what?”

Elena says “Let’s just get this over with” and pulls out the dagger. Which…okay. I guess that makes sense. Title card.

Rebekah does not appreciate your poor parenting skills.

Coughing. Papa Original sits up to see his daughter watching him. “Finally,” she says flatly. “Took you long enough.” Rebekah isn’t in the mood for family bonding time, though: “Whatever fatherly rubbish you’re thinking, save it. Nothing you say matters to me.”

Mikael seems mildly disappointed by this, but moves on. “Where’s my dagger?”

“Elena has it,” Rebekah tells him. “So you can forget about your plans to use it on me.”

“You were never the one that I was after,” he begins, but she’s having none of it. She tells him that Nick was her family, and that the only reason any of them turned into killers is that Mikael made them that way.

“You destroyed our family,” she says. “Not him.” WELL. Technically, they both did.

At Casa Gilbert, Elena is wearing some awesome red boots that I totally want and bemoaning the state of her wardrobe, which includes nothing to wear to homecoming. Bonnie is somewhat less than sympathetic. “So don’t go,” she says. Wouldn’t it be WAY more fun to order takeout and overanalyze ancient hieroglyphics? Which coincidentally is what Bonnie, dateless, will be doing. Because who ever goes anywhere without a booooooy?

“We have to go,” Elena says. “Caroline will kill us.” Isn’t that like 80% of the reason anyone does anything ever on this show? I know I have said this before, but Caroline is a force of nature.

Bonnie makes sad noises about how sad it is that she is sadly dateless, and Elena remembers that she’s supposed to care about that. “You know that you can talk to me about Jeremy, right?” she says.

"You know how I totally supported you when you and Stefan were - what?"

Bonnie does not, in fact, know that, and lays out several reasons why, including the fact that Bonnie’s mad at the boy who broke her heart while Elena is mad at her little brother. Which – valid, except ALSO Bonnie’s the one who went and DATED said ‘little brother,’ so she’s at least partially culpable for her current inability to girltalk with her bff. Also, this is BONNIE. The girl who was all “Whatevs, you’re having a personal crisis but I don’t like your boyfriend so I am going to be a complete bitch to you.” Back then it was Elena’s fault for dating someone Bonnie didn’t approve of. Now it’s Elena’s fault for…being related to the dude Bonnie’s sadfacing over?

"All anyone says is what I want to hear. That's not weird, right?"

The next scene has Elena in Damon’s room making wolfsbane grenades and looking much less miserable than she was with Bonnie. I like to imagine that she skedaddled pretty much directly after their little heart-to-heart: Yeah. So, if that’s it, I’m just gonna head over to the Salvatore place now. What? No reason.In any event, she and Damon are discussing the fact that neither of them trusts Rebekah. “Bonnie was right,” Elena says. “Rebekah may be mad at Klaus now, but he is her brother.” Which…isn’t what Bonnie said at all. Way to totally misinterpret that whole conversation, Elena. No wonder no one talks to you.

“I am formulating a secret contingency plan,” Damon tells her.

“Really? What is it?”

“Well if I told you, it wouldn’t be a secret.” Point: Damon.

Stefan picks that moment to barge in. “I need to borrow a tie,” he says. Damon suggests he wear one of his own ties, but Stefan points out that he’s 162 years old and going to a homecoming dance: “I need better ties.”

“You could not go,” Elena tries.

No dice; Klaus wants Elena protected, and “with my luck you’ll go ahead and get yourself murdered by the Homecoming Queen.” Point: Stefan, but how come Damon didn’t just go as her date? I’m not being all shippy here; I seriously don’t get why Stefan is escorting her to the dance at all, except to be all MUAH HA HA I DON’T LOVE YOU ANYMORE and also AM EVIL.

Stefan wanders off, presumably in possession of one of Damon’s ties, and Damon reaches over to disentangle Elena from a grenade. “I know how to do it – Alaric taught me,” she protests, but Damon points out that if these things blow up in their faces, only one of them heals quickly.

I was wrong before about the Stefan and the leaving; he comes back in with several ties draped over his hand and makes disapproving noises about their commitment to sparkle motion. “Please tell me you have a better plan than wolfsbane grenades,” he says. Shut up, Stefan. Your contribution of late has been to look vaguely constipated, so at least their plan involves actually doing something. “My freedom from Klaus rests entirely upon you two executing your plan perfectly, so excuse me if I’m a bit cynical,” he snarks.

Elena points out that Stefan’s the weak link in the chain. “If Klaus asks you one wrong question, the whole thing falls apart.”

“If I look back on our history of epic plan failures, it’s usually because one of us let our humanity get in the way,” Stefan says. Burn. Actually, Elena looks kind of like she’s going to cry, but I think it’s more Stefan’s snarky use of the word epic than his suggestion that humans are weak.

Caroline realizes Tyler's mommy issues run deeper than previously suspected

At the school, Tyler and Caroline are painting a psychedelic bus with glitter for some reason. Seriously, that’s…an odd thing to do. Why are they doing that? Tyler, who is in a very, very good mood, wants to go “have a bite” with Caroline. She says she has a thermos in her bag, but Tyler had something a bit less…bottled in mind. “Rebekah knows some people who like to be fed on,” he says. “They’re into it, we don’t even have to compel them.”

Caroline is squicked. “Okay, first of all, I finally almost just got your mother to stop hating me, so I probably don’t want to get caught in some weird vampire threesome with her son.” I love that that’s her first reason. “And secondly, quit hanging out with Rebekah the evil blood slut.”

Probably not the best time for Tyler to mention that Rebekah’s going to the Homecoming Dance with Matt. But Tyler, he’s not so much with the smarts. “He drinks vervain, she can’t feed on him,” Tyler says, like that’s the only possible reason Caroline could object to an ancient vengeful vampire taking her ex-boyfriend on a date.

“Matt is an innocent, good person who should not be going to dances with evil blood sluts,” Caroline says.

“Matt’s a guy, Caroline, and Rebekah’s hot. Don’t over think this.” Did I mention how Typer is not so much with the smarts?

Caroline narrows her eyes and points at him with a paintbrush. “This is a sire thing, isn’t it?”

Tyler doesn’t want to go down this road. “I’m here hanging streamers and I have glitter all over my hands. If I’m sired to anyone, it’s you.” Oh hey Tyler I don’t think that’s – never mind. If the writers of the show can misuse the sire concept in the first place, far be it for me to point out how utterly idiotic this latest one sounds.

Back at the boarding house, Rebekah tells Elena the ‘embarrassing truth’ that this is her first high-school dance. Um…duh? She was born in the time of Vikings and daggered in the 1920s and also why should a thousand-year-old vampire give a crap about going to a dance? I felt a lot more sympathy toward Anna when she was trying to braincloud Jeremy in Season One because at least she’d been around all that time, not going to dances.

Let's be best best friends and then I will kill you. Wait, which one of us said that?

She does look nice in her dress, though. She says she’s getting ready early because she didn’t want to leave anything to chance. She and Elena have a heart-to-heart about Klaus & Rebekah says that Mikael is dangerous and can’t be trusted: “No one in my family can.” She then tells Elena, “I’ve spent my whole life loving and hating my brother in equal measure. I never thought that I’d be the one to help drive a stake through his heart.” She turns, shakes off sudden tears, not wanting to ruin her makeup, asks Elena how she looks.

Elena says she looks amazing, and tells her that one thing is missing. She puts the locket that belonged to Rebekah’s mother around her neck. Rebekah looks as though she’s going to lose it at any moment, so after fastening the necklace Elena does what any good friend would: she sticks a dagger through Rebekah’s back.

“I can’t leave anything to chance either,” Elena says. Elena, you are the worst friend ever.

Damon comes to help cover up the body. “In the back. Harsh,” he says admiringly. “It’s very Katherine of you.”

“Not the way to make me feel better about myself, Damon,” says Elena, who is having some sort of crisis on the bed.

“It was a compliment. Sort of,” he says.

Elena is busy running other people’s lines through her Elena-filter. “Stefan’s right. Someone is going to let their humanity get in the way and screw this whole thing up, and it’s probably going to be me.” So, what, you decided to channel your inner soulless vamp doppelganger? Certainly that can’t have any downsides.

Damon comes and sits next to her on the bed. Elena asks if he trusts Mikael or Stefan; Damon says he doesn’t. “Then we need a better plan,” she says.

So this plan involves me trying to make an expression at you? Awesome.

“I know what to do,” Damon tells her. “You’re just not going to like it.”

Elena wants to know what the plan is, but Damon says he doesn’t want her to have any part of it. “Do you trust me?” he asks her.

“Yes,” she says. Instant.

“Then you have nothing to worry about.”

So it was totally Tyler who flooded the gym, y/y?

I love how he pretty much just accepts the worst right off the bat.

Outside the high school, there are emergency crews and spraying water and what’s that, Tyler? The dance is cancelled? Caroline looks like she’s going to explode, but Tyler gives her a look and a moment later she’s on the phone with Elena, telling her Tyler’s moved the party to his house. Elena’s still at the Salvatore’s, and there’s a knock at the door; she hangs up with Caroline and opens the door to see Matt looking all expectant. Expectant, and crushed. He’s immediately aware of the fact that the door has been opened not by his date but by his ex, and there’s really not a good direction this can go.

Except: “How would you feel about a backup date?”

At the Wolf House the party is going strong. There’s a band I’m not hip enough to recognize and an absolute sea of people, all of whom appear to be having at least a modicum of fun. Caroline walks in with Bonnie, a look of appalled disbelief on her face: “How did he plan a better party than me so fast?”

“Who are all these people?” Bonnie asks. Oh, I don’t know, maybe they’re your classmates who you’ve ignored the last two years? Just an idea.

Good evening, dead and soon-to-be dead people!

Caroline goes off to find Tyler and demand an explanation for his superior party-planning skills, while outside Stefan is stalking around looking for…Elena, probably, just so he can remind her how much he doesn’t care if she drops dead right this minute. Instead he runs into Tyler, who gleefully tells him that the party wasn’t his idea: it was Klaus’. And it’s not a party; it’s a wake.

Elena's hair looks lovely, doesn't it?

Caroline finds Matt and Elena, who have just had the “no this is totally not awkward” conversation, and announces that Klaus is the one behind all of this. At their non-reactions, she says “I expected more surprise!” Elena shakes her head, says she’s learned not to be surprised by anything Klaus does. Except when he does the Macarena! No one expects that.

Outside, OTP Klaus and Stefan are strolling along together. “I’ve been planning my father’s funeral for a thousand years,” Klaus says. “Granted in no version of it were any of these people invited, but you get the idea.”

Stefan wants to know what Klaus has planned next, because Stefan is subtle. “Now, I reunite my family,” Klaus says. The part he leaves out: the ones I stabbed for betraying me at various times and kept in boxes in various storage facilities like a collection of really creepy dolls.

Awesomely, Stefan does not leave that part out. “You mean the ones you cart around in caskets,” he deadpans. Subtle!

“None of that matters anymore,” Klaus says. Now that Mikael’s gone, it’s party time for Family Original. Klaus follows this with “Seems the Homecoming Queen is still among the living, which leads me to believe Rebekah isn’t here yet. Where is she?”

Stefan says he doesn’t know. Klaus gets the first inklings of suspicion and tries to vamp-mojo Stefan, but Stefan just repeats that he doesn’t know where Rebekah is, because he totally doesn’t. He does, however, offer to take Klaus to his father, but Klaus would prefer to stay right where he is: “Bring him to me.” Klaus tells Stefan he can have his freedom right after Mikael is really and truly dead and his weapon is destroyed. No problem, right?

When DAMON thinks you're creepy, you might want to re-think some things.

Stefan goes back to the boarding house, where Damon is having a little blood and lying to Mikael about Rebekah going to the dance. It’s almost sweet that Mikael cares enough to ask. Almost. Anyway, Mikael has the stake and Damon declines to offer him a drink, since Katherine tells him he’s more a “Vampire on the rocks” guy.

“Well technically you could still offer,” Mikael says. Damon looks completely creeped out by the suggestion. Mikael just stares at him impassively and explains that when he created vampires, he never intended there to be blood lust, which apparently strikes him as deeply déclassé. He taught himself to feed from the predator rather than the prey. Dear Mikael: this does not make you less creepy.

I will say this for Evil Stefan: he makes much more entertaining facial expressions.

Stefan breaks up their moment, as Stefan is wont to do, by announcing that Klaus wants Mikael’s corpse delivered to him and all is lost. “He’s certainly not going to come here. Hope your plan didn’t depend on that.”

Damon smiles just a bit. “It didn’t depend on that,” he says.

“But you do have a plan, right?”

“Oh yeah. Yeah, we’ve got a plan, right? It just doesn’t involve you.”

Mikael vamps out and drains Stefan.

UNCOOL, undead vampire hunting dude. Uncool.

Damon looks shocked. “You couldn’t just break his neck?” So…apparently that wasn’t part of the plan? Note: this is what happens when you let Mikael improvise.

Mikael stalks out, leaving Damon and his delicate sensibilities to flutter after.

I haven't been to one of these in a while. It's customary to threaten your host, yeah?

At the Homecoming Dance, Klaus harshes Tyler’s buzz by pointing out that almost all the people at the party were supplied by Hybrids R Us. Oh, so they aren’t Bonnie and Elena’s mostly-ignored schoolmates? My bad. “If anyone should so much as make a move against me, they may feel obligated to retaliate.” Klaus encourages Tyler to share this tidbit with his friends and wanders off, grinning.

But Tyler’s only real friend is Caroline, who totally isn’t in on the big plan, and furthermore wouldn’t tell Tyler if she were, and also then he vervains her and gets Matt to take her away because he doesn’t want her to get hurt. Or Matt, apparently, but that’s just implied. Also boy, is Caroline going to be pissed when she wakes up.

Klaus finds Elena watching the band. She stiffens visibly when he approaches her. “You seem nervous,” Klaus says.

“I’m not nervous, I just don’t like you.”

Klaus says he’ll get straight to the point. “People have been after me for a thousand years, and I’ve always been one step ahead. So whatever it is you’re thinking of trying, go for it. Give it your best shot. You won’t succeed.” Apparently this is what Klaus does at parties. Someone should really tell him about Beer Pong.

Hot. ...What?

At the door to the Wolf House, Damon is stopped by a man who says “Invite only. Vampire.”

“Here’s my RSVP,” Damon says, and rips out the man’s heart. “Hybrid.”

Inside, Damon and Tyler get all slap-fighty, so Damon busts out – the Original stake? WTF, Damon?

Also, why does Bonnie care about Tyler? Shouldn't she be all "VAMPIRE SMASH"?

Luckily both boys get a magic migraine care of Bonnie, who is just as WTF about the stake as I am. “You weren’t supposed to kill Tyler!” she shouts.

“He tried to bite me!” Damon says, because when you run that through the DamonLogic filter, yeah, that TOTALLY justifies it.

Bonnie notices the stake, and wants to know why Damon has it. “Because I’m the only one who can get in the house!” he hisses. Ohhhh, right. That actually makes sense. Good job, show!

You thought I was kidding about the beer pong.

Klaus is just taking my advice and learning how to play Beer Pong when one of his hybrids brings him a message that someone is here to see him. “He said his name is Mikael,” the hybrid purrs.

Klaus’ face falls. It’s kind of heartbreaking. You can see the moment when he knows he’s been betrayed. “Then we mustn’t keep him waiting,” he says. He tells the hybrid to move everyone out back so he can chat with his father.

Oh noes! Mikael has Elena. And what pretty hair she has, did I say that already?

Mikael stands just outside the door; Klaus stops just inside. They are British and politely rude at each other for a while, until Klaus mentions that all he has to do is rub his fingers together and his band of hybrids will tear Mikael limb from limb. Mikael just as casually points out the hybrids can still be compelled (by him). He motions one of the hybrids, who produces a struggling, unhappy Elena. “Come out and face me, Niklaus,” Mikael says. “Or she dies.”

“Go ahead,” breathes Klaus. “Kill her. I just need to be rid of you.”

Mikael gets right down to business, and by business I mean emotionally abusing his son something fierce. “So you can live forever with no one at your side? Nobody cares about you anymore, boy. Who do you have, other than those whose loyalty you forced? No one.” I am beginning to support Klaus’ plan to off his father.

SHUT UP I HAVE SOMETHING IN MY EYE.

Klaus’ eyes fill with tears. His whole body is trembling as he grits out “I’m calling your bluff, father. Kill her.”

“Come outside,” Mikael says, “and face me, you little coward. And I won’t have to.”

They go back and forth like this for a bit, and then Mikael laughs and stabs Elena in the back. She gasps and chokes and falls to the ground.

Then Damon comes out of nowhere and stabs Klaus with the stake. AND MISSES HIS HEART. How could Damon have missed his heart? Damon NEVER misses. They wrestle for a bit, and as they do, Elena stands up from behind Mikael, a smile on her face.

Kaboom.

“Katherine,” Mikael breathes.

Katherine throws a handful of wolfsbane grenades at the hybrids. “Kaboom,” she says. Katherine is the cutest thing ever.

Damon tries to re-stake Klaus, but before he can, Stefan leaps on him and tackles him to the ground. The stake falls out of his hand. “What are you doing?” hisses Damon.

Mikael flambe.

SO much cheaper than therapy.

STEFAN RUINS EVERYTHING.

Compulsion gone! Feel free to resume moping expressionlessly.

Klaus grabs the stake and leaps at his father, stabbing him neatly through the heart, Damon. Mikael screams and bursts into flames. Guess there’s no second use for that stake?

Inside, Damon is still trying to figure out what Stefan’s stupid problem is. “He’s earned his freedom,” Klaus breathes. (This is Klaus’ preferred communication method. I suspect he spent several bored centuries working as a phone-sex operator.) Stefan stands and Klaus does the woogie-eye thing at him. “You’re free.”

Stefan turns around again, but Damon is gone.

NOT the way Caroline expected to wake up after Homecoming.

Caroline wakes up. She takes in the fact that she’s still in her party dress, and looks up to see Tyler come into the room. He’s still offensively cheerful. “Sorry I stabbed you,” he says, sounding not sorry at all. “It was the only way I could think of to get you out of there.”

Caroline isn’t buying it. She points out that he could have, I don’t know, talked to her and maybe asked her to leave instead of vervaining her in the neck. “How am I supposed to be with you when you’re sired to him?” she wants to know.

“This is who I am,” Tyler says. “Understand that I’m okay with it.” He tells her that being a hybrid is way better than being a werewolf, and even then he didn’t have any control over what happened to him; the full moon controlled him, and now Klaus does, but at least under Klaus he doesn’t have to change unless he wants to. “After everything that we’ve been through, you’ve been there for me through all of it. Don’t turn your back on me now.”

Caroline doesn’t have to say anything. Tyler can see it on her face. She tries, though: “Tyler, I just -”

“Right,” he says, withdrawing from her. “Got it.” He leaves as fast as he can.

Caroline just sits in the bed, looking lost.

At the boarding house, Elena wants to know how this happened.

Angry Damon is angry.

Woobie.

This is what they call a 'gaze.'

Cockblocked by Katherine. AGAIN.

“We thought of everything, Elena,” Damon rages. He’s drinking and furious. He ticks off the ways they were prepared: hybrids, Katherine, Stefan. Maybe if you’d included target practicein that list?

“I don’t understand,” Elena says. “Stefan wanted Klaus dead, more than anything. That’s what we were counting on.”

Damon looks dangerously devastated. Elena asks where Katherine went and he says she ran for the hills. “I had Klaus,” he yells brokenly. “This could have all been over.” He throws his bottle into the fireplace.

“Hey,” Elena says, alarmed. She puts her hand on his arm, and when that doesn’t work she puts her hands on either side of his face and forces him to look at her. “We’ll survive this.”

Damon stills. “We’re never getting Stefan back,” he says hollowly.

“Then we’ll let him go,” Elena says. Damon raises his eyes to hers. “Okay? We’ll have to let him go.”

Their moment – which was TOTALLY going to end in a kiss – is interrupted by a ringing phone. Naturally it’s Katherine. “I’m just calling to say goodbye,” she says. “you had a good plan, Damon. And that’s high praise coming from me.”

Damon is not comforted. He asks if she’s going back into hiding; she returns that at least her life isn’t boring.

“Take care of yourself,” Damon says before he hangs up.

Shocking development is shocking.

Katherine sighs. “He doesn’t know where it all went wrong,” she says.

Stefan, who has been sitting next to her in the car the whole time, replies “He doesn’t need to know.”

You can tell it's a flashback because it's all soft-focus.

We get another mini flashback, this time to Katherine reviving Stefan after Mikael did his undead bloodsucker routine. Inside this flashback we get another flashback, this time to Elena (actually Katherine) talking to Klaus at the party. This time the scene goes on a moment or two longer. Klaus explains that she’d be smart to tell Damon to mind his manners tonight: “If I die, I’ve already ensured that he’ll die along with me.” Klaus has programmed his hybrids to kill Damon if anything happens to Klaus.

Present moment. Stefan wants to know how Katherine knew he’d stop Damon. “I didn’t,” she says. “I was just hoping you would want to.”

Flashback again. Katherine is explaining what Klaus said to Stefan. “Care, Stefan,” she says. “Care enough to save Damon’s life.”

Interestingly, that seems to have worked, even though when Elena did the same thing (only about herself) a few episodes ago it had no effect. What? I’m just saying it’s interesting, is all.

In the car, Stefan points out that Katherine has wanted Klaus dead for five hundred years and basically borked her chance. “I wasn’t just trying to save Damon’s life, Stefan. I was trying to save yours.” Stefan gives her a look. “Let’s just say I like the old you better.”

“Nah,” Stefan says. “Come on, Katherine. You don’t care about anyone but yourself. You know that.”

“You and I both know that is not true. I loved you. I loved Damon too.” She doesn’t seem particularly happy to admit that. I bet Damon would have been interested to hear that particular confession, though.

She sighs. “Humanity is a vampire’s greatest weakness,” she says.

Stefan says he doesn’t want to let it back in. “Of course you don’t want to,” Katherine says. “But if you don’t let yourself feel, you won’t be able to do what I need you to do next.” Which is? “Get mad.”

Stefan. Hey. You know what's awesome? EVERYTHING, Also, what are you wearing?

THE CORPSES OF YOUR FAMILY MEMBERS. I HAVE STOLEN THEM. Also, what did you just ask me?

But I have been hauling them around for years, out of love! Or an equivalent word that also means I will kill you.

How many coffins is that exactly?

This is Klaus' grrr face.

Next to Rebekah’s lifeless body, her phone is ringing. Dude, how long are they just going to let her lay there? Klaus leaves her a cheerful message about how their father is dead and it’s time for a family reunion. He gets an incoming call from Stefan and clicks over. “Miss me already?” he says.

“You took everything from me, Klaus,” Stefan says.

“Let bygones be bygones, trust me,” Klaus says. He’s walking through a lot, approaching a shipping truck. “Resentment gets old.”

“You know what never gets old?” Stefan asks. Klaus opens the back of a truck; it’s empty. “Revenge,” Stefan says.

“No,” Klaus growls.

“What’s the matter, Klaus? Missing something?” The camera pans back to show Stefan standing in the middle of the caskets containing Klaus’ family members.

“I will kill you and everyone you’ve ever met,” Klaus says.

“You do that,” Stefan says, “and you will never see your family again. I wonder, Klaus. As someone who’s been one step ahead for a thousand years – were you prepared for this?”

And…we’re out. Until January.

Don’t worry, I have interim recaps in the meantime.

It only lasted about two hours. Only. Then The Pain turned into just regular old non-capitalized pain, which is where I am right now. Hurts to move, hurts to stand up, hurts to cough, but if I’m very still it’s kind of OK. I’d complain somewhat more vociferously about how my entire abdomen feels like someone beat it up, but since I’m not writhing on the bed in acute agony I figure I ought to be pretty grateful.

Pain is stupid. Why couldn’t I be one of those creepy people who you can poke with knives and they don’t even notice?

So, to recap: in the last month I’ve had a nasty cold, two migraines, a two-hour Pain extravaganza and also my left wrist hurts like whoa for no discernible reason other than HA HA your wrist hurts.

YOU WIN, November.

UPDATE: I went to the doctor, who sent me off to have a CAT scan. So, see, I’m not TOTALLY dropping the ball here.

UPDATE #2: The CAT scan said (CAT scans talk, you know) that I do NOT have appendicitis, and also that I DO have ovarian cysts, and also that the ovarian cysts did not cause The Pain, because of reasons. HOWEVER, new Kaiser Doc is an internist & will be doing ACTUAL TESTS to figure out what IS causing The Pain. So yay. Ish.

Moody intro is moody.

VO: For over a century I have lived in secret, hiding in the shadows, alone in the world. Until now. I am a vampire. And this is my story.

(This is not followed by the DUN DUN of Law & Order. But it should be.)

Techo music. Couple in car. They are bickering cutely, so clearly they are going to die. What. I have seen a horror film or two, you know.

Looks awfully comfortable for a corpse.

They drive into a thick fog that wasn’t there a moment before, and suddenly there is a man in the road. They run right into him; he smashes into their windshield, bounces off the car and comes to rest in the middle of the road. The car spins out, the couple inside panicking. “Call for help!” says the man to his girlfriend. He runs over to the figure in the road. “Please be alive,” he whispers. Be careful what you wish for, short-lived dude. The figure grabs him.

In the car, girlfriend can’t get a signal on her phone. Of course. She gets out, calling for Darren. Aaaw, it’s nice that he has a name. Darren falls out of the sky, neck all om-nommed and bloody. She screams, starts to run. Something picks her right off her feet.

Well then. Title sequence.

Sproing goes the moodyvamp.

Moody Vamp, he of the very dramatic opening voiceover, is watching the sun rise and talking about how he had no choice but to come home despite the risk. “I have to know her.” You know what I’d like to know? What is with the rising sun and the lack of vampire-centric pyrotechnics? Moody Vamp jumps off his roof, as you do.

Elena is happy. Happy, I tell you.

Meanwhile, a dark-haired teenage girl who at some point we’ll figure out is Elena is sitting in front of a window, writing in a journal. It’s a pep talk, directed at herself. “I will smile, and the smile will be believable.” She is surrounded by pictures of her happy family. “I will no longer be the sad little girl who lost her parents.” This is very cheerful.

In the kitchen, Aunt Jenna offers to make toast, but Elena is all about the coffee. So is Jeremy, Elena’s slightly younger brother. Jenna is so young she looks like they could all be siblings, and her comment about how she has a meeting with her thesis advisor right then doesn’t change that. She gives them money for lunch, which they take, gamely, and then Jenna takes off. Elena asks if Jeremy is okay, and he seems annoyed by the question. He takes off too.

Elena gets a ride to school from her friend Bonnie, who is chattering on about how she’s descended from a line of witches and is psychic. “I predicted Heath Ledger, and I still think Florida will to break off and turn into little resort islands.” Heh. Elena stares out the window at the cemetery; Bonnie calls her on it. “I did it again, didn’t I? I’m sorry, Bonnie.” She asks Bonnie to predict something, but a black bird comes out of nowhere and slams into Bonnie’s windshield. Didn’t predict that, did you? Bonnie hits the brakes and the car skids out.

The girls are unhurt, but Elena looks badly panicked for a second. “Elena, are you okay?” Bonnie asks right away. “It’s okay, I’m fine,” Elena says, too quickly. “I can’t be freaked out by cars for the rest of my life.”

Bonnie smiles at her. “I predict this year is going to kick ass. I predict all the sad and dark times are over, and you are going to be beyond happy.” Really, Bonnie? Because my prediction is that you’re full of crap on this one. Elena smiles at her, but it doesn’t reach her eyes.

A crow watches them from atop a street sign.

Caroline will hug you whether you like it or not.

School. The girls are bemoaning the lack of “male real estate” in the halls. A jock named Matt is giving Elena the eye; turns out she dumped him over the summer and he isn’t very happy about it. Elena is dive-bombed by a perky blonde named Caroline, who is wreathed in sympathy and keeps hugging her. Finally she bounces off.

I wonder why Tyler is so angry.

Meanwhile, Jeremy is handing out pharmaceuticals in the stoner pit, telling a girl named Vicki not to take more than two in a twenty-four hour period. She immediately downs the pill and smiles. “Hey Vic,” another guy says, and Jeremy’s face does a thing. “I thought I’d find you here with the crackheads.” He puts his arms around Vicki and makes a snide remark about Jeremy, which Jeremy rebuts by suggesting that Tyler gets his pop-culture references from TRL. Ouch. Wait, is TRL even on anymore? There is posturing from the boys, and then making out between Vicki and Tyler, and more face stuff from Jeremy. Good times in the stoner pit.

Because no one but the secretary ever looks at admissions paperwork.

Meanwhile, the girls are admiring the back of a new student who is handing in his registration at the office. “Your records are incomplete,” the school secretary is saying. The new student removes his sunglasses. “I’m sure everything you need is there,” he says. The secretary stares at him for a moment. “Well you’re right,” she says. “So it is.” That’s not creepy at all.

Perhaps he is hiding the drugs in his cheeks, like a chipmunk.

Elena sees her brother going into the boy’s bathroom and busts right in after him, because there is absolutely no reason someone might need to go into the bathroom other than because they are on drugs. To be fair, though, he is on drugs. “The first day of school and you’re stoned,” she says, ignoring the guy fleeing the bathroom in the wake of Hurricane Big Sister. “Where is it, is it on you?” Jeremy loudly denies anything. Elena says she gave him a summer pass but she is through watching him destroy himself. “Go ahead. Keep it up. But just know that I am going to be there to ruin your buzz every time.” Harsh, big sis.

As Elena leaves the bathroom, she runs right into New Guy. “Is this…the men’s room?” Reasonable question. Elena stammers and smiles and there is a bit of shuffle-dancing as they try to pass each other. Finally New Guy steps aside so Elena can go past. He watches her as she goes.

"Hawt-e" is not actually an abbreviation.

History class. Teacher is droning about 1861. Elena is attempting to be subtle about making goo-goo eyes at New Guy, but subtle she is not. He notices, and smiles at her. Matt notices, and scowls. Bonnie notices, and texts HAWT-E STARING @ U. I am sad for the future of our youth.

Totally normal thing for a teenaged girl to do, btw.

That pesky bird again.

After school. Elena goes to the cemetery. A crow squawks at her from the trees. She sits against a stone angel and writes in her journal. “I must have said I’m fine, thanks, at least thirty-seven times and didn’t mean it once. But no one noticed.” Her grief is oddly specific. “When someone asks How are you, they really don’t want an answer.” Across from her, the gravesite of her parents watches silently.

Not so silent is the crow, which lands on the headstone and squawks at her some more. “Okay. Hi, bird,” she says. The fog starts to roll in. “Shoo,” Elena says, starting to be creeped out. The bird flies away, but not far. It seems to be following her. A figure is half-visible from behind another statue. Elena starts to run. She falls, then looks up to see -

New Guy. “Were you following me?” she says, out of breath. Around her, the fog dissipates.

“No, I, uh – I just saw you fall.”

“And you just happened to be hanging out in a cemetery.”

“I’m visiting. I have family here.”

Elena’s entire demeanor changes. She’s like a lightning rod for grief. “Oh. Wow. I’m sorry.” She stammers about the fog and the bird and Hitchcock there is more smiling and goofiness and she finally introduces herself.

“I’m Stefan,” New Guy says.

“I know,” Elena says. “We have History together.”

“And English and French,” Stefan says. There’s a fine line between interested and creepy, Stefan, and you’re straddling it.

Ugly ring is ugly.

Elena seems to think he’s on the not-creepy side, if her blush is any indication. She tries to prolong the conversation by admiring his ring, which is really, really ugly. Seriously. It’s like a class ring gone wrong. Something Hot Topic might pawn off on a goth with no taste. “It’s a family ring,” Stefan tells her. I bet it is.

Then Stefan makes a face, like he smells something. Seriously, he sniffs. “Did you hurt yourself?”

Inappropriate vampface. Awkward.

Elena goes over to a rock and rolls up her pant leg; there’s a scrape, and some blood. “Oh, will you look at that,” she says. Stefan turns his head away. His eyes go dark and weird and veiny.

Elena makes noises about how it’s nothing, but when she looks again, Stefan is gone. Wow, some people just cannot handle the sight of blood.

All modern vampires have iMacs.

Casa Vampire. “I lost control today,” Stefan writes in his journal. “I’m simply not able to resist her.” So…he wants to eat her? That’s not very romantic. Elena’s own journal sits on his desk, its cover closed.

Cut to a diner, where Jeremy is trying unsuccessfully to get the attention of Vicki, who is working as a waitress. Vicki is much more interested in refilling Tyler’s soda, if you know what I mean. Tyler sure does. He watches her walk away. Across the table, Matt gesticulates with a french fry. “Please tell me you’re not hooking up with my sister,” he says.

“I’m not hooking up with your sister,” Tyler lies.

“You’re such a dick,” Matt tells him.

Jeremy corners Vicki again. “Look, Jeremy, I really appreciate all the pharmeceuticals, but you can’t keep following me around like a lost puppy.”

“When’s the last time you had sex with a puppy?” Jeremy says, looking bewildered and a little indignant. I love Jeremy.

Vicki shushes him. “I don’t want to tell the whole world I deflowered Elena’s kid brother.”

“And deflowered and deflowered.” He’s adorable and earnest, and Vicki can’t deal with it, not at all. It was a thing. It happened. Now it’s over. She’s got her sights on Tyler and can’t have Jeremy all lovestruck and lurking.

“He only wants you for your ass,” Jeremy says.

“Yeah? What do you want me for?” She pushes past him, not waiting for an answer.

Caroline and Bonnie come in to the grill. Caroline is rattling off stats on the new guy: “His name is Stefan Salvatore. He lives with his uncle up at the old Salvatore boarding house, he hasn’t lived here since he was a kid – military family, so they moved around a lot – he’s a Gemini, and his favorite color is blue.” That’s…an impressive amount of information. Caroline is a force of nature.

Maybe if Jenna dressed more like a grownup...nah.

Elena is just leaving her house. “I’m meeting Bonnie at the grill,” she says. Jenna tells her to have fun, then stops her. “Wait, I’ve got this,” she says, thinking fast. “Don’t stay out late, it’s a school night.” Jenna looks victorious.

Elena laughs. “Well done, Aunt Jenna.” She opens the door to leave –

- and Stefan is standing there. “I was about to knock,” he says. That seems likely. Elena just stares at him. “I wanted to apologize for my disappearing act earlier.”

“I get it,” Elena says, pulling herself together. “Blood makes you squeamish.”

Didn't your dead mother teach you it's not polite to stare?

Stefan looks more amused by this than he needs to. “Something like that,” he says. They are awkward at each other for a while; Elena asks how he knew where she lived, and Stefan says what might be the creepiest thing in the episode: “It’s a small town. I asked the first person I saw.” Then he gives her back her journal, which she left in the cemetery when fleeing from the fog of impending nommage. “Don’t worry, I didn’t read it,” he tells her.

“No?”

“Well, I wouldn’t want anyone to read mine.”

Elena’s face lights up. “You keep a journal,” she says, and at that moment decides to let him go to first base.

“Memories are too important,” Stefan says earnestly, working to upgrade to second base at least.

IT'S LIKE HE CAN'T COME IN UNLESS HE'S INVITED OR SOMETHING.

Elena goes inside to put the journal down, leaving the door open with the clear suggestion that Stefan can follow her if he wants. He does not, looking instead at his feet, then at the door frame, like it’s made of something he can’t get through. Subtle. Suddenly she comes back. “I’m meeting a friend,” she says, and then stares at him, all invitation and portent. “Do you want to come?”

“Yes,” Stefan says. These two are a LAFF RIOT.

Sad Matt is sad.

Elena: kind of clueless.

At the grill, Matt is pouring his heart out to Bonnie about Elena. “Give it more time,” Bonnie says. Just then Elena walks in with Stefan. That time thing isn’t looking like such great advice anymore.

Matt jumps up and walks over to them. He looks like he isn’t sure why he did it, but he thrusts his hand out toward Stefan. “Hey, I’m Matt, nice to meet you,” he says. He looks over at Elena and she smiles, sheepishly, obliviously.

And of course, what night out would be complete without a round of questions? The girls are all verrrry interested in Stefan, who is strangely accommodating. Caroline asks about his parents, and he says they passed away. He and Elena meet each other’s eyes. “I’m sorry,” she says gravely. Bingo. Second base: achieved.

“Any siblings?”

“None that I talk to.” Surely this will not be significant later. “I live with my uncle.”

Caroline quickly invites Stefan to the back-to-school party the next night. “Are you going?” he asks Elena. “Of course she is,” says Bonnie quickly, not giving Elena time to back out. Elena blushes and smiles and wow you guys get a room.

Back at Casa Vamp, Stefan’s uncle is very grumpy about the om-nomming of local townsfolk. He shows Stefan a newspaper with a story on the couple that got chomped on in the first scene. “You promised,” Uncle Zack says.

“This was an animal attack,” Stefan says, because Stefan thinks Uncle Zack is stupid.

“Don’t give me that,” Uncle Zack says. Uncle Zack isn’t actually stupid. “I know the game. You tear them up enough, they always suspect an animal attack. You said you had it under control.”

“And I do,” Stefan says.

“Please, Uncle Stefan,” Zack says. Uncle Stefan, huh? It’s like Stefan isn’t actually a high school student. Crazy talk. “Mystic Falls is a different place now. It’s been quiet for years, but there are people who still remember.”

Zack wants to know why Stefan is even back. Stefan, for his part, doesn’t feel he has to explain himself to wee little Zachary. It’s pretty clear that Zack isn’t going to be laying down any parental authority, or authority of any sort. Still: “Coming back here was a mistake.”

Not creepy at all.

Stefan goes moodily to his room and moodily opens a cabinet stuffed full of journals, all of which are presumably full of moody moodiness. Each one has a different year on the spine. Only one journal per year? Amateur. He pulls one out and opens it to a tintype image of a girl who looks – well, she looks exactly like Elena. At the bottom of the photo it says Katherine, 1864. Stefan stares at the photo and looks moody.

School. History class. The teacher is talking about the battle of Willow Creek, which took place in Mystic Falls in – OH HEY – the 1860s. Surely this is not significant in any way. “How many casualties resulted from this battle?” the teacher asks.

No one has been paying the slightest bit of attention, naturally, so no one can answer him. He lets Bonnie off with a warning, seems to think it’s expected of Matt, but is incredibly douchey to Elena when she says she doesn’t know: “I was willing to be lenient last year for obvious reasons, Elena,” he says, as the whole class looks on uncomfortably, “but the personal excuses ended with summer break.” WOW. Bonnie said something earlier about how it’s been four months since Elena’s parents died. That means History Teacher may have had a month at the end of the previous year in which Elena was presumably incapacitated with grief, and apparently that was too much for him. And clearly, publicly shaming a grieving student is a great method to get those test scores up. I hope History Teacher gets nommed by the end of this episode.

“There were three hundred and forty-six casualties,” says Stefan, breaking the silence, “unless you’re counting the local civilians.”

History Douche is all that’s right, and you have the same last name as some of the original settlers here, and also there WERE no civilian casualties, BURN. But Stefan is all BURN RIGHT BACK, there were 27. Sir. Soldiers fired on the church, believing it to house weapons, but instead they slaughtered a bunch of innocent townsfolk. “The founders archives are stored in Civil Hall if you’d like to brush up on your facts,” he says, and Elena gives him a look promising third base at least. (What’s Civil Hall? Is that like City Hall, but for…civics?)

Night. Party time. Stefan arrives to see bonfires, teen drinking and underage sex. Of course, he’s way more interested in using his super vamp hearing to listen to Bonnie and Elena talking about how pretty he is. Clearly a good use of a superpower. Before he can sweep over and be pretty at her in person he’s sidetracked by Caroline, whose superpower is being aggressively perky. “Let’s get you a drink!” she chirps, bodily dragging him away.

Bonnie and Elena talk about how she’s psychic some more, but when Bonnie touches Elena’s hand she gets an actual flash of something. It clearly rattles her. “What?” Elena asks. “When I touched you, I saw a crow,” Bonnie tells her. “A crow. There was fog. A man…” She sees the look on Elena’s face. “I’m drunk. I was drinking. There’s nothing psychic about it. I’m going to get a refill.” See kids? Teen drinking will just make you a bad psychic.

Elena stares after her friend but then looks up to see Stefan standing right next to her. He apologizes for lurking, then notices that she’s upset about something. Yeah, like you didn’t Vamp!Hear the whole exchange. Elena brushes it off, smiling what is probably her first real smile of the night.

Meanwhile, Tyler is leading Vicki off into the woods. Jeremy stares after them.

Let's all share stories about dead people. I'll go first.

Elena and Stefan are going off on a little walk of their own. Elena mentions that everyone’s talking about him, seeing as he’s the mysterious new guy in a town that apparently will give out people’s home addresses to strangers. “You’ve got the mysterious thing going too,” Stefan says. He tells her she’s sad, which he can tell because he found her hanging out in a graveyard. Sad is the same as mysterious, apparently. She tells him about her parents, how their car drove off a bridge. She was in the back seat and lived; her parents died. Man. That is harsh. No wonder she’s depressed.

“You won’t be sad forever, Elena,” Stefan says. I roll my eyes, but Elena looks misty.

Tyler is a douche.

Poor Jeremy.

In the woods, Vicki and Tyler are making out. Vicki isn’t nearly as into it as Tyler is. “I’m not really a big sex against a tree girl,” she says, laughing, but gets upset pretty quickly when he doesn’t stop. “It’s not gonna happen,” she says. “I said no. I said no! Ow. That hurts.”

“Hey, leave her alone,” shouts Jeremy, who just happens to be out walking all by himself in the woods in the same direction he saw Vicki go.

Tyler lets go of her, spoiling for a fight. “You know, you’re starting to get on my nerves, Gilbert,” he says, but Vicki tells him to just get the hell away from her. He shakes his head. “Vicki Donovan says no. That’s a first.” He douchebags off back toward the party.

“I didn’t need your help,” Vicki tells Jeremy. She’s desperate for none of this to mean what it clearly means. “He was just drunk.”

“I’m drunk,” Jeremy says. “Am I throwing myself at you?”

“No, you’re worse,” she retorts. “You want to talk to me, get to know me, so you can see into my soul and screw and screw and screw until you’re done with me.”

“Is that what you think?” Jeremy says, shocked.

“It’s what I know.” Vicki takes off.

The bridge of not being sad forever. It has lights.

On the bridge of not being sad forever, Stefan is noticing how Matt seems to be unable to take his eyes off of them. Elena explains that she and Matt have known each other their entire lives and she dated him because they owed it to themselves to see if they could be more, but there was no passion. Nice. Good thing Matt doesn’t have Vamp!Hearing. She and Stefan share a gaze, but Stefan spoils it by going all dark-eyed and veiny. Way to ruin the moment, Stefan. He scampers off to get more alcohol, and presumably to feed on a coed or two.

Speaking of coeds, Vicki is alone in the woods when the fog starts to roll in. Uh oh. She sees movement in the darkness, and then something grabs her and she screams.

Elena is looking around for Stefan, but instead finds Matt, who wants to talk about their relationship. Of course he does. “I just want to let you know that I still believe in us,” Matt says. Oh, Matt. You’re so misguided it’s almost endearing. Almost.

Stefan, who was clearly eavesdropping, gets sideswiped by Caroline, who really, really wants to show him her boobs. I mean the stars. Whichever. Or both! “I think you’ve had a little too much to drink,” Stefan says. “Well, of course I have,” Caroline chirps, sort of adorably. Stefan is unmoved. “Caroline. You and me. It’s not going to happen.” He leaves her there, deflated.

Stefan walks up to Elena, but just as they’re settling back into their flirt Elena sees her brother stumbling off into the woods. She sprints after him, pissed, telling Stefan he’s not going to want to witness this. “Jeremy, where the hell are you going?”

Oops. Vicki got nommed.

Wakey wakey.

“I don’t want to hear it,” Jeremy says, and then trips over something in the darkness.

“Vicki?” he says. She’s laying on the ground, her neck a bloody mess. Jeremy reaches for her, and she sucks in a lungful of air like a scream and opens her eyes.

The party goes to hell after that, Elena yelling about how Vicki’s losing blood, Matt telling people to get back, Jeremy having his own freak out. Someone is shouting about calling 911. Everyone is watching. Matt looks up to see Stefan staring dispassionately at the scene and then turning and walking away.

Very.

Back at the Vamp House, Stefan tells Zack that someone else is doing the om-nomming in Mystic Falls. He goes upstairs to find that pesky crow in his room, and turns slowly to see someone on the balcony. “Damon,” he says.

Damon grins slowly. Damon is very attractive. “Hello, brother,” he says.

“The crow’s a bit much, don’t you think?” Stefan says.

“Wait till you see what I can do with the fog.” Damon is wandering around messing with everything in Stefan’s room. He grins a lot. “You’ve done something different with your hair. I like it.”

“It’s been fifteen years,” Stefan says.

“Thank god,” says Damon. “I couldn’t take another day of the nineties.” Damon is a lot more fun than Stefan, even though he’s clearly more about the om-nomming and less about the moody staring. He does do the crazy eyes a lot, though. Ian Somerhalder clearly decided to have fun with the crazy eyes.

Crazy eyes. They're hard to convey in a mere screen cap. The crazy eyes, they are dynamic.

“You know you left that girl alive tonight,” Stefan says. Party pooper.

“That could be a problem,” Damon says. “For you.”

“Why are you here now?”

“I could ask you the same question. However, I’m fairly certain your answer could be summed up all in one word: Elena.”

Vamp!Glare. Stefan sure isn’t happy about that.

You can tell Bonnie is foretelling something because of the bulgy eyes.

Back at the party, the paramedics are loading up Vicki. Bonnie tells Elena that she and Caroline are going to the grill to mainline coffee and wait for news. Elena needs to take Jeremy home, but Bonnie has something to tell her first. “Whatever I saw, or think I saw…it’s just the beginning.” Thanks, Bonnie. That helps, I’m sure.

Vamp House. Damon is still needling his brother. “She took my breath away. Elena. She’s a dead ringer for Katherine.”

“She’s not Katherine.”

“Well let’s hope not. We both know how that ended.” I’m guessing badly?

Damon changes tactics, mocking his brother for only drinking animal blood. Oh, so no yummy high-school girls for Stefan? Damon starts hitting Stefan, not aggressively exactly, more in that annoying way brothers do when they’re trying to get a rise out of each other. He says they should just do it, now, together. Go on a little hunt. “Or let’s just cut to the chase. Let’s just go straight for Elena!”

Stefan vamps out and leaps at his brother, throwing them both through the window and to the ground below. But when Stefan lifts himself up, Damon is nowhere to be found.

“I was impressed,” Damon says from the shadows. “I give it six. Missing style, but I was pleasantly surprised.” He tells Stefan he liked the face thing – rwwrAAAW, he says, contorting, cracking up. Stefan is unamused. “Wherever you go, people die.”

“That’s a given,” Damon says.

“Not here,” Stefan tells him.

Psych! It's totally from Hot Topic. I hid the real one in the garden.

“I take that as an invitation.” Seriously, Stefan has no idea how to manage his brother. He does try saying please, but Damon points out that he promised Stefan an eternity of misery, so he’s just keeping his word. Stefan keeps begging his brother to not make a snack out of his new girlfriend, but Damon feigns surprise: “Where is your ring?”

Don't piss Damon off.

Not at all bipolar, why do you ask?

You remember the ring. Without it, Damon exposits, the whole walking-in-the-sun thing would result in char-broiled vamp. “Ashes to ashes.” But the ring’s in Damon’s hand; he pulled it off during the fight.

He gives it back to Stefan, but something in his face changes after Stefan puts the ring back on.

Damon vamps out, grabs his brother by the throat, and hurls him into the side of the house. “You should know better than to think you’re stronger than me,” he says. “I wouldn’t try it again.” Then he hears a noise from inside the house, and he’s all giggles and grins again. “I think we woke Zack up. Sorry Zack,” he says, sauntering inside and whistling.

Tripping over half-dead non-girlfriend: even bigger buzzkill than Elena.

Elena finds her brother watching the cops and paramedics from the porch, swigging a beer. “Those people in uniforms?” Elena says to Jeremy. “Last time I checked they’re police.” He pointedly downs the rest of his beer before tossing the bottle away. Elena persists. “People are going to stop giving you breaks, Jer,” she tells him. “They don’t care. They don’t remember that our parents are dead. They’ve got their own lives to deal with. The rest of the world has moved on. You should try too.”

“I’ve seen you sitting around writing in your diary. Was that supposed to be you moving on?”

Elena looks guilty, which is dumb. People write in diaries, Elena. It’s not a sign of depression in and of itself. “Mom and dad wouldn’t have wanted this,” she says, and then they both look sad.

Miserable Caroline is miserable.

At the grill, Caroline is trying to sober up and failing. “I’ve got to get you home,” Bonnie says, trying to get her friend to drink some more coffee. I hate to break it to you, kids, but that doesn’t actually work.

Caroline is still fixated on Stefan. Or, more specifically, why Stefan brushed her off. She’s kind of a mess. “How come the guys I want never want me? I’m inappropriate, I always say the wrong thing.” Caroline is reminding me of me at that age. It is making me depressed. “And Elena always says the right thing. She doesn’t even try, and he just picks her. She’s the one everyone picks, for everything.” Bonnie tries to interrupt, but Caroline’s not having any of it. “I try so hard and I’m never the one.”

Bonnie smiles at her, shaking her head. “It’s not a competition, Caroline.”

Caroline just stares. “Yeah. It is.”

Maybe she said 'Umpire...'

At the hospital, Matt is next to his sister’s bed, watching her with eyes red from crying. Vicki stirs, the bandage white against her tanned neck. She stirs. “Matt,” she croaks.

“Don’t try to talk,” he tells her, relieved that she’s still alive.

“Vampire,” she whispers. Matt stares at his sister.

At home, Elena is writing in her diary. “Dear Diary,” she VOs. Do people actually begin journal entries with ‘Dear Diary’? “I couldn’t have been more wrong. I thought that I could smile and nod my way through everything. Pretend that it would all be okay.”

Cut to Stefan, who probably didn’t start his entry with Dear Diary. Or did he? “I had a plan. I wanted to change who I was. Create a life as someone new.”

Elena says, “Without the pain.”

Their voices overlap. “Someone alive.”

Aunt Jenna walks in to find Jeremy sitting in the dark, staring at a photograph of his parents.

Holy Humbert.

Oh Caroline, can't you find a more age-appropriate undead paramour?

At the grill, Caroline is trying to pull herself together when she notices someone watching her from a nearby table. It’s Damon. He’s smiling. Caroline visibly perks up. Damon just watches her.

It’s supposed to be creepy, but probably not for the reason it creeped me out: Somerhalder looks about 40 here, and Caroline is clearly in high school. It must be the angle, because under ordinary circumstances Somerhalder looks…not ungood, is all I’m going to say. But he seems very Humbert Humbert here, and it’s off-putting. (I KNOW, he’s supposed to be a hundred-something year old vampire. But he ALSO looks like an older dude giving a little girl the eye, and I’m pretty sure that wasn’t supposed to be the point of that scene.)

He probably just asked the first person he ran into which window she usually sat in.

Elena VO. “All you can do is just be ready for the good. So when it comes, you can invite it in. Because you need it. I need it.” She looks over her shoulder, out the window, and sees Stefan standing in her yard. NOT CREEPY AT ALL.

She goes to the door. Stefan tells her he just wanted to be sure she was okay. Elena tells him that’s all anyone ever wonders about her: if she’ll be okay. “What do you tell them?” Stefan asks.

Elena shrugs. “That I’ll be fine.”

“Do you ever mean it?”

Stefan's eyebrows would really like to come inside.

“Ask me tomorrow,” Elena says. She says that when they’re inside, they can talk. “Would you like to come in?” He’s the good, apparently. She is inviting him in.

“Yes,” Stefan says. They go inside, and Elena shuts the door.

All in all, pretty good for a pilot episode. I appreciate that the teenagers drink, do drugs and have sex. I’m undecided about the vampires at this point. Elena seems…well, she seems a little blank-slatey, but it’s the first ep so I’ll give her a chance.

AND NOW, THE SPOILERY BITS:

(If you haven’t seen any episodes beyond this one, you should stop reading now.)

The fog: we never see it again. Budget constraints? Decision that it was kind of antiquated and lame? Who knows, but I sort of wish they’d bring it back, or at least, you know, explain it.

The whole “Uncle Stefan” thing: is Zack a distant nephew or something? Because last I checked Salvatore Sr. became vamp chow and his sons became vamps. Who carried on the Salvatore line? And exactly when did they become complicit in the whole ‘evil undead’ racket?

Vancouver had more pathos than Georgia, location-wise. What.

The thing with the 27 civilians in the church: don’t we find out later it was a fire? Am I to interpret “fired upon” as “set fire to”?

OH AND: the whole “living in secret, hiding in the shadows, ALONE WITH MY MISERY” bit at the beginning? RIGHT. I guess that’s one way of interpreting what turns out to be decades of on-off murder sprees, Stefan.

I feel unsettled, which conjures up the mental image of stalking around in a haunted manner but in reality consists of spending the day working from bed, just like every other day. Fortunately I stopped getting better from my cold, so I’m spending my energy on trying to breathe through my wheezy lungs rather than contemplating creative ways to end myself. So that’s good, right?

Always looking on the bright side, that’s me.

In other news: the NaNo novel is chugging along (don’t ask me how far behind I am on word count), and I’ve been pleasantly surprised to realize that the main character has a much more interesting back story than I’d originally planned. When you’re writing all in a rush like this, you find that things tend to sort of develop on their own, which is awesome and fun and probably a little bit irresponsible but whatever. I’m looking forward to a few solid days of writing once I get some work projects off my plate.

And as soon as my lungs stop sounding like something out of a horror film, I’m going to start doing some goddamned yoga. Because why not? I’m pretty sure I don’t need to get out of bed for that.*

*I do actually get out of bed, just fyi. I am occasionally prone to hyperbole. I KNOW.

The bright side to being distractingly sick is that I haven’t had the energy to properly stress out about all of the things I’m failing to do. And there are a lot of things! I’m not just saying that because I’m depressed (although, hey, if you’ve ever wondered about exactly how many things about you suck, depression can shine a Klieg light on each and every one of them). Just ask all the bill collectors. Oh the stories they could tell, if only I would answer their calls! (Which I am not. Because I can’t pay them, and really, how many times do I need to have that conversation?)

Not being able to pay my bills seriously bums me out. I worked really fucking hard to not be that person. After growing up on welfare, with various utilities constantly in a state of will-they or won’t-they shut them off today, I NEVER wanted to have that sense of helplessness again. And yet. AND YET. Granted, the bills I can’t pay currently aren’t of the sustenance-level variety (YET) but I still just want to lay down and die every time a due date passes and our bank account fails to inflate accordingly. I’m working really hard, too – it’s just not enough. None of it is enough.

Bah. Did I mention I’m feeling less sick? You know what that means. WELCOME BACK, CRIPPLING DEPRESSION. I HAVE MISSED YOU.