giovedì 27 dicembre 2007

mercoledì 26 dicembre 2007

martedì 25 dicembre 2007

5 of 8

here are 5 of the 8 kanes from 2105 with their christmas hats. We used to run the Daleview Snack Bar...hence the hats...i can't find the letter that goes with the hats, but when I do, i'll post it.

old school meets the next generation

their tree is out on the balcony. you have to look carefully to find christmas in this chic apartment, but once you do, you find three generations of christmas. Strung up along the metat stairs built by ivano and lux's dad, you'll find old-school christmas lights that their mother bought in the 1970s.

more than 30 years later, a third generation enjoys the same lights.

lunedì 24 dicembre 2007

italian santa is a balcony bloke

it is christmas eve and italian santa is hitting the windows and balconies hard. there are few chimmneys in the american sense of the word, so Santa has to use rope ladders to climb up walls to access apartments from milano to napoli.

they say too much travelling can make you fat. santa is the poster boy for frequent flyer fattitude. italy is 6 hours ahead of new york and the rest of the east coast and 9 hours ahead of san diego and the rest of the west coast. and by the time he travels to the usa, he is much fatter than he is in italy. did you notice how svelte he is on that rope ladder? donna c. must pack some serious chocolata calda on that transatlantic flight...the kind that is rich enough to satisfy a baby seal.

or maybe he gets fat after he gets to america. italian kids do not leave him milk and cookies the way american kids do. he might pack on all those pounds by the time he made it from maine to dc.

domenica 23 dicembre 2007

what douglas is not getting for christmas

sorry, douglas. you are not getting any italian leather handbag or suitcase like products for christmas. but i did think of you lots of times today. milan is full of expensive metrosexual leather products for the urban male with good taste and deep pockets (and even deeper pockets for the american male who has to battle the weak dollar in europe)

buona festa!!!!!!

buona festa a tutti!!!!

my bladder is jet lagged

Ivano and I made it to Milano yesterday. My biological clock is still in San Diego.

I woke up twice last "night" to pee. I say "night" because my body -- and especially my bladder -- didn't think it was night? How do I know? I woke up at both midnight and 3 AM to pee. I never wake up twice in one night to pee. But during the day, I pee all the damn time.

Put one and one together, and it's clear that my bladder thought it was day last night...and in fact it was. At midnight, it was really 3 PM. That's prime pee time.

Getting to the bathroom was a bit dramatic too. The room was totally dark and I couldn't find the door. My bumping around in the dark eventually woke up Ivano. He turned on the light and I found myself not near the door at all. No wonder I couldn't find the door knob.

sabato 22 dicembre 2007

getting to milano

first, there was the wolverine in the Atlanta airport, then there was the whole swiss alps thing. I was looking for some Swiss Miss hot chocolate action, but we were a little to high to make out that kind of detail.

giovedì 20 dicembre 2007

candy cane



This candy cane doesn't believe in santa. and for that, he has been sent to christmas detention, where he has to write, "Twas the night before Christmas, and all through the house" 1000 times. But that is not all. he as to do it with his brain hooked up to a brain wave machine that can tell if you're have "visions of sugar plums dancing in your head." If you can't prove you're dreaming of sugar plums while you're writing out the lines to Twas the Night Before Christmas, then it doesn't count.

Homer Christmas



I can hear Santa's sleigh bells. It's a magical, ringing sound. The only problem is that it is coming from the guts inside this laptop.

I'm pretty sure it's not a good sign when your laptop starts having its own silicon Christmas party. Now a silicone Christmas party. That's a whole nother story.

I was in the shower thinking that I was going to dry off and hop on the new laptop that Ivano's dad is getting for Christmas this year. but that laptop doesn't have Photoshop and Ivano is busy loading software on the new computer anyway.

I was all excited to write about a uniquely Deep December phonomena: breaking down and just using the things you are supposed to be giving as gifts. I so wanted to say that I was posting from someone else's christmas gift 5 days before Christmas.

but instead, I'm talking about an even more pressing Deep Christmas phenomenon: someone in your household is ignoring you because they are wrapped up in trying to put together, build or otherwise set up a gift for someone else.

And this is not an isolated incident. Two days ago, we spent a good hour trying to fold up Ivano's nephew's Thomas the Train Engine tent. It requires no assembly. You just kind of pull it apart...like a giant polly-o string cheese. But, like a polly-o, it requires a PhD in quantum geometry to get it back to its original compact position.

By the way...ivano and I are headed to Italy tomorrow. The shuttle will be here at 4:30 AM...which is just five hours away. I hope I can easily post from Italy, but we're staying at his parents and they have dial-up...so I may only be posting when I get to his brother and sister-in-law's place...

martedì 18 dicembre 2007

Sweetsettia

Who needs little old pointsettias when you have massive blazing red plants in deep December. How do I know it's deep December?

By 9:05 AM today I had eaten:
1. Pumpkin pie
2. A chocolate chip cookie baked by my mom
3. Short bread
4. chocolate and nut covered toffee
The only way to fight off the impending sugar crash was a caffeine high. My usual coffee cart on campus is closed for winter break, so I ventured to the coffee house in the student center. The guy in front of me ordered a "Triple Raspberry Bianca."

What the hell is a triple raspberry bianca you ask?
It's a white mocha with raspberry syrup and three shots of espresso. I guess I wasn't the only person on campus eating like a pig this morning.

PS: remember when it was late September and I said the sweetgums were just turning red? well...some of them are still red. Go Big Red!

and then on Dec 1 when I said the trees were still red...

lunedì 17 dicembre 2007

egg nog scone leads to letter theft



I spent Saturday night at Peet's Coffee and Tea in La Jolla Village Center adding personal notes and drawings to the intro page of this year's paper xmas letter.

I splurged and got an egg nog scone with my herbal tea. It was too sweet and also strangely spicy. And also weird because no cake product should taste like egg nog. There was a strange aftertaste that is only acceptable if it leads to a buzz. But no buzz ensued. Just a weird stomach feeling that grew as the evening wore one. I went to sleep before Ivano on Saturday night and when he opened the door to our bedroom to come to bed, he says my breath made the whole room smell like a mix of warm coffee and salami. That's a serious scone.

While I was suprised to realized that my stomach turned cake into caffeine and rendered meat product, I was even more suprised to find that I was missing two of the letters that I wrote out the night before at Peets.

I checked through my whole bag three times. I searched the apartment. I called Peets and asked them to look around. I went back to Peets and took a look for myself. Nothing.

My conclusion? when I got up from my perch to get more hot water for my pot of tea, someone swiped my two letters. Both the envelopes and the letters are missing.

So...if you're the person who swiped the letters, you may be reading this blog...because I added the URL to the header of the Word doc. So...what's up with stealing a christmas letter? I'm about to email the two friends and tell them that they could be getting a counterfeit christmas letter...which would be kinda funny if it's not abusive.

it also occurs to me that the actual letter this year could be mistaken as a fake letter written by a crazy person...but that's a matter for another day...so...Jessica and Gretchen...watch out for a fake letter...you'll get a real one eventually...

the funny thing is that I took a few pictures of the missing letters...before they dissapeared of course. I'll post them in a blog below this one. If you've seen this letter, let me know!

Exhibit A (see above)

The plot thickens (see 2 posts above)



Now i'm really confused...I just noticed that these photos appear to have been taken on our navy blue sofa...which means they made it home from Peets...maybe...but maybe it just looks like the sofa...the table top was also very dark...but if i got them home, then where did they go?...did I somehow mail them? that seems impossible...but if gretchen and jessica get letters, they will have to try to decide if they are really from me or not...good luck!

i am SO confused right now. really...

domenica 16 dicembre 2007

Christmas Vacation Starts (but not for me!)


ivano and our friend and his massage therapist and our gnocci dinner!

Ivano's xmas vacation started exactly three minutes ago. My friend came over to give him a massage and he is in the living room right now getting all massaged. He and his grad students just finished grading the final exam and he sent two abstracts to the big linguistics conference in his field last night.

After the massage, we're having more of the gnocchi his mom made for us when she was here this summer. It's been tempting us in the freezer since then. To go with it, I made a zucchini and mushroom frittata and helped make the sauce for the gnocchi...which took me to Whole Foods this afternoon where I paid $9 for a pound of organic grass-fed ground beef. The grain-fed beef at whole foods was on sale for $3 a pound. But after reading The Omnivore's Dilemma, I was happy to pay more for the grass-fed stuff. Besides, how often do I buy meat? Answer: almost never. I'm also still trying to eat local when I can.

Going to whole foods on the last really big shopping weekend before Christmas is stressful...but not for me. Why? because i WALKED. In that same trip, I also walked to Trader Joe's and the bank. The parking lots were all packed today...and i'm sure almost all of those people could have walked...they live close enough. Sure, there are people who are stocking up for a big party and need a car to get the food home. But lots more were getting just a few more things. I'd like to know how many of those people also drove to the gym today and hopped on the treadmill or whatever sweat covered gyro-cycle-butt-fixer-oval-stair-step thing-a-ma-bob is hot right now. They're not sweaty? then maybe they're doused in nasty detergent. How about a walk and a chance to enjoy the ocean breeze and the beautiful December afternoon in San Diego. Sunny and 60 something. And NO fluorescent lights!

I know, kids make it harder to get to the store on foot. But I didn't see too many kids today. And...isn't there a kid exercise crisis right now? Bring the kids and make them take a bag or two, or at least the package of toilet paper.

I know everything that I just said is so obvious. But just think how many problems could be addressed if Americans started walking and biking for short errands and got serious about making non-car transportation a priority.

venerdì 14 dicembre 2007

Christmas Mice


I'm hungry...but not quite hungry enough to eat these Christmas mice. They fit into the proverbial fruit cake and weird icing category: technically edible but functionally inedible.

giovedì 13 dicembre 2007

emoticon and 7 Things Meme

* /\ //\\ ///\\\ |

Above is a linearized, black-and-white version of the tree from Doug'lass blog.

I also like the overheard quote he te'xted me just now:

"I wish people would shop for me like I do for them."

MMM...that's some Christmas spirit if I ever heard any.

I don't have anything to say right now. I'm listening to audition lab and letting the 1.5 glasses of wine settle and decompose a bit before I head home....ya...cuz I actually drove to work today. Why? cuz ivano and I woke up at 8 AM today. oops. I blame the velvety blanket my mom gave us for Christmas last year. It keeps the edge off, which enabled us to keep our sleep on.

And this leads into the 7 things meme that Kelly tagged me with ages ago!!!

It is supposed to be 7 things about me...so here goes:

1. The first time I got drunk, it was on Smirnoff vodka and coke (as in Coca Cola) in high school. It was such a liberating experience. I was hanging out with a girl that I was "supposed" to like and once I had a couple of drinks, I forgot that I was "supposed" to be tyring to hook up with her and just had a great time talking to her.

2.The first time I went to the beach with high school friends, I french kissed a girl I totally didn't like in a lifeguard chair at the beach at like midnight. It was totally depressing. There were other couples in all the other lifeguard chairs. I hope to hell they were having more fun than I was having.

3. The day that I kissed the girl in the lifeguard chair at Bethany Beach...that was the summer that the song with the catchy phrase "You Gotta Keep 'Em Separated" was all over the radio. I wished to hell I'd taken that advice when it came to me and the opposite sex: you gotta keep'em separated.

4. The Monday after my senior year homecoming, I was much more popular than usual. Why? People were excited that I'd taken a "hot" girl to the dance. One dude even said she looked like she should have been on the cover of Vogue. She was a girl I worked with at the now defunct Kimball's Farm Market in Ashton, MD. I'd handed her my cucumbers. Helped her sort melons. We shucked. Corn that is. We even dressed the same. Teal work shirts and ill-fitting jeans shorts. If I'd said, "i love your peaches, want to shake your tree," I would have totally meant it. Literally.

5. In physics class on that Monday after Homecoming, a guy sitting behind me asked if i "hooked up" with said date on Saturday night. My face turned red. I said, "yeah, we hooked up a little, but I didn't get on her." I still cringe when I imagine myself using that phrase..."get on her." But that's what everybody said. That's what I said. If you were not "getting on someone" every weekend, you were worthless. In truth, when I dropped her off at her dad's house, I got out of the car and in her front yard, I asked her if I could kiss her. She said yes. And we kissed. It felt like a science experiment. No. It felt like I was doing something I wasn't supposed to be doing, like licking the hand railing of the metro or the floor of a bus. No offence to my date of course. It was all in my head.

6. I didn't have any better luck at the Visitation (catholic girl's school) Prom or Homecoming. I went with a girl I'd only met one other time. Things were going fine. She had an accent, which was a good start. Wrong gender. Right vowel system. But at some point during the dance, I tried to connect with her on an emotion level. We were sitting in the corner watching a bunch of girls in way-way-short sequin dresses dancing like strippers with drunk dudes with erections pushing out of their wrinkled Nordstrom pants. I was like "You don't have that many friends here, do you?" I meant it as a compliment. But one of the other girls at the table, a girl who seemed to do everything in her power NOT to fit in, took extreme offense to my comment. I was kicked out out of the little click and was not offered a ride home...which was fine really...because I went home with the girl who had actually done the setting up and her boyfriend, who was one of the actual nice guys from my high school.

7. When I didn't get invited to the dinner party that one of my actual friends was going to for my senior prom, I burst out in tears at the kitchen table in front of my parents. In the end, the whole prom thing worked out. I managed to invite myself into the rented limo group of some other guys from my class. Nice guys. but guys I never really hung out with. They needed another body and I needed some way to fool myself into thinking that I wasn't a total loser.

PS: i just realized I was tagged for the ABC meme, not the 7 things meme...whatever...at least I got the meme part...Thanks Kelly...when I see bloggers thanking other bloggers for tagging them it always sounds fake to me...but maybe they all really feel how I feel right now: thanks kelly!

martedì 11 dicembre 2007

Buy the Karma Calendar! (Really)



The 2008 Yogis for Positive Change calendar is out! (scroll down a little once you follow the link above)

How do you get a copy of the calendar? How do see Daniel in his underwear at Black's Beach? How do you support a for-real nonprofit organization run by my yoga friends in the DC area?

It's easy. You either show up at one of Margaret's classes in the north end of Old Town Alexandria (yes, there is lots of free parking) or her classes in a space right between Adam's Morgan and Columbia Heights or her other classes around town. (the schedule of classes is listed at the link above).

If you're like me and don't live in the DC area, then you have to do something crazy to get the calendar...you have to TRUST another human being. I know, it's weird. But you can do it, really. You have to email my friends at Yogis for Positive Change (the email is a link under the calendar photo here) and they will tell you where to mail the check. It's 10 bucks plus shipping. that's it.

Proceeds from Karma Calendar sales this year will benefit the Alexandria Animal Welfare League and United Community Ministries food bank.

BTW...if at any step along the path to your 2008 Karma calendar, you get stuck, let me know and I will help out. Email me or leave a comment on this blog post.

FYI, I'm not wearing a beer can during my month as a calendar centerfold (for better or for worse). And no socks were used during my photo shoot, in direct contrast to this photo.

grazie Ivano for taking the pictures.

lunedì 10 dicembre 2007

Lights, Camera, Christmas!

The Christmas Farm

They're coming to take you away ha ha!
Ho Ho
Hee Hee
Hum Hum (pa-rump-a-pum-pum)
to the Christmas farm
where life is beautiful all the time.

domenica 9 dicembre 2007

Night Light: You Ain't Right

Night Light, you just aint right.
First of all, your a santa-hatted duck. You're quite a sight.
And what's with the mountains of ice in the background?
Icebergs meet the Alps. This just ain't sound.
And that snowflake is so out of scale.
All that's missing is Shamu the whale.

Chocolate-Filled Strawberry Hell

Chocolate-filled strawberry canes.
Sponge-Bob Santa Pants.
Diet Candy Canes.

What has happened? Are we all totally crazy? Are chocolate-filled strawberry candy canes taking over the world? Are they creeping into our homes at night and hopping on our QWERTY keyboards? Thanks to the hundreds of millions of saved passwords in various Web browsers, they are ordering more and more of their chocolate-filled strawberry kin. They must be stopped!!!!!!

and Sponge Bob Holiday Pants?
Can't we infest him with fire ants?
Or feed him the diet canes till he shits his pants?

pointsettia fatigue

The pointsettias are getting tired. And so are the shoppers. Are we almost done with all this?