Love, Italian Style

My parents have been married for 49 years. It’s quite an accomplishment and I sometimes use some of their tactics to keep my marriage as happy as theirs. A couple of key strategies that they use to keep the romance alive are: Surprise and Routine

My dad has certain traditions that he follows every autumn. He make his home made wine and eggplant. He picks (or we do) tomatoes and puts them in jars so we can use them through the winter when fresh tomatoes are hard to find. And he pits his own olives and then marinates them for eating.

This year, however, he missed the period to buy his olives. He was pretty bummed. My dad was as sad as a child who had his toy stolen right from under his eyes.

Knowing this, one day on a shopping trip, my mom bought him a case of olives. She proceeded to tell us how it was a surprise for my dad. We all thought it was the cutest and touching thing ever. In this way surprise worked to show how much my mom saw that my dad was sad and that she cared for him.

When I called my mom the next day to see how she was, she told me my dad was a jerk. The reason being was that he wanted to know why she wasn’t helping him with the olives. My mom told him that the olives were his own thing and that was something he was doing for years. The argument heightened and the name calling recommenced as usual.

In this way, I could see that routine is how they kept their relationship predictable and controllable. It’s a great lesson on marriage to learn from this example. Don’t surprise your spouse too much because the momentary happiness doesn’t outlast the everyday arguments and fighting.

The Pot Calling the Kettle Black

I was at a work event last night and conversation turned to some celebrities. A number of people said they liked a certain female actor. Via six degrees of separation, another female actor came up and a number of people expressed their dislike of her. They also questioned the raising of her children. It was a silly conversation that didn’t really pique my interest.

Until……someone said that the female actor we were talking about was a ‘whack job’.

This comment made my ears prick up because I wanted to automatically say ‘it takes a whack job to know one’ but I didn’t. I’m very happy I don’t have a public announcement system on my brain.

On the Mend

A month ago one of my dogs had to undergo knee surgery. It really made me sad to see her going through so much pain when all she gives me (for the most part) is happiness.

About two months ago, she jumped up a stair and let out the most horrifying screech of pain I’ve ever heard. I knew it was her knee because whenever I attempted to touch it to see the damage, she tried to bite me. We bought her to the vet and he confirmed our suspicions. She had torn her ligament. We decided that she should bandage it up for a bit and that sometimes that helps.

After 3 weeks in a bandage, she seemed worse to me. So she had her surgery and I cried and cried because I couldn’t take away her pain. She had to wear a cone around her neck to keep her from biting her stitches. So she looked like a little Frankenstein with a lampshade. Days after the surgery she was back to her usual self – mainly annoyed that she had ‘the cone of shame’ on her head.
Her stitches were removed and she was walking and about like nothing ever happened. Once the cone came off, she kept rolling around in pure ecstasy that the evil contraption had finally been removed.

Last week I noticed her trying to jump on the sofa (even though she should be keeping the jumping to a minimum) and I was so happy. Here she was trying to fully recover and I thought it was so cute. She is so resilient and has such gumption. The vet said that she should keep the jumping to a minimum of course but you tell Bonnette that. She decided to run after her daddy this weekend and there really wasn’t much I could do. It amazes me how strong dogs are and how little credit we give them in terms of recovery. We should all take a lesson from the experts!

Family Traditions

Thanksgiving is fast approaching. This is one of my favorite days of the year (after Groundhog’s Day, of course) for many reasons. First of all, I love the idea of Thanksgiving – showing appreciation for things and people in our lives. Secondly, I love to cook so it makes me enjoy the holiday more if I get to be creative in my cooking. Lastly, I love this special day because my dogs love it.

But the pooches aren’t the only ones that enjoy this holiday. My dad loves to spend this holiday with the dogs too. We always give the wings to my dad since they are his favorite pieces of the turkey. Occasionally we give him the legs as well.

For a good portion of the meal, we eat and talk and it’s lovely. All of a sudden, Bonnette will end up barking because she wants her share of the bird! We give the dogs some in their dishes and they are contented.

We sit around and have coffee and pie and talk and then I usually give my dogs a big hug after the meal since I’m particularly thankful for them because they always make me laugh. And…..they always have a greasy feel on their fur and smell suspiciously of turkey.

As with almost every year since we’ve had Thanksgiving at my place, I am reminded that my dad likes to use the dogs’ fur as his person turkey napkin. Ahhh! The joy of the holidays.

An early Happy Thanksgiving to everyone out there!

All Those Years Ago

The other day my dad asked me how old my oldest dog was. I told him that Bonnette was 12 years old. He started laughing and saying how I told him 12 years ago that she was only going to stay for 2 weeks.

He has a point there. I did only intend to keep her for 2 weeks. But lots of fun stuff happened and she’s stayed with me ever since. And I’m super grateful because she’s a cookie to me! Can’t imagine my life without my little puppie paws!

What I told my dad though was that he shouldn’t sound like he was upset about this long-term canine roommate because my dad loves her more than any one else. I can’t tell you the number of times he and she have sat watching television together. Or how many times he’s given her some of his food. Or the number of times he comes over to my place on any given week to just pet her and give her a hug. He’s not fooling me!!

I told my sister the story of my dad and she laughed saying that ‘he loves Bonnette more than he loves us’. I had to agree with her. They don’t call dogs ‘man’s best friend’ for nothing. My dad is very attached to my dogs and he loves their companionship more than most other things in the world. I feel the same way about my dogs. They always know how to cheer me up and they are great at snuggling!!

Shopping with Jen

In keeping with my weird dream reporting blogs, a couple of months ago, I had a dream where Jennifer Garner figured prominently. Why Jennifer Garner? I’m not entirely sure. I do like her as an actor and I was certainly obsessed with ‘Alias’. But for her to appear in my dream, I’m at a loss for words to explain that.

My husband and I (along with a friend) were going to go to Jersey to shop with Jennifer Garner. We were planning to meet her at the mall in Jersey. Everything was fine and dandy. We were going to go to Port Authority to take a bus to NJ to meet up with Jen. We got to Port Authority and hubby, friend and I made our way to the ticket counter. All of a sudden, I got a call on my cell from none other than Jen herself. She told me she was outside in her car waiting for us. So hubby and I scrambled down to meet Jen while we left our friend on the ticket line in case it was all a prank.

When we got to the car, Jen asked us where our friend was and we told her. And she was upset because she said we should have brought her with us. So we scrambled up the Port Authority stairs to try to find out friend. But the lines were insanely long and we couldn’t locate her. And the dream stopped at this point or I don’t remember the rest.

But what does it all mean? I don’t recall seeing a movie or having a conversation about Jennifer Garner (or Port Authority for that matter!!) any time before this dream. I guess I’ll choke it all up to my fantastically wonderful imagination!

Finland, Finland, Finland

Sometimes I have the wildest dreams and it really provokes a lot of thought as to why I have these types of dreams. Recently I had a dream that I went on a cruise to Finland. Why Finland? I have no idea!

So I’m on this cruise and at some point, I was encouraged to dive into the sea (near Finland!) and see how blue the water was. From what I recall in the dream, the excursions coordinator handed me a sleek,full-body swimsuit. However when I put it on in the dream, I ended up looking more like the Michelin man. I still jumped into the ocean with my super sexy outfit though. (There’s just no stopping me!)

I dove in feet first and I went very deep and looking up towards the sky, I was amazed at the lovely azure surrounding me. When I finally came to the surface, schools of fish circled me. I was awestruck by the millions of fish and the lovely crystal blue water that I was swimming in.

Now, help me remember why I had a dream about a cruise to Finland! Because that I can’t remember. But I do recall the lovely blue water. I really don’t know why I have the dreams I do sometimes. I wasn’t even drinking the night before this dream. Otherwise, it would have made perfect sense that the dream made no sense! Oh well, at least I can be happy that I remembered some portion of my dream.

A Day at the Races

I am not a runner. I’m not physically programmed to be one. Even running for a minute on the treadmill makes me want to hurl. My husband, on the other hand, ran in college and was a professional runner after college. He lives to run. So much so that he decided to run the NYC Marathon for the first time this past Sunday.

In support for his efforts, I enlisted the help of my best bud to journey through the city to follow him. I looked over the course map with her and we decided we’d start our cheering in Bay Ridge. Not too far off the Verrazano Bridge, we thought we would catch him while he was still relatively fresh.

We met up at 9 am and jumped on the subway to make our way to Brooklyn. Everything was going fine until I had the bright idea to try to catch the express train at 14th street, not realizing that weekend subway work made this impossible. It was ok though. We got on the next train out of Manhattan and into Kings County we went. We had heard from others that the runners wouldn’t get to Bay Ridge until 10:30. Well, they were wrong!! As we climbed up the stairs from the subway, I heard the cheering and yelling. I was worried I had missed my husband. But there in front of my eyes was his bib number. And there he was too!! He handed me his fleece vest and we cheered him on. He raced by when we remembered that we didn’t get a picture of him. We chased after him while I dug through my purse for the camera. As it almost fell out of my hand, my friend, who was way ahead in her pursuit, stopped as did I. If I had dropped that camera, I would have been in the doghouse!!

From there, we went to see a friend who we were planning to watch the race with. And we decided to see her new apartment. We then decided we were hungry so we went to have brunch. We figured we had plenty of time to get to the city.

But we didn’t!! Not according to the runner alerts text messages I was getting and not according to the application my friend was using to track my husband. He was going to finish the race in 3:03:03 at the pace he was running. Our dawdling wasted almost 2 hours. We had to race back to the city abandoning our idea of going to Park Slope to catch him somewhere else.

Before ducking into the subway, we realized (thanks to our handy dandy apps!) that he was going to finish in little less than an hour. Would we be able to get back into the city in time?

No, of course not, because Murphy’s law follows me wherever I go. The train decided to take more than an hour lurching between stops in Manhattan. The time was now a little after 1 and we couldn’t tell if he had crossed the finish line because the apps weren’t reloading. We walked quickly up to Central Park West at my husband and my designated meet up spot. And we waited, and waited, and waited. We kept checking our apps and nothing was happening. We realized after a while that the 3:03:03 wasn’t counting from the minute he started but the actual hour he was expected to finish based on his pace. Not from the time that the race had begun. What do you want? This was the first time we watched a marathon, darn it! 3:03 came and went and still no sign of my husband.

I began to worry. I expected some cramping, sure. Some slowing down. But when his expected time came and went, I didn’t know what else to expect. It was getting colder and so many runners were coming out of the exit. Some bleeding from the friction tears along their thighs, blue shivering lips were seen in many finisher’s faces, ice packs wrapped around people’s knees. And we waited and I worried. Even though I was cracking jokes with my friend about how I could never run a race. We commented on how the early finishers seemed so fresh and sprightly as if they hadn’t run 26.2 miles at all! It was amazing to me since I was already sore from running a block and a half to catch up to my husband earlier in the day.

As I looked through his fleece vest to see if there was any indication of a number that I could call, I looked up and there was the Mexican in the crowd before me. He looked more exhausted than I’d ever seen him. His eyes teared up as did mine. I smiled at him and he made a sign to meet a few feet down. My friend and I walked down and as usual, we lost him again. We stood in the crowd looking to and fro for the 6’2” Mexican and we couldn’t locate him. Finally I noticed him way down in front of us. We finally met up. We congratulated him on his accomplishment and then my job changed from supporter to caretaker. It was a wonderful adventure not only for me, my friend and my husband but for so many people.

(To all the runners and families and supporters of the NYC Marathon)

Just Breathe

After 5 pm on any given day, in any given workplace, people are trying to get home as soon as possible. We all want the most direct and express trip to our abodes imaginable. I will not deny that feeling in myself. I’ve found though that the person who goes slowly with patience gets to their destination safely and sanely.

However a few days ago I was in the company of a woman who was not of the same opinion. She never told me directly; it was all in her actions.

She got on the elevator just a stop after I did. She gave all the occupants in the elevator a once-over. She made a ‘something smells bad’ face – flaring her nostrils. Then she stood in front of the switch-board, floor-selecting panel as the elevator lurched to a stop. On the floor just beneath hers, she sighed fairly loudly. People shuffled onto the elevator and the elevator descended to the next floor. Her opinion of this was to shake her head in disbelief. How dare an elevator descend floor by floor?

The elevator did become a ‘local’ despite this woman’s huffing and puffing. Mr. Otis decide today was a good one for the scenic rout.

I stood in the in the back corner of the elevator and watched the comedy unravel.

Floor 10 – she slightly punched the elevator wall
Floor 9 – she huffed even louder than before
Floor 8 – another sigh. Another passenger was holding in her laugher at Miss Patience
Floor 7 – a gentleman turned down his ipod looking as though we was going to tell her to calm down
Floor 6 – more aggravation and frustration. I began to wonder about her sanity

At that point the elevator sped to the ground floor. Everyone else stood to the side and let her off first out of fear that she’d become violent.

It made me wonder what was waiting for her at home. Unless she was just so distraught to still be in this miserable building. Heck, I’m miserable on a pretty constant basis and yet, I never put on a show like this lady did. I just know I don’t have much control over elevators, trains and other things that directly stand in my way of getting home. Perhaps she should invest in a jet pack?

Roman Holiday

The Eternal City is flushed in color – from the greys of the ancient ruins to the rainbow colors of the vespas as they speed by. The snow white of immense monuments and the verdant parks that surround these landmarks dance around the viewer like a frenzied tarantella.

My favorite colors of Rome come from the cultural elements that most people associate with ‘The Boot’: fashion and food.

I envy the palette of colors used for men’s dress shirts and sweaters in Italy. Various shades that can be found in a bubble gum machine. So fun! So vibrant! I always want to enter the male shops and beg them to carry the same hues in a women’s line but no luck. I’ll just have to continue my covetousness.

The second place where the crayon box appears is in every gelato case in the city. The primary colors are on display thanks to the many and mainly fruit sorbets

Lemon – yellow
Mandarin - orange
Strawberry-red
Pistachio – green
Blueberries – blue
Red Grape- purple

Whereas other flavors range in a continuum between black and white:
Dark chocolate
Milk Chocolate
Coffee
Hazelnut
Zabaione
Almond
Panna
Stracciatella (Vanilla Chip)
Vanilla

All of it pure deliciousness! It’s no wonder my eyes so often glaze over during all the visual excitement that is quotidian for all the Roman inhabitants.

All Things Awesome

http://stephanpastis.wordpress.com/2010/10/11/my-awesome-lunch/

Thanks to a friend sending a recent post to me, I’ve taken to reading and enjoying Stephan Pastis’ blog. The link above is a recent post that made me howl not only because it’s funny but also because I have often thought the same thing myself.

I understand that awesome is used far too frequently because people don’t know understand the real meaning. In this particular case, I wonder if the person in question used ‘awesome’ to show her amazement that a service person actually did their job. Or was it being used sarcastically? Or is it just back to the overused/misunderstood definition of awesome?

The word awesome in general makes me laugh. It makes me think of a character in a television show I enjoy watching who is often called ‘Captain Awesome.” Most of the time when I use awesome, I use it to mean the absolute opposite.

What is awe inspiring though, is how Pastis writes these things on his blog and gets people to start thinking about how we communicate and how we use language.

Voting Polls are Open

Today is an important day. It's Election Day. And even if we aren't voting for the Presidency, it's important to go and exercise your rights as part of a democracy.

Today's elections are for the legislative branch of the US Government. It's important because they are the ones that pass and make the laws. So, if you want your rights to be the same or if you want them to change, it's important to make your voice heard by voting wisely for the person who best represents your thinking.

I went bright and early this morning. In fact, I was the 6th voter in my district. And in NYC, the voting machines are a little different. You get to fill in a blank and then scan your paper through a machine. It was really cool!

So go out there and make your opinions known.