Morning fright

I'm sorry, but I have to divert from the normal baking, crafting, diy-ing to cover a topic that has been filling my mornings with fright and confusion for nearly a full year now.

I think some of you remember my reacquaintance with the gym earlier this year. It's been fine, you know, being back on my morning regimen of QT with the tready and pre-dawn wrestling matches with vicious sports bras. I've even gotten Bubba used to the routine to the point where he swears he doesn't even hear the alarm go off five times before I haul my ass from the bed. (He lies so sweetly.) So overall, it's been a merry little experience.

Except one thing.

Ok, there's probably more than one thing I can kvetch about (this is me we're talking about here), but this one thing gets me every single morning - men in spandex.

Or, more specifically MAN in spandex.

And halvsey tops.

And fanny pack.

And socks pulled up just below his knees.

And if you're thinking to yourself, "I don't know why she thinks her gym is so special, all gyms have these freakshows parading around in plum smugglers. What's the biggie?", I'll tell you what really gets me.

This dude is in the most amazing shape. He's probably in his early 40's, sort of tallish, pleasant-faced and friendly (he chats up the gym bunnies regularly) and is in incredible shape. Seriously, if it weren't for a receding hairline and obvious ignorance of acceptable athletic attire, I'd guess this dude was in his twenties. And maybe a baseball player or something.

Which is why the spandex and belly-shirts totally bug! Plus, oh I didn't even tell you yet, halvsey tank tops. Those kind like the dudes wear in the Strong Man contests that have the skinny straps and the gigantor armholes that are all baggy. The fact that these tops are then cut off at the midriff and paired with spandex man-pris and a strategically placed fanny pack just gets my goat.

I do not know what to make of this guy.

My first thought was that he was gay. But then I dismissed that for multiple reasons, one of which being that of all my gay friends I'd never known a single one to be caught dead wearing spandex of any variety or participating in any similarly horrifying fashion faux pas. Second being, that this Man of Spandex enjoys chatting it up with the ladies while he struts away on the stair machine (Not the stair master, but one of those machines with the actual stairs you climb. I don't know why making that distinction is important here.) and has been overheard making overt flirting gestures to said ladies while sweating up his yellow belly-top.

Plus, it seems that he doesn't feel the least bit out of place parading around the weight room, amongst other less conspicuously dressed members, as though his shiny navy blue shorties were the most normal things a man could pull from his dresser.

My second thought was that he is just your average dude, wildly out of touch with modern workout society, and going about his merry life dressed totally normal outside of the gym where no one he works with realizes that mere hours before their morning conference call this oddball was swaggering around the free weights section in his stretch-pants showing off his (admittedly honed) breadbasket for all the world to see. I bet some of the women in his office even think he's a "hunk".

The final straw was seeing him leaving the gym one day, dressed all friggen normal just like I'd hypothesized; in jeans, running shoes, t-shirt and ball cap. And he did look cute! Like a normal cute guy. Actually, he sort of reminded me of my friend's dad who all the high school girls used to lust after. And who, I should note, DID NOT wear spandex. This guy however, he is the Spandex Superman of the gym! He goes into the booth (locker room) normal and comes out fully clad in primary-colored spandex (substitute fanny pack for the cape). Then, after he has conquered the evil-doers (Calories? Flabby thighs?) he races back into his booth and changes back into Clark "I'm so normal" Kent and walks away like nothing happened.

What kills me is knowing that one day he'll meet that special woman (he doesn't wear a ring, so I assume he is not married) and she'll think he's all normal in his jeans, ball cap and shapely physique and then she'll stay the night and see him leave for the gym in his stretchy pants and babydoll tee and realize that she's been conned by his Normal Man by Day/Man of Spandex by Dawn double lifestyle.

And it is this continuing mystery that keeps me entertained while I bound away on the tready, whittling down my 30 minutes so that I can go over to the free weights and embarrass myself with the 10 lb barbells or try to sneak onto the lat machine before Mr. and Mrs. We Wear Weight Belts Even Though We Spend 90% of Our Time at the Gym Talking to Our Other Oldish Friends and Being Blissfully Ignorant of our Cellulite commandeer the upper body machines.

I'll get into those hammerheads another time.

Exactly what I want

I can't be the only one sad to be back at work after the long four day weekend. Although everyone around here acts like there's nowhere else they'd rather be than behind their laptops, clicking away at email and listening to their cubemates cell phones going unanswered.

Not that I don't have a big red heart for my job, but my long weekend was so blissfully full of exactly what I wanted to be doing that the jolt of being back in the office is startling and its making me already miss everything I did over the last four days. I *KNEW* it was going to fly by, and it did.

I love how I act like I was changing the world or making vast personal improvements or something.

Not exactly...

In fact, at this time yesterday I was padding around in my kitchen putting a pork shoulder into the crockpot for a pulled pork dinner and thinking, "Gee, at this time tomorrow, I'll be at work."

Now I'm sitting at work thinking, "Gee, I should have been spending more time trying to invent my time machine instead of wrestling with pork shoulder."

Grrr...

So, instead of doing exactly what I want to be doing right now (Taking a long walk? Howling with laughter as Bubba puts pretzel rods up his nose? Knitting a ski hat in front of my fireplace? Who can say?) I'm elsewhere thinking about all the sweet shit I did over the long weekend.

Sweet = baking a lot of loaves. 30 to be exact:

Pumpkin chocolate chip bread, lemon poppyseed cake, lemon pound cake, fresh orange cake - all personally taste tested for deliciousness by Bubba himself (see pre-porno photo of him above with the Lemon Poppyseed.)

And then I made some pulled pork sandwiches with pickled cabbage, fresh rolls and fries for dinner. You know, because we didn't eat enough at Thanksgiving. And because my oven was bored from disuse.

Sweet also = wrapping all my holiday gifts. Oh yes, all of them. I won't go into detail, but I will say that there is a very impressive stack of gifts wrapped up in un-Christmasish paper on a shelf in my newly organized closet.

Shivers.

It is so swell in there.

Another sweet thing = This new Bryson book started getting funnier toward the end, so I'm almost done with it. Although I'm having a hard time thinking of the next book. Ideas?

Yet another sweet thing = The latest live Foo Fighters album.

Oh.

Grrrrrrrrr.

It is so [better word for fucking awesome].

I am become the Foo.

News flash : I'm not an evil wench! Technically speaking.

Yes, yes, the news is true. As long as you interpret it in the loosest way possible and by way of my own definition, which is as follows:

Will not craft a handmade stocking for goddaughter = Evil Wench

And since I have now finished The Stocking of a Hundred Ridiculous Techniques and it actually doesn't look like complete crap, I can officially say that I am not an evil wench. At least not by these standards. But, I'll have to ask you not to delve too deeply into my personal affairs as they *may* indicate otherwise.


With the stocking done, and my evilness yet still under wraps, I am going to set out on another ill-conceived knitting project.

This time it's for Bubba, and like last year, it's a hat. I realize it's a redundant gift, in theory, but these are two different style hats, for two very specific ski-related occasions. Yes, we are gear-dorks (well, one of us is) and we are handymen (again, one of us is) and we like to have the right tool for the job. And so, we must have proprietary hats!

Last year, the hat was more of an apres-ski type of garment. Good for warming your walnut while you rebirth your hooves from baneful ski boots, looking dashing during the lodge wine and cheese reception or while driving white-knuckled down the mountain while your fair bride snoozes away in the passenger seat.

This year's hat is an on-mountain affair. Designed to fit perfectly under a helmet (which we MUST wear due to our walnut-crushing adventures in the trees) to keep noggin, neck and flapping ears warm and protected from the elements. No dumb roll-brim to bind up around your face or dorky earflap strings to accidently zip into your jacket (gah!) The only part about this design that I don't love long time is that the genius design itself will end up thwarting my snowy-tree-branch-in-your-face trick that I've been trying to perfect over the last few seasons. The fact that the payload won't strike any naked neck skin sort of takes the shine off the ingenuity of the design for me. Oh well. I see this small concession as proof that I do love this man even though I may spend all of my waking hours giving him reasons to avoid me.

And on a separate, Thanksgiving-themed, note, I would like to clarify that while I may be at the office, typing on my laptop and attending a few (poorly timed) meetings, NO WORK should actually be taking place in the office today. So people need to quit stirring shit up and think instead about all the pie they'll be eating tomorrow. Gah! Fuckers.

LOATHE.

And, now we've come full circle. I'm evil again.

Phew.

Happy Pie Day!

A lot of loaves

If the preliminary stacks of pumpkin chocolate chip loaves in my freezer are any indication, it looks like I'm well on my way to making up for last years Holiday Season Without a Kitchen.

I'll admit, it was something of a relief knowing that even if I wanted to, I couldn't bake or cook a single thing last December since an enormous hole in the kitchen floor and lack of appliances prevented me from doing so.

Oops, so sorry, can't bring a homemade pie to Hanukkah this year - guess I'll have to go to the bakery and pickie one up! Fresh orange cake you loved so much last year? Sorry, not this year - no kitchen! Mashed potatoes? No stove. Smoked turkey? No oven. Borrow a platter? Packed in a box in the garage.

Best I could do was babysit the couch with my ass. It was a joyous time.

This year, however, we have a fully functioning kitchen and doesn't everyone just know it. I have on deck for the coming long weekend, a baking schedule to rival most patisseries. There will be citrus pound cake. And chocolate chip loaf. And fresh orange cake. And maybe some more pumpkin chocolate chip bread. Oh, and lemon poppyseed cake. All in mini-loaf form and headed for our neighbors doorsteps or my coworkers desks.

This here is about as merry as I get during the holidays since it is the holiday activity I can do while wearing my fugly librarian sweater, ratty jeans and comfy slippers. Plus, since the oven is on, the house is NOT freezing and I don't have to be bundled on the couch wearing everything I own.

Extra bonus, chimney man came for the third and final time (how do they always find something extra wrong and end up having to make multiple return visits?) this morning so I can put the fireplace to work on the half cord of firewood sitting outside the back door.

So, I'll crank up the heater, light the fireplace, fire up the oven and by Sunday I should be doing my baking in a bikini.

And now I'm thankful for my daily visits to the gym.

Old tricks

I know I alude to the activity known as knitting with the blog title, and I also know that I haven't really posted a lot of evidence to support the fact that Finny actually Knits. Which is the main reason for this post. And also to share with you a story of sheer terror.


Story of knitting:

Once upon a time two weeks ago I was standing, mostly upright, in the tasting room at Gary Farrell with two of my best friends sharing some girlish banter and sips of the 04 Pinot. At some point Linda, mother of the aforementioned angelic goddaughter, siddled up to me, with a devlish look in her eye and started in on her sales pitch with the intent of "getting me" to craft a Christmas stocking for her offspring, my goddaughter, Emma.

It was really a ridiculous moment. Especially when she admitted that she had aimed to get me drunk so that I would agree.

Let's stop here so that you can join me in wondering when I became such an evil wench that one of my best friends would think that:

a.) I wouldn't throw down everything I was doing to craft ANYTHING for my goddaughter.

and

b.) That she'd have to "get me drunk" to convince me to do it.

And also,

c.) When did my life become so mundane that "getting me drunk" had nothing to do with getting me to take off my top and dance on the bar?

What if I start saying things like, "In my day..." and "When I was your age..." and shit like that?

Must not grow up. Must not grow up.

Anyway, at the end of our little drunken arm-twisting match I, of course, agreed (with unrestrained excitement) to craft the best stocking in the whole wide world with my very own hands in time for Ms. Emma's first Christmas. And to be used ever after.

What do you think so far? (It's not finished and it's in the process of being blocked here, so be gentle with your comments. I'm a tad fragile after the whole Wrap & Turn incident.)


I indulged in some Manos del Uruguay yarn and have set my fear of the unknown aside to contend with the beautiful pattern in Holiday Knits. So far I've had to learn at least two new techniques and sort out a lot of unecessarily complicated instructions, but I'm sure it'll be worth it. Otherwise I'm chucking this book through their front window.


Story of sheer terror:

At one point in our drunken meanderings between wineries Linda mentioned something about Emma coming to stay with Bubba and I when she was older.

Blank stare.

You know, during the summer for a week or so. So we could, like, bond and stuff.

Blank stare. Beads of sweat above upper lip.

As in, she intends for her innocent child to be in my house, under my care, without her there to intercede when I hand her my car keys and ask her to run to the store for some beer.

Blood comes out of ears.

I think I mumbled something to the affirmative into my wine glass, but it's hard to say since I was drinking the wine as quickly as possible to numb the terror gripping my very being. Not so little known fact - Finny is not so good with children. Or people under the age of, say, 21. The thought of being in charge of a childs life for more than the duration of her mother's stay in the bathroom strikes fear into my soul.

All I can say is that I better fill that stocking with a LOT of good stuff. That way she might forgive me one day when we're sitting in my living room and I start swearing at the TV. Or in the car when I start flipping the bird. Or when she finds Bubba and I playing grabass in the hallway.

It could be said that House of Finny and Bubba is not an appropriate environment for kids. I'm just saying. Either way though, she'll have a fancy ass Christmas stocking to remind her of the trauma.

Quarantine lifted

I might have mentioned that it's started raining. And that the garden is empty of everything except recooperating soil (Thank you Steven, it's gotten its neem oil treatment and should be cootie-free for next summers cucurbits. Wuv you.) And that I've given in to the changing of seasons thanks to the numbing effects of good gin, wine and the momentus turning on of the heater.

So, the next thing to up-end for the winter is our Household Project List. In the summer, this list is full of sunshiney outdoor activities that involve a lot of dirt, hauling, sweating, digging, planting, pruning, crying...you remember.

The winter projects are a little different.

All the projects come inside. We drag extension cords from our kitchen window to the garage for the power tools (Reminder: Our place is going on 100 years old, we're lucky there's power in the house.) I make long lists of all the inside stuff that bugged me as I was traipsing back and forth from the fridge to the yard during the summer. I buy a lot of furniture and soft goods with which to cradle my shivering body against the cold. I organize everything. Bubba hides.

Sounds merry, no?

This past weekend, I started the list. And before Bubba could run and hide, I talked him into helping me with Winter Organization Project #1: Fix the office closet.

See, we have precious little space in our lovely, but extremely wee, home and my feeling is that every square inch should be used as efficiently as possible. So, when I know that we have a closet filled haphazardly with random bits of closet/garage/office/household cast-off, it just plain haunts me. And the fact that I can look down the hall and see this closet as I lay in my bed, awake at 3 am and unable to think of anything else, it doesn't help matters.

So, after much hypothesizing with (at) Bubba, we decided this closet could use a good stout knocking down. Or, on a gentler note, a 100% reorg with a side of ripping some shit down. All of this in the name of the much grander Office Makeover project which will be carried out in phases as I'm able to lure Bubba into our office with promises of winter blackberry pie, an Aeron chair, erotic activities- whatever works.

Phase 1 required a batch of snickerdoodles and approximately 73 trips to OSH, but it's complete and I couldn't be more pleased, especially because I remembered to take pictures before and after. Genius. Also, because I got to use my weapon of choice: the laser level. Seen here helping me be as Type-A as possible.

Before:
Please note the tiny shelves which were a previous half-assed attempt to organize. Failure. Oh, and my other failure, too; organize my fabric in four different bags. Bad. And, yes, that is my wedding dress peaking out of the corner there from behind five bridesmaid dresses and a handful of wool coats that I've never seen on my husbands body.

Oh, it was so time.

After:
Small closet or highly efficient office and craft supply annex? I choose the latter. Especially close to my heart here is the craft shelf with four clear containers organized to the Nth degree with my fabric and yarn. Notice the lack of bags? Yes, that too gives the warm fuzzy feeling. Best of all was watching Bubba open the closet door the next morning and just stare at it with joyous wonder.

Even better was hitting the print button from the office and hearing the printer start in the closet. Kick ass. And for those of you keeping note, Even Better is, in fact, better than Best of All. Got that?

After all that work, and all those trips to OSH (god help us, they know our names) we went on a bleary-eyed date at Dasaprakash - one of our favorite Indian restaurants. I am still too exhausted to go into detail, but know that a raging bull could not have kept me from my oothapam.


Regarding the quarantine - we sat down with the 49er game (victorious!!!) and the laptop on Sunday morning and did all, I repeat ALL, of our Christmas shopping.

I love the Internets.

Biggigity

Every year I devise a new way to manage Holiday Panic.

And each year I think I've come up with the once-and-for-all way to handle the holiday mayhem so that I won't spend the latter months of the year writhing with festive agony.

And, each year I somehow it worse with my meddling.

Like the year I thought I'd knit gifts for EVERYONE on my list. I started in June and skidded into our family Hanukkah party with claws for hands and gifts freshly wrapped in the car because I was still working on them when we left for the party. Not a good plan.

Or the year I did all the shopping in October and then effectively drew out the holiday season a lot longer than is palatable for Bubba and I. Confirmed by the fact that Bubba wore his scrooge face a full month longer than usual, coming out of Holiday Gloom just in time for Valentines Day which is a none so revered holiday for us anyway. There was not a lot of extra joy around the Finny house that year. Too soon with the shopping, it seems.

And despite my history of utter failure in the Holiday Panic management department, I'm trying out yet another new once-in-for-all method. I call this the "People don't need anymore crap" method paired with the "I think people need to read more" method to create the "You all get a book with a nice bookmark denoting the recent donation to a worthy cause of my choosing in your blessed name and you'll like it" method.

Yes?

And I'm planning to make this festive holiday wish come true this weekend as I quarantine Bubba in the living room and make him decide with me which of the three books we've chosen will go to which of the faraway and slightly forgotten relatives on our list. And then there's the list itself that will have to be revived from last year as we decide who we now hate and doesn't deserve the joy of the written word in the New Year.

It's a wondrous process as you can see.

Normally I really like choosing special gifts for people and wrapping them up all fine with a card I make myself (or at least choose specially when I'm at Target buying soap), but there's something about bulk holiday gift giving that invokes nausea and the jingly music and inflatable lawn ornaments don't help any.

So, to counter the nausea, get me in the holiday spirit AND revive my recently invented holiday tradition, I'm happy to announce the return of;

Which House is the Ugliest?

Because there's really nothing like making fun of people and they're freakishly decorated houses to get me in the mood to spend months listening to Jingle Bells burst forth from every retail establishment, television and jostling SUV.

Please join in and send over any gems you capture in your travels. I'm sure your neighborhood has some beauts, too.

I'm just saying

We just did one of those cooking school things at the work conference.

You know, one of those things where you and your big group go to a cooking store with a foreign name that people always pronounce wrong, so you can all cook your own dinner instead of going to a real restaurant where you can get drunk and point haphazardly at a menu.

I believe we were doing this under the guise of team bonding, but with the underlying purpose of legitimizing the drinking we really wanted to be doing.

So we all went and immediately made a bee-line for the wine and too-small plate of cheese, and then got yelled at for talking while the "chef" instructed us on how to properly tie an apron.

I don't think these were really chefs. They acted more like elementary school teachers run amok with their weekend hobbies. I don't think I heard anyone describe any of the ingredients with anything more scintillating than, "It's really good." And even me, and my non-professional chefness, can find something better to say about a fine looking piece of sushi grade tuna than, "It's really good."

Whatever, there was a lot of wine (thanks to our enthusiastic team who provided it) and we weren't sitting around conference tables in a beige room, so I was content to people watch and snack on the occasional passed appetizer. And then get yelled at because I wasn't, like, helping a station, or something similarly naggish. My thought was that rolling up some rice and crab in an old beach mat was helping because it looked nice on the plate and looked remotely like a California roll.

I ended up staying close to the Sushi Station since the dude running it was the most un-tool-ish of all the "chefs" and he let me eat crab right from the bowl instead of having to go through the tedium of rolling it up with the beach mat first. Don't worry, I had my own bowl and didn't funk up anything actually going into the apps.

I believe that throughout the evening the sum of my dinner included a lot of crab meat, a couple of small stuffed peppers, a stray shrimp, a molten lava falafel and two gallons of Napa Cabernet. Me thinks that going the route of a cooking store vs a real cooking school for one of these events (having done both) isn't ideal if you actually want to, say, get schooled on cooking, eat a decent meal or be treated like an adult.

I'm not sure what the moral of my story is here. But at the end of the day, I've made it through another work conference and am at home where I can now cook and eat in peace. Amen.

Worst case, we get real drunk

So I was all whining about winter and how cold it was getting, even though I live in NorCal where it barely gets cold enough to frost more than a handful of times in the winter. I realize I exaggerate. It's my way. I also realize that there are other parts of the world, US-even, where temps drop to ridiculously low levels and require people to wear many woolen coats, special boots, big hats made of wild animals, etc and that I have it way easy. No need to remind me. I realize I live in my own special bubble.

But before you get all, "What a fucking baby" on me, let me explain my reasoning. Basically, I am AOK with the cold as long as it makes sense. Like, if I'm in the woods in January, hollowing out a snow cave for winter camping, I get it. I wear my winter clothes, keep my extremities covered, sleep all mummied up in my sleeping bag with it zipped over my head, etc. But what I don't get is having to take the same measures in my own living room while I'm watching TV. I think you see what I'm saying.

But, until the snow flies, I'm not super interested in the cold, and so it is a matter of keeping me occupied until it arrives. And so sometimes we drink.

Like last weekend weekend, for instance.



My warm weather friends from AZ came to town and we cruised up to the wine country to take in some lovely autumn color, some decent food and a lot of wine. I would like it to be noted that I did not freak out upon conception of this trip and immediately grab the reigns and begin planning.

No. I was going to be mature. I was not going to be a control freak. I was going to let someone else handle the arrangements. And I did. Go ahead and say you're proud because this was a big moment for me.

And then while contemplating the insanity of this decision with Bubba on the way up to the Russian River Valley, we decided that, worst case, we can just get real drunk. You know, in the event that our hotel is a dump, all the restaurants vanish and we can't find food, our friends never show up, the wineries catch fire and can't offer us tastings, we get hopelessly lost. You know, the usual control-freak brand of panicking.

But, like most times when I freak out for no good reason, everything went swimmingly. Aside from us hijacking the wrong limo and taking a small tour of Korbel on someone elses dime, it was pretty close to perfection.

We stayed at the West Sonoma Inn, which is the site of the recently completely renovated Brookside Inn. It was fab. Very new. Nicely done. Set back amongst the redwoods. Run by a very friendly group that we ended up chatting with by the fire after our day spent face down in the wineglass. I'd go back. In fact, I think we might. Turns out this is a really nice time of year in Guerneville and the Russian River Valley.

Oh, pronounce that for me: Guerneville.

It appears that I've lived something of a sheltered existence since I nearly peed myself listening to one of my AZ friends say this city name out loud. Granted, I grew up in Sonoma County, and had all of these names said before me at one time or another, but when it came out: G-weiner-ville, I'll admit, I didn't even try not to laugh out loud.

As for the part of the weekend spent outside of a tasting room:


Sum up: Even when it's cold, things don't have to suck.

For now, I'm off to conference my ass off for work, which I'm sure will be something of a suckfest. But, if all of our past conferences are any guide, there will be a fair amount of drinking, too. I can see this new motto taking on a whole new significance.

Officially winter

I've come to the conclusion that summer *may* be over.

Me: Bubba, can we please turn on the heater?

Bubba: Really? You're cold?

Me: No, I'm buried under all these layers of clothes because I think it makes me look skinny.

Bubba: Oh. Maybe tomorrow. We're going to bed soon anyway.

Me: Dude. It's 8. I'll die of frostbite before we ever make it to bed.

Bubba: *Sad face* Tomorrow night. I promise.

Me: *Pout* I'm pouting over here, but you can't see me because my face is obscured by ALL THESE CLOTHES.

I was seen on the couch Wednesday night wearing no less than my slippers, leg warmers, jeans, long grey "Old Librarian" sweater, Bubba's Royals Santa hat and fingerless gloves. All tucked shiveringly underneath my poofy red blanket. Which was pulled up over my nose.

I get a touch dramatic when I'm cold. More so when I know the solution to my problems lies only a few feet away and a swift turn of the heater key (our house is mucho old) to the left. But, for some reason, I need agreement from Bubba that we should, indeed, turn on the heater and start the irreversible season we call Winter. I guess I could get up and walk over to the heater and turn it on myself, but then it will turn 80 degrees outside overnight and I'll feel like a retard with no one to blame but my own self. At least if we both agree to turn it on and a heat wave rolls through town, we can both quietly ignore the fact that jumped the gun and tried to start winter early. Idiots!

This is a big issue for me because it means a lot of things that I really like are about to officially change for a bunch of long months. Things like wearing slippers instead of flip flops, the aforementioned not-hot librarian sweater instead of tank tops and fingerless gloves at all times. And I'll have to come up with some new reasons why we have to keep the cotton sheets on the bed instead of getting flannel ones. (I LOATHE flannel sheets. They are gnarly and remind me of dirty sleeping bags.)

So, I try to wait out the Turning On of the Heater for as long as possible to avoid the inevitable changing of the seasons. This year I barely made it out of October before my pitiful bleating began.

Finally there was agreement on heater status and, I am not lying, the second we fired that bitch up, it started to rain. And it's been raining ever since.

So, it's raining. And it appears to be winterish. And to console myself and heat up the house at the same time, I'm baking. I made sweet potato pie. I baked some random snicker doodle cookie dough that was languishing in our freezer. I have two soup recipes ready to roll. I'm currently drinking tea by the pot. I thawed dough and baked bread. There are remnant pie crusts waiting to be filled with whatever makes itself available.

And someone will have to come in springtime and extract me from my house with a flatbed truck. Hooray for winters gluttony.

Book Club: The Lost Continent. Travels in Small Town America, Bill Bryson

You'll be glad to know that this post will take on less of a Book Report vibe and more of a Brief Summary of My Totally Random Opinions vibe since I can't quote from the book directly (gave my copy to Shelley while I was in Italy) and the idea of a book report is a little too homework-ish and that's boring.

When I read the title (obviously skimmed right over the sub-title), I didn't think this was going to be a book about Bill's travels around central and eastern US. To me, the US is about as un-lost a place as I could imagine. Mostly because I live in it, and am therefore able to put my finger right on it and say, "See! Here it is. The US is here. Not lost at all." But, as usually rings true, there's more to a book than it's title, cover, etc. And if you happen to read the subtitle you can bypass a lot of confusion altogether, I suppose. And then, too, it's about other things America has lost; like fit adults, safe streets for walking, taste for food that is not fast, culture in general, etc.

The "lost"-ness of the continent was about the little cities that get lost between his hometown of Des Moines, Iowa and 38 other east-ish of Iowa locales. Don't hold me to the exact states, because as I said before, my copy of this book now lives in Rome with it's adopted Italian family, eating better than all of us and learning to swear with its hands, so I'm unable to do my anal-retentive fact checking so you don't make fun of me and leave mean comments. So please, be gentle.

If you've read any of Bill's other books (Do you like how I call him Bill? Like he's my next door neighbor or something) you know the gist - he hops in the car (or on a train, bus, etc) and roams from town to town. When in town, he seeks accommodations and then goes about the town on foot to find their local pub, restaurant and tacky shopping establishment. During these standard activities he finds one million heart-stopping hilarities to comment on, while also giving himself a good rib and concluding with a summary on the town that may or may not deduce that the best thing to do in the town is to fall asleep in a hotel room while watching reruns and eating peanut butter cups.

I'll go right on and admit that this particular volume of Bill's travel stories wasn't my fave. But that's because I appear to have started with his newer stuff and worked backward. Which is kind of disappointing in the same way that turning on the WB to watch Simpsons reruns is when you realize they've caught up to the newest syndicated episode and now are starting over from #1 where Homer's voice is weird and Bart's face is all long.

But I did love Bill's description of his portly hometown women, the deadpan reviews of his father's thrifty family vacation tactics and the way he could always find something to remark upon about a town, even if it was just the wideness of their Wal-Mart aisles. I didn't find "Lost Continent" as enthralling to read as, say, "In a Sunburned Country", but that's probably because he was writing about Australia instead of Kentucky, and let's face it, I'd rather be down under than down south. Plus, everything is scarier, and therefore funnier, in Australia, and I felt a little more inclined to honk with laughter after I realized Bill's life might have been in certain danger during the writing of that book. Basically, I still found lots of funny nuggets to get me cackling in Lost Continent, but his voice was weird and I could tell his face was all long.

As a gesture of confidence in my theory I have already ordered his latest book which I anticipate to be at least as as funny as the other later works I've extra loved. And as a gesture of my proven laziness, I will note for you Bill's event calendar, and then tell you that as I'm writing this on 10/23 (pre-emptively reviewing since I finished the book about five minutes after I started book club) I'm not going to attend his 10/24 visit to SF because the mere thought of driving into the city after work makes me despondent and vaguely nauseous. And, really, I doubt he'd sign my boobs anyway.

What I will do is declare the next book in the club as his latest book (yes, the one I just ordered), The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid, since it's on it's way and I know I'll throw down my current read of his that is suffering from Old Simpsons Syndrome as soon as it arrives.

And if you're bored of Bill already and want diversity in your reading, I will say that our *next* book will not be a Bryson, and might be fiction. So, if you want to hang out with me and read along through one more Bryson, YAY! And if not, well, you can do a lot of things that I won't spell out for you, but one of them has a bad word it in and rhymes with bite me.

Now, for the club-ish part of this - you guys fill up the comments section with your own summaries/comments/tales of public embarrasment so that we can all regale in the joy that is a shared read. Also, vote on the book (on the right ----->) and tell us what you really think.

AND in 6 weeks time, on 12/15, let us gather again to share our comments on the newest episode of Bill's, The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid.

Oh, and Happy Dress Up Like a Freak Day.

Unexplained bacon

I worked from home on Friday. A nice little perk I like to take advantage of when I:

1.) Have a lot of work to get done and need to be in the chaos-free realm of my house in order to finish it all

or

2.) Have a lot of laundry to do

Friday qualified on both counts, so there I was clacking away on the laptop when Bubba pinged me to tell me that the aforementioned "Surprise wonderful thing" he'd aluded to at dinner the other night had arrived.

YAY!

At my office.

Boo.

And he was going to be in a meeting until wayyyyyyyyyy late and couldn't go by and get it.

Boo.Boo.

And if it was left to sit over the weekend it would not be so wonderful on Monday when I returned to the office.

Boo.Boo.Boo.

So, after exhausting all possible options that would both transport the Wonderful Surprise to my house AND keep me from having to put on regular clothes, it came down to me settling for flip flops with my ratty jeans and hoping to hell nobody I knew was in the lobby when I dashed in for the Wonderful Surprise that was now waiting with our receptionist.

Of course, if I were a less obsessive person or someone who wouldn't, say, trade democracy for a Wonderful Surprise, I might have let the thing sit over the weekend and then deal with whatever Wonderfulness may or may not still exist after three days sitting with our receptionist . But, we know I'm not like that and was obviously going to get my unexplained bacon one way or another.

*Sidenote: For those of you who are not avid Simpsons watchers (or Futurama, ATHF, Harvey Birdman, Drawn Together, Family Guy, Venture Bros, etc) , you may need to watch more animated TV shows in order to fully appreciate my posts. Plus it will enrich your life with immature laughter. Just a suggestion.

To sum up, no one saw me in my rattiness except the receptionist and the delivery person who was excited to see that the Wonderful Surprise they'd brought to my empty desk was being retrieved. And in case you haven't put 2 and 2 together yet, the Wonderful Surprise was the irises in the photo above.

Let me just say that getting flowers for no reason is as Wonderful as I've been led to believe. Also, I wish the hag from dinner the other night were here to see me now - boy, would she choke on that Cabernet.

The End.

OH! Don't forget - Our First Blogging Book Club is tomorrow and I expect you all to chime in with your comments/summaries/favorite moments/internal injuries that resulted from the book.

ALSO - I will let you know what the new book is. Good lord the suspense is too much, I know.

Fall, food and evil bitches trying to ruin my good time

Everyday I leave work and see this in the parking lot. It's nice. After about a week of seeing this everyday it occurred to me to take a picture of it, since it'll just be a bunch of sticks soon and I'll be wishing I had not been so lazy to take the camera out of my purse on the way to the car.

Here's another shot for good measure.



You know what this kind of scene makes me want to do? Drink. But in a nice way. Like a take the hubby out for cocktails and a multi-course Greek meal way. And since I'm not in the business of denying my own whims, we went to dinner.

Oh and if it wasn't just exactly what I had in mind.

(Forgive the darkness, they turned the lights down for dinner...)
Some feta and olives...

Some nice zucchini fritters with a fancy Greek name I don't remember...

An excellent lamb shank with orzo...

A skewer-free Souvlaki (beneath Hubby's hungry face)...

And don't worry, there were drinks. And then some crunchy Greek-style coffee that confirmed for me why Italians are the better known coffee folks. And then a waddling/shuffling movement as we detached ourselves from the table. And then some evil stares from the hag sitting next to us who was clearly not having as much fun as we were. And then some inappropriate groping on the sidewalk after hubby walked me to my car (we met at the restaurant after work).

You know, now that I think about it, it is possible that we looked like two adulterers having a lewd dinner out unbeknownst to our spouses. Perhaps that is why Hagitha was giving us the not so nice looks throughout our dinner. We just could not have looked like a married couple out for dinner. No, no. We were enjoying ourselves a bit too much for that.

This seems to be an annoying recurring theme lately. That "people who think that as soon as you get married the fun is over" theme. It was certainly the theme at Hagitha's table. I overheard her husbeast ranting about some ridiculous business principle for the majority of their meal while she sat quietly and pickled herself with the house Cabernet. While at our table we were pickling ourselves with gin and whiskey and discussing, at length, where ever should we take our bodies skiing this winter.

Whoever instated that No Fun is to be Had After Marriage is retarded. Granted, we've only been hitched for two years, but if I'm drinking house Cabernet at the age of 50 and giving dirty looks to the drunk ski-lusting couple at the opposite table, feel free to cart me off to the far pasture and put me down.

Cheers!

Don't tell, but I'm knitting without a pattern [Now with fruit-flavored photos]

So we're going to see our super extra fab and cool friends in Arkansas over New Year's this year (their coolness is obvious since we're willing to travel to AR to see them) and I've been asked ever so nicely to replace a hat and pair of gloves that I crafted years ago. Seems the originals were left in a bakery freezer somewhere along the line and are (squeeeeeeeeal!) thoroughly missed.

Well, shucks. 'Spose I'll have to get out the needles and questionably huge basket of yarn and get to work on their replacements. The only part of that idea I didn't like was having to track down a pattern for an earflap hat and pair of fingerless man gloves that worked with any yarn in the growing heap. I'm kinda at the point where I don't want to be running out to get any more proprietary yarn. Actually, I'm at the point where I need to sit in my room, with the yarn heap, and think about what I did. I don't even think I can call it a stash anymore, since it is getting too big to be stashed anywhere.

Which is why I'm now knitting without a pattern. Because it came down to

A.) Find a pattern and buy the yarn

or

B.) Choose some semi-suitable yarn and make up a pattern

And guess which one I could do without leaving my couch? Yeah-huh. You got it. I'm lazy AND gluttonous with yarn. Aren't I the sexy one.

So after rescuing a couple hanks of grey wool tweed from the vast never-never of the stash, I sat down with the circulars and got to work on the hat, expecting all the while that I'd end up with a tweed pile of doody. And, for a while, it did look that way. I couldn't get my M1s to come out without leaving a gigantor hole. Eventually I turned to my so genius friend Caro for some M1 advice and came away happy. And the hat looks kick ass! I was so pleased with the un-doody like appearance of the final product that I crocheted coordinating edging which makes it all the fancier. I'll put up a picture and you can see what I mean. It got to the point where I was like, "This hat is, like, way better than the first stupid one I made anyway. I hope they can't even remember the old one cuz this one makes it look like crap."

*Update: Here's the picture I promised. See the fanc-Y edging? It'll be better once I block it, but for now - not bad.



Then in a moment of triumph I started the fingerless man gloves. Again - without a pattern. Risky business, I know. I had Bubba model for me, with his big man hands, and I now have one fully functioning fingerless man glove to inspire the remainder of my unguided crafting. Don't I lead the craziest life? I have high hopes for the final product.

*Update: Ok, so it's looking a little Flinstones-esque, but I think I'll like it more once it's been blocked and then worn by someone with less discriminating tastes. Hello, Arkansas.




And in case you're an extra suspicious and attentive reader, they used to run a bakery. Which is where the hat eating bakery freezer came from. It's not just taking up their entire Arkansas kitchen or something. Although, I do hear that shit is weird there.

Falls goods

Me: Bubba, isn't it so fall-ish out here?

Bubba: Yep.

Me: I just love that it's just so, you know, fall-ish. Crunchy under my feet. Leaves all different colors. You know?

Bubba: Yep, fall-ish.

Me: Right. You know.

I never said we were philosophers. But I do like fall, and it was looking rather fall-ish out this weekend. So, we walked in the crunchy leaves, I made random brainless comments and then I baked fall-ish things. And I blatantly ignored the unfall-ish temperatures outside because I knew it was retarded to be baking in 80 degree weather.

It is unfortunate that my desire to do/bake fall-ish things never coincides with actual fall-ish weather. I'm always early and I always end up doing this type of baking in a tank top and flip-flops.

But since I've already brought in the final harvest from the veg. garden and it's already week 7 in the NFL, the thermometer can fricken blow me, because I'm ready to bake.

I also got my delivery (via dump truck) of November magazines this week, and there were a billion recipes I wanted to try. This was from Sunset (yes, I'm a granny that subscribes to Sunset) and the recipe had me at "Polenta". Apparently my enthusiasm is somewhat naive because my mom-in-law reminded us, at hubby's rejoicing in the forthcoming meal, that "hey, you know that's just grits." Oh well, I still love it and the fact that it comes pre-made in a tube just sweetens the deal.






Let me be 100% honest here, it was real good. Like "gimme summore" good. And when you open the windows and trade jeans for capris, it helps with the sweating.

*Per Kelli's request, here's the recipe for this fab dish. Why I didn't link to the recipe in the first place is a mystery. BTW: I swapped the Bulk Italian Sausage with the Italian Chicken Sausage from Trader Joe's because real sausage skeeves me out. Also, don't forget to peel the gnarly casing off. Oh, ew. I'm actually gagging a little bit typing that. Ew.*

For dessert I made Martha's Pear-Sour Cherry Flat Pie.

It was fine.

I'd had high hopes, since hubby was so excited to have a cherry pie of any variety in our house (cherry pie is so nasty), and because I had brought a new, fun food into our house that hubby was thrilled to eat (puff pastry). But, in the end, hubby didn't throw his eyeballs back with ecstasy with the first bite or give me the finger when I tried to engage him in conversation while he was eating (signs of good baking). Although he did finish his first piece and then get another when he saw me dozing on the couch, so he might not have been lying when he told me really liked it.

Personally, I found it a little spicy, which is a weird characteristic for a fruit pie. This is because of the Chinese Five Spice in it, which I was suspicious of when I added it to the mix in the first place. Should have left that out. And, plus, you use dried cherries instead of fresh fruit which I find a little grody.

At the end of the day we both decided that it'd be good for breakfast with a strong cup of coffee. Or as a dessert as long as it was buried underneath the dessert band-aid, a heap of vanilla ice cream. I prolly won't make it again. I might try the pie version, but only because there's no Five Spice in it and I need to put all these leftover dried tart cherries into something. After that, no more cherry pie. EW.

What I will be using more of is puff pastry. I got an extra enthusiastic thumbs up from Bubba at any/all of the puff pastry recipes I presented, so I'll add that to the list. I kinda see this as an extension of the All Pie All the Time mantra in our house. So, during my carboholic weekends when I release the floodgates of my naughty eating behavior, I'll try to put something good into puff pastry so I can get that drooling look of food bliss from Bubba that I so strive to achieve.

On assignment in Rome

Of course I'm not lucky enough to have official business in Rome (although my tactics become even more covert and strategic the more I visit), but during this trip I was gifted a unique and blissful project that I could not resist.

Imagine it as though you are Finny...

You are in one of the world's great cities, wandering the terrace of your friend's apartment, scanning the rooftops of scenic Trastevere. Perhaps you are drinking wine. Certainly you are taking photos. There is the promise of an obscenely delicious Roman meal only hours in your future. You are mildly drunk. Your friend saunters out onto the patio, toting her own glass of chilled white wine. You engage in the kind of joyous banter that builds between two close friends who don't get to gossip nearly enough. Her sweet kitties weave between your feet and mew softly, exposing their (big) bellies for scratching. The sun is beginning to set behind a bell tower only visible to those lucky enough to be five floors above street level, basking in the glow of an October afternoon. You feel utterly content and your cheeks are beginning to ache from nonstop laughter. But something is missing.

What could possibly be wrong?

There is no scent of lavender on the breeze. You are not within arm's reach of a trowel. You see a rogue weed sprouting up from the lemon tree pot. You see a hydrangea in dire need of shade. You see a bougainvillea that needs ruthless pruning. There are hanging pots without cascading flowers. You are just a few tiny steps from earthbound perfection with no way to achieve it!

Until your wise and generous friend takes one look at your psychotic gaze and suggests cheerfully (mercifully), "Hey, would you want to help me set up a garden up here?"

You realize you have the most intuitive and generous friends on the planet. Barely able to maintain your grasp on the wineglass, you smother a squeal of excitement and embrace your friend while mumbling promises of greenery and flora she has never imagined.

To make a long and dramatic story short, Shelley asked me if I would want to help her garden. On her rooftop terrace. In Rome. With only my own vision to guide me.

Um, yes please.

*Drool*

And thus began my newly discovered dream of combining so many things I love; food, wine, gardening, friends, Rome, fall - into one big slaphappy event.

Now, of course, I couldn't wait to get started. I believe I immediately began rearranging furniture without finishing my wine, or even putting my glass down for that matter . So, you know I didn't get good "Before" shots with which to perform an impressive HGTV-ish comparison. I know, I know, I'll never make it on Curb Appeal with behavior like this. Perhaps you'll forgive me if I just show you lots and lots of "After" shots.

We started at Eurogarden,a multiacre gardening establishment the gargantuan-ness of which I am still having a hard time comprehending. It was simply huge. And situated cross traffic from ancient ruins and an historical rose garden dating back to the middle ages. Well, shucks.



Obviously I ran from the still-moving car toward the garden wagons. This was no time to worry ourselves with parking the car properly. Almost breaking out into a frenzied sweat I wandered the open-air aisles of the herb and flowering shrub area with forgiving Shelley in tow. It took us all of ten minutes to load down the wagons with enough lavender, mint, thyme, sage, lantana and succulents to outfit a terrace twice the size. We had no restraint. We piled on bulbs, sprinkler fittings and seeds (for the ever necessary plot of cat grass) waist high before we hauled our extra-full wagons to the conveyor belt (why haven't we begun employing this method of plant checkout in the States, yet?) for checkout. I was nearly effervescent with excitement. I'm sure the clerk thought me mildly insane.



Moments later we were hauling boxes to the car and then searching frantically for parking in Trastevere so that we could bring all the plants upstairs and ready them in their new, freshly sprinkled, homes. Of course, this business of hauling and parking and hauling some more was a project in itself (see Miracle in Rome at the end of this post), but I'll save the commentary by saying only that there was a lot of sweating, four flights of extremely steep and tiresome stairs, some swearing (mostly by me) and no plants were harmed in the process. Although the Cinquecento may never be the same. Full to capacity as it was.



And, after a few hours of planting, hauling some more (all the soil didn't make it up in the first trip), reorganizing of sprinklers, aggressively pruning, weeding, fertilizing, sweeping, arranging and repeating - the terrace was done. Planted. Arranged to allow for parties and merriment. Available for reading, relaxing and contemplating the beauty of Rome. And now, existing thousands of miles from me and my US-based coffee cup. Boo hoo, I know.







In the midst of all of this intercontinental gardening a small miracle was witnessed by the two souls. The miracle of finding parking in Trastevere in under five minutes. Don't believe me (and who could blame you?):



Clearly, our mission was blessed and the garden was meant to be. Let us not speak of the hike that followed the miraculous parking job, as it wasn't pretty and I said a lot of bad words.

Mountains, sea

It's not unusual for my trips to Rome to include side trips to other cities. Mostly because my fabulous friends are also adventurous travelers in addition to being incredible hosts. It is also not unusual for these trips to be motivated by food.

Last time I was in Rome we went on side trips to Tuscany (amazing steak and gnocchetti with truffle sauce), Montalcino (wine) and Montevarchi (Prada - ok, so sometimes these trips are motivated by shopping). This time we side-tripped to Arcinazzo (bistec alla brace and a taverna serving incredible lamb) and Ischia (Naples style pizza). Somehow Ale has come to know the location of the best restaurant in each Italian town/city/sweeping countryside and he appears to take great pride in sharing this knowledge with me when I come to town.

Well, darn.

Mountains
Arcinazzo is one of those towns, perched on a picturesque mountaintop that could only exist in Italy, that makes you question it's authenticity just for the unrelenting beauty of it all. This is where I started my "I can't believe this is real" mantra. Because, still, I can't believe it is real.

Take for instance the view from the terrace:


That can't be real, can it? It seems possible that I've been ruined by one too many Disney crafted attractions in my day to look at something like this and be able to accept it at face value. But there it is, incredible as all get out, just sitting right outside the shutters of Ale's family's mountain home. And, apparently, it's looked just like that for, oh, a thousand years or so. Another concept I have a hard time wrapping my American brain around when in Italy. You know, since everything there is incredibly old, historically significant and utterly gorgeous. You just don't see places like this in the US that aren't crafted by some salivating, hand-wringing evil corporation trying to capture the bank accounts of luxuriant billionaires.

And if all that weren't enough, we wandered down to Subiaco during the day to look around the Benedictine monasteries. These are from, oh you know, the middle ages. They are wildly beautiful with intact ancient frescoes, gardens originally planted by Benedict himself and seated atop a lush mountainside that had me gaping with bug-eyed wonder. It's no wonder Benedict holed himself up here for three years. I had a mind not to leave myself.

Once all my shameless gawking was satisfied, we went on to have lunch. Now, I don't know about you, but rustic Italian fare in an old mountaintop taverna sounds just about my style. And when they keep bringing more local wine in hand-sealed bottles, well that is just an invitation to kick back, relax and indulge until teetering drunk and grotesquely full. Bless our waitress who was also tending to a busload of awnry Italian tourists who chose to indulge a little too heartily in the local vino and were thus making enormous asses of themselves. She was close enough to sainthood to have moved across the valley to the monastery herself.

Once finished with our extravagant lunch (or made to throw our hands in the air in surrender) we headed back to Arcinazzo to find dinner and partake in the lovely fall ritual of roasting chestnuts by the fire. Dinner we found, in the form of two enormous steaks reminiscent of those enjoyed by the Flintstones family, but the chestnuts were a whole other story.

As it turns out there is a local phenomenon known as Giovedi (Thursday) which means that you can not and will not be able to find any particular type of produce on this day of the week due to delivery schedules and the like. So, we drove through numerous mountain towns, in ignorant disbelief that an entire region would adopt such an inconvenient routine, until we'd visited every produce market within a 25 mile radius and received only one response to our chestnut inquiry: Hands folded across ones chest and a knowing nod followed by, "Bah! Giovedi."

So much for our foray into the timeless tradition of roasted chestnuts. Good thing we still had the steaks to capture our curiosity. Just try to tell me that the sight of these doesn't make you want to saw a giant hole in your cars' firewall and go running out for a brontosaurus burger.


Sea
Ischia was a new one on me, since it involved sea travel, something we hadn't included in any of our previous out-of-Rome jaunts. Before we could get to our presumably sea-worthy vessel, however, we had to pass through the towns of Pompei and Naples, which appeared to be some sort of pennance. Pompei is inaucuous, as far as towns known historically for being buried beneath lava flow can be, but Naples was another story altogether.

As we drove, or more accurately, flew low, on our way to Naples, Ale regaled me with horror stories of Naples and it's citizens. Many stories that had the underlying theme of anarchy, lawlessness and, well, horror. At this point in my Italian travels, I was not ready to accept that in a country that had such beauty as seen in Tuscany, Rome, Arcinazzo, Montalcino, etc that there also existed a town buried in garbage, half on fire and willing to block entire thoroughfares for the sake of a soccer game that didn't provide adequate parking.

Oh, for my innocence.

I won't go into extravagant detail, and I won't even include photos (in case you're trying to eat lunch right now or something) but Naples is something of a dump. Specifically, it's people treat it like one. At one point, mercifully toward the end of our trek through town on our way to the pier, we paused briefly before making a left turn and I watched Ale wrinkle his nose and roll up his window. Why? Oh because we had pulled up alongside a hillside of garbage that was approximately 10 car-lengths long, shoulder height and ON FIRE. Oh, and there was a burnt toilet seat topping off the whole mess.

And were people screaming, bosoming their children or calling the attention of the authorities? No, they were going about their daily business, not even pausing to gag softly at the buzzing mound of nasty stewing plague on their city street.

So we got on the ferry and went to Ischia, where I can assure you that there were no roadside garbage heaps, despite the city's allegiance to the Naples region.

Ischia is an island draped with winding narrow roads that make Lombard street look tame. Oh, and these streets are also steep, parked up with tiny cars on either side and driven by madpeople on scooters who are traveling the earth with absolutely no fear of being crushed by a cement truck. Thankfully Ale was behind the wheel to expertly navigate the dicey streets so that I could close my eyes and pretend we were actually alone on a six-lane freeway with wide open pasture land on either side.

Of course we made it to our first nights accommodations without incident, stealthily avoiding schoolchildren, oncoming cars unaware of the two-lane status of the streets and one hundred poorly manned scooters. While the views and surroundings were stunning and beautiful, our accommodations turned out to be a bit less than what we'd imagined. For a full recount of this one night adventure into Residence vacationing, please pop over to Shelley's blog for a top ten retelling of it's more repellent attributes. She outlines ten things that you never want to find when happening upon your vacation rental.

What I will say, since Shelley has left it to me to explain, is that in addition to the laundry list of laugh-so-you-don't-cry disappointments we encountered, my patio indeed had "dog issues". I coined this term when I wasn't sure if Shelley was going to laugh or cry under the circumstances. What I really wanted to say was that my "patio", while having a scenic view of a rickety tool shed, overgrown palm and a dozen other "patios", was also a dog donut factory and that I would require the most industrial sized pooper scooper if I had a mind to go outside again. But I didn't want her to cry, so I simply said that my patio had "dog issues", so if we wanted to hang out that evening, we should perhaps do so on their patio, or anywhere else on the island. Alessandro thought this was amusing and said, "Well, as long as they're not human issues!" and we went on our way.

Needless to say, we made it through or first day/night on the island in a drunken haze, stopping briefly to enjoy some natural thermal baths at the base of the "convenient" 200 step staircase. After booking our following night's lodging at "the most scrumptionest" hotel we could find, we wandered off for apperitivos and dinner in the charming harbor town of Forio.

For comparison's sake, here's a look from our balcony in Forio, notice the lack of dog issues.


As for the rest of our time in Ischia, it was blissfully spent alternating between luxuriating poolside and eating the most incredible Neapolitan-style pizza a girl could hope for. A little poofier and chewier than Roman pizza, it's pretty awesome with the best ever mozzarella melting on top. To harken back to my previous post where I gushed over the Mozzarella di Bufala (see, I am really making good on my promise to loop back) the cheese they have in Naples is really a superior product. As Ale put it, so perfectly as always, "this is not Old Grandma Cheese, it's the good stuff."

In addition to not-grandma mozzarella, tasty pizza, tubs of Nutella, plenty of shopping and fancy-pants accommodations, we also fully enjoyed my favorite custom, apperitivos. I know we have Happy Hour here in the States, but I don't feel it accurately compares to an Italian apperitivo. At least not the way we were rolling in Ischia. Our apperitivos were generally observed ocean side, with multiple interesting snacks and a menu that went on and on. Moving from cocktails to dinner was my favorite time of day, enhanced by my rising blood alcohol level and the promise of another good meal. This is also when my Italian was at it's best, mostly because I was too drunk to care if I was using the wrong tense/verbs/language.



I have a billion more pictures I could share, but this post is now the longest in Finny history and I've managed to bypass the short bit of jet lag from 5:30 this morning. So, I'm going back to bed, but will be back to go on about more food, the scariest possible situation for a non-native speaker, a small miracle in the town of Trastevere and my best gardening assignment ever.

Ciao.

Don your helmets and feedbags

Because I have no shame and because I took 300+ photos on my trip that I feel compelled to share, I will be rehashing with mind-numbing detail as much of my time in Italy as possible during the next few posts. Also because I got drunk and just plumb abandoned the blog and now feel the need to make up for lost time.



To get us rolling on What Finny Loves about Italy, I thought I'd start with the obvious - food.

I've already banged on about the glory that is Nutella, so I'll leave that alone for now (although, please note the stacked jugs of Nutella that Shelley pointed out during our travels. Oh, for a spoon and five minutes alone with just one of those tubs.)

For everything else, there is only one word, *Drool*.

Mozzarella di Bufala. Good god, folks. I could (and believe did) eat this at every meal. (Save for breakfast, which is Nutella-time. ) In fact, this should be a part of every meal. After two weeks of this, I may break up with run of the mill cheese altogether. I've already given my dairy drawer the finger. Cheddar cheese? GAH! And it calls itself cheese. Big faker. Apparently the best version of this blissful creation is made in Naples, and I was not at all subdued in my surprise at this fact. I will get into my impression of Naples in a later post. *Little hint: Ew.*


Pizza. The real stuff that doesn't come with a stuffed crust or any other gnarly American interpretation. We had Roman-style (super thin, crunchy crust) and Napoleon-style (softer, poofier but still thin crust). Both utterly yum. As soon as we were loose on the city and hungry (two situations that always coexist for me) I very humbly suggested that we go to the scissor pizza place for a quick snack. That is to say that I did not drag poor Shelley by her hair directly to the pizzeria. In this pizzeria they have a unique method for dispatching their creation - they bring it out in long sheets, cut it with scissors into good size squares and put it in a basket with any number of appetizers (For me, a suppli.) I ate this no less than three times when I visited last and was eager to get back to it.

I should also mention that there was a 4 funghi pizza that made an appearance during a dinner out that is not pictured in the above collage for the simple fact that my hands could not take a picture and shove the pizza into my mouth at the same time - and frankly, it was so good I wasn't going to compromise.



Gnocchi. When done right, this dish can make me swoon. Or, in the case of this photo, beg. Apparently our primi piatti was supposed to be penne, but when Ale saw the tears welling up in my eyes, he dragged the waitress back to ask if we could substitute for gnocchi. I think she entertained the thought of murder at the idea of substitution, but in the end, would have had quite a mess on her hands since I quickly scooped all but two portions worth (for my dear hosts, I'm not an animal!) into my stomach. It was at this moment that I wished our table came equipped with a conveyor belt. For the love of gnocchi.


Wine. There is a small miracle that happens in Italy that brings me joy at each visit - white wine, and even champagne, does NOT give me a headache. Here in the States, I can barely run my nose past an open bottle without a searing shot of white hot pain piercing my skull. However, in Italy, the sulphates subside and the grapes remain unmixed, which means I can drink it to my hearts content. And I do. Of course, I have to sample the local and regional reds at the same time. Which also does not suck. It is possible that I'm still a little drunk. An extra special bonus to any wine drinking experience is the chance to wander the cellar below the restaurant. A cellar which just happens to be at the city's original street-level. I won't stray into the exact year of this cellar, but the floors of which are the very same that the Romans crossed in ancient times. It's about 40 feet blow current street level. Neato.


Olive oil. I have a lot of this at home, but when in Italy, my intake increases dramatically for the simple fact that it is just really good there. I mean, they know what they're doing. This is no mamby-pampy, barely green, can't really tell if it's made from olives or soybeans kind of oil. No. It's bright green, eye-rollingly fragrant and just short of orgasmic. Imagine it served by a young wavy-haired waiter with a local accent and crooked smile and you'll be there. I bought a bunch to bring home and I'll be spending the next few weeks trying to talk hubby into doing his Italian impression for me while pouring it on my bread. Meeeeeooowww



Gelato. Do not call this ice cream because it is so not the same. Specifically, there are no chunks, as Ale was so savvy as to point out. Apparently when he's in the states he seeks out B&J ice cream with the maximum amount of chunkiness. In Rome, I seek out the gelato with the maximum amount of frequency. It's a complimentary activity. When it comes speared with a cookie and served at an outdoor cafe, all the better. Did I mention it comes in a flavor called Baci (kisses) which is basically the gelato version of Nutella. Wow. Have they got my number. Let's hope I'm never in possesion of national secrets. I daresay it might only take one Baci scoop to get me talking.


Artichokes. What? You didn't expect to find artichokes listed amongst all the other famous Italian stuff. I get it. Me neither. Which is one of the reasons why it's making my short list. And why, when I go back, I'll ask them nicely if we can go back to Enzo's for some more. Again, not dragging Shelley by her hair. Called carciofi alla romana, it's basically fresh artichokes fried (but not battered) and served as an appetizer. Tender, sweet, swoon-worthy. I had a few and experienced a slight bought of depression at the empty plate. Beats boiled artichokes any day. But then, most fried things do.



I just realized that this post is getting self-indulgent and rather long, but before I shut the F up, I can also assure you that the coffee, pastries, prosciutto, bread and tartufo are all they're cracked up to be. I should know, I ate them all. And thanks to four blindingly steep floors of marble stairs plus one more for fun leading up to the terrace after miles of cobbled street walking, I may not have gained the predicted one hundred pounds during this trip.

So, I'm home now. And if you can't tell, I enjoyed my two weeks in Italy somewhat. I may have shed a tear at the airport that had nothing to do with the ridiculous line for US-based airlines. I may already miss Rome. I certainly already miss my friends. And I don't know about y'all, but I'm hungry.