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bo1's LiveJournal:
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| Friday, December 7th, 2007 | | 10:26 pm |
41 weeks
41 weeks since I updated my journal? I find that both startling and unsurprising. That's almost a year ago. If anyone's even still reading this, it will probably be quite a surprise to hear anything from me. I've put the kids to bed (David of course puts himself to bed, but Rebbie requires a little more intervention) and since Federico is coming home from England in a little while, apparently with the flu, I'm going to make up the bed upstairs for him. I really was looking forward to having everyone together in one place, but if he's going to be coughing and suffering through the night (which he promised to do), it's better that he sleep far away from us. We can wake him up with breakfast in bed tomorrow. I'm glad that he's going to be around for the weekend, but I'm actually also glad that he's been travelling so much, since it keeps him occupied and productive (I suppose), which is better than having him underemployed and underfoot. We leave in 9 days for vacation, home to Boston and then to Florida, and we can spend time together then. As usual, I dread the actual travel, but being there should be pleasant. I always feel strange when I think about Boston from over here, so I do it as little as possible. Somehow, I get the sensation that I'll find the house shabby (um, well it is kind of shabby. Shabby but chic in that old New England way) and it won't feel good to be there. But, really, it does feel good once I'm there. I just don't like the travel and the jet lag. Speaking of which, I'm going to fix up the bed for Fede, and go to sleep myself, since I feel one of those sleep-deprivation headaches coming on (and sitting in front of the computer doesn't help). | | Wednesday, February 21st, 2007 | | 3:25 pm |
David's still sick, and I'm getting a little tired of being cooped up in here. He's taking a nap now, but I don't even have that much work to do on the computer (hence the journal entry), at least nothing that can't be procrastinated on. I want to go out to Piazza Maggiore and try to get extra tickets for the Orchestra Mozart concert in April, but don't think it's a good idea to slip out on him while he's asleep. | | Tuesday, February 20th, 2007 | | 4:24 pm |
David had a high fever this morning at about 5 a.m., but it went down after taking ibuprofen and he's doing alot better now. I'm NOT taking him on the train to Venice, however! Ha. It's Martedì Grasso (Fat Tuesday), and there was a Carnival party at Rebbbie's school, so she went in costume (an Egyptian, of sorts). The other girls were all pirates! Costumes follow worldwide trends, I suppose. | | Monday, February 19th, 2007 | | 10:34 pm |
Plans that I'd been hatching for a few months to see my old friend Jeremy in Venice or Padua tomorrow have fallen through (he's in Treviso for the week with his family, and we haven't seen each other in maybe 8-9 years). David has the flu and I can't very well leave him alone all day long to go out of town. Somewhat bizarrely, Jeremy suggested three times that I just take him along with me on the train to Padua--you know, the fresh air will do him good, kind of comments. I was kind of taken aback. I realize that child-rearing habits vary greatly, but I thought that there was near-universal consensus that dragging a kid with a fever around and about is NOT a good thing. It's too bad though that we can't get together though. | | Sunday, February 18th, 2007 | | 6:51 pm |
Being fictionalized
A friend, who works with/for my husband at Ducati, has written a novel which is going to be published by Farrar, Strauss this year. He gave us a set of proofs to read over the weekend. The novel is about the years he's spent working in Bologna, and if I have to sum it up using literary stereotypes, I'd say it's a kind of cross between a gay "Bright Lights, Big City" and "Under the Tuscan Sun," but with lots of motorcycles. I couldn't put it down. Naturally, the fun of it for me was recognizing all the characters under their thin fictional coats. I can't say for sure whether just any old reader would find it so compelling. I do appear in the book, albeit briefly (and substantially fictionalized), and it certainly was a strange and unique experience to "read" myself like that. A friend of mine thinks that novelists exploit the people in their lives in a way that is almost immoral. I disagree(d). Still, now that this novel is written, I do find myself wondering how much of the time the author was running his little mental tape recorder when interacting with his friends and colleagues. | | Saturday, May 13th, 2006 | | 7:55 pm |
I haven't written anything here for a million years, and don't really have an excuse. The months of April and May tend to be crazy, and I've been travelling a fair bit. I'm bogged down at home today taking it easy since I'm recovering from the yucky gum surgery I had a few days ago. Gum grafts (carved from my own palate) to two teeth whose gums have been receding since I was 17 and had gotten to a crisis point, according to the dentist. Looking back on how gruesome the surgery was, I can't believe I had the courage to do it! (Of course, you never know what such things are like until you live them. Doctors and dentists count on that!) A friend of mine said "at least now you can cancel this from your list of things you've never done." Exactly. Now, I know exactly what it feels to have my throat fill up with my own blood. And that pretty much sums up the high point of the past week. Othert than that, I've been doing really well. I'm taking over the job of editor at the newsletter from the International Women's Forum of Bologna. (at www.iwfbologna.com you can see back copies), and I've been co-editing my first issue. It has been, dare I say, totally fun--to plan the month's subject, solicit the articles, edit them, add my own spin, put together the whole package. | | Tuesday, March 28th, 2006 | | 11:16 pm |
So, I'm hanging out waiting for my husband to come back from Milan, where he had dinner with...Angelina Jolie (!) He's so funny; we were talking about it last night and he had no idea who she was, so I had to find a photo of her in this month's Vogue. Apparently, Lara Croft rides a Ducati in the new Tomb Raider, and there was some publicity-related thing in Milan today. I'm not particularly a fan, but I mean--he's as bad as my mother (infamous for her pop culture cluelessness)--how can you not even know who she is? | | Thursday, March 9th, 2006 | | 9:53 pm |
I've recovered from my stomach flu-thingie enough to eat reasonably normal meals today. I've also watched an ungodly number of episodes of "Desperate Housewives" (which I don't even particularly like) while trapped at home, getting better. After I finish watching the whole first series, I must make sure to circulate the DVDs among my American friends here. It will make owning them seem less like a total waste of money that way, I guess, and it's the sort of crap that people will happily borrow, if not buy. | | Tuesday, March 7th, 2006 | | 3:37 pm |
So, yesterday afternoon, I was bopping around, feeling perfectly normal. By bedtime, I had slight indigestion, which progressed to extreme nausea during the night, culminating in a violent bout of vomiting (and the rest, I'll spare you the details) from 3-6 a.m. Oh man, was I sick! When I wasn't just trying to survive the night, I was praying that I'd be in good enough shape to get my kids off to school this morning, so I could go back to bed and recuperate for a few hours. We managed it, and I seem to be doing better now, so long as I don't attempt anything too taxing (like eating, smelling food, or even thinking about food...) Federico is away for the entire week, and I really didn't factor in the possibility that I could get sick during his absence. In fact, parents aren't supposed to get sick EVER. I need to remember that. | | Thursday, March 2nd, 2006 | | 10:27 pm |
That was me last weekend, wrapped up against the cold in the courtyard of the Louvre. One of the fun things Steph and I did in Paris did was go see Brokeback Mountain (or The Secret of Brokeback Mountain, as it's called in both France and Italy)--I'm always the last person to get around to these things, but although I had to endure the crappy and distracting French subtitles, I was thrilled at least not to have to wait until it came out on DVD. I thought the movie wasn't at all sentimental (as I'd heard it described in several reviews. Never listen to reviews), and it took its time getting the audience involved in the characters. It was much more subtle than I'd thought it would be, with excellent acting from everyone. Plus, I loved the sexual heat between Jack and Ennis! | | 10:26 pm |
| | Friday, February 24th, 2006 | | 11:08 am |
Despite a sore throat, I'm off to Paris in a couple of hours, to spend the weekend with my best friend, Stephanie. No kids, no husband, you heard me right. We planned this weekend months ago, and she's already there (under the pouring rain, just like here in Bologna), and it's finally happening! The crappy weather is a pity, but it shouldn't really matter; I'm sure we'll have a riotously good time, laughing, talking our heads off, walking all over, having an adventure or two. I'll take some photos and post them when I get back. | | Wednesday, February 15th, 2006 | | 3:09 pm |
| | 3:07 pm |
Someone from Democrats Abroad sent me this. It made me laugh, but then it made me shudder! Talk about the world's worst slash pairing... | | Tuesday, February 7th, 2006 | | 3:33 pm |
The weather has been gorgeous, and I'm celebrating (finally) having a photobucket account by posting a picture of the real view from my window down onto Via Santo Stefano. The woman playing the accordion would be somewhere down there, at least during the morning hours. In other news, I went to Florence all day on Saturday with my buddy Jessica for the Democrats Abroad Italy meeting. We'll start doing absentee voter registration this spring for the 2006 elections, and although things in Bologna have been very quiet (because no one felt like doing anything, basically, after Bush got re-elected), it was wonderful to meet face-to-face some of the people from Rome and Milan who have been corresponding with us for months. I drank four glasses of excellent wine on an empty stomach at the cocktail party afterward and Jes and I nearly missed our train, we were having such an hilariously good time. I like her so much; she reminds me somewhat of myself at that age (25!). David, my eleven year old, has been having on-and-off trouble with a bullying kid at school this winter, and things came to a crisis last week. This was a good thing, actually, because bullying so often takes place in the shadows and it can take a long, long time to come to the attention of parents or teachers. The weird thing is that I learned this morning that the bully has just transferred out of David's school! I could hardly believe it; things like that NEVER happen outside your dreams. We're obviously very relieved (David and I). But, after some thought, I figured that the kid must have been very miserable at that school, or his parents wouldn't have pulled him out over one incident. Anyway, good riddance to him. | | 3:33 pm |
| | Thursday, February 2nd, 2006 | | 10:09 pm |
Sorry to be such a spaz at posting photos, but this is what I was able to manage. This holiday card-ish photo was taken by my brother-in-law at Christmas-time in Boston, and although it isn't particularly flattering of anyone, it's at least a reasonably recent image of me, Federico, Rebecca, and David. | | 9:12 pm |
| | 9:11 pm |
| | Sunday, January 15th, 2006 | | 11:17 pm |
We just got back from Madonna di Campiglio, in the Dolomites--two days of skiing in perfect weather (if you like the cold) and perfect conditions. Fede had some motorcycle-related activity up there, and the kids and I came along for the weekend. We were able to ski together as a family, and it was incredibly cute to see Rebecca capably making those turns below me; she's definitely got that low center of gravity thing going for her! I always say that I would like to have been born in a mountain town. I don't think I would ever have left! (It's different to imagine going to live in the mountains as an outsider. My understanding is that such places are usually very closed to outsiders.) |
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