Nothin' like a good poo story

Clare is trying to encourage my maternal instinct by sharing funny stories about Jackson (not that it's relevant to anything happening at present, but I have finally started to waiver on my firm belief that motherhood is not for me). For some reason I find the funny stories about kids much more endearing than the sugary sweet ones.

Anyway, here's her latest -- it's hilarious. Gross, but hilarious.

"Last weekend (not this past one but the one before it) Ross took Jack with him to the grocery store. Jackson had a HUGE blow-out (our kid likes to poop, wait four days then poop again, so they're always big, but this was enormous). Ross, thinking that he'd be a good dad, takes Jackson to the store bathroom to clean up the mess, instead of waiting until he got home (we live about four blocks from Safeway). However, there's no changing table in the men's room. Ross decides to use the floor. He puts down the changing pad, then puts down Jack, who at that moment decides to show off his new rolling-over trick... and rolls all over the poop. It's in his hair, all over his legs, back, and arms. Ross is frantically trying to clean it up enough to escape the store. A few guys come in to the bathroom while he's in there and immediately sorta back out slowly, like... "Man, I never want to be in your shoes!" When I get home Ross is sitting in a chair, pushing Jack back and forth in the stroller watching a World Cup game. Ross' face is ashen. Jackson is happy as a clam, though just a diaper and still slightly poo-tinged. I giggled all through Jackson's bath!"

A new routine

It's almost July, and I'm finally starting to get into the swing of this summer vacation thing. I've replaced the routine of commuting from work to school with a leisurely stroll home after work each evening. The first stop is the organic farmers' market on the corner of Valencia and 24th, where I pick up something for dinner and a bag of cherries. The cherries get eaten on the way to stop two, which could be a bookstore, or the pedicure place, or the wine shop... wherever I wind up. Once home, I move on to talking on the phone, having a shot or two with Nadia, maybe blogging for a bit, going out for drinks, or even going to bed early. I've been able to read novels, watch stupid sitcom television (Sex in the City is on right now), rent movies, and clean out my dresser drawers. It still feels luxuriously fabulous to be doing anything that's not studying. The MBA may have been a mistake.

A collection of sunsets

Yep... I'm still posting vacation photos. One of the coolest thing about the villa was the sunsets. They were crazy awesome every night. One of the best sunsets came on a night that Jeff and I skipped dinner (you can only eat so much) and walked back to the villa from Certaldo. We sat out on the patio and watched it for hours.

e-love

These days, it seems that everyone who is anyone is dating online. I mean, I've always known a handful of friends who were testing the waters, but right now it seems to be that every person I speak to is on either Match, Craigslist, eHarmony, or IndianMatrimonials.com.

This Slate.com article about the state of Internet romance is pretty funny and worth reading. I'm shocked to learn that 17% of online daters have found long-term relationships or marriage through the Internet... Seems high.

In other news, one of those friends who decided to try it out received the following email from a potential match (I guess it's supposed to be a pickup?):

"Here's a couple celeb jokes I made up:

Britney's guide to going out with your baby:
You could carry your baby with both hands. But why should your baby be lonely? Carry your baby in one hand and your foofy dog in the other. To economize further, have the baby ride the dog so you can carry a drink in the other. And why stop at high heels? Why not try stilts or skis?

TOM: Kate, I gave you a ton of money and named my plane after you, what do you expect, real intimacy and acceptance of who you are?
Katie: Why can't you be like the guy I saw in the movies? Was the marriage proposal just a ruse to get me to produce you a male heir?
TOM: Yes, did it work?

Hoped you like the jokes. Email me if you want."

Kind of painful.

I will beat you, jet lag!

I think I may have finally done it -- yesterday may have been the breaking point. Since returning from the trip, I haven't really slept more than a couple hours here or there. The effects of not sleeping over a period of a week or so are pretty amazing. I was feeling hazy and without any attention span, almost like being a little tispy all the time (then again, maybe that's not so different from the way I feel normally). I kept forgetting things, like what I had walked into the kitchen for.

A colleague mentioned to me that he had once had such bad jet lag and slept so little that he started slurring his words and could barely function. He was supposed to be working, so he wound up trading a copy of The Satanic Verses for a valium in order to sleep. I think he said he was in Jerusalem.

I was finally able to get my first full, normal night's worth of sleep last night. And that came right on the heels of a four-hour late afternoon nap. Not sure how it's possible, but I still feel pretty tired... think I just need to get a little coffee in the system.

Banish me to Elba

After three or four nights, Jeff and I started to get a little stir crazy at the villa. One can only take so much serenity. We visited Florence for awhile, and then we decided to take off to Elba, which you'll probably remember is a medium-sized island off the coast of Tuscany. Napoleon was banished to Elba, but now it's a beachy vacation get-away.

Elba is sunny, dry, hilly, and green. You could do some amazing hiking if you could ever get yourself off the beach. I took these as we were coming in on the ferry:










We stayed at a hotel that shared a little private beach with a few other hotels. Our primary activity while on the island was shopping for picnic supplies every morning and hitting the beach.




We became such good beach bunnies that we even invested in some euro-style swim suits. Jeff's was a super short, skin tight, and had pink stripes (I quickly inheirited it, as he refuses to wear it in public). I don't know that I would wear mine back home, as it's very small, but it's also pink and I adore it.

The main beach was a short walk away from the hotel, and it was a little bit of a scene. I took these photos first thing in the morning:







In the late afternoons, we chilled back at the hotel. Our balcony was wonderful. I managed to tear through about 500 pages of my book sitting out there.





(FYI: Jeff is a banjo player, so that t-shirt is referring to picking a
banjo -- not his nose or butt.)

Elba was by far my favorite part of the trip. I'd strongly recommend a visit if you're in Italy. It seems sort of ignored in the travel guides, and maybe that's part of the reason it was so nice.

Attenti al cane

At all the houses around the villa, there were these huge fluffy white dogs. We decided it must be some special Tuscan breed of dog. They were guard dogs, and they were super aggressive and barky... Not very friendly, but still cute and fluffy enough that I considered attempting to pet one or two. Jeff very wisely stopped me before I put my hand through the gate.

I took some pictures of our favorite fluff-ball:






We nick-named him The Polar Bear and he would bark like crazy at us every time we jogged by his gate. Unless he was taking a nap, then he wouldn't notice. He was getting older and it sounded like he was a little asthmatic. His bark was deep and gravely and he'd have to stop and catch his breath in between barks.

Does anybody know what kind of dog this is? One of the Italian guys I talked to thought they were originally sheep herding dogs. They look like sheep. They'd blend right in with a herd of sheep, but all the wooly fur them makes them seem a little out of place under the hot Tuscan sun.

The perfect summer beverage

The New York Times ran a fabulous article about everyone's favorite sparkling wine today, or at least my favorite. Check it out, and make prosecco your new bevy of choice this summer. Happy solstice!

The baby formerly known as Bucky

We're taking a break from our regularly scheduled posts of Tuscany photos in order to look at some super cute pictures of Jack. Clare sent the most recent shots while I was out of the country. I still just want to squeeze those cheeks. Such a cutie!




His future is so bright...




Clare says Jack likes to eat blankets.




Clare's dad (Grandaddy to Jack) is a b-school professor, and Clare titled this one, "So, let me tell you a little bit about finance..."




Yep... There's no way this kid won't get an MBA.




Rock on.




Such a good lookin' family! This one was taken at Jack's christening.

Menu planning

Jeff and I didn't have a whole lot to do at the villa. To be honest, I had a very hard time adjusting to this at first. There was a pool and a patio and I mostly sat, spaced out, and read.

With pretty much a complete lack of anything to keep us busy, meals became a huge event and were essentially the focus of the day. Mrs. Lupo had hired a chef, Chef Matisse, to come to the villa and cook some nights. Before he would come we would have to pick the dishes he was going to prepare for us. The debates over the various dishes became
epic -- they lasted for hours.



Mr. Lupo: Typical Tuscan soup or a mushroom risotto?




Jeff: Veal or pork in a gorgonzola sauce?

(Yes, those are NASCAR jammies he's wearing.)




All: How many courses are we supposed to have again? Starter, then first, then second? Or is the starter the first? When is the side served? With the meat? Then the dessert? Or cheeses? Do we want plain grappa or a flavored one?

Jeff: What are we having for the after-dinner-meat course?

The question of the week

The answer is no. Jeff did not propose in Tuscany. We are not back together, which I am sure is a huge relief for his girlfriend.

Check

I was flipping through a notebook in Rome, looking for a piece of paper to scribble some train times on, when I stumbled across a list that Jeff had made himself:




Funny thing -- it's a mirror image of my own to do list. Great minds think alike!

Don't get your period in Europe

I'm building my case for the argument that Europeans have something against menstruating women. At least, it seems like they want to make the entire process as difficult as possible for us. Let me offer some examples...

First, there was not a "feminine hygiene product" to be found in any of the airports I passed through on my European tour. Not any type. You could not buy them at any of the shops or newsstands, nor were there vending machines in any public bathrooms. You want liquor, perfume, or chocolate? Fine. You want olive oil in bottles the shape of flowers or fish? They've got that, too. Designer sunglasses? Check. Bath salts, massage oil, and pretty much any other type of cosmetic? No problem. Tampax? Not a chance. Might seem like a weird thing to notice at first, but consider that I spent around 20 hours on planes and in airports. What's a girl to do in that situation? You can't exactly run down to the local drugstore. And, I'd like to note that the first thing I saw when I arrived at JFK was a Hudson newsstand offering an array of tampons and pads. They had different brands, sizes, the whole shebang. And there are probably fifty Hudson stands in JFK, each with its own cache of goods. In addition, American Airlines had a supply of pads in the bathrooms on their planes for passengers to use. No such love on the Lufthansa flights!

While none of the airports offered tampons, they all did have intense amounts of equipment for disposal of used pads and tampons. Plastic bags to wrap things up in that sealed, separate trash canisters that looked like biohazard disposal units, signs explaining the proper use of said bags and canisters... I'm not sure why the regular trash would not work for this purpose, and I am also not sure why one would feel the need to vacuum pack her disposables. It's not like it's going to explode or anything. It's just a little blood.

I thought that this might just be a weird airport thing, but they had the same thing at the villa, too. There is a bathroom in every bedroom, and next to each toilet there is a unit on the wall that supplies sealable plastic bags "for the lady" (that's what the dispenser says). Think of how strange it would be to have a ziploc bag dispenser mounted on the wall in your bathroom. Keep in mind we weren't at a hotel, but just a big house in the middle of the countryside. Seems like an extreme measure and I kinda took offense to it. Not only is it totally not environmentally friendly to seal everything up in layers of plastic, but I think it infers that menstruation in dirty. And it's not. Menstruation is a glorious gift to be celebrated with brownies, backrubs, and gifts.

First set of Tuscany photos

I thought I would start the sharing with some pictures of Il Renaccio, since that's where we spent most of our time on the trip.

Here's the olive-tree-lined road into the villa:




Guess there's some cyprus in there, too. All the gravel roads in the area were white.




As you drive up to the house, you pass the guest house first. They're a match set -- one is just a little bigger than the other.

Here's a side shot of the main house (you can see people sitting down to dinner just inside the door):



Across the yard from the front doors of the houses was a patio area.




Jeff was scowling about the overcast weather that afternoon.

Here's a sunnier shot of the patio, with the house in the background:





As you stand on the patio looking away from the house, you're surrounded by scenes like the ones below. It was very calming to just sit there and stare at the rolling hills and vinyards, especially with a good glass of wine in hand.

Does anyone want to buy Euro?

I think I have about €100 in cash left over from the trip. I was planning to take it to a bank and exchange it, but then it occurred to me that a few of you are looking forward to your own European vacations.

Wide awake at 3 am

Jet lag is one of the weirdest phenomena around, especially if you're like me and you like to sleep. After an arduous trek across two continents, I finally made it back home late this afternoon. I wanted to go out and see some of the peeps I've missed so much, but I crashed around 7:30, only to wake up at 2 am for no apparent reason. Am I tired? Exhausted. And it's night time. And I'm in my favorite grandma-style nightgown in my own cozy little bed. And I can't sleep at all.

As some of you know, I was supposed to get back to SF in time to celebrate my big b-day on Thursday. It didn't happen. Fog stopped things up at the airport in Rome, which in turn threw all planes in Europe off schedule (or so the shifty Lufthansa representatives claimed). Then there was something about an emergency on one of the runways. Sadly neither my German nor my Italian is anywhere close to being good enough to figure out what the emergency was all about. We finally took off three hours late, and I missed my connection to SFO.

"No problem!" say the shifty Lufthansa reps. We booked you on another flight through JFK, with a later flight to SFO. Predictably the flight to JFK was delayed, too, complicated by another runway emergency (doesn't that sound suspicious?) which prevented us from landing for about an hour. Somehow I knew I would be spending the night in New York... and I did. Poor RB wound up celebrating her birthday at the JFK Holiday Inn all alone. Feel bad for me -- it was sketchy.

To anyone I spoke with this evening, I apologize. I don't think I even managed coherent English. After two days of airport torture and several different time zones, my brain doesn't know what hit it.