My house looks like it has been robbed.

This time last week we were running our AC at max capacity.  Tuesday came and BAM! Fall arrived as cool as Russell Brand.   Well, with no closets we have taken to the Italian style of storing offseason clothes.  (Turns out you actually don’t need to have your corduroy jeans available in July.  Who knew? ) I started the change out in Rex’s (my boy child) room.  Besides not having a closet, he doesn’t have a dresser either.  His clothes are sort of stacked on a bookshelf.  It works.  Summer clothes one by one entered the gauntlet.  Some emerged victorious; others were defeated and fell into the charity bins.  It was a sad day for size fives.  The winter clothes came out.  Apparently Rex didn’t have a lot of pants last year so this year I acted like the American government and totally over compensated.  He has two to one on pants vs shirts.  I guess I need to buy the boy some shirts.  Rutabaga’s clothes covered every flat surface in her room, and that’s when I followed the weather’s lead and snapped.  It was like my own personal liquidation sale – EVERYTHING MUST GO!  Bags got filled for friends and charities…boxes packed and mailed full of Roo cast-offs.  I was on a roll! 

The thing about getting on a roll is that it gains momentum.  I had emerged victorious from Rex’s room.  I had put forth a valiant effort in Rutabaga’s room.  I was invincible.  Nothing in the house was safe.  Next my winter wear came out of vacuum bags.  Piles of multicolored cotton and wool blend as far as the eye could see.  That’s when I hit the wall.  Children’s clothes are easy.  Does it fit? Is it in good shape?  Done.  My clothes are an entirely different beast.  They all fit and are all in good repair (except for the 100% wool one that I managed to shrink to about a 4T).  How to choose what stays and what goes?  It was like doing calculus drunk.  So, off I went to tackle the magazines…leaving behind copious stacks of fluff…and there it all sat.  Mocking me.  I went to bed last night and the wonkey stacks of cable knit and angora made clothing monsters in the corner of my room.

I wouldn’t say I am a fashion girl’s fashion girl, but I am not without style.  I buy just about everything off clearance racks or e-bay except my shoes.  I even have some items a high school kid that used to babysit for us handed down to me.  Yes, I wear our babysitter’s hand-me-downs…and I LOVE THEM.  What?  Putting together a killer outfit knowing I got the top for a $1 at a garage sale and the sweet blazer for free at a trash-to-treasure swap makes me smiles. 

My kiddos go to a pricey private school (that Husband’s work pays for) and there are some very well-to-do moms there.  One mom has a purse that cost more than the first car I bought when we got married.  A purse.  Seriously.  This isn’t common knowledge stuff for me.  Everyone was making a big fuss over it last year and I was clueless.  Google is my friend and I soon realized Husband is so lucky I have a $35 cap on my purse prices.  So I don’t have a very high per item average on my wardrobe, but I more than make up for it in quantity.  This is how my house came to look like one of those scenes in a spy movie where they ransack the place looking for the microchip with the formula for cold fusion.  Well, I was just trying to find my bed. 

Sometimes a girl needs an intervention.  I am a do-it-yourself kind of girl so let this be no different.  I am (swallow) putting a stop on my shopping.  That’s right.  No clothes.  No shoes.  No cute unders.  No tights (man no tights?!?).  No over-the-knee socks.  No hats.  No belts.  No hairclips.  No sunglasses.  No necklaces.  No pajamas.  No nothing for me. 

I am thinking three months is a high but achievable goal.  Today is September 23rd.  That takes me to December 23rd.  I can totally do it!  I think.  Well, maybe I can.  There were some super cute grey burnout tights at the sock store yesterday…maybe I should start next week after I gather a few necessities.  No!  NO!  NONONONO!  I can do this.  I think.  I think I can.  I think I can.  I can!  Or not.  I guess we will have to see.  In the mean time, I am going to have to find places for the winter clothes and put away the fab cash of sundresses I have collected through an e-bay site that sell Victoria Secret’s catalog returns for next to nothing.  I’m going to try to wear everything in my wardrobe or get rid of it.  I am sort of excited to see what sort of outfits I can come up with.  Anyone else want to join me on this crazy experiment?  I am going to try to remember to take pictures of the combos I come up with and maybe post them as “Fashion Friday” entries – of course, not the days I stay in p.j.’s all day.  That would just be embarrassing. 

Baby Got Back

Haven’t done a blog in a few weeks now, but no one seemed to miss it except my Mom.  So where I have I been?  Husband took me on vacation to Puglia (a-pool-ya) where I took no less than a thousand photos, camped, and passed out drunk on a trendy beach.  More on that later because today I am all about the music.  Just prior to the eight hour drive back, I was screwing around with my i-pod and it started playing all my music in alphabetical order by song title.  Little weird, but I quickly realized I was hearing songs I hadn’t heard in ages.  I guess I have gotten into the habit of listening to the same 20 artist and a couple play lists.  So this screw up was clearly a good one.

Here’s a brief recap.  “Ain’t” is a popular first word of a title (fave: Ain’t my bitch).  I have five songs with the title “Alive” by: Blacked Eyed Peas (yes, I have some on my i-pod.  What?) Korn, P.O.D., Panic Cell and of course Pearl Jam.  I have 52 songs that start with “All”.  Three songs titled “Alone” by the most eclectic groups of artists: Bee Gees, Buckcherry, and Bullet for my Valentine.  Three songs titled “Angel” by Jimi Hendrix, Shaggy, and Sarah Mclaughlin.  That may be the only time those three are mentioned in the same sentence.  The song “Asian Hooker” is followed by a jaunty tune titled “Ass Itch”.  Good times.

Getting through the A’s took about a dozen listening hours…getting into the Bs, priceless! 

The Bs started out a little slowly, but then we arrived at “Baby Got Back”.  Most of you are more than familiar with the Sir-Mix-A-Lot version.  And what girl built like me doesn't like this anthem?  Turns out I have three (yes three!) versions of this song on my i-pod and due to the whole alphabetical order thing, they played in succession.  The first version is by an artist Husband stumbled upon.  The Dude’s name is “Richard Cheese and Lounge Against the Machine” which is genius enough to get me searching You-tube.   He is a singer comedian sort of guy who takes rock/metal/hip-hop hits and sings them in croony sort of way in line with a cut cost lounge attached to a Ho-Jo’s. 

Here’s his version: Richard Cheese Baby got Back

The next rendition was the Classic:    What can I say about that except it makes me crave a little Hammer Time and a sweet pair of bike shorts with an obnoxious color stripe. …and maybe, just maybe it made me want to hit the skating rink.  Don’t judge.

The third version I didn’t even realize existed!  It is Sir-Mix-A-Lot redoing his own song with a rock edge to it.  At first it sounds like it just has a bit of guitar in the back, but it then quickly becomes comical.  People, there is growling involved!  This one is my favorite because I mean Richard Cheese is clearly trying to be funny, this one is just freaking hysterical on accident.

There is also a full rock remake version by the band Throwdown which isn't on my playlist, but will be next time I download because clearly my collection isn't complete.  For now, I can listen to it here.  You can too...you know if you aren't completely burned out.

So maybe when you plug in next time, take a journey alphabetically, and never forget, “my anaconda don’t want none unless you got buns hun”.

Hippo Suits and other Water Wear

Seems that Husband thinks it’s a compliment to tell me my butt looks dumpy in the bathing suit I have been wearing exclusively ALL summer.  If you saw me in a setting with water, be it at swimming lessons, the seaside, the lake, a neighbor’s pool or a Vegas hotel pool, I was wearing this suit which is why that compliment seemed a bit prickly.  As in, the hair stood up on the back of my neck, prickly. 

In all fairness, I have been a bit sensitive lately.  I believe it has to do with all the time and energy I have spent bargaining with God.  It is exhausting!  This is a habit I picked up early in life.  I would secretly bargain with God about grades, treats, feelings, friends, snow days, whatever, but never really acknowledged that’s what I was doing…even though it was.  Recently I had been in some serious negotiations with the big man because here I was thirty-five, mother of two and…over a week late.  COME ON!  I’m like the damn national institute of standards and technology calendar – my cycle is steadfast.  I am a MACHINE!   You know, except this month…which, of course lead to the whole bargaining with God thing.  It started off small.  “I’ll be better making my bed in the morning.”  It got bigger.  “I’ll spend more time thinking positive thoughts.”  And bigger, “I’ll spend an hour a day doing something incredibly unselfish”.  For a while there I wasn’t sure if I would be having a baby or be putting on the next Passion Play.  So yes, I have been a bit sensitive – and self absorbed.  I didn’t realize how much I didn’t want to be pregnant again until day seven came and still Aunt Flo had not arrived.  OMG.  My youngest starts kindergarten in a couple weeks! 

When I was pregnant with my girl I got a bathing suit.  It was blue, had a tulle overlay and was altogether hideous on my baby boulder.  (Some people have a baby bump…I had a boulder.)  I was ginormous (and that’s being kind).  So, I looked a little bit like a blue hippopotamus in a tutu in my fantastic maternity bathing suit.  HIDEOUS!  Of course my current bathing suit is green and two pieces and it is in the eye of the beholder to decide the water animal I resemble, but nonetheless, I was sensitive and the dumpy butt compliment didn’t register even close to being a compliment as I mentally was changing into a hippo in ballet wear.  Now, a man has never been menstraully late or functioned under the hormones and stress that are associated there with so it is understandable that Husband was a complete jerk…at least in my hormone induced, self-absorbent state of near hysteria.  He called my butt dumpy AGAIN and assured me it was a compliment.  I cried.  I also cried when I put milk on my kid’s cereal and when I folded the wash.  I cried watching poker on TV and cooking dinner.  Oh, it was like I had been turned into a one woman version of the Hallmark channel.   

Turns out 8 was the magic number.  Eight days of torture.  After which I decided I had saved a load of cash on maternity clothes so I went to the shops and bought not one, but three new bathing suits with the crazy brief Italian butt.  I likely will never be able to wear these suits outside of Italy and I’m okay with that.  Also, because the buns are trimmed in so thin, and I have been sun kissed in an altogether different style, I sort of have white girl highlighter on the sides of my suit.  I imagine my butt inserts will be burnt crispy the very first wearing, but hey – no dumpy butt and, no baby bump. 

La Mura di Ferrara

The city I live in, Ferrara Italy, is surrounded by an ancient wall (mura). How freakin cool is that? Since this is totally my first time living in an ancient walled city I, understandably, sort of got my dork all over it.

Here is a bad photo of a really old map done in a time when the wall was complete. I love this map and wish I had found it in the attic with a skull shaped rock and cryptic instructions so that me and my friends could go on an adventure and save our town from being turned into a golf course. But no.

Kite Festival March 2011

In the center of town there is a really cool castle. There is a cobblestone road that is heinous for riding bikes, Ercole d'Este, that runs from the castle to the top of the wall and this building. It is called the Gate of Angels, which I have heard referred to as the executioner's house. They loved to kill off folks back in the day, and damn it, most of them probably had it coming. Anyway, this gate was considered pretty posh and was used when all the cool people came or the dukes went hunting in the grounds across the way. Those grounds are now Parco Urbana, or "urban park" where there are tons of cool goings on. My favorites being the kite festival and the hot air balloon festival which are both annual events. My least favorite would be the old men sunbathing in their speedos during midday.

The building isn't a proper gate or house any longer. Currently it is being used as an art exhibition space. The current exhibit is a fun mid-century style of cartoon drawing that is captioned in Italian. Oh, and there's this outside:

On permanent display directly outside the gate (or executioner's house - who knows?) is this creepy Blair Witch art. I don't get it, but I look every time...and shudder.

A large portion of the wall, about nine kilometers, remains intact. In relatively recent history, there was a restoration of the wall that turned it into a great place to workout or ride bikes out of traffic.

This is a pretty standard section of the wall where I run or ride bikes. I took this picture mid day and as you can see it is pretty well deserted.

Here is the wall just prior to dinner time – roughly seven o’clock.  There are a couple prime times for exercise.  Seven pm is very popular as is lunch time.  The morning gets an okay turnout, but not usually from me.  Oh, and working out at seven PRIOR to dinner was not a typo.  Restaurants don’t even open until about seven p.m..  When we first arrived in Italy we nearly starved (okay, we had plenty of reserved blubber to live on, but still, one likes to eat).  We would be hungry for lunch and it would be reposo where the whole city just shut down.  Then for dinner the, restaurants didn’t open until after we had put the kiddos to bed.  Mama Mia.  Amazingly, we have adapted. 

 

It hasn't rained a lot so my trainers come home looking a bit post apocalyptic.

Is that nuclear ash or Ferrara dust?

There actually is a second fitness trail associated with the wall.  The area that contained the moat remains largely park area with a pavement/packed dirt trail.

There are some really cool remnants of past architectural elements.  One of my favorite is this one which I am told had something to do with crafts in the moat, but I could have completely misunderstood that.  No matter.  It is a great place to find folks playing with their dogs in the evening. 

This a Jazz club and restaurant. It has a limited schedule and you have to get some membership to Ferrara clubs, but it is a good time. A better time with wine and friends!

http://www.jazzclubferrara.com/ All my local Ferrara peeps, you can use this link to get the jazz club schedule and the number to make reservations. You want to make reservations.

I had no idea that a wall could be such a cool attraction or part of a city, but it is.  Ferrara’s history is thick.  It is mind boggling to be running along listening to my i-pod on a wall that defended the city long before America was a country.   

So what's on my i-pod: Lost in Hollywood by my all-time most super favorite band, System of a Down. This isn't one of their absolute best songs. In fact I could easily name off more than a dozen I like better. This is one of their songs that the guitar player sings...instead of the singer. Whatever. So why is it running laps in my skull? It is my favorite song when running on the wall. There is a line, "I was standing on the wall, feeling ten feet tall" always puts a little pep in my step. Of course, then Daron goes on to call the people of LA maggots. Whatever, I'm from PA.