Baciami!

I think I want to bring more of Europe into my life. I’m thinking of one thing specifically: I want to see more people kissing cheeks when they meet and depart. I remember being in Europe and always seeing people kissing cheeks. This wasn’t just friends meeting old friends, but also relatives or friends who saw each other every day.

I see examples of this all the time at the Italian restaurant I work at. The mom is from Poland and the dad is from Italy. They have one son who is 14. A lot of times, the three of them will all be in the restaurant and then the son will leave for a practice or to do homework or whatever, and every time he leaves, he kisses his mom on the cheek on his way out. A lot of others do the same thing. When our regulars come in, they are often greeted with a few kisses from the servers they know. And yes, I think it's cool.

I guess it has been the neighbors across the hall that recently got me thinking about this. Remember how a few entries ago, I told you about the dinner Joy and I had with them last Saturday night. Well, after dinner we chatted for a long time, and then it was time for the kids to get to bed. Again, kisses around. Little Armando kissed his dad goodnight and sweet Vanessa kissed both Joy and me goodnight too. I was thrilled beyond description. It was at that moment I realized I wanted my kids to kiss me on the cheek when they scurried off to bed.

I was recently tested on this whole thing on December 30. When Taylor and I sat next to each other at Laura and Ben Harrison’s wedding, we watched the happy couple come back to dismiss their guests and decided we wanted to kiss Laura’s cheek. Taylor and I both said we would do it, but you gotta admit, there’s a sense of fear when you think about kissing another man’s bride a few minutes after they're married. Well, I’m sure Laura doesn’t even remember, but I did the cheek kiss on her wedding day. A little timed, yes, but most definitely there. (For the record, Taylor, even though he followed me out the aisle, wussed out.)

Watch out for next time you see me, especially you women. Because hopefully, I’ll be bringing a little bit of Europe directly to your cheek.

(I highly recommend the enlightening and intriguing Blistex guide to European kissing. Gotta love those French, where "kissing is a way of life." I suppose you don't become the country d'amour for nothing.)

Morning

So this morning I was getting off to school a little before 7 and began to wipe the snow off my car. As I was wiping the snow off my windshield, the blade for the the wiper on the driver's side came off of its rod. My hands freezing, I tried to get the wiper back on, but then the rod slipped. Yeah, it slipped and then it cracked the windshield when it fell. A really good start to my day. Did that by any chance happen to anyone else this morning? No? Just me? Cool.

Day of Love

Yesterday was Valentine's Day. Now, I've never been too much of a Valentine's Day kinda guy. Yesterday I worked all day at Starbucks and then worked at Regina's, so really, getting home extremely tired at 11 pm kinda takes out any big romantic plans I could have made. Well, I still had a great day. One of the highlights will always be in my memory:

When working at Starbucks, one of my coworkers, Molly, told us how she had been told by her long-distance boyfriend not to leave the store between 3 and 5. Well, needless to say, we were all on pins and needles. We thought it could be flowers, but she said she didn't like flowers and he knew that. We thought maybe he would show up, but she had talked to him from Cincinnati that morning. Well, at 3:40, I look up, and walking across the street are four men dressed up in white shirts with red stripes. I...literally...started screaming. Customers didn't know what was happing, and I was laughing uncontrollably, getting all of the employees out of the back to witness this event. And what an event to witness. It's true: he had ordered a barber-shop quartet. Everyone in the store stood there in shock as Molly was serenaded. There were a few times I added some melismas to the bass line to give it some more musical texture. The whole thing was like a movie. I kept thinking of the Friends episode where jealous Ross sends a singing quartet to Rachel at work and was never so thankful to be working my shift at Starbucks. After they left, it immediately went back to "grande non-fat easy-whip mochas" and "triple decaf venti soy three-pump vanilla lattes." It was almost as if it never happened. Thankfully, I have a picture on my phone to remember that it did.

Waitering on Valentine's Day is understandably busy, and it was a good night. Then I got home and tried to be romantic with the one hour I had left. All in all, it was a great day, and I hope you had a great day too. I should start thinking about next year, but Joy gave me strict orders to never send her a singing quartet. I guess we all have different tastes, huh. Thank goodness Joy, unlike Molly, likes flowers. It seems safer and easier, and you don't even have to worry about intonation or having the tenor cancel at the last minute.

Olympic Cheesecake

First of all, I want it to be known that I had an awesome weekend. It was peaceful, fun, relaxing, and just overall very enjoyable. I worked as normal on Friday night and had a good evening at the restaurant. Kinda slow, which was fine with me since I was still getting over my week of sickness. Then Joy came to Regina's towards the end of my shift and we sat there and talked for a bit as we watched the end of the opening ceremony. Gotta love Pavoratti.

Saturday mornings are probably the highlight of every week for Joy and me. We sleep in, get a real breakfast (she made eggs), and this week we went out for all sorts of Saturday errends. We dropped the car off for an oil change and check-up (they always find a ridiculous amount of things they say need fixed and I never fix any of them) and then went to Starbucks to pick up maid-of-honour Julie at the end of her shift. With my iced grande soy Tazo chai in hand, we went to Panara to check our e-mail (Joy and I don't have internet) and literally we just about ran into with a runaway shopping cart. Well, the woman behind the madness was none other than Gale Wightman, so of course we loved talking to her for a few minutes. Then Joy and I went to the bank (a deposit, not a withdrawal!!!) and then ordered our last dresser to finish our bedroom set and went home for an afternoon of relaxation.

Saturday afternoon was fantastic. Relaxation and lounging on the couch, books a nice distance away. I made some hot tea and turned on the T.V. to watch the Olympics. Now, as I wrote in my last entry, I'm not Mr. Sports, but I really do always get quite excited about the Olympics. I love the intense competition, love seeing the different countries, and especially love thinking about what it must be like to stand on that platform with gold around your neck while you look out over your rising flag at the thousands of people and listen to your national anthem getting played for all to hear. Honestly, sometimes it gives me straight up chills.

Well, most of you are probably aware of my two of my favourite days in recent years: skiing in Colorado last year. (See my March 17 and 19, 2005 entries for more details.) Well, I've been mildly obsessed with skiing since then, but haven't actually gone any this year. So I have been watching these Olympic skiers with piqued interest. In short, I want to be them. Yes, I know I'm not going to be in the Olympics and will never be close to their level, but I want to ski. I actually couldn't sleep last night because I envisioned myself going down the run over and over again. Oh yes, oh yes, oh yes.

Back to my weekend. We were hanging out on Saturday and later we decided to begin the process of doing our taxes. Neither of us have done taxes before, so we get the pleasure of learning about all of this stuff together, and goodness do we have some questions. Right when we needed a break, there was a knock on the door. Of course, our Italian neighbors were standing there and they invited us over for dinner. We went over, had some great pasta and then played with the kids and looked at pictures and even got some serious Italian practice in. Then it was back home after a few hours for more Olympics, a few episodes of Friends, and then a nice long night of sleep.

Sunday brought new excitement. One of the high schoolers in my small group gave his testimony for the high school group, so that was way cool. Then out to dinner with Joy's parents before a Sunday afternoon of coffee and more Olympics. Alice came over to do wedding stuff and that was fun, but towards the end Joy began to literally obsess about cheesecake. Now, Joy and I have a pretty rigid budget going that we are really trying to stick to, and there is no fund for spur-of-the-moment desserts. After about two hours of begging, I finally caved and off we went in search of the world's greatest cheesecake. Well, we settled at the Cheesecake Factory for some oreo/chocolate piece that was really glorious and then went home for dinner (I've discovered Joy can make the most delicious grilled turkey and Swiss sandwiches) and more Olympics, a little reading, and then we finished the night with our cheesecake.

Like I said, it was a pretty fantastic weekend. Thanks for remembering it with me on this early, cold Monday morning.

Super Bowl

I'm not exactly known for my knowledge and enthusiasm in the sports world. But both my knowledge and my enthusiasm have made tremendous strides over these last few years. We all know that the Super Bowl was last night. Well, this year I barely kept track of anything going on in the football world. In general, I usually want Buffalo and Indianapolis and hate Miami and Dallas. So I knew Buffalo was no good and was sad when Indy just barely missed the Big Game. So this week I did some reading in the newspapers about Pittsburg and Seattle. Before I knew anything, I decided I wanted Seattle for the simple fact that I like Seattle and don't like Pittsburg. In sports, the actual city the team plays for really does matter to me. Well, after gaining some basic ideas about the teams, I decided more and more that I wanted Seattle to win.

So yesterday, while Joy was sick all day, I watched ESPN. I watched Martha Stewart create some football chili stuff in a Seahawks uniform and saw Condoleeza Rice predict the Steelers to win. I learned about the quarterbacks, about The View, about all sorts of things. By time the evening came around, I was fairly invested in the game. One of the high schoolers in my youth group group (yes, I purposely wrote "group" twice) had a bunch of us over and I watched the entire game with intense and heartbreaking devotion.

Now we all know who won the Super Bowl. We all know that The Seahawks were bad and the Steelers just managed to not be quite as bad. And this is the problem with me and sports. I don't consider myself a very aggressive, temperish kinda guy. And I'm ok with that. But whenever I seem to get into a game, that new side of me comes out, and I'm never really sure why. I have no personal investment in any of these teams and before the week of, didn't even really know what was going on. Yet after putting myself into it, cheering, getting involved, then it matters and afterwards there was a sense of grief as I drove home. My friend Drew recently said to me, "I know you have been getting more into sports these last few years, but let me warn you not to get too into it. It's far too depressing. You're better off as a casual observer." I think he's right. I can honestly say that I am mildly depressed today. I can't imagine the sadness if I'd actually been following a team all season and actually knew what was really going on. But with that said, there is another part of me that really enjoys this whole side of life as well. And also, when we broke up into small groups this morning in class, we all just talked about the Super Bowl, and you know what, I was totally fitting in. I am so cool.

Now football is over for another seasonl. Now I'm on to baseball. Let's go Cubbies!

Name Change

So I got home last night from class around 1o and of course Joy was fast alseep on the couch, papers and books surrounding her. I woke her up and the first thing she said was, "Can I ask you a question?" I immediately thought I was in trouble and my mind began to frantically think of what I could have done wrong. She then continued, "I read your blog today about the Italian neighbors. I just wasn't sure why you kept calling her 'Lavinia'?"

You see, the name of the woman across the hall is not Lavinia. Her name is Isabella. Lavinia is the name of the mom that I stayed with in Italy. I tend to confuse their names often. But yes, her name is Isabella, which is also quite pretty. Thank you Joy for the accurate proofing of my text.

In other news, today is Groundhog Day and also my brother's birthday. Nate Dogg is now 26 years of age. Happy Birthday, my little Philippino brother. Have some egg embyos for me as part of the celebration.

Italian Update

Remember when I was moving into my apartment and hear some Italian through the walls? Remember when I met the Italians that live directly accross from us?!

Well, things have been progressing BEAUTIFULLY since Joy and I have actually been living in our aparment. Here is the run-down:

• On one Saturday morning, Lavinia, the mother, came knocking on our door. I was at work, but Joy was home. Lavinia gave her a piece of danish-type bread that she had made that morning. When I came home, we ate the bread and, of course, it was fantastic. So, trying to encourage this relationship, I got out a piece of paper and wrote a thank-you note in Italian and slipped it under their door. In about an hour, there was another knock on our door and Lavinia was standing there with another plate in hand. In my Italian note, I had written, "thank you for the bread" because I didn't know how to say sweet-bread. Well, Lavinia wanted to make sure that we understood that was she had given us earlier was a sweet ("dolce") and was not bread ("pane"). So, to help us understand, she gave us a plate of actual bread. This was even better than the sweet-bread. It was still warm, had bits of ham baked on top, and was truly amazing.
• A few nights later, Joy and I decided we should return the plate to the Italians. It was about 9:30 and when we knocked on the door, both Lavinia and Roberto were there. (Roberto is rarely seen since he is usually working.) Well, in good Italian fashion, they invited us in, immediately offering us beer and wine, pizza, chips, and nuts. The kids were all asleep, so the four of us sat around their kitchen table and fumbled our way through language, often relying on our bodies more than our tongues. These two people are so kind and funny. We ended up leaving around 11 or so and were certainly encouraged in our developing relationship as well as reminded of our desperate need to start practicing each others' languages.
• Last Saturday, after two weeks or so of no significant contact, I decided it was time to try to hang out with the Italian kids some. Lavinia (who we learned is actually Polish) and Roberto (who is the Italian) have three children: Armando (5), Vanessa (3), and perhaps showing in name the transition to America: Daisy, who is just a babe. Well, Joy was going to make French toast when we finally got up around 10 and I thought we might as well see if our neighbors wanted some. And believe it or not, they did. Roberto was at work, but the others all came to our apartment, including Lavinia's mom who also lives with them. We were all in our pajamas and the kids were running around our place as we got the breakfast ready. We ate our breakfast (we aren't too sure if they actually liked our French toast and we learned that the kids don't like syrup) and then sat around talking for a while. Of course, the kids' attention span had expired (especially since they couldn't really communicate with us. I don't think Armando quite understands that we don't actually speak Italian...) and so I put in the movie "Pinocchio." This is the Italian version with Roberto Begnini ("Life is Beautiful") and of course, the movie is known to be horrible, but the kids just jumped on the couch and enjoyed being able to watch something in a language they understood. When everyone left, little Vanessa gave Joy and I little kisses. She's a precious one.

Needless to say, we love our neighbors. I am newly inspired to practice this language that I love and really enjoy hearing about their time in America, both exhilerating and frustrating to them. Even yesterday, they rememberd that it was Joy's birthday and Lavinia brought over a piece of some lavish layered dessert. We are soon to have dinner with the Italians and perhaps I will taste those flavours that we try to emulate but always seem to fall just a little bit (but remarkably noticeably) short. Who knows, perhaps soon we'll all be on vacation together in Tuscany. Believe me, I'm working on it....