Reflections on a Gift of Watermelon Pickle

I was eating some watermelon on my week off......and my head filled with images of this book!

I was a little girl in elementary school ~ and I recall loving this poetry book.

Today I ordered it off of Amazon.

I had a lovely week off ~ I am still off today too! I spent some days at the beach, read 3 books, caught a few afternoon naps, watched movies when it was raining outside, ate a piece of blueberry apple pie while watching fireworks from the patio.......summer perfection really.

I'm Off

Leaving on vacation!!!!!!!
Happily I am off until July 1st. Then I work and have the long weekend of the 4th.
Happiness is.....
not realizing until the last moment that you timed your vacation perfectly with a national holiday.

See you when I get back!

I'm "It"!

I'm the "it" girl right now.
Ironic, because I am reading about America's first "it" girl. Evelyn Nesbit.
but I digress...

Martha tagged me....so here goes....

The rules:Each player answers the questions about themselves. At the end of the post, the player then tags 5 people and posts their names, then goes to their blogs and leaves them a comment, letting them know they’ve been tagged and asking them to read your blog. Let the person who tagged you know when you’ve posted your answer.

What was I doing ten years ago?
Wallowing in self pity as I had just called off my wedding. No worries, it was all for the best. Of course, 10 years ago, I was fairly miserable today.



What are five (non-work) things on my to-do list for today?

1. excercise
2. try not to buy a cupcake from Cakelove in Tyson's
3. laundry
4. start to pack for vacation - in 3 days!
5. consider emptying the dishwasher

Five snacks I enjoy:

1. rice crispy treats ~ i buy these bad boys in the box.
2. celery
3. laughing cow cheese with apple slices
4. popcorn
5. cupcakes from Cakelove

Things I would do if I were a billionaire:

1. take care of all my favorite family members
2. start a universal health care fund
3. go to culinary school
4. buy a home in Italy and pretend I was Diane Lane
5. adopt lots of children a'la Angelina and Brad

Places I've lived: most recent first

1. Potomac Falls, VA
2. Deerfield Beach, FL
3. Germantown, MD
4. Windsor, CA
5. Austin, TX

Jobs I've had:

1. DM
2. DMIT
3. FTM
4. SM
5. restaurant slave, manager, catering director
   

Tag, now you're it! feel fabulous, beautiful and tragic like me and Evelyn Nesbit

1. Kris
2. Don
3. Chester
4. NY
5. Kelley

Props to Jamie Oliver

Wow.
You must try this recipe.
It is simple and so exquisite to eat.
Porcini Pangrattato is heavenly.

I was never a great fan of Jamie Oliver until I saw his mini-series on the Travel Channel last year. The show was Jamie's Great Italian Escape. I loved the show, and quickly bought the cookbook.
I must admit a special admiration for his travel and specifically the show on Le Marche - the region in Italy where my family originates from.

Anyway, do yourself a favor, and enjoy this lovely meal.
Next time, I am going to make my own pasta....it would add to the divine nature of the dish.

Bad,Stupid Tuesday

Today was poop.
I left for an early flight.
Sat on the runway for nearly 3 hours.
Finally, they decided to cancel the flight.
Waited in the Customer Service line from hell.
Re-booked for tomorrow mornings flight.....hopefully, there will be a new working aircraft.

Spent another hour re-scheduling everything and cancelling rental car and hotel for today. How hard should it be to call and say, I can't make it today, but I still need the reservation for Wed, Thur and Fri? How did the rental price on the car go up $60 additional dollars each day? I pitched a fit and got my original rate. Bastards**

Arrived home, changed and went to local store. I had to change because I was dressed casually. I was supposed to be opening a new store for the next 3 days for our grand opening on Friday. (Of course, now we have to work extra tomorrow and Thursday, because the store was not ready and I wasn't there to do the punch list and lead the troops)

Anyway, went to the local store and was stuck there until after 9pm. Don't ask....it is a long and terrible and stupid story.

Thank goodness this day that started at 5am and ends at 10pm is finally over.
Tuesdays, as a general rule, are not supposed to suck.

Michael Francis Rizzi, do you renounce Satan?

I went to a baptism this weekend.
I can't help being at any baptism and not playing over in my mind the 'baptism, mass murder' scene from The Godfather.

Being a huge Godfather fan, I am full of factoids about that particular scene. Sophia Coppola was the baby, Diane Keaton didn't know how to hold a baby and Francis Ford Coppala's wife was freaking out off camera wanting to rush and prop up Sophia's head. (I can't help but watch that scene and wonder how it was they didn't stop filming long enough to get Diane to hold the baby correctly)

Anyway, the baptism was lovely.
It was held at Dahlgren Chapel on the Georgetown campus. (Also used in a scene from The Excorcist)
Quite the cinematic weekend I had.
The baby was precious, she didn't fuss at all. I think most of us were jealous that she got to have water poured on her head while we all sat there in the 97 degree heat.
The priest was a delight too. He took the time to explain the ritual and make light hearted remarks throughout. For the non-Catholics in attendence, this was a particualar treat.....most especially when they discovered there would be no mass.

The Weekend Whoooshes By.....

If only the work week days would consistently play themselves out as quickly as the weekend days.

So much to do and see and no idea how to get it all done!

Down the rabbit hole I go........................

Thinking about it

So maybe, just maybe I will use some of my accumulated airline miles and take myself to Florence for a week.

Just me.

Just a week.

Sleeping late.

Eating fantastic food.

Wandering thru museums.

Wandering thru tiny streets.

Doesn't that sound divine?

I'm going to email my pal Antonio at the B&B right now for available dates.

PMS - I can blame the bloating!

While there is no denying the bad habits of week 4, I clearly miscalculated my monthly cycle. I never thought I would be so happy to have this visitor...but at least now I know some of this will go away!!!!!

I do realize that this is in the TMI category of life......but too bad. If you knew me really well, you would know all the dirty details anyway.

No one's perfect, but I could always improve....

In an effort to fill my head with more interesting facts other than trivia about every season of The Real World.....I have begun listening for the last few weeks to this podcast.

I have to admit that the subject on Materialism had nothing to do with what I thought materialism meant. I was thinking materialism in the sense of a desire for wealth and material possessions with little interest in ethical or spiritual matters .

Wrong.....it turned out to be a 40+ minute discussion on matter. As in the universe is made of it.

It was deep. I had to listen to it a couple of times......and still, I am puzzled.

Over the last few weeks I was treated to subjects as diverse as a discussion on the Library of Ninevah, then The Black Plague, Enclosures (the 16th century practice of fencing off land and not having to share with everyone else, in other words, keep your sheep off my grass)

Today, I listened to the talk on Probability......way deep for my pea brain to wrap itself around. Most especially because of my deep seated fear of all things mathematical. But deeply profound really. There was an idea in it that had to do with Monty Hall and Let's Make a Deal. I have decided to experiment to see if I can figure out probability on my own. Put things in TV terms and suddenly I am ready to try to understand math!

Next weeks topic........Lysenkoism. Can you even imagine?!

Project Ass Reduction ~ week 3 & 4

I fell off the wagon.

And posting this picture was hard to do....I can't even blame it on PMS bloat....this is from fried food, cake and not excercising!

I was on the wagon for week 3 ~ then took a nosedive off of it in week 4.

Week 3, I excercised 6 days and ate very healthfully for 4 days. Thursday night killed me with chocolate cake. Friday morning I had a breakfast that equaled a heart attack on a plate. Friday night every course of my seafood meal included lobster in some sort of cream sauce. Add to that the cocktails and you can see that it was a calorie packer.

Saturday, I did excercise but had a smorgasbord of fried food for dinner.....(you would do the same thing if a bird pooped on you)

Week 4 ~ aka the descent into hell

Sunday was the reunion - I actually ate very little. I did however drink most of the wine. Oh yes! And had 2 of the most delicious chocolate peanut butter brownie cookie things.....yummy.

No excercise - unless you count tossing an egg and playing bocce.

Monday drove home, ate fantastic pizza!!!! No excercise.

Tuesday ~ spent the day with Mom and Sis, dinner at Aunt's.....mojitos, pork and CAKE!!!

No excercise.

Wednesday ~ drove down to Raleigh.....5 hours in the car....agggh. (Damn the airlines and oil companies for the too expensive plane tickets!!!) Ate fast food....(i know, awful) Ate pasta and wine and a whole plate of wonderful biscotti!!!!

No excercise....are you seeing the pattern for week 4 yet? Excessive eating and no body movement.

Thursday ~ Cheescake Factory, more pasta for dinner, 2 glasses of wine....(at least I skipped the biscotti)

No excercise

Friday ~ PF Changs with the whole store staff, fast food on the 5 hour drive back home.

No excercise

Saturday ~ too exhausted from my week of bad habits....I lie on the couch watching a marathon of Bridezilla (how low can you go?) That night go eat Chinese Food, go see Indiana Jones and eat Popcorn.

No excercise.

Thus the fat ass picture above!

Time to get back on the wagon.....