Tag Archives: all about me

One line good, two lines less good…

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I had a bit of a scare today. One of those “holy hell I need to take a pregnancy” test kind of scare, and mostly, it’s the iPhone’s fault. You see, now I use an app to keep track of my period, whereas before Apple took over my life I used to just make little red cross marks on my day planner (remember those?). My day planner never once sent me urgent messages rife with exclamation points to tell me my period was one day, two days, three days late. In fact, when I got pregnant with the Girl it took me a week with what I thought was the never-ending stomach flu to realize I was maybe just a little late.

So, I’m only a week late but I had to go get the pregnancy test, despite the fact that we are insanely diligent now about protection and the Husband’s swimmers are 98% no longer working (chemo, radiation therapy and the meds he’s taking now, in case you’re wondering why) because the stupid phone kept obsessing about it. This little exercise in futility, made me sit and mull over a couple of things: first off, even though I’m not sure I’m ready to be done with babies, I’m absolutely, positively, not ready to deal with all the issues that would inevitably come up if I actually got pregnant “accidentally”. Because the likelihood that a baby conceived at this point of the husband’s recovery is healthy enough to get to term is pretty slim, and who wants to knowingly put themselves through that? I’m not ready to deal with the fact that I may have to terminate a pregnancy, or raise a child with severe health issues. Also, I’m not sure I’m ready to start over right now, I mean, I do want more children, but right this minute I need to enjoy at least a few months of uninterrupted sleep at night, and I need to get some of this “first two babies” weight off, because if I put a third baby’s weight on top of it I may never recover (from having to throw out all my lovely clothes!). That’s why we’re obsessive about contraception, and that’s also why a week of the stupid phone’s constant reminders that by God my period wasn’t coming kind of freaked me out. Hence the pregnancy test. So clearly, you all agree that my day was stressful and it’s all Apple’s fault, right? Maybe I should sue for damages…

 

Oh, and p.s., in case you’re wondering, the test was negative. Now I just have to figure out why I’m late!

The if you can’t say something nice… Monday Listicle

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Happy Monday. I’m late posting today, I’m a little tired, and my allergies are just plain trying to kill me, so no long preamble for me.  So, as per Stasha’s instructions here is a list of ten (actually nine) compliments.

The ten most bizarre compliments I have ever received.

1. you have the most beautiful hands, are you a hand model? This was a pick-up line by a sleazebag in the center of Rome. I’m pretty sure that, had I let him, he would have segued straight into: why don’t you come up to my apartment so I can take some pictures of your hands… and then quite possibly try to molest you.

2. hmmm, you smell like hay. Hay? Seriously?!

3. you have great teeth. What am I, a horse? And also, I don’t have great teeth, I have straight teeth thanks to my orthodontist, but my teeth are pretty average.

4. you’re so quiet and reflective. I am, indeed, both quiet and reflective, no one could ever possibly accuse me of being the life of the party or a prima donna, but as this was said to me at a dinner party, I’m assuming they meant boring and spaced out.

5. your cooking style is so eclectic and interesting. i.e. gross and inedible. This was said to me by an Italian friend of a friend who only eats Italian food, ideally cooked by her grandmother, not an adventurous person to say the least. That day we had grilled meat, which, though it can be “interesting” at times, it can hardly be called eclectic. I had made a regular lettuce salad and a tomato and mozzarella salad, as well as baked potatoes, we grilled steaks and sausage, I’m not quite sure what she expected to eat at a barbecue.

6. your feet are so big! This was said to me with, I kid you not, a hand clap and squeal at the end. Now, I’ve got, as my mother would say, a very stable base, there’s very little risk that I’ll fall over, my roots are well spread out… my feet are, in fact, on the larger end of the scale for someone my height. That said, they’re not freakishly large or anything, it’s certainly something no one has ever noticed before. In any case, I’m not quite sure exactly why she was so excited about the size of my feet, as far as I know, there’s no correlation between a woman’s feet and the size of her… well, anything in fact, that could possible elicit that much glee.

7. This is the best glass of water anyone’s ever poured me. Truth be told, I’m not quite sure if this person was complimenting me, the glass, or the water therein, in any case, it’s altogether too much complimenting for a glass of water.

8. You write divinely. Well, this one just kind of pissed me off. There’s really no need for hyperbole, I may or may not write well, but divinely? I think not. In fact, I know not, because if I did in fact write “divinely” I’d be a published author now wouldn’t I? Or a very, very religious or illuminated person. I’m none of the above, and frankly I find this misrepresentation of something I actually care about a bit insulting.

9. Mama, you’re so old. This was said with love and something akin to pride in his eyes. I’m perfectly aware that to my four-year old being old is the absolute best thing that you can be, as a lot of the cool things he really wants to do will happen when he’s “older” (like “when I’m older I can ride my bike to school by myself” which gets repeated approximately every hour on the hour at my house) but honestly, there’s no reason to ever say that to a woman. Even if she is your mother. I’m just saying.

I’m capping it at nine cause I can’t remember a tenth. Forgive me?

Only hot, young, guys need apply

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It’s 2.30pm and I’m still in my workout clothes. At this point I’m not even going to shower and change out of them cause I have Yoga in another 4 hours so what’s the point. I mean, seriously, showering, shaving, washing my hair, blow drying it (cause I’m a wimp and can’t go out in wet hair when it’s chilly anymore)… only to get back into a very similar workout outfit? Talk about a hassle.

It’s 2.30 pm and it’s the first time I open the computer today. How does that even happen? I haven’t checked my emails, haven’t been on facebook, haven’t visited any of my “daily reads” blogs. And this is exactly what it’s been like for the past ten days, honest to God, I don’t know how this happens.

It’s not like I did anything earth shattering today, or any other day last week, in fact. I get up, I wrangle the kids, I take them to school, I run errands, I go to the gym for what feels like four, but is actually closer to one and a half, hours, I come home, I eat, I get the kids, I put them down for their naps and BAM! It’s 2.30. What the hell??

This nonsense started almost two weeks ago, when, getting up from the couch with a pain in my back, I decided I was done with feeling like I’m a hundred and three. My grandma, who is actually almost a hundred and three is more limber than I. I spent my days recently with pain in my shoulder, in my hip, in my lower back, in my knee. I have neither fallen or been in an accident. Is there any reason on this green earth why an otherwise healthy woman of some thirty odd years of age should have such a list of ailments? Absolutely not! Is the thought that started me on this road of not having any time for faffing around. Because I started going to the gym. Every day. E.v.e.r.y. d.a.y. for an hour and a half. With, thank god, a very cute personal trainer.

In fact, if he wasn’t quite so young, and fit, and blonde and blue-eyed, and smiley, and cute, I probably would have throat punched him by now. Because the pain I was in before is nothing compared to the pain I’m in now. The pain I’m in now laughs in the face of the pain I was in before. I’m doing squats, and lunges, and all manner of outlandish movements on weighted medieval torture devices. And then I walk, oh my lord, I walk for like forever, uphill, then downhill, then at a faster or a slower pace, I walk, and walk, and walk, and by god, I don’t go anywhere. Talk about frustrating.

And that’s why it’s 2.30pm and I’m sitting here for the first time all day, finally in front of my long forgotten friend, wondering if I’m too stinky to just stay like this until yoga tonight or if I really should go shower, and change into a fresh pair of yoga pants. All this so I can fit back into all the marvelous clothes I have in my closet and I can play with my kids without creaking and huffing, puffing and jiggling and complaining. Ugh.

The – my readers are audibly groaning but I don’t care cause I love weddings- monday listicle

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Oh boy, oh boy, this week’s listicle is going to bore some of you completely out of your minds but I’m excited! Can you tell? I love weddings. Love them. Seriously. I simply can’t believe Stasha handed me the opportunity of showcasing my wedding pictures on a silver platter! Aren’t you thrilled! I did write an actual list, but you get wedding pictures in the mix, lucky you! (Seriously, Stasha, what were you thinking? You must have known some of us would go overboard and our readers would be groaning!) So, ten things wedding… ta-da!!!

(The following pictures are of my wedding and bear no relationship whatsoever to the text, I just figured you needed to see wedding pictures in a post about weddings, right?)

1. I attended both my Mom’s weddings. My parents were married when I was eight, they got married in Vegas because an immigration officer told them to (long story, fodder for another post). My dad didn’t want to marry my mom, not because he didn’t love her, because he did, more than life itself, but because he was twenty-eight years older than her and wanted her to be free to leave him at any time. She never did.

2. My Mom got married again last year, to a very nice guy. She had a church wedding with a full catholic mass, she had a beautiful white dress and long veil. She finally had the wedding every girl dreams of that she couldn’t have with my Dad (who was divorced and couldn’t, obviously, remarry in the Catholic Church).

My Grandma and me. You can also see my brother reflected in the mirror, looking like a 1920’s movie star.

3. I had the absolutely most perfect wedding (for me) courtesy of my wonderful parents.

 

Proud parents and younger brother (he doesn’t usually have an evil warlord expression on his face…)

4. I’ve often wished I was British so I could have an excuse to wear fabulously ridiculous hats to weddings.

5. I cry at weddings. I also sneak into church when I see a wedding is about to happen, I can usually be found in the back pew, dabbing at my eyes with a hanky. I normally leave before the end of mass, but I like to at least see the bride’s entrance.

6. A friend of mine got married in a gorgeous red gown and looked amazing,  I kind of wished I had thought to wear an unconventional color at my wedding, but I’m way too traditional (and I didn’t want to give my dad a heart attack).

7. I didn’t watch William and Kate’s wedding for no reason other than I got distracted when it happened, although I still remember Charles and Diana’s wedding (I was nine).

8. I hate typical Italian weddings, where you go to church in the morning and then have lunch, which usually starts late because the happy couple is off taking pictures and then lasts well into the evening. I went to a wedding once where we were at church at 11am, sat down to lunch at 2pm and finally got up from the table at 7pm. I wanted to shoot myself.

9. I love looking through other people’s wedding albums, if only to mentally laugh at all the out of date fashions.

10. The most important thing a priest ever told me was to remember that after the wedding was marriage…


Like the mighty salmon. Or possibly something more flattering.

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I’ve been noticing certain signs, lately, that I’m getting older; time, it moves inevitably, inexorably, forward whether we agree with it or not. Here, a few examples:

Hair management and the removal thereof – I started laser hair removal a few months ago, this, I believe, is an unmistakable sign of aging. At some relatively recent point in the past shaving transformed from a daily nuisance to an insurmountable obstacle, fraught with anxiety, that basically resulted in me wearing pants, or tights, or very long skirts most of the time cause I simply found no way to fit it into my schedule. Waxing is painful and despite the inevitable comparison with childbirth, has become both unendurable and too easily forgettable since it is only necessary occasionally and requires a certain degree of planning and appointment taking. So, I decided to go the way of a more permanent solution, I realized, in doing so, that though there aren’t many twenty-year olds getting lasered, in my age group pretty much everyone I know has either done it, is doing it, or is seriously considering it.

Another unmistakable sign of aging is Botox. I’ve always been wary of botox, not from a deontological or moral standpoint, I certainly have enough trouble worrying about what I’m doing to worry about what everyone else is doing and why, but rather from an angle of fear and distrust. Who knows what the far-reaching consequences of injecting muscle freezing liquids into our faces could be? Not that I’m a clean-living fanatic, I certainly ingest my fair share of poisons, it just seems to me that the far-reaching consequences of Nutella are quite simply extra fat and higher blood sugar, whereas with Botox I imagine myself twenty years down the line with my eyebrows drooping over my eyes… and yet, everyone is botoxing away all signs of expressiveness from their faces.

And what of our feet? I was with a friend recently talking about varied and sundry girly topics and we noticed we both had dry heels. What’s with that? I never had to pay specific moisturizing attention to my heels, now it seems that if I don’t slather on Vaseline followed by thick socks every night even in the middle of summer, my heels crack like I’m some poor, lost, dehydrated, soul, walking aimlessly in the Arizona desert. And my friend commented that she now looks at her feet and they reminded her of her mother’s, me too! I exclaimed, remembering playing in my mother’s bathroom, as little girls do, unwilling to have her for even an instant out of my sight (which explains why we, as mothers, have collectively lost the ability to be in the bathroom alone) and watching her furiously scrubbing at her feet with a pumice stone, muttering (and, quite likely, swearing) under her breath.

I see a future looming before me wherein I covet, if not outright get, some sort of boob job, a future wherein I worry about broken capillaries and droopy knees. Right now I don’t wear miniskirts because I could stand to lose a few pounds, and they seem… unseemly… but soon enough I won’t wear them because I’ll be too old (though, truth be told, some may opine that thirty-five is already too old).

Surprising, isn’t it, how the encroachment of time becomes suddenly apparent and unforgiving, not by looking at our children growing bigger, stronger, more independent, every hour of every day that goes by, but by stopping to notice the evolving nature of our daily beauty routines. Routines aimed at maintaining, preserving, furiously negating the passage of time… becoming by and by more convoluted and time-consuming as we progressively have less and less time and patience and quite possibly desire to fight what is destined to be an inevitably losing battle.

And yet, despite it all being quite clearly ridiculous, I still cannot resist the siren song of laser hair removal, or of that wonderful anti-wrinkle cream, or the inevitability of just one small shot, for that frown line between my eyes and I cannot simply ignore my heels, so I slather and scrub and make appointments and endure pain and the clock inevitably ticks forward, but though I often wonder why I let myself be taken over by the fickleness of vanity I simply cannot let myself age without an attempt at battle. Aging gracefully is one thing, but giving up and letting go to the passage of time passively is simply unacceptable. The wild salmon, after all, swims upstream.

 

Linking up with Shell today, it’s been awhile!

Stronger than the wind, hotter than the sun, steady like a mountain

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I have some very good girlfriends, I realized today.

When the Husband was sick I felt abandoned by everyone, everyone but my internet family. And today I realized that the problem wasn’t that I don’t have good friends, the problem was that I can’t let people in when I’m down. I have to put up a strong front, I have to keep it together, I also have a bit of “money guilt” (interesting subject in which I’d like to delve in the near future), I’m lucky, I can hire help when I need it, so I feel like I can’t and shouldn’t ask friends for help. This is pretty stupid of me. On my old blog I could talk (almost) freely about how his illness affected me, about the hard parts, and I felt a strong sense of understanding and support from my internet friends but when my real life friends asked how I was, or if I needed anything, my answer was always a chirpy “fine”, or “life is what it is”, and “not a thing, thanks”, when it probably should have been come on over and bring some wine I need someone to get shitfaced with and cry.

Of course through most of the Husband’s hospital stay I was breastfeeding, but I could have asked for ice cream, right?

I was lonely because I put up walls.

I’m better now, I’ve ventured back into the world so to speak, I actually have the energy to see what’s going on around me. I had a bunch of my “anglo” girls over for coffee today, it’s a great group of women who are all originally from English speaking countries (some American, some Canadian, some Brits, some Australian and South African) who all ended up in this tiny corner of rural Italy. We get together and speak our mother tongue, gripe about Italy, complain about the proximity of our in-laws and the distance from our own families, we drink coffee or wine or cocktails (depending on the time of day or our respective moods) and we stay sane, away from home.

One of my friends is going through an ugly divorce (which is clearly all her asshole husband’s fault), another is struggling with a newborn and a slightly older baby that barely counts as a toddler (yeah, contraception doesn’t always work), one wants kids while her husband doesn’t and has to listen to her biological clock clanking away like an amplified bell in her head all the time. Everyone of us has her own personal tragedies or difficulties, large or small, and today I realized I cannot, I will not, allow any of them to put up and hide behind walls when having a friend stand by you could make the difference between depression and despair or strength and understanding.

Because when life throws you lemons all you can do is make lemonade, whereas a friend will call reinforcements, make gin lemon fizzes and strong arm you into a party.

I’m grateful for my friends, so this week I’m linking up with Maxabella Loves for 52 weeks of grateful

Free Write – Luck

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I’m participating in a new meme today over at Little Cheesehead on the Prairie called Free Write, five minutes of unedited writing on whatever we want. I decided to take the prompt offered this week to get me going so I’m writing about Luck.

Luck. I’ve always considered myself pretty lucky. I’ve had a good life so far, sure, with my share of heartache, disappointment, fear, anger, shame, illness, death etc, but overall, a good life. I was born in a happy family, with loving parents and siblings (some a hundred percent, some half, and now a few step), like most families dysfunctional in our own functioning way. I had good experiences in school, even though we moved around some, changed a few countries, several schools, many languages. Sure, I had my share of disagreements in school, with teachers, with students, but no major bullying, nothing to scar me for life, mostly stuff that just made me stronger, more resolute. We never lacked for anything, in fact, we often had more than most. My parents never spoiled us with fatuous stuff, I didn’t have the coolest bags, shoes and clothes, or the latest technology, but they bought me a new car at sixteen and I’ve traveled pretty much all over the world. Lucky. I got to go to Italy for university and met my husband and started my adult life, I would have wanted to move back to the US, but that didn’t work out… still, I have two wonderful children, a comfortable lifestyle in a rural community and a good life. Lucky. My husband got leukemia, twice, he had two bone marrow transplants and more chemo than I’d like to remember, but he’s here, we’re rebuilding our life. Lucky.

I don’t know how much of luck is luck or attitude, I try to have a positive outlook (though I’ve had some lapses, truth be told) but I’m pretty sure I’ve got a good guardian angel, or karma, or luck. Whatever you want to call it, I’m thankful for it, a lot of people get a lot of tough breaks so we should really try to appreciate our own good fortune.

Set in my ways, like a cranky old codger

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As I’ve mentioned I’m at the beach with the kids, and this time away from home has helped me realize a few things about myself and my life. Our day-to-day here is much simpler, we get up, we have breakfast, we get ready and we go to the beach (with a couple of fights, a crying fit or two, the beds getting made, and me yelling a bit in between). We spend a few hour at the beach, we have lunch, we come home, bathe and nap. I clean and look at blogs, we go out, to the greengrocer, the baker, the butcher, and the candlestick maker. (I’m actually kidding about that last one.) Then we have dinner, go back down to the square for the dancing or kiddie show or whatever entertainment is on offer that night and then we go to bed, get up the next morning and wash, rinse, repeat. If friends come to stay our routine remains pretty much the same, even whilst the chaos level rises exponentially, but it’s all good.

When the husband or the nanny come though… well, I’ve noticed I start getting a little tense, a little more upset, a little… completely pissed off all the time. Why? Because the truth is I’m 36 going on 89. I’m set in my ways, I like things just so, when I settle into a routine I don’t like to have it disrupted. Well, more like I positively despise having it disrupted. The nanny, she puts the dishes away wrong, she puts too much detergent in the washer, she sneaks bleach in the house when I’m trying to green my cleaning products… at home I don’t mind, I’ve got too much to do, and as long as the house is clean I don’t really care how it gets that way. But here, I’m in control of my life, the house is small enough to be manageable and it’s new, everything is where I want it, it’s mine, more than the house we live in every day is. And I want things just so.

The husband, he comes and he wants to go to the beach earlier, or later, he wants to have breakfast at the cafè, he wants to go swimming, or he doesn’t, he hogs the shade, he talks on the phone with the office or his colleagues or his mother. He invites his mother over without asking me, when he isn’t here. He wants to eat dinner out, or in, he wants pizza or sushi or pasta. All legitimate requests, but annoying nonetheless cause he screws with my routine. I can’t just decide and do, when he’s here, I have to suggest, listen, negotiate. Many of these are the same reasons why I wanted to separate a few months back, because life on my own is just easier most of the time. I’ve come to terms with it in my regular life, I realize that with every negotiation I don’t have to face, with every concession I don’t have to make I’m paying the price in sole responsibility, snow shoveling, and spider elimination. So you compromise, in marriage. But I’m on vacation and when he’s around I’m not on vacation anymore. Sure, I’m on an extended version of the mother vacation which means I still cook and clean and run after children, referee fights and all that, but my mind’s on vacation and then he shows up and effectively rains on my parade.

The truth is though, that I should just be thankful that I have a nanny who takes the kids off my hands so I can get some work done, or cleans the house, or irons our clothes, I should be happy to see the Husband on the weekends, to talk to another adult, to go out to eat or have an extra ice cream or a cocktail. I’m just a cranky, old lady, despite my relatively young age. And all I can think of is God help us all when I actually reach my old age cause I’m going to be completely intractable, like a codgery old fool.