Pawweee

When I think of France I cannot help but recall my defunct childhood in cahoots with a young Macaulay Culkin.

"You're what the French call, "les incompétents". 

We've just returned from Paris where I guess I would say, it was colder than it was unaffordable. Nevertheless, Giulio accommodated my interminable complaints about the wind as much as he did my demands to indulge in everything that could incite a good froth from my salivary glands- from the best french onion soup in Le Marai, to a browse around the Christian Louboutin boutique, to being the last two patrons standing at the terminal end of visiting hours at the Louvre. 

He is a very, very good man. 

The last time I was in Paris I skipped the Louvre in favor of clearing out every boulangerie of its pain au chocolat. But this time, I was on a mission to see some of my longtime favorite masterpieces, including the Winged Victory of Samothrace, which has been on my to do list since before I was legally emancipated.

Unfortunately this time, Paris had other plans for me: 

en cours de restauration.

Bugger.

But rather than sulking, I decided to focus my attention on all the other inspirational pieces  SELFIES represented in the artwork, practically everywhere I looked. I have always appreciated delicate symbolism and foreshadowing depicted in literature and art, but what patent an example as these projections of smartphone-fueled vanity from long Before Christ!

"fresh out of the salon" selfie

"look I'm doing yoga" selfie

"pensive" selfie 

"group sufferance" selfie

(There's more, but I guess you get the point.)

So we satisfied our penchant for body-sized baguettes of pickles and pâté and are now back to being cozily nestled into our manic Milanese life, (naturally) already missing the exalted Paris Fashion Week and 15 euro cocktails. So I guess for now it's au revoir to Jean-Marc Ayrault, (and in the meanwhile, see what you can do about turning the pinnacle of Paris into the discotheque it was obviously meant to be). 

Oh! oh! and just to get the very last word...

Key Wish

Make no mistake. "Key wish" is not a hackneyed manifestation of my festive mood after another (overly long) piney-fresh and raisin-embedded holiday season. Rather, it reflects an anagram of my personal microcosmic zeitgeist: 
W H I S K E Y. 

This freshly formed, cold (yet empathetic) friend of ours came to life on Boxing Day after Giulio and I had been obliged to house arrest by a three day snow storm (that left Giulio's hair looking like a bowl of vermicelli noodles).

The morning of Christmas Eve began with sunshine and breathtaking views over the Dolomites (not being trite, I am just at the moment a bit out of shape and easily winded). It really must be the most beautiful place in the world, but unfortunately you'll have to google it because the fog rolled in faster than I could find the zip to my ski pants to take a picture. And with that, our official Christmas photo was born, with us naturally behaving like wretched individuals and donning our whiskey jackets in front of the Italian Alps, which may or may not actually be there. 

So we retired our skis for a few days in favor of staying indoors to honor a diet of ham and gnocchi. We did manage to escape for a couple hours one afternoon to build a snowman and go sledding- two activities that even the most vile of humans can recognize as exceptionally entertaining.

And on the fourth day, we had BOMBARDINO!!!!!! 

Nevermind the epic snow and the sunshine and the view and all that, the bombardino is like, one of my favorite things in the whole world ever.  If you too appreciate eggnog and a stiff drink, prepare to have your life changed the moment it first touches your lips. The caveat of course is that it's strictly limited to consumption whilst in the mountains- the recipe calls for one part eggnog, one part brandy, and "the spirit of the Alps". I don't even know what that is, but I do know that you shouldn't think about trying to make yourself a "skinny" version in Southern California, it belongs here:

When we returned to Milan I had a package waiting for me(!), which is probably the only thing that could have consoled my spirit after the major downer that was saying ciao to fresh air and daytime drinking.  My mother (bless her) had mailed some of my favorite goodies from America, including the traditionally celebrated Christmas orange:

As a kid, I always received oranges in my stocking, but as I began to flirt with adulthood, they began to arrive in the form of CHOCOLATE!

If you've never had one of these things, it's really worth trying at least once. It comes as a dense sphere of orange-flavored chocolate that is artfully segmented and perfectly texturized into the likeness of a real orange. The most satisfying thing about it is that before opening, you have to slam it into something sturdy to crack it into its twenty segments:

Thanks to this, one day each year I am permitted to behave like the neanderthal I am inclined to be, with absolute freedom from social scorn. I like to take full advantage of this fact by getting into a low squatting position, cupping the orange in between my two hands, and repeatedly banging it against the floor well beyond the threshold required to get the job done. I derive an unparalleled pleasure from this.

Which brings me to the present moment- the anticlimactic eighth of January 2014, where I lie on my sofa considering all the New Year's Resolutions that have already been broken, meanwhile my laptop irradiates my ovaries, and I dream of inexhaustible chocolate oranges and sunny days above the fray.