Upswinging

I think my last post summarized quite well the state of desperation I had found myself in recent months. But just to substantiate the sentiment, I'll share an image of what may have been the most festive thing I laid eyes on since December:

I'm pleased to share that after all those exams and all that herpes, things appear to be on the upswing.  Life began taking a turn for the better in late February when Giulio got confused about the date of our anniversary and came bearing a TOWER of orchids. I  really didn't have the heart to tell him he was in fact six months in advance:

Not long after, I received a hand-delivered care package which (among other nuggets of joy) included FOUR BOXES of chocolate and a bottle of really real deal tequila. I don't mind my  own transparency- consider the secret to unlocking my heart officially out:

The following weekend, Giulio and I capitalized on an expiring Smartbox - a "welcome to Italy" gift from our overly generous family friends. The Smartbox comes in all different flavors; our particular deal provided refuge at Castello dal Pozzo on Lake Maggiore for the weekend. Aside from the stunning architecture, gardens, and vistas positioned perfectly over the water, the package also included a liberal wine flight featuring regional Piemontese delights, naturally distinguishing itself as the unmissable highlight of our weekend:

AND THEN WE WENT TO ROME!! We left immediately following my cardiology exam late last week, bursting through the hallways of the university in slow motion, recklessly tossing papers up into the sky to the tune of Alice Cooper's School's  Out (which I insist was not  exclusively limited to the contents of my own mind). I can't remember the last time I felt so serene. 

We booked our tickets to Italy's capital months ago, initially with an impetus driven only by the Rome leg of Mumford and Son's most recent tour. But as a matter of very fortunate happenstance, this past weekend also coincided with the new Pope's first mass, the Rome marathon, and the ever important Ireland vs Italy rugby match which Italy happened to win for the first time in history. This was all of course amplified by the fact that it was St. Patty's Day weekend, so all very loud and great fun. 

Although we didn't make it to the stadium for the rugby match, we incidentally stumbled upon Ireland doing their pre-game séance in the park. You couldnt possibly imagine a set of calves so imperative:

We spent most of our days strolling around the city and marveling at any average street corner, each exceedingly more charming than the last. Rome is so obscenely beautiful that in some recondite way, you almost sense yourself being punished:

The worst complaint I could manage to file was that the city wasn't flawlessly unsullied by graffiti. But even still, a Roman's tagging takes a decidedly more jovial approach than the Milanese:

"HO SCORATO IO!" ..........("I FARTED")

And of course, our tried and trusted, sweetly sentimental Mummy and Sons delivered as supremely as they did the first day we were acquainted, which also happens to be the first day I laid eyes on Giulio (and for which it is still, not our anniversary.)

Brane Damidge

I'm quite certain you didn't notice I've been missing for two months. 

But in the event you did, (and weren't rejoicing in this AWOL status of mine), I apologize. I've been a very busy girl. So I decided to put together a little photo montage to recapitulate the highlights of my glamorous life in Milan during recent weeks:

Don't worry, I'm not begging for sympathy because (I'm a positive person!!!!!!!) and amidst this insufferable final exam season, I have actually managed lots of extracurricular activities to keep myself balanced during my studies: 

• breaking my favorite mug (featured in first photo)
• acquiring a new lime green highlighter (not featured)
• acquiring a vitamin D deficiency (self diagnosed)
• changing into a new pair of study pajamas/changing my underwear
• brushing my teeth a couple times
• shaving my legs
• Leaving the house on three separate occasions: 

1. To take my public oral immunology exam 

2. To get a checkup at the hospital because microbiology turned me into a hypochondriac

3. 

nevermind, i guess it was only twice.

Just wondering, have you ever been so stressed that when the lead from your mechanical pencil broke from writing too hard, you started crying?

no? 

ok.

me neither.

Then the New Year came and so I decided to distract myself with a little bit of therapeutic list-making.  I found that focusing on some of the positive ways I could change my life made me feel quite tranquil and more motivated than ever to be a better person in 2013:

Here's an update on my resolutions since I wrote this list six weeks ago:

1. no comment

2. I've gained three

3. no comment

4. I popped a pimple ten minutes after I wrote this so, yeah

5. HA!

In other news, I noticed that our Brita was growing a tree from the inside, so I ordered some replacement filters. What arrived put me into undivided panic:

What the hell is this?!

"DO NOT OPEN". Ummm.. ok? I decided to take my chances and open them anyway, and other than them being the WRONG BLEEDING SIZE, nothing inimical has happened so far. But I'm not retiring my skeptical armament just yet.

And finally as the cherry on top, an old friend from my childhood popped by out of nowhere to say hello after twenty years of dormancy- Herpes Simplex 1 on my eye!!! Obviously this was far and away the highlight of the holiday season. I always love reconnecting with old friends.

Looking forward to springing into spring 2013... good things on the horizon.

Miss you,

Liv

Seasons Greetings, Deuce

About this time last year, Giulio and I released our inaugural holiday greeting card. (I guess I say "released" because we were too miserly to have it either mass-printed or stamped.) Nevertheless, we pledged to make it our tradition to create a new greeting card of a similar nature every December, each time set against the most recent place we traveled. 

Unfortunately we totally dropped the ball on our tradition and forgot all about it.

In effort to reconcile our negligence, I begged my homeslice Megan Kalmoe to work her photoshop magic and scotch-tape our nasty selves into various cities in Turkey.

With that, it is my pleasure to present you with the most trivial reflection of her artistic genius, as well as to wish you:

PEACE & JOY

From our cold, black hearts to yours.

Love, Giulio & Liv

Which one is your favorite?

Thanks but no Thanks

Wanna see the saddest Thanksgiving dinner ever?

Eight naked pumpkin raviolis, in a plastic tupperware, aggravated by jail-cell lighting. 

Let me just clarify that I ADORE pumpkin ravioli (when prepared swimming in sage and brown butter and sprinkled with amaretti biscotti and parmesan) as much as I adore the quintessential Thanksgiving dinner: thick slabs of turkey, stuffing, cranberry sauce, sweet potatoes, mashed potatoes, and pumpkin pie. I also adore a robust dinner table with laughter and loudness and a high people-i-love to m² ratio. 

Unfortunately, my very sad Thanksgiving encompassed three very thin slices of prepackaged cold-cut turkey from the Pam, said bare pumpkin raviolis, and a date with my esthetician who kindly pointed out that "i tuoi baffetti sono cresciuti" (my mustache was bigger than ever).

I've pretty much spent the last month zipping in and out of Tuscany, splashing in Chianti, eating fried white bread, white pasta, white pasta with fried white bread, pane dei santi, etc. Indulgent behavior regretfully comes with a price, which is just to say I am currently ingrassata (fatter) and on a diet, hence my sobriety on a day I ought be consuming 6000 calories in a single sitting. The fun has officially run dry. 

But as a matter of lightheartedness, on the same day, Giulio came home bearing an opportunity for novel experience:

the influenza vaccine!

weeeee!

So instead of probing a turkey rectum, I got to administer my very first injection, and I did awesome. He didn't scream, I didn't inject into a vessel, and two days later he's still alive, not to mention practically FLU FREE. 

I am envisaging Thanksgiving this year the prequel to Natale as Giulio will be fulfilling his humanitarian efforts in the hospital on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. I was thinking of fulfilling mine by dressing up as naughty santa and smoking a cigarette on the sofa.

Anyhow, I hope you had a decadent holiday weekend, unraveling from your normal hectic lives while engulfed by the ones you love, and that you also got a little chubbier. 

Buon Ringraziamento!

Halloweena

When I moved to Italy I spoke only English, Spanish, and some raunchy Hungarian. My dad  tried to provide solace (bless him) by (lying) saying I would be able to get my point across if I just added a vowel to the derrière of every word.

Halloweena.

Now, I have a confession to make.

Last week when I told you about Dolce dei Santi and posted those photos of the chocolatey thingamajigs, well... I didn't actually buy them at the pasticceria as one is supposed to do. I bought them (discounted, even worse) at the grocery store. Unfortunately this photo evidences an Italian gold standard exception:

In case you can't figure it out, there are three major things wrong with this photo:

1. Enormous hangnail (since manicured).
2. WAY TOO MANY INGREDIENTS. 
3. partially hydrogenated vegetable oil.

While I am bored at best but more reasonably scornful of those with overly rigid eating habits, one thing I will absolutely not budge on is hydrogenated vegetable oil. It's chemically engineered to extend shelf life- a property that doesn't stop at the level of your body where it sits on the shelves of your arteries for more years than you will be alive to appreciate.

Anyway, I more or less stopped reading ingredients lists when I moved to Italy because food is faithfully fresh and standardized to house minimal constituents. On this unfortunate occasion however, I ate the dolce dei santi and only realized after the fact that I had ingested those hateful hydrogenated oils of death. Giorno dei morti in sooth.  

There was only one feasible solution to being exonerated of this heinous act: I would have to go to Siena, allegedly famous for REAL dolce dei santi, and find something of the authentic variety.

So we got in the car and drove to Tuscany.

Landscapes tried (and failed) to distract me from the nature of my mission.

So when we got to Siena, I ignored every beautiful edifice or rolling hill in favor of staying focused on the task at hand. I dragged Giulio in and out of every pasticceria we passed but NOBODY, not even one stupid bakery, had any flippin' pane dei santi.

Just as I had surrendered hope and was beginning to formulate my temper tantrum, I saw these:

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

and as I continued my survey of the display case, I also saw these:

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

This HAD to be what I was looking for, it looked near identical to what I had eaten the week prior. I ran inside and interrupted the baker, panting, and with a tone that conveyed obvious desperation:

Me: "Mi scusi. Questi sono dolce dei santi?"  ["Excuse me, are these dolce dei santi?"] (avidly tapping on the display glass).

Baker: "No. QUESTO è pan co' santi". [No. THIS is pan co' santi"] (pointing at something entirely different, boring, comprising only fruit and nuts)

Blech!

[my thoughts: you must be joking/mistaken]
Me: "E queste?" ["And these?"] (pointing to original heroic chocolate/powdered-sugar thingies)

Baker: "Questi sono Ricciarelli"

Me: "Prendo tutti i due." [I'll take both]. 

In sum, the REAL pan co' santi bored me out of my mind. On the other hand, the Ricciarelli far exceeded both my expectations and my experience with the dolce the week prior. (Now I'm really not sure what that stuff was, but I do know that somebody got very confused). Ricciarelli and Pan co' Santi are indeed both Tuscan specialties; the latter is specific to Ognissanti, the former, to Christmas. Per my research, Ricciarelli is almond-based and was popularized in the 14th century by Ricciardetto della Gheradesca upon his return from the Crusades. 

Nevermind all that because, then THIS happened:

Let me introduce you to THE Fiorentina, more affectionately known to my fellow Americans as the T-Bone Steak. That slab of meat weighed almost one full kilogram, and Giulio ate every morsel down to the bone. The photo below was not staged to exaggerate either the degree of demolition cast unto that steak or the concomitant expression on Giulio's face.

Though there wasn't costume, trick-or-treating, or pumpkin carving, roadtripping through Tuscany on Halloweena could eventually prove a new, equally nostalgic tradition.