Italy!

Hello All!

This post comes to you from Rome, Italy.

It also comes to you from my iPhone, which connects to the somewhat (ok, very, but it's easy to be positive when you're in a city like this one)  cruddy Internet. My computer doesn't. So until we move on to bigger, better, more WiFi-y sleeping spaces, this will have do to.

We've been here 30 odd hours and we've:
- Had gelato. Twice! Favorite new exotic flavors = raspberry sage and cheese cherry. Rice and honey is just plain weird.
- Ate pizza from a shop on the street. Yum!
- Visited Vatican City. Sort of like a pillar age of sorts. Definitely a beautiful series of buildings, and wildly impressive.
- Walked to a few assorted big old buildings around the Vatican.
- Wandered down insanely picturesque back streets.
- Ate McDonald's. Capacinno milkshakes. For one euro! Yayyyyy!

Hopefully, there will be pictures with the next post.

Want to see more?

Yes, this blog is pretty dead. Apologies most sincere. However, if you want to hear about the wild and doubtlessly hilarious adventures of certain members of the compound, click the pretty picture down yonder.

camel ribs

This story starts of innocently enough.

It was a Special Day, and we were all celebrating by eating a meal not pre-prepared by Costco. There were ribs, and potatoes, and mixed vegetables from a big plastic bag. The ribs, however, were not the baby-back ribs we normally eat. They were huge, and The Pretty One asked, all innocently curious, what kind of ribs they were.

It's my brain's fault, because it is devious and mean and it thinks it's funny. I didn't even pause, just said, with a straight face and uninflected voice. "They're camel ribs. Duh."

At my side, The Smart One nodded. "Duh."

The Pretty One looked appropriately doubtful. "Don't lie to me," she said.

Again: It's my brain's fault. 

"No, look," I said. "Think about it. Have you ever seen a cow?" I held the rib I was munching on. "They're not shaped like this. At all."

The Pretty One still looked doubtful. I sighed, and presented her with my argument. 

And, obviously, the ribs we were eating looked more camel-shaped. 

Duh, The Pretty One. Seriously.

Everyone at the table nodded. Of course.

The matter was settled, until six months later, out to dinner with friends, The Pretty One turns to me and says, all accusation and dawning realization: "... We don't eat camel ribs, do we?"

broken hearts

The Funny One is pretty funny, in case you didn’t know or hadn’t realized. He’s funny when he means to be, but he also has a long-standing history of being hilarious on absolute accident.

Case in point:

Here on the compound, we have a thing for Vacation Bible Schools. This is a story for another time, but what is important in this case is that, every summer we endeavor to take advantage of as many free weeks of crafts/snacks/games/free t-shirt opportunities as possible.

One summer, The Funny One was told, by a well-meaning bible school volunteer, that Jesus lives in his heart. The Funny One was somewhere between two and three years old, and he was enthralled.

Cut to a few months later, when The Funny One and I are having some long-forgotten conversation. Now, I don’t remember what I said, don’t recall it being particularly mean or vicious or anything of the sort. All I remember is that I said something not-quite kind, and The Funny One burst in hysterical tears. Hysterical tears. I was shocked. And a little scared, because I knew I was about to be in major trouble for making the baby cry like he was dying.

He wouldn’t stop. He just got louder and louder and louder, and more and more distraught. Eventually, everyone on the compound was gathered round and asking, “Funny One! Funny One! What’s wrong? Are you ok? What’s wrong?”

He finally managed to force out: “MARIE BROKE MY HEART!”

This is when the giggles started. But, as a good familial unit, we kept from laughing out loud.

Her Highness told him that, honey, it’s ok. You’ll be fine. Deep breaths.

The Funny One just kept bawling. He said, “YOU DON’T UNDERSTAND!”

Again with the repressed giggles.

Her Highness asked, “What don’t we understand?”

The Funny One composed himself a little. He was teeny-tiny and super sad and we are all horrible people because once he started talking, we couldn’t stop laughing.

This is what he said:

“Marie broke my heart, and now Jesus is going to fall out and I am going to die.”

In case that wasn’t clear:

EDIT: It has come to my attention that I was mistaken about something very crucial to this story. The Funny One was not actually afraid Jesus falling out of his heart would result in death. No. He was terrified that the lack of Jesus would result in an inability to go to heaven. Which is much more traumatic, to a Bible School junkie of a toddler. 

adventures in crocheting: an epilogue

Photographic evidence that despite her initial shortcomings, The Pretty One is not a failure.

(I am.)

She is currently working on sock #2. Success is still questionable.

adventures in crocheting

As of approximately 7PM tonight, everyone on the compound is officially finished with the Fall 2011 semester!

In celebration, The Pretty One and I decided we were going to crochet, because we are old women like that. And since it is cold and rainy and disgustingly wintery here, it was obvious we should work on items of clothing that would contribute to our sincere efforts to not freeze to death. We found these knitted sock things and thought, Yes!

Looked easy enough, and we are prone to cockiness when we think we even have a basic grasp on the skills required to complete a task. This self-confidence is unfounded. As you will shortly realize. Below, witness each of our first attempts at making socks. Yes, they are hats. Of vastly different sizes. This was absolutely, embarrassingly unintentional. 

Some would consider this an epic failure.

We did.

Until we realized how perfect The Pretty One's hat was for....

Patootyism

Here on the compound, we really appreciate humor. 

We even (especially?) appreciate humor at the expense of others. Or ourselves. Or The Pretty One.

Every Sunday, we and The Bossy One's family eat at our local fake-Asian restaurant. There is always much gossiping, and occasionally there is also plotting. 

During the summer, The Pretty One, The Smart One, and I work at the pool teaching small and large children how best not to drown when near or in a pool. The Bossy One is our Boss. At the pools, there is a slight problem with romantical relationships and the inevitable drama that results. At the time of the conception of patootyism was born, The Pretty One was in the first tentative stages of such a possible relationship. Because the Compound inhabitants are horrible people, we found this hilarious and worthy of much teasing. 

Sidenote: The Pretty One is gullible. Very, very gullible.

And so, over chicken fried rice and crab wontons, The Doctor whispers to The Bossy One. 

"I have a plan."

The plan was patootyism. 

Patootyism is, as The Boss Lady and I told The Pretty One, like nepotism. Only not. Because it's just when people work together and are in a relationship. Which is a real concept, but patootyism is not a real word. In case you were not aware. 

The Pretty one bought it. She absolutely, unquestionably believed us. She got angry at our suggestion she was unprofessional, worried about how much to interact with her love interest at work, defensive to our teasing. She also told pretty much everyone else at our place of work to watch out for patootyism, because, as we had told her, it could get you fired. And lectured by the Big Boss Man. And fired.

The summer passed. Patootyism was used in daily, normal conversation. We even talked about it at inservice training. It became a real thing. Better yet? It stayed a real thing.

She only realized that we were lying liars who tell lies this week. 

The best part of all this?

There are fifteen kids walking around the world, right now, who wouldn't blink if you started a conversation with them about all the reasons patootyism is not a good idea. They would probably chime in with personal anecdotes. 

(We still love you.)