??

How come in all movies and tv shows, whenever someone is missing a child and reports it to the police, the police are always total jackasses about it??? Like, they don't care at all and act like it's no big deal and tell the parents to chill out. Liiiiiiike. I'm no mother, but, if my kid was missing, I can only imagine that one has the ultimate right to be very very feared and concerned. DUH. Pretty much can't control or avoid that. But like, in Home Alone, they were total jackasses about checking on Kevin alone at the house and thought the mother was cray cray, in Double Double Toil in Trouble, when MK&A switch costumes with some other kids and are MIA, the police are like "Oh, go call their friends and come back to us". Um. Not okay. Maybe it's to create more drama/comedy in the show/movie, but I really hope thats not the case in real life. I am not exactly a fan of cops in ANY way, in fact, my experience with them has been that I kind of hate them, but, I know there are lots of decent ones out there and its kind of stupid/annoying that these films portray them as total a-holes. Even if sometimes I think they are A-holes. But still.

Flaming

I simply LOVE matches!!! And candles. But LIGHTING candles WITH the matches, I just love. I remember always being scared of lighting a match, it seemed very tricky, and sometimes it is. Often times, a simple strike on the match box won't give you that glorious flame. And then the match burns and burns til it gets really close to your fingers, and that was also always scary. BUT I LOVE THEM NOW. The scent of a burning match it ABSOLUTE bliss. And combined with whatever scented candle you choose, is THE BEST! And those cute little boxes they come in are wondddderful. Totally not a fan of those long "lighter" things, they seem so unnatural, and also, I'm kind of now scared of them. But matches, sweet, simple, old fashioned, glorious fire-burning-scented matches, I really will always love you.

Dolly

I really really REALLY love Dolly Parton. Everything about her, from her huge blonde poof like hair, her extraordinary voice and song writing talents and her unbelievable philanthropist ways and kind heart. She is truly an idol and THE ULTIMATE in everything I could ever want to be. Truly a good person. In fact, my last semester of college, I did this project on her in my music repertoire class and had to sing "I Will Always Love you." We had a lot of process with the songs and people we were studying, part of it, obviously establishing some kind of personal connection with the song. For some reason, I associated this song with my Dad.

Right now, my dad, is blasting random songs in our house. I just heard him holler "THIS ONE'ES FOR ANNIE!". And literally magically, on came Dolly's "I Will Always Love You." He never ever knew about this project I did on her or how he was anyway involved.


Now THAT'S MAGICAL!


Love you Dolly!!!!!

Dicipline.

Best part of my day:

Major meltdown of two small children b/c of hitting and fear of getting in trouble.

Father comes home as melt-down is occurring "Hey, what's going on down there?"

Me: "Oh, we had a bit of a hitting incident."

Father: "ok... I'll let you handle that."

Riiiiightoooooo....

Must be the Moon.

Some really, super strange coincidences have occurred in my life over these past 3 days.

Allow me to explain.

My mother showed me an article in the newspaper about a girl, who is the daughter of two people my dad used to work with. A family I have heard about a lot in my life. The girl was also very keen of my older brother when he was her camp counselor many years ago. I knew of this girl and her family, but hadn't thought of them in probably like 10 years.

THEN, the next day, my babysitting mother told me she went out to dinner with a friend of hers, and her husband, who was there, knows my dad- TURNS OUT, it's the dad of the girl in the article, who used to work with my dad for many years. He has a new wife now. But, whoa, talk about RANDOM. Two random incidences of hearing of this family again in 24 hours.

THEN, that same day she told me about going to dinner with them, I took my babysitting children to this little kids sports activity place for a class. The woman who worked there asked me if I was related to my sister, Maria, b/c, turns out, they both worked together at that same camp that my brother worked at with the girl in the article as a camper. I mean, WHOA. What a series of bizarre connections of people I haven't heard of in YEARS! All weirdly connected to so many degrees.

Also, my babysitting families this fall have been referring to me as "Annie The Nanny". Weirdly enough, although its an obvious rhyme, I have never heard nor thought of this title before. And NOW, as I sit and watch "True Blood", one of the characters, Andy Bellefleur in stuck in a walk-in-refrigerator with Sam, and tries to cheer him up by telling him a story and says "When I was a kid, I had a nanny. Her name was Annie. Annie the nanny." WHAAAAT!!!!!???

What impeccable and strange timing for this episode to come into my life.

Anyways, this is just some random thoughts, as my world gets smaller and smaller, and even though I KNOW it's a small world and everyone someone knows each other in some way, it never ceases to blow my mind when stuff like this happens.

I probably know my husband already but don't even know we are going to get married. I'll just allow for some strange small world bizarre life connection to take place to spiral it all into action.

TV accomplishment/obsession

I LOVE cool and rainy fall evenings, when you have a REALLY awesome show to watch that you are REALLY excited about watching. And you can get in your sweatpants and be all comfortable and warm and WATCH IT! On tonight's schedule: What else than TRUE BLOOD, SEASON 2 DISC 4. One more disc and I'll be done with season 2!!!! It TRULY feels like an accomplishment when I am this involved in a show, b/c I really do believe my attention span is severely and unusually short for that of a 24 year old. AH!!!!! My GOD I love it and I can't get enough of it. Hoyt, I'm in love with him. Actually, unconditionally in love. Maryanne, you haunt my dreams with your Hunter Souffles made of human hearts.

Ready, set, "I wannna dooo bad things with youuuuuuuuuu!"

The remains

Here are some final pics from my Roman Holiday, that were on my brothers computer. He finally sent them to me.

The non-filling Italian breakfast. YET, delightful. Chocolate "cornetto"and macchiato DOPPIO. DOUBLE.


Beauty


Halloween Adventure street "performer" man outside of castle who got mad at me for taking his picture. Gimme a break.


PIZZAAAAA All'americiana. Although the "bacon" that was on it, was purely fat. So, I had to pick it all off. Cheese was good though.



Climbed the castle Sant'Angelo. Views from the top!


All I wanted before I left, was to see an entire GUARDA man performance. Julia told me it was very rare for them to be on the side of the river that they live on, and they usually frequent the restaurants in Trestevere. HOWEVER, lo and BEHOLD, as we dined my final Roman dinner, HE APPEARED!!!! And the restaurant did not shoo him away. And to my DELIGHT, I saw and THOROUGHLY enjoyed the entire magic act, specifically when he took his wig off at the end and acted like it was magic. BRAVO!!!!! I gave him a hefty tip.


The next morn, we walked to a bus station, took a bus to where Jimmy parks his car, and he drove me to the airport, where I said goodbye to me dear sweet Roma. Without a doubt, returning in the near future!

Arrrriiiiiivvvveeederccciiiii!!!! :-)