Snowcaps and Raisinets

"Sometimes living out your dreams ain't as easy as it seems. You want to fly around the world in a beautiful balloon".

Dreams are important, moments are even more important.
I just finished making caramel apples with Sofia and thought about my Mom and how much she LOVES caramel apples.

Rocky was on tv last week. I watched it with Jordan and Sofia, who fell asleep. But Jordan lasted until the end when Rocky beat the Russians. Your typical USA moment. I saw every single Rocky movie with my Dad and Niki.

USA moments are a collection of sensations that begins with the Pledge of Allegiance, continues with fireworks on the Fourth of July and permeates throughout our culture in such a way that these sensations form our collective spine.

WE are not Generation X...we are Generation Rocky.

Give us an obstacle to overcome and we will find the angle to make it work.

Sometimes you need to live another culture, another mentality to appreciate what it means to belong to your own. Sometimes you need to experience the insecurity of teenage years, free your mind at the University, work for a demanding boss, blow bubbles in Mommy and Me classes and give your child a voice before you find you. Sometimes the transformation comes about in the process of raising your child's voice.

Family moments..I'm learning that families come in many shapes and sizes, and that mine wasn't/isn't so bad.

Pearls...

"Each choice is only an appearance of such. Each relationship has already been pre-determined. Each event occurs in the way and for the purpose for which it was planned...this is destiny!" - An eighteen year old future medical school student.

So what about all of the suffering in between?

*Enriching material used to help us grow so that we may make it through the next phase of desperation*

Today, a woman, who would like to call herself my friend said to me, "You are thirty-eight years old with two children, one of which has a disability...who's gonna want you?" Ouch.

Hmm. What if I don't want to be wanted and I'm happy being the Independent mother of two children full of abilities and life? What if there are more important things at certain times of your life than relationships with men?

A year ago, I was driving down the street in my own lane, when a man driving a motor-scooter took a curve on the wide side and slammed into the side of my car. I was impotent...couldn't do anything- just watched as he hit me. Sometimes, in life we have limited choices whether on the road or in a relationship, but as long as I have the power to choose...

I choose-

- To read my book on the train. So surreal the situation I saw earlier today: The train stopped and a grandma with a really bad dark dye job got on, slammed down the window and began waving to her grandkids who were waving back. The thing was, I couldn't see the grandkids, but I knew it was grandkids she was waving to by the intensity of her wave, the smile on her face and the excited, yet sad look in her eyes- as if she were trying to mix up the sweet with the bitterness of saying goodbye. That woman kept pounding that wave until her hand worked no longer. Then, she sat down. Her grandkids will always have the memory of saying goodbye to their grandmother as she heads off by train, and I will have a memory of their memory- like watching a film only it's live by train.

- To combat surrealism by buying a pair of new boots to keep me grounded *smile*

- To write to share what I'm living so that it will help the next.

- To call myself Independent instead of Single, because Single sounds like a hit record and not a woman who lives...which brings me to the last of the list:

-Life

...and to give it up to destiny.

P......S.....

Stop... and Smell the Sunflowers

Tomorrow is the first day of my next life.
When people start over they carry baggage and that baggage weighs them down. They become bitter, angry, resentful and all of these sentiments prevent them from trusting again. They walk in fear.

*FTS*

Is it easy to start over? Hell no.
But it's raining here in Tuscany, and I've got my sunglasses on.

Lipgloss, Thongs and a French with Polka Dots

Life requires adaptation. Luckily, the materialistic world we live in, offers a vast variety of tools to facilitate this adaptation. I received an email the other day from a website called "Stages of Life". Couldn't have come at a more appropriate moment.

During any given day, we may be mothers, waitresses, teachers, dishwashers, washing machines, chauffers, happy prostitutes, doctors, philosophers and execs. We may also be the little girl who joins Susan Boyle's fan club on facebook and cries when a 12 year old belts out a Michael Jackson song.

Britain's Got Talent week 2: Shaheen Jafargholi
Caricato da buzznews101

Bills, death, taxes, traffic, rain, stress...all of these contribute to harnessing a free soul, unless you adapt, accept and move on.

How does one go about such adaptation in moments of stress?:
Phase one: Thong
Phase Two: Apply Lipgloss
Phase Three: French manicure with Polka Dots
Phase Four: Learn to know yourself and love yourself.

Evolution of a Life...Mine

One year and a half ago, my life consisted in this:
1. Wake up, dress children, scream for twenty minutes insisting on the tedious brushing of the teeth, cereal and milk them and send them on their way;
2. Cappuccino with Sonia and a cigarette;
3. Arrive at the pre-school, Mary Poppins bag slung over shoulder, two hours of singing and dancing the Hokey Pokey;
4. Run home to prepare pasta;
5. Sprawl out on sofa to watch the Bold and the Beautiful in Italian, while eating ice-cream with a spoon out of the container;
6. Begin afternoon lessons with frustrated Italian students, share my worldly experiences with them to assist them in the development of some sort of larger view of life and assist them in chewing the English Tongue;
7. Prepare dinner, something inedible, obviously;
8. Scream at children to take showers and yell at husband for some reason or another;
9. Lay down next to husband to watch television program of the day...hopefully Gray's Anatomy, House, Lost or Medium;
10. At the end of the program, I look at husband, he looks at me. Sex.

Routine. Again and again and again and again and again...day after day after day after day after day.
B
O
R
I
N
G
.

I have been complaining about being in limbo for the past six months, but I prefer the limbo condition to the routine. I haven't watched a television program in nine months, I've been on the computer writing, meeting people, helping people, finding my way. I have cried, suffered, laughed, danced, learned and finally begun reading during this period. Reading. I never had time to take a freaking shower. That's okay, it's part of raising children. But now, after ten years of dedicating myself 100% to my kids and family, I take a thirty minute shower, feel that water running over my naked body and have found a little bit of peace.

Shit.

I have decided to hang up the Mary Poppins bag and concentrate on doing something I like that will help other people and their children. (Note: I haven't started getting paid for this endeavor so feel free to start clicking on my google ads *smile*) I am determined to become a parent advocate for Newborn Hearing Screening in Tuscany.

I have plans. And another thing, I'm moving forward on my second book...been procrastinating too long.

I can't be a good wife, mother or daughter if I am not a good Jodi.

I have lived as a reflection of those who surround me. Sick of that.

Schopenhauer's Porcupines
A group of porcupines, on a cold day, huddle closely together to protect themselves with their body heat. In the beginning they feel good, but after a little bit of time they start to feel the spines of the others, so they have to back away to avoid the pain. Then that need for heat causes them to huddle closer once again, only to separate again because of those spines. In this way the porcupines are continuously pushed back and forth between two evils.

The defects, habits, behaviors and needs of others are the spines, everyone has his or her infamous baggage. Some porcupines, however, are able to produce a great deal of internal heating. These are able to find just the right distance from the others even to the point of remaining alone.

I don't want to need the heat of another person, I would like to generate my own.

Any idea what's on tv tonight?
I
have
no
clue.

Nothin' Sweet About Me...Today

There is nothing worse than being in a pissy mood when you aren't pms or raggin' it, when everything in your life is starting to come together, when your kids are healthy, thriving, playing and learning. I can't exactly identify the source of my mood, I'm just feeling restless. I've been reading a book in Italian, maybe that's the source of my agony. My friend Rosy handed it off to me, told me to read it, that I might find it interesting.

What is interesting is that I've managed to find the time to read. God, I used to devour a book a day, reading by nightlight until I finished it, determined to get to that last page. Don't quite know how it happened, but suddenly, taking a shower became a luxury.

Since my little thirty-something crisis began, I've managed to calm down quite a bit and I'm finding a new road that needs traveling, one that I am determined to travel. So anyway, I'm reading this book by a guy named Fabio Volo (really funny parts...talks often about how and why men spend SO MUCH TIME IN THE BATHROOM - Note: I have removed all magazines from the bathrooms and I'm seriously considering adding a timer, as well. Things are really bad, because even Jordan at twelve has increased his potty time to about twenty minutes a movement)called "Un Posto Nel Mondo" - A Place in the World. I am still freaking trying to find mine. Anyway, one of the parts that smacked me upside the head was this:
Porta itineris dicitur longissima esse (latin): "The door is the longest part of the journey" meaning the first step is the most difficult to take. I've actually managed to get my hand on the doorknob, turn it and take a peek. So far, so good.

My world is a much better place when it's upside down...been lookin' at things right-side up for far too long.

Cleanin' House!

Oh God! I am in the middle of cleaning my hole of a house that I haven't laid a finger on in about four weeks, I have more important things to do *smile*. Crying now, though. I found out my daughter is a thief, she hides all of Jordan's toys under her bed in a little corner - drives him crazy. Working on sucking up all of the tumbleweed, even cleaned the toilets and dropped a freaking pack of razors in the toiletbowl which of course hadn't been flushed by my annoyingly lazy son. Cazzo! Luckily I had on the rubber gloves and kept right on trucking. TOYS, TOYS, TOYS everywhere, if I see it, I boot it. I am so sick of little toys in every crevice of this house! And Sofia, she has this obsession with flyers, cards, any little annoying piece of paper that can be collected and thrown around the house. I am like the vacuum cleaner, I suck up anything in my path, suck and chuck, suck and chuck. I must reach the tiled floors! I must!
I will admit that I'm having fun trying to get my life back in order. I have been jamming to the rap lineup on the iPod and have closed off all forms of communication with family members, because when I clean, get out of my face. Doesn't it figure that just when you're through scrubbing the toilets, someone has to go to the bathroom? Whoa! Hit the jackpot, found the last pack of unopened Oreos that couldn't possibly be older than five weeks, because that's when I discovered them at the SMA.(supermarket)Can't even begin to tell you the sensation of finding a box of Oreos here in Grosseto and considering I've been eating bananas, yogurt and salad with grilled chicken for the past nine weeks, finding these was beyond!
I love Scrabble, but it is kind of difficult to play Scrabble in English with an Italian Scrabble edition, letters are missing. There are no js,ks,ys, xs and that is just so wrong. The good news is that my students rocked and started using vowel teams, blends, prefixes and suffixes to build words, the bad news is that I had to allow for "shit" and "bitch" to be used...that was Perla.(Pearl) She's the one I've been teaching the longest aside from Colonel Franco the grammar stallion. I am her psychologist...poor Perla:) She is one very intelligent and alert 14 year old, who I have accompanied through all of the stages of her life and now, she has a motor scooter. Now, that is scary! Consider that she is 14, in her first year of high school and half of her class has already had sex. So much for the crucifixes hanging in the classrooms. I will admit that there is not much to do in Grosseto, but this is a huge problem here...that parents ignore. Thank God my first child is a boy and not a girl. I WILL be moving back to the States before Sofia hits high school.
Then, there is the most adorable twelve year old, Erica, who broke my son's heart...gently. She's in love with this boy in her class, a guitar player - of course- with long hair, and she had a birthday party to go to after our lesson. Soooo, we spent the last five minutes doing a power makeover...whipped out the flat iron, glitter, black eye-liner, mascara and lip-gloss! Note: half of the stuff was Sofia's - she is, after all, a princess in training! My daughter will not be allowed to wear make-up until she's twenty *smile*

Now, I will add one other thing. There is a mother in this town who is way worse than I am, I learned this yesterday with my 16 year olds. We were having some converrrrsation and I asked them to discuss the worst thing their mother has ever done to make them angry. One girl replied that her mom tried to send a guy a message as if it were from her, the message failed but was left on her cell phone accidentally. She never confronted her mom. Can you imagine the nerve of that woman??? I would NEVER do anything so behind-the-back and dishonest as respond on behalf of my child...hell,yes, I would.
Paotie...It's hot that you're learning Italian for lil' ole me, and I am not surprised you were called "maiale."
Ridor...your visit was not sexy, nor was your comment.
Gioia...if you are reading this, you did not listen to your teacher.
Paula...we seem to have some esp thing going on, now we blog at the same time about the same things...that's scary shit.
Rachel...you never cease to amaze me!
Val...DO NOT WAIT FOR YOUR BIRTHDAY...ORDER THE UNHEARD NOW.(screaming) Every single hearing parent of a deaf child should read what Josh Swiller so eloquently has to say, and I've only read about fifty pages so far. Really amazing.
Next project...my car! *moan, groan and falllippppin' on the iPod*