Tuesday, May 20, 2014

"Vorrei un bicchiere di vino rosso" and other random stuff

Menu of the Day: 
My stack of books in the living room. 

In my glass: French roast coffee

Music: Natalie Merchant Pandora One radio (I purchased the Pandora One upgrade for $4 a month and i highly recommend it! (We have our iMac hooked up to play through our living room sound system. I rarely play cds anymore.)

Songs I've jotted down while listening to Pandora: "Feel Alright" by Steve Earle; "When the Roses Bloom Again" by Jeff Tweedy; "Things We Left Behind" by Paul Thorp.

What's Challenging me this week: I have to learn some Italian. So I'm going to learn two sentences without looking at a book and i'm going to pronounce them perfectly. The first one: "Vorrei un bicchiere di vino rosso".
The second one: "Vorrei un altro bicchiere di vino."

(I bet y'all don't need to know Italian to know what it means!)

Am I the only one who didn't know what this means? Brian and i were coming back from his conference in Everett last week and it occurred to me that i didn't know what HOV means when referring to the interstate lane. Do y'all know? We racked our brain for about 5 miles until i Googled it on his phone. (I'll add it at the bottom.)

What also occurs to me while on the subject:  Babies should not be allowed to count as a passenger while driving in the HOV lanes. But it is legal! (I know because i Googled it.) Babies don't drive!

Best Book lately: I love this Anna Quindlen book called "Still Life with Bread Crumbs". I kept picking it up and putting it back down in part because the title was dumb i thought. But i just finished it within 24 hours and highly recommend it.
My favorite book this month!

Quotes from "Still life with Bread Crumbs" that i wrote down: (I have a beautiful journal that Sarah/louie gave me in 1996 for my birthday and i use it only to write down passages from books i've read.)  2 quotes from this book in my journal:

"It's a funny thing, hope. It's not like love, or fear, or hate. It's a feeling you don't really know you had until it's gone."
"People froze you in place, Rebecca sometimes thought, trudging through the woods. More important, you froze yourself, often into a person in whom you truly had no  interest."
Really great wine I want to remember: We had this at Anthony's Home Port while celebrating my birthday. It's Thurston Wolffe PGV (pinto grigio viognier).

Product endorsement: This is a Bose bluetooth speaker and it has THE most amazing sound! Brian bought it for me and i can hook it up to my iPad and play Pandora and it sounds as nice as our inside Bose speaker system. It replaces my cute little Jam bluetooth.

Obnoxious bumper sticker this week:  (I think I'm going to start making this a regular feature of the Menu.) I was behind a car the other day and the sticker said "My son wears combat boots, what does YOURs do?" I don't like the tone of that sticker, as if my son (the one i don't have) might be a slacker, a rapist, a drug addict or whatever. (Don't you think that is the intent?) If someone asked me that question in real life i would be inclined to lie: "My son is in Nigeria right now doing what he can to rescue those kidnapped girls."

Someday remind me to tell you  the story when i lied to a snooty pair of doctors at a wedding by telling them i was a roofer. It was great. I hardly ever think quickly on my feet but that day i did. (Fueled by chardonnay, I'm sure.) 

OK, HOV means: 'high occupancy vehicle'. (I bet y'all did know that and i'm just clueless!) 

OK, come add your own obnoxious bumper sticker, book, and product! 

17 comments:

jojo cucina cucina said...

oops, i went over my 500 word count limit that i'm trying to stick to. Oh well. It's my blog and since i didn't use my full count the last two blog posts i can do that.

BTW, Amanda i just wrote you congratulations on your new job on the last post!

jojo cucina cucina said...

I did find one drawback to rearranging my blog. I have to go in and reformat some of my text on old posts because the words no longer show up. But i like this dark background so i'm keeping it.

jojo cucina cucina said...

Not that anyone is reading old blog posts. But sometimes i do!

Anonymous said...

that is a very obnoxious bumper sticker. and i find bumper stickers obnoxious in general. why do people feel the need to share so much information and be so judgmental, be it on their cars, on facebook, or wherever?

love your menu and i'm so excited for your trip to italy!

i agree that babies shouldn't count toward HOV (and the first time I saw it I didn't know what it meant either).

one of these days i need to get a new ipod and wireless speakers. i am musically handicapped at the moment. when i am home, though, I like to listen to music choice on cable.

right now i'm reading the soldiers wife by margaret leroy. good read!

equeyaya

Amanda said...

I hate to be the one to point out the extremely high rates of sexual assault in the military, but there's a fairly decent chance that the owner of that bumper sticker may be a rapist. And a murderer. Or, maybe he's just stuck in 1993 and wears combat boots as a fashion statement.

I hate that bumper sticker.

I'm not anti-bumper sticker, however. I've always wanted to get one I found online: You can't buy love, but you can buy prunes.

Thanks about the new job. I am dreading the move, but happy to get my doctors back. (That's how I know how old I am. I'm happy to get my doctors back. Yes, plural. And my dentist!)

jojo cucina cucina said...

This is GREAT! I go for a run and come back and find both equeyaya AND Amanda here! I love it! AND i love that y'all agree with me on the mother's bumper sticker too. And Amanda i agree i was actually going to add that it is more likely her son could be at the least, a sexual harrasser, but of course that is not the case with many, but as a military brat i can assure you that when i was 15 i had my share of it from my dad's younger military GIs who used to hang around our house.

"That's how I know how old I am. I'm happy to get my doctors back." hahahaha Amanda!

P.S. Did you read my FAcebook post recently quoting the Police Blotter's stories ? Brian and i both commented on how we feel YOU could be writing that blotter because it sounds like your voice! (I love that part of the paper.)

jojo cucina cucina said...

I swear i am not trying to up my comments number when i post back to back. What happens on my iPad is i hit a place where i can paste or cut and i can't get my cursor back unless i hit publish and start another comment.

i was going to add two things: eque, you should really look into Pandora One and that bluetooth. I think you would love it. It sounds amazing! And you could hook it up with your phone and have great sound.

i would like to welcome my friend and fellow bookworm, Bethany who i hope will start posting here. She and i connect through the union job and we read the same kind of books. She's very funny on Facebook and we are exchanging blog links. Hey Bethany!

B said...

Hi Jo! Great blog! I will catch up on older posts.

I think HOV lanes are meant for two people who could otherwise drive separately but choose to drive together. Someone under 16 = can't drive, NOT a carpool.

I love blogging. I have since 2007. No one really reads my blog anymore. That's okay. I do it for me and not for anyone else. But I sure do enjoy reading other people's blogs. :)

jojo cucina cucina said...

Bethany, this is you right? I've been blogging since 2009. It used to get LOTS of comments with interaction back and forth. Somewhere on here is a fabulous and funny grammar post that went on and on with my friends louie and pearl (who actually do still post here) ..and then Facebook and smart phones came along and sort of killed it. I understand it. It's not easy posting comments from a smart phone or a kindle.

It should TOTALLY be against the law for babies to be considered a passenger for HOV lanes. Babies are no different than those blow up dolls when it comes to driving.

jojo cucina cucina said...

Bethany i tried to post on what i think is your blog by clicking on your photo. However the proving you are not a robot is a weird thing. It's not even about typing in the squiggly words. So i couldn't do it. Here is what i was writing to you:
This is your blog Bethany?

I feel exactly the same way about religion. I too was raised Catholic and went to Catechism and was confirmed and all that.

There is an amazing book about growing up Catholic. It's a memoir called Chasing Grace. Have you read it? if not i'll bring it to you. It's hilarious.

pearl said...

That bumper sticker doesn't bug me as much as the anti-military comments that followed.

Favorite product right now is my Bose noise cancelling headphones.

pearl said...

And most recent book is actually 3 - the Divergent series (Divergent, Insurgent and Allegent. Liked them better than Hunger Games. Just bought Rick Springfield's (yes...THAT Rick Springfield) latest.

louielouie said...

All I learned to say was:
"dov'è il bagno" -we never had any trouble with restrooms, but did carry tissue.
"grazie" - always thank shop owners when you leave
"prego" - after some says grazie to you and
"il conto" - so I could pay for the vino or birra.

those may not be exactly right, but they all worked. I think the most important thing is to be pleasant. We did a lot of pointing at items on menus (folks in many, many restaurants spoke English). We also ate delicious dishes we didn't order on purpose or know what they were. All part of the adventure.

Bring a handy, sturdy water bottle. You will drink a lot of water. Rome (and other citied) has fabulous water fountains.

Take the train. Go to Rome and spend one night.

Go to Rome!

louielouie said...

Mostly I find bumper stickers amusing although there are some offensive ones too.

I just figure there is some IQ/bumper sticker ratio in play.

The stick figure families bug me.

jojo cucina cucina said...

Sarah, Irene from my office, even though she speaks with a British accent speaks fluent Italian because that was her first language. She was over on Friday helping us with phrases and told us all of the ones you just mentioned.

i don't think i will be going to Rome. I'm not a big city person, i want to go to the small villages. We Googled mapped Cortona and cyber walked through many of the little streets and it really has me even more excited!

P.S. I HATE those stick figure family decals too. I also hate the large In Memoriam stuff on the rear windows. And i really cannot stand that peeing little brat boy cartoon.

louielouie said...

I told both my kids that even if they die tragically or tragically young, I will NOT put an In Memoriam decal on my car.

I love them like crazy and would grieve tremendously, but no window stickers.

I am ashamed to admit, I have been tempted to take them off other people's cars.

jojo cucina cucina said...

hahahahaha.... Sarah, that is funny.

We are signing our wills (FINALLY!) on Thursday. My brother Scott is my representative and who will be responsible for pulling the plug for me.

He is in charge of dispersing all of our inside possessions of our home. (The condo itself is willed fully to Kylee.) Do you want me to have him save the Glass blower's Christmas Snowmen Sarah? hahahaha......I can do separate gift lists that he keeps with the will.

(I would will you my leftover wine, but we usually don't ever have any!)