Slow and Steady

Ottobre 8, 2010

Friday. The end of another beautiful week. I finally did my laundry... now my room smells wonderful as it is filled with shirts and pants strewn about, as they finish drying. I was really lazy with abs and chest and did the two rapidly in about 14 minutes... just bicycles and pushups... lazy. What can I say. It's Friday. I was hoping on hope that today Enrico would follow through for me and I'd have internet by the end of the day. Alas, it is almost 2200 and there is no internet, nor do I think I will get it over the weekend. I'm beginning to think my book (which I finished today) is right, Roma doesn't run on time like the rest of the world. It runs on experiences. Romans don't worry about making ends meet, they enjoy the time putting the ends together, and spending time with family and friends. I like that. I admire that. I don't want that to change about Roma. I don't mind the inconvenience too much. I like walking around the city and seeing encounters slowed in time. If I got anything out of the book, it's that Romans enjoy life. They take it as it comes and get a great satisfaction out of living it. It is for this reason that when you are at a ristorante and you have finished eating, you have to ask the cameriere for your conto, bill. He will never bring you the bill until you ask for it because who is he to decide when you are finished enjoying the experience that is dining? Dining is more than just eating the infalliable chef's creations, more than just drinking red wine that chills your throat, and yet warms you from the inside. It's an experience all together. You know when the experience has run its full course. You and only you. Romans take life slow.

I, obviously, did some reading today and some laundry and some hanging out in the flat waiting for my laundry to finish. I finished 'The Devil Wears Prada', it was less predictable than I previously predicted... I liked it as a whole. I was hoping to go downstairs to check the routers but since Zia Paola was not home, I did not want to impose and so was unable to check. When Nic got home he had snack then we played with the marshmellow shooter my mom sent me (him). He really enjoys it... he's not very good at shooting (he doesn't breathe from the diaphragm) but he tries never the less. He was assaulting Shanti, Marco, (the cats) and me with the fluffy, white, slightly sticky sweets... However, I found that if I could keep him laughing he could not breathe in enough air to shoot at me... so we laughed for a good five minutes. Then I died. I was a lonely corpse, so he killed Shanti, Marco, then himself, so we could all talk to each other. When he shot himself, he turned the mouth piece around and fired. Point blank range at his chest, right below his throat. The marshmellow stuck, a sticky mark of death. He said he could bring us back to life though if he shot us with the marshmellow that had the spit of a living person on it... I told him I liked being dead. SO, he brought himself back to life. I was lonely once again. Then he had to change for tennis and athletics (one hour of athletics after school everyweek, Friday works best with his schedule). We read until Zia Poala called him down to go.

While Nic was gone, I went to a nearby clothing store that advertised some cheap clothes, my interest was peaked. I went in and looked at some things, the adverts were for a small selection of things, but I liked some things so I tried them on. A vest, a t-shirt, a couple sweaters, a button down shirt, all size small. They fit me ok, but I felt like I was going to rip them, so we went for medium. Much better, room to move around without hulking out is nice. I didn't get anything but the woman helping me was very nice and I saw some jackets that I may go back and look at later.

Nic had put a toy octopus that my mom sent in water so it could grow, 24 hours later, it is roughly twice the size it was and still growing... it's like our own experiment. Nic poked his eyes and they fell off, but we decided since he has eight arms, he doesn't need eyes too bad. For dinner Lavi and Marti came up, we had some fresh tagliatare al sugo (with red sauce) for our pasta and pulpete for il secondo. Nic LOVES my mom's homemade salsa picante, and Carmi (amazing house keeper downstairs) loved it too, she wanted to know all of what was in it, I couldn't really tell her everything since I don't remember all of it, but I remembered, tomatoes, rotel, pepper, and jalepenos. Nic and I had it on our pulpete. Zio Marco came up for a bit and brought me a birthday present, he apologized for it being late, but I was not worried about it in the least (after all, I did just get my family's gifts yesterday) it was a beautiful chestnut colored sweater that is so soft and nice. I graciously thanked him then finished eating dinner with my new sweater on. :) After dinner we watched the movie "9", the animated film that has small puppets running around in the post-apocolyptic world. It's not easy trying to describe what happened at the end to two nine year olds when you yourself can only guess at the meaning of the ending. However, I did my best.

*SPOILER*
I like to think that since the dolls were the last remaining souls of humanity, when they were released into the atomosphere and it began to rain, that was the world allowing humanity to begin again, when it was on hold throughout the disaster.
"It's our world, and it is what we make it."

As Nic was getting in bed, Marco (cat) was waiting to crawl under the covers, and he was trying to get all the covers organized. I said, "Are you ready for me to turn off the light?", "No." Seconds later. "Now are you ready?", "No, you go to fast, life is better slow." Words of wisdom from a 9 year old.

So now I lay me down to sleep.
I pray the Lord my soul to keep,
and if I should die before I wake (be natural causes or marshmellow snipers),
I pray the Lord my soul to take.

Love. Laugh. and Live...slowly.

:)