I Have Pretty Much The Best Day Ever

When I picked up the coming mother and sister from Fiumincino airport on Friday, they had been traveling for twelve hours, from noon on Thursday to seven on Friday; no, this wasn't a LOST-typical exercise in time travel, but simply an exchange of zones. To them, it was past bedtime. To me, it was a little before the alarm to get up.

I took them back to the apartment I had rented for the express purpose of housing all the Roman Trumbos, and they immediately fell asleep. So much for seeing my mother.

That Friday was a wish wash, a throwaway day given to the demands of jet lag. The pretty much best day ever came Saturday.

Best shopping, best dinner, best television show in the history of the earth, and I don't mean the planet, but the substance, as in, as long as there has been dirt, LOST has been the absolute pinnacle of entertainment.

Shopping: I took them to H&M, and allotted them several hours of wandering. I have to say, I am incredibly indebted to H&M, for it has given me a new identity. I often think about how accessible identities are here: I just went to the mall and chose a store. I can only hope that when I come back to Fayetteville, my friends will recognize me not wearing sweatpants.

Dinner: The best restaurant I have found yet is Ai Spaghettari; they claim to be founded since 1896, but I say even longer. Their food is timeless, although I suppose it gets cold after being left untouched for a stretch. We had the finest meats and cheeses, or rather bread and pasta, due to the heavy emphasis that the Italians put on carbohydrates. My mother called it carb loading. Apparently, the way I eat nightly is the same way to prepare for a marathon, so tomorrow, I might go running.

Television Show: LOST. See previous post.

Living in Rome is more than most people can ask, but having my mother and sister here fills a social and emotional void - but those are big words that I use very carelessly. Many times I wish I had someone to share all the old things with, and this visit gives me someone to share them with. Two people, neon southern ladies who stand out, especially in a city where everyone wears black and I try my best to blend in. There's something serene and exotic about being in a place where no one knows your name, but having at least one or two who do makes that place more enjoyable.

And quick kudos to my father, who, though not here, has made his presence felt, albeit unintentionally: he has paid for all clothes and meals, and has provided most of the conversation, which revolves around his character quirks and Dickensian defining quotes. The founder of the feast indeed! as Miss Piggy said.

I Change My Pants Again

I am preparing for the coming mother, who will arrive, alongside the coming sister, Friday, February 29th. This, as you might deduce, deuces take it, only happens every four years, though four years ago I wasn't in Europe. They just came to pick me up from school.

February 29th not only marks the leap of every four years and serves as a marker for the Olympics (triumphal return of Carly Patterson?), but it also signals the halfway point of my studies. I have been in Rome for two months, and Friday for me will be a sort of winter solstice, where I'm halfway sad seeing the snow slip through an hourglass, and halfway glad to see the spring, halfway to Christmas. So on the morn of the European Solstice, I'll meet my mom and sister at the airport and start a slow pace on the down hill slope.

Halfway, though, begs some pause (and my mother demands cleanliness), so I took an inventory of my room. The lightbulbs in the overhead light above the bed burnt out four weeks ago. When that happened, I stopped working in my room after dark and used the bathroom light for emergencies. That needs to change. The trash in my room has been filling an old box for two months now; I was hoping that if I piled trash heavy enough into such a box, time and natural pressure might turn out coal, or at least something the consistency of a peat bog. Nothing doing. That needs to change. I did laundry back in January, but I'll be darned if there aren't just as many clothes on the floor now as there were prior to the last winter washing. That needs to change.

I ran out of toilet paper two weeks ago, and for a week scavenged from local restaurants. However, I recently pony'd up and bought a brand new six pack. My mother will be so proud.

After the exhaustive inquiry, I decided that the only things I could immediately change were the clothes that I had on. So I exchanged my current jeans with the ones that I wore my first month here (and that I washed, by golly, until they smelled real nice) and changed socks. I'll have you know that right before I left, Ryan the Southern Gentleman, a very good friend of mine, gave me a three-pack package of socks, which, he claimed, required no washing, even after multiple days of wear. He's a man after my own heart.

Having picked out (and put on) the clothes that I'll wear to the airport on Friday, I decided something had to be done about the state of my apartment. So I went out and rented another apartment for my mother, sister, and I to live in for their week visit. That's a lot easier than cleaning up.

I Cook?

As you've probably read, or divined, because to divine this secret you do not need the stars, or even a solid knowledge of me, I do not cook. The girls I live with cook, and I do the dishes and handle directions. Symbiotic.

A week or so ago, however, I was feeling rather can-do, so I went to the store, and bought everything I thought would be needed to bring about a steaming bowl of pasta. Everything that I thought, which was everything that I bought, turned out to be a stick of butter and a bag of noodles. I took these home and set up shop in our airplane bathroom of a kitchen, eager to prove myself. It occurred to me that plain jane pasta wasn't good enough for a first try, so after rummaging around a bit, I pulled together some other ingredients we had stowed for rainy and/or hungry days. My recipe was as follows:

1) Boil the pasta.

2) Put this much butter in a pan, followed by that much oil.

3) Followed by a handful of uncoothly colored mushrooms and tomatoes.

4) Sprinkle salt and mystery spice like a fairy.

5) Go read a book.

Not only did that concoction turn out to be edible, but I didn't start a grease fire, either. And if you say, I would like to try some of this so-called Cass Pasta, it's impossible. I wasn't even eyeballing amounts of ingredients. I cut the stick of butter with my eyes shut.

In the days following, I graduated to sausages, which, left unchecked, will blow a gasket and spurt meat juice like a geyser (not a geezer; this sausage had much more spit power). Nothing creates a false sense of impending doom like a single stream of flying grease.

Next week, anticipating the arrival of my mother and sister (they will come to Rome for the first week in March), I am pushing up my sleeves in preparation to make alfredo sauce from scratch. Virginia the Architecture Student recited the recipe to me; I recently went over the notes from that conversation and found my transcription lacking.

You too want to make alfredo sauce from scratch? Here's the recipe I wrote down:

1) Butter

2) Flour then milk

3) Parmesan (?)

4) Garlic and pepper

There's a surprising lack of numbers, but my favorite detail is the punctuation: whether it was that I did not know if it were parmesan or not, or if I thought parmesan was a questionable cheese choice, I do not know. I'll give you an update afterwards.