Bambi Bytes

I've been thinking lately about when Bambi's mother died.

I don't think I'm over it.

I mean, I remember where I was when I read about it and everything. I was
in the library of Harbor City Junior College with my older sister and some of
her friends. I was nine years old and sitting there at a wide, wooden desk
doing really well, quietly reading, acting like a big person instead of a dorky kid.

But, then it happened. They were out there in the meadow eating the new spring
grass when suddenly Bambi's mother says, "Run!" Bambi runs like mad and then
starts looking everywhere for his mother but can't find her. That's when The Old
Prince of The Forest shows up and says "Your Mother can't be with you anymore."

"Come...my son." said the stag.

WAAAH!

I let out a wail. My inner dam burst and everything within a three mile radius was
destroyed. Water was going everywhere. My sister and her friends were all washed
away down the hallway out the door, grappling with bobbing books, pencils and erasers.
The head librarian was shouting "Silence!" as she careened by, engulfed in the raging
torrent of my tears.

It was emotion at its most unstoppable.

Then, my sister was back, kicking me under the table, telling me to knock it off! She
and her friends were staring at me like I was some kind of fungus or something.

I buried my puffy, slobbery face in the book and continued sobbing. They may have
gotten their driver's licenses but they had obviously never read BAMBI!!

Okay. Fast forward 44 years and here I am still upset about Bambi's mother.

Her death was so sudden and unfair and rotten and sad.

Bambi stands alone at the top of the pinnacle of writing that affected me most
emotionally. And, I'm thinking it really screwed me up as a person because it
made me an anthropomorphic nutcase, the kind of weirdo who looks at
icanhascheezburger.com and thinks it's high humor.

I think Bambi should come with a warning message to all parents that their
children could potentially become mentally warped for life, and even in late
adulthood will still cry hysterically every time they see a dead squirrel on the
road, they will hate hunters and zoos, and in extreme cases they might even
join Greenpeace and start ramming Japanese whaling boats.

So, that's my tirade for today. Now I'm going to go contemplate the great
Thumperian philosophy of "If you can't say nothin' nice, don't say nothin' at all."

Dueling Parking

So the other day I'm loitering on some street of Rome. The Man is inside a
pizza-by-the-slice joint and it's packed with locals grabbing a bite for lunch.

I'm outside because I'm just getting over the worst flu on the planet and I've
decided that I will never eat another bite of food as long as I live.

So, I'm just standin' out there drinking a bottle of water trying not to smell
the pizza when I see this taxi pull up and start to do a "double parking-parallel
park" which is a common phenomenon that occurs because the regular parking
spaces were filled with cars...oh, in like the Pleistocene era, or something, so new
arrivals have to double park alongside the existing cars. It's sorta like layering.

Anyway, this taxi pulls up and starts to parallel park his car because he's hungry
and wants some pizza. This is important...and will probably be introduced as
evidence at the trial...but, I'm getting ahead of myself.

A Fact You Can Take To Your Grave: Romans CANNOT parallel park and that's
probably why they lost the empire!

I've stood and watched in amazement as Romans attempted to accomplish the
act of parallel parking many times. It is so embarrassing. It's like when you
happen to see your cat fall off the sofa and the cat looks at you with that hey-
I-meant-to-do-that look on it's face. Well, that's the way Romans are about
parallel parking. Only better.

For example, I recently watched this Roman woman pull up to a large, vacant
parking space. She pulled alongside it, pulled a bit forward and started to back in.
Everything looked so normal and was going so well. Her angle of approach was
actually pretty good, but then, I guess, she lost interest or fell into a coma or
something because she forgot to turn the wheel and ease into the spot. Instead,
she just plowed into the curb at a diagonal angle. Then, she pulled forward.
Then, she backed up and hit the curb. Then, she pulled forward. Then, she backed
up and hit the curb. Then, she pulled forward. Then, she backed up and hit the curb.
You get the picture? It just kept going on and on and on till you wanted to slap her.

I happen to be an award winning parallel parker. I can park a 6 foot car in a 5 foot
11 inch parking space IN ONE TRY! Not that I'm bragging or anything, but I'm
really good at it. It's an idiot savant thing.

Anyway, I'm watching this parking atrocity and I'm absolutely disgusted with this
woman. She seemed to think that if she just went back and forth enough times, the
Earth would go into some kind of a reverse continental shift and, like South America
settling back into the embrace of the western coast of Africa, her car would somehow
find it's way to the curb!

The Man heard me mutter, "My God Woman! Just park the damn thing!" He
restrained me from going over there, grabbing her by the throat, yanking her
out of the car and doing it myself!

Anyway, they can't park. Now, back to the present in front of the pizza joint:

I'm watching this guy and he's backing up. He's doing well, but then I observe
the other double-parallel parked car behind him. Then, I'm standing there...
on the sidewalk...alone...saying out loud...in English..."He's going to hit him! He's going
to hit him! He's going to hit him! He's going to..." BLAM!

He hit him, all right. You could hear the "crack" of the plastic front bumper on the
big, black BMW.

Now what's really odd, is that nothing happened immediately. It was very quiet
and no one moved. Time stood still.

Then, I saw that inside the black BMW, sitting right there behind the wheel, was
the BMW owner. He was just sitting there. He had his head back against the head
rest and he was just waiting...calmly.

The taxi driver finished his semblance of parking and exited his car. He walked back
to the BMW driver, who still hadn't moved, and started talking to him. The taxi driver
was lighthearted and seemed to be joking around and ended by saying "sta bene...spero."
It's fine...I hope. I liked that "I hope" part.

All the while, and I'm not kidding, the BMW driver does not say a word and does not
lift his head from the headrest. He's so cool. He just looks at the guy with a dead pan
face and makes a gesture that I cannot describe but which was so completely Italian
and which was like saying, "wha'." I mean, Robert Di Niro had nothing on this guy!

The end of the story is that the taxi driver goes into the pizza joint and gets his lunch,
but the guy in the BMW just sits there. HE NEVER GOT OUT OF HIS CAR TO LOOK
FOR THE MIGHTY CRACK THAT I'M SURE WAS THERE BECAUSE I HEARD IT
AND SO DID EVERYBODY ELSE WITHIN A THREE MILE RADIUS!

It was great. That guy in the BMW just sat there like he was the King of the Planet,
like he had a fleet of BMW's back at the castle, like he didn't have the time or energy
to deal with a taxi driving piece of riff raff who had just cracked his bumper.

I tried to imagine what would've happened if this had occurred in the U.S. There would
have been people and identification flying in every direction, driver's licenses, proofs of
insurance, police reports, birth certificates of the first born, whatever, threats, curses, etc.

It's a different world here, though.

But, here's a tip. If some Roman ever walks up to you, slaps you in the face with a
glove and challenges you to a duel, when he asks you your choice of weapon, just say,
"Parallel parking, my good Sir, parallel parking." Then watch his eyes go dead and the
beads of sweat start to form on his brow.

Ah Ha! You'll have won the duel before you started.

Birthday Boy

All you need is trust and a little bit of pixie dust!

Peter Pan (aka The Man) is celebrating his
65th birthday today.

Accordingly, after interminable weeks of rain
and gray skies, we in Never Never Land have
been blessed with the stunning arrival of spring
in all its glory, with brilliant blue warm skies,
singing birds and blooming flowers.

Turning 65 caused some slight discomfort for the
Boy in Green, but he shook it off in his inimitable style. After all, there are still more
dragons to slay, more pirates to capture, more poems to write, pictures to paint,
music to create. He's too busy to be mopey.

Plus, he gets Happy Birthday discounts from the government from now on every
time he enters a State museum because now he enters for FREE, which he did just
this morning right after breakfast when we went to test the system. He also purchased
a shiny new monthly bus pass for half price!

Peter Pan is flying high!

I'll teach you to ride on the wind's back, and away we go!

But, this is a meaningful birthday. It's like 18 or 21, but then they make you wait a
really long time for the next one, 65. And, it's difficult to experience one of the big
birthdays after having had so little practice after so many years.

But, he did fine. There was just a flutter of discomfort.

The Man has aced the aging process the way I slay pattern recognition skills on an
I.Q. test. He's really good at it. He has a way of growing along in years gracefully.
He is forever gentle and kind with everyone he meets. He spreads cheer whenever
he can. He remains inquisitive and interested. And, no physical ailment impairs his
willingness to experience another adventure.

It has been my life-altering, good fortune to have been along for the last thirty
years of the ride.

He is an example to follow. Too bad we can't dissect him and figure out exactly
how he ticks, because he's not like anyone else I've ever met.

Happy Birthday, Peter.
From the dumb-dumb Wendy-type girl you taught to fly.

So come with me, where dreams are born, and time is never planned.
Just think of happy things, and your heart will fly on wings, forever,
in Never Never Land!

The Patroness of Impossible Cases and Lost Causes

I come from a strictly Protestant upbringing. I have been baptized with a
sprinkling of water by the Presbyterians and fully immersed in a big tub
wearing a white flowing robe (yikes!) by the Baptists. I guess you could say
I been baptized up one side and down the other.

But, the Catholic influence has always lingered on the fringes of my life,
as in the following examples:

Oddly, we always ate fish on Fridays and no one knew why. My mother
would just go in there and prepare either oven baked fish sticks or tuna
casserole or clam chowder on those nights and we'd dig in all happy and
excited (especially on fish stick night!) not concerned at all about why we
were honoring a Catholic tradition.

I used to envy the Catholic girls who got to wear a blue plaid jumper, white
short-sleeved shirt and blue knee socks and loafers to school.

My brother got in trouble once for being caught wearing a St. Christopher
medal. All the surfers were wearing them at the time, but my mother said
he couldn't because "You're not a Catholic" and it got yanked.

I tried going to catechism. I was in the 5th grade and Mrs. Schuler made the
announcement that if anyone wanted to, they could get on a bus an hour before
school got out on Wednesdays and go over to St. Margaret Mary's Church to
take catechism classes.

This was in the olden days when schools had the money to hire a bus to take a
bunch of kids exactly THREE blocks down the street to some Catholic church but,
strangely as I think about it now, they didn't have the money to actually pick us
up near our homes in the morning and take us to school, which meant that we had
to walk about a hundred miles EACH WAY, EVERY DAY, which was one of the
reasons I decided to go to this Cata-clism thing. I wanted to ride in a school bus!
I was some kind of desperate kid, I guess.

Anyway, I started going and we all just sat on these wooden benches in a darkened
chapel listening to these nuns dressed in long black robes with starched white veils
covering their heads, telling us that if we learned our verses we'd get a multicolored
beanie, which I really wanted! It was a hat just like the one Beany wore in the Beany
and Cecil cartoon show only without the propeller on top.

It's amazing to me now that I was doing this without any
kind of parental permission slip. I finally got around to
telling my mom about it one day and her eyes got all buggy
and everything and she told me I couldn't go because "You're
not a Catholic!" So, I never got my beanie, which bothers me
to this very day.

Then, ultimately, I married a Catholic...well, a lapsed Catholic...as in not-since-
the-8th-grade Catholic. In fact, the only way you can tell that The Man was
once an altar boy and went to Catholic school is that he can diagram a sentence,
which fills me with awe.

Now, here I am living in the mecca of Catholicism, a city with over 900 Catholic
churches and seventy zillion nuns and priests running around.

Coincidence? I don't think so.

Somewhere there's a little Catholic child in me, and she wants her beanie.

And, in my wanderings through various churches, I've found just the Saint to help me.
Saint Rita. The Patroness of Impossible Cases and Lost Causes.

Saint Rita was pretty special. She grew up wanting to be a nun but her parents
said no you have to marry this disgusting guy we have all picked out for you.
Being an obedient daughter, she went through with the marriage and even had
two children with her abusive and all around rotten husband. She spent her
days praying for her man, but it didn't do any good and finally somebody just
stabbed him to death.

But, then she had to worry about her two sons who were into the "vendetta"
thing which is so totally Italian. She didn't want them to go and murder their
father's murderer and thereby relinquish eternal life in the good heaven. So,
Rita prayed that God would take her sons (as in to heaven, as in dying), thus
nipping their vendetta plans in the bud. Evidently, God heard her prayers and
both sons died within a year. Supposedly, they died of natural causes...yeah, right.
I think it was more like, "here you go, eat your mushrooms, boys!," but it was all
okay because they repented their sins before they departed.

Okay, now Rita is totally free as a bird. So, she goes and joins up with the nuns
like she wanted to do all along. The nuns take her in and you'd think she would
be happy with that and just settle down and learn to knit or something. But, no.
She wants to suffer more. So, she prays real hard and tells Jesus that she wants
to suffer like He did. Well, Jesus goes, "okay." And, the next thing you know, Rita
has a thorn stuck in her forehead. And, it's not just any thorn, it's a thorn from
the Crown of Thorns Jesus had to wear when he was crucified, and what was it
doing there sticking Saint Rita in the head I don't know!

So now Rita has this wound right in the middle of her forehead like a bad zit THAT
WON'T HEAL, no matter how much goop they put on it, AND it smells real bad.
But, Rita is in a state of bliss about it. She's just tickled pink and couldn't be happier.

Years later, after her death, they put her body in a glass coffin on display in a basilica
conveniently named after her. Her body has remained uncorrupted AND it changes
position every now and then, levitating on her feast day. Also, her eyes and mouth
seem to have a life of their own, opening and closing unaided.

And, that's not all. She's the patron saint of baseball.

Is this a far out world we live in, or what?

It Never Snows In Rome

Ants!

(WARNING: If you're a Myrmecophobiac, you don't want to
read this post or view the video link...especially the video link!)


Has everyone but me seen this film?

If so, WHY DIDN'T ANYONE TELL ME ABOUT IT!

The Man and I got rid of our television in 2001.
Ten years off the tube. We're like total mutants by now.

But, this Ants! movie makes me think that perhaps not all t.v.
is mindless, trance inducing, stupidhead-making horse manure.
I'm thinking maybe we should consider re-subscribing to the
national brain drain...or at least The Science Channel because
they did such a great job documenting the awesomeness of ants.

The music is creepy, the narration hypnotic, the cinematography
suspenseful, but in a nice way.

It makes both the scientists and the natural world seem bizarre
and scary and totally groovy...which, they actually are, I guess.

I especially like the little typed notations letting you know that the
ants are really okay and the crazy scientists didn't massacre a gazillion
of them to complete their experiment. Boy, I was relieved by that...
'Course I generally trust film makers, which is probably stupid.

This is only a segment of a multi-part series entitled: "Ants! Nature's
Secret Power," which you can access on YouTube and elsewhere online.

I'll tell you one thing, though. I'm gonna think twice the next time
I flick some pesky ant off my peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

Haiti

The destructive earthquake and resulting devastation in Haiti has left me feeling
such a heaviness of heart. To continue writing my frivolous blog without mentioning
it is wrong. Such a catastrophe deserves our attention, a pause, a deviation from the
normal preoccupation with trivial concerns. I want to take a moment to honor those
who have died and also the survivors who are enduring extreme hardship and sorrow.

Since the day Christopher Columbus landed, the people of Haiti have suffered. To read
the subsequent history is to read of mankind's greatest atrocities. The Haitians' despair
has continued almost unabated.

And, now this.

I really don't know if such conditions as "unfairness" and "undeserved" exist on a
cosmic level. But, this event exceeds both epithets.

With tears I watched the first video footage of the destruction, and with tears I
watched the world respond. Americans donating millions of dollars in cell phone
donations, concerned individuals struck by the need to do something to help...one
of the greatest things about Americans is their selfless and immediate willingness
to help those in need. I was appalled by those (thankfully few) particularly evil,
heartless pundits who advised Americans to do nothing, that somehow Haiti deserved
being obliterated. But, the people ignored the ravings of these dead-eyed haters,
effectively making them invisible and exposing their impotence.

Here, the Italians are also donating by cell phone, the British, too. Good for them.

My thoughts and prayers are with the people of Haiti and all the rescuers that have
arrived on the scene. They have a grim and seemingly insurmountable task ahead.
It must be impossible for them to feel optimism at this point.

I hope that the strong Haitian spirit will sustain the survivors through this disaster
and that their labors will result in a renaissance, a rebuilding not just of their cities
and towns, but of their rich and complex culture.

The Valkyries

I am writing to dispel the rumor that I live an idyllic life.

The fact is I don't know what I'm doing here in Rome.

However, I am absolutely certain that whatever it is I am doing, I am
missing the point of it all completely, and that on some future day I'm
going to be walking around Punkinville, Ohio and the reason for my
being in Rome is going to suddenly hit me, which will cause my head to wobble and tilt
and then fall off my body and roll down the street, and a giant red flag with "D'oh!"
written on it is going to then slowly rise up out of my neck and blow softly in the breeze.

But by then it will be too late. It will all be over. Finished. Finito!

This, THIS! is what's bothering me.

And, more importantly, I am making The Man's life a living hell with all my crabbing
and complaining about the cramped dark hovel we live in and the cold weather and
the stinky buses and the dog poop all over the cobblestones. And, no matter how true
all of the above may be, he is a nice person (part angel actually), and shouldn't have to
listen to the wailings and lamentations of a Nordic Valkyrie first thing in the morning.

Poor guy. Really. I mean it. Sometimes when I'm in the throes of complaining I just
have to stop because he looks so pitiful and I feel sorry for him that he has such a
witch for a wife and that someday he's going to realize that the pasta I make doesn't
make up for the fact that I am quite frequently Brunhilde on speed.

But, before you all go, "Oh, big waaah! She's in Rome and doesn't wike it! Oh, WAAAH!"
let me tell you that Rome is just another city on the planet. It's not that special, no
matter what all the past and present Emperors around here tell you!

The Eternal City consists of 6 million people, all of whom are pushing and shoving and
trying to parallel park their little cars into non-existent parking spaces, and all being
subjected to hideous economic pressures by their hideous-er government officials. It's
not paradise here...well...unless you're on a three day excursion in early spring or late fall,
at which time it is fairly paradisaical, I concede.

But, the point I'm trying to make is that I have a problem with Rome. It's like I was
killed by a Roman soldier in a previous life or something. Maybe I was crucified on
the Appian Way, or torn to shreds by wild beasts in the Colosseum while the crowd
roared and the Emperor gave me a big giant thumbs down! (Is that the Big Giant
I am waiting for? A thumb?!)

What else could possibly be the cause of all my discomfort and unrest?

Maybe this Sigmund Freud finger puppet can help.

Me: "Hi Doctor. Umm...well...last night I dreamed I gave birth to
myself and then at the end I said, 'Well, I guess I'd better name
me now.' So, do you think I have a problem?"

Freud: "Very interestink. You haven't been drinkink cheap
foreign wine have you?"

Me: "Red or white?"

Freud: "Eider one."


Me: "Not since last Thursday when I could've sworn
I saw Cerberus, the mythical three-headed dog who
guards the gates of hell outside our apartment window."

Freud: "Very goot! Stay off zee zauce."

Me: "Okay. Anything else? I mean it, Doc. I'm really
having a bad time! I'm not a happy camper!"

Freud: "Campink? Campink?! You tink dat life is ein
holiday?! You tink dat livink is ein vacation for kinder?
Ein PIK-NIK?!! You dummkopf! You make me zick!
You need to vork harder! You need to keep marchink!
Eins, zwei, drei! Eins, zwei, drei! Achtung! Guide right!"

That's when I ripped Sigmund Freud off my finger and threw him in the washing machine.

Then I put on my jacket and went to the nearest coffee bar for an espresso "doppio."
A double. I deserved it. I sat outside and listened to the happy Romans laughing with
their amici, gesturing wildly, embracing life and each other, taking the good and the bad,
rolling it all into a big ball of dough, flattening it out, sprinkling it with tomato sauce and
mozzerella and baking it for one minute in a wood oven, taking it out and eating it in
giant globbity gulps.

Now that's my kinda therapy!

Higher Ground

Living is so depressing.

I don't care what you say.
It is constantly, endlessly depressing.

You can try and fake it and even start thinking that you just need some medication
to make you feel better because YOU'RE the one with "this problem."

And so you get some drug or other from your local candyman-slash-doctor who is
in with big Pharma and after awhile you begin to think, "hey, the world isn't so bad,"
and then immediately the walls start to vibrate, gasses escape through the cracks,
and all animals with a lick of sense (like those blackbuck antelopes in India during
the 2004 Tsunami) head up to higher ground and you just
watch them galloping away, scratching your head, going wtf!,
and then, WHAM!, something hits you upside the head and
a whipped cream pie flies in your face and then there you
are lying on the pavement
alone...
except for the flies buzzing around the whipped cream
and the stampeding others who have made the realization
that "oh, hey, maybe the blackbucks had the right idea!"

But you just lay there going, "blink, blink" with your eyeballs,
knowing that no matter how innocent and nice you are and no matter how many times you say,
"I'm sorry," to people in the grocery store every time you push your cart between them and the
never-ending cans of Campbells Soup they're reading on the wall...

You are totally screwed!

It's like that Timothy Geiger-Counter guy. I mean who made him King of the World?
Here he is illustrating how he grabbed the financial balls of our
nation and squeezed them dry of every penny he and his pals
at Goldman's could get and, I don't care what you say, this guy
is up to no good. Now, I am only basing this opinion on photos
I've seen since I have NEVER seen this man on television or
heard him speak. But, like those antelopes in India, if it smells
like a duck...run!

If I were Obama I'd fire that sucker.


Which is exactly how I felt yesterday as I was rushing to hear the marching band playing
the Mickey Mouse song out in front of St. Peter's Basilica. I was with The Man and we
were on our way to get some reservations to take the underground Vatican tour, not
realizing that it was a holiday, The Feast of the Epiphany, so that St. Peter's was jammed
with people there to see the Pope and the parade.

Now, we've been living here during the winter for...oh...only five million years, and did we
know anything about this annual parade?

NO!

Which is so mysterious I'm sure Jacques Cousteau is going to rise from the dead just to
try and solve it.

Anyway, there we are stumbling head-on into this big-deal Catholic parade with medieval
peasants and Roman centurions on horseback (MIU's - Men In Uniforms! I mean we're
talking scarlet-plumed helmets and gold breast plates and everything!) and I start
videoing the worst parade video EVER made, all the while going "oh, oh, oh," and thinking
that The Man is right there behind me keeping up, because it's so obvious that I am in my
little-girl-going-to-the-Pasadena-Rose-Parade mode, all excited and giddy, overdosed on
hot chocolate with marshmallows in it.

But then I stop and look around and The Man is no where to be seen. He is not behind
me. He has disappeared. I want to keep filming the action, but I'm worried that he has
fallen into a manhole or been arrested for having criminally wild and unkempt hair (a sure
sign if there ever was one of a troublemaker).

But, then I see him. He's over there on the sidewalk, hunched over.

Is is sick?
Is he injured?
Is he having some kind of a fit?

No! He has stopped to TAKE OUT HIS PEN AND SCRAP OF PAPER TO WRITE
DOWN SOME COMMENTS FOR SOME POEM HE'S GOING TO WRITE!!!

This I found totally unacceptable and, had I been Obama, I would have fired him on the spot!

In conclusion, if you don't believe they played the Mickey Mouse song in front
of St. Peter's Basilica, then watch this!

The irony of this choice of song...
to a certain someone...
up there in his ivory tower...
in his ermine-collared robe...
with his Gucci red slippers...
must have been, on the biblical scale,...
totally depressing!

La Befana

Today is the Feast of the Epiphany,
otherwise known as La Befana.

Befana is a witch who brings toys
and candy to the good children
and a lump of coal to the bad children.

The Italians have finally brought to
a close their holiday season which all
began almost a month ago with the
Immaculate Conception, which occured
on the 8th of December.

Ever since, it's been holidays and "bridges" (those days between the holidays
that aren't worth going to work over because, "hey, tomorrow's another holiday!")

But, now, sadly, it's all over. Time to go back to work and school. Time for Italians
to grit their teeth and suffer until the next series of holidays begin.

Carnevale starts on February 6th! Good ol' Lent.

Anyway, we were out there today and here's a video clip of The Man to prove it.