Been gone for a while. 

Awesome things are happening. 

I make no apologies :)  

Catch you again soon, I hope.

Due espressi, per favore

NOTE: I’m going back in time to share with you stories that make me…inexplicably and uniquely me!  Because Sometimes I Forget I’m Awesome.

I don’t speak Italian.

But I know when I’m being cursed out in Italian. By a man of the cloth.

I also know I may be wanted by Italian authorities on suspicion of theft and/or child endangerment*. 

 

But let’s start at the beginning. 

A few (very long) years ago I was a middle school Algebra teacher. (I know, was I crazy?!) And because apparently I hadn’t lost all my sense yet, I decided to join a group of these middle-schoolers on a trip to Italy & Greece. Um, yeah, crazy nutso! 

We stayed at this lovely hotel: Villa Altieri just outside of Rome. 

Don’t let the exterior fool you. It does not look like a prison on the inside, I promise.

It really was a lovely hotel, with massive wooden doors and rustic stone hallways. Gorgeous. Things to note, however: it had very few windows but it did have a convenient exit into the garden. 

Oh and there’s also the matter of it being an active place of worship and residence for Oblates of St. Francis of Sales. You know…church folk and stuff. And I don’t say this to make light. I’m just not entirely sure who they are, if they’re ordained or secular, etc. 

Shortly after arriving and while the students were still in the lobby getting some lunch, the other teacher and I went exploring, to find our rooms and get our bearings. Here’s where it got a little tricky (part I). 

The first floor is the lobby & dining room. The second floor? That part is questionable. We walked into a gorgeous albeit small dark library. The old cracked books were piled on bookcases all the way to the ceiling. You couldn’t help but touch them. Two doors led out from this small library. Well, what are doors for if not for walking through?

First door led into a cozy chapel, complete with stained glass windows and pews and an altar. Just lovely. We peeked in, breathed a deep sigh, then back out into the library. There was some sort of reverence there that made us not want to snoop too much.

Second door led into an office, also stuffed to the brim with books. Beautiful, dusty, fat old books. Aaaaand what are books for if not for thumbing through? Turns out, they are not for touching….

Chi è?!

*gasp*

Chi è? Cosa stai facendo?!

*signals to the other teacher* Sssshhhhh!

Che cosa vuoi?!

Let’s go let’s go let’s go!!!

*book tumbles to the floor*

Io spacco la faccia con quel libro!

Ok, so I’m pretty sure he didn’t reeeeeally curse us out or threaten to break our face with a book, but we ran outta there SO fast! I still don’t know where that voice came from. It was like The Nothing, rushing into that office and rumbling in our ears. Might have been God Himself. Who knows. We didn’t stick around to find out.

I do know that big ol’ monster of a book hit the ground so hard it probably scared the receptionist downstairs! We high-tailed it back through the stacks of books and down the stairs, past the confused students, and out through the screen door into the garden. 

In straight-up buddy cop movie fashion, this is how it went down next…

We ran through the first garden (dotted line) and got a little lost but managed to make it out onto a VERY BUSY side street (star and solid line), and dashed into the nearest building we could find.

See where it says “snack bar?” Let me tell you, this was not your grammy’s snack bar. No Twinkies or lemonade or anything of the sort in this little bitty piece of work.  But I could totally picture gambling, extortion, and bar fights.  And possibly tattoos in a back room. I’m overly imaginative that way. But I might not have missed the mark by much.

So what did it really look like in there? Stay tuned…

*We did not leave the kids alone when we ran from the shouting priest/monk/friar/brother? This is not the child endangerment part of this. Not yet anyway. They hadn’t gotten on our nerves enough to deserve that. Plus we were still giddy from eating pancetta/mozzarella paninis and gelatos so the kids were tolerable. They had parent chaperones.

NOW That’s What I Call a show!

Note: For the next few posts, I’m going back in time to share with you some of the ways in which I think I’m terribly clever . Because Sometimes I Forget I’m Awesome.

I have horrible vision. I mean, like I can’t see past my hand bad. I scare myself in the mirror at night because I think someone’s in my room… then I realize that’s just me. I’ve mistaken my dad (balding & plump) for my brother (Fabio hair & muscles). I’ve run into walls. It’s not cute. Just thought you should know.

At the eye doctor’s office, I sat down to take out my contact lenses with one of the young girls who worked there sitting across from me. I had been to this particular office before but I’d never met her.

We chatted for a bit though I can’t remember any of what was said. Then:

Eye-Girl*: Are you busy this Friday night?

Me: Uuuummmmm….

Eye-Girl: I mean, nothing weird, I was just curious.

Me: Ummmmm…

E-G: It’s just that I have this thing on Friday that I think you’d be perfect for. You’re so pretty and you seem like so much fun…

Me: Thanks. But this does sound a little crazy.

E-G: It’s sort of like a party. Wanna go with me?

{*Eye-Girl does have a name as well as credentials, training, and an appropriate title to do all sorts of work in said doctor’s office. The Eye-Girl moniker is not meant to devalue any of that.}

Now, you have to know, at that point in my life I was on a bit of a, “Meh, why the hell not” kick, so I said yes. We exchanged numbers and Friday night I pick her up and drive to our mystery destination. 

E-G had at some point explained to me that she was selling Mary-Kay products and we were going to some sort of launch party promo thing(?) I dunno. You Mary-Kay folks probably  know what I’m talking about.

There was putting on of make-up and talking about how it made us feel and hand scrubbing and girly things. Then, the “show.”

Oh the show.

Seems all the consultants (is that what they’re called?) bring someone to try out new products then we all parade around like mad women as a way to celebrate ourselves. Go womanhood! Or something. I was just happy to be out of the house.

The room had folding chairs set up in neat little pew-like rows, with a center aisle decked out in a red carpet. These women take this very seriously! One by one, we  guests/victims  lined up ready to shake our stuff down the aisle, music blasting from some old radio. No doubt it was a copy of “NOW That’s What I Call Music.” Did you know there's like 40 volumes of those CDs??

About three or four girls strutted down the aisle before me, some walking hastily with their eyes on the ground. And right when I step up to the edge of the red carpet, ready to make my nervous entrance, all eyes on me…

“Oh my god, Becky, look at her butt. It is SO big! She looks like one of those rap guy’s girlfriends…”

Wait, what? Immediately, I lost all sense of decorum, rolled my neck, and prepared to dance this thing to the ground. I’m pretty sure my butt grew four inches too.

That is NOT me :)

 I’ve danced in a room full of strangers before, but never like this! There was some serious butt popping and backwards walking and almost Vogue-ish arm things that shouldn’t see the light of day. And there was whooping and hollering by the crowd and clapping and a little sweating.

And wouldn’t you know it, by applause of these very demure-looking women, I won myself a basket full of cellulite creams. All for dancing to Sir Mix-a-Lot. That's right, cellulite creams!! It's like they knew I'd win!

A proud moment indeed.

It’s true, sometimes I’m more awesome than I give myself credit for.

S.I.F.I.A.

Every once in a while {ahem… read: often} I get sucked into comparing myself to everyone around me and I feel all gross and boring and unaccomplished and smelly. And a little too tall for my own good, but that’s neither here nor there.

So it’s a relief when something comes along and snaps me out of it. It’s generally something ridiculous but it makes me remember that I am, in all actuality, a pretty rad girl after all.

You see, Sometimes I Forget I’m Awesome.

Meet Sifia, the self-doubting, clueless girl inside me. She forgets how amazing she is. She’s convinced she’s an idiot, a ne’er-do-right, and mostly of the un-awesome variety. I imagine she’d rock an unflattering trucker hat and talk in mumbled tones. But I love the girl, what can I say?!

Sifia was in full force this weekend, what with the realization that her latest relationship sucks and the threat of monetary doom just around the corner. She was gloom and woe-is-me all over the place. Gross.

And then this happened: 

If you and I have ever met, the fact that I was able to put together a relatively attractive outfit (or, that I even OWN a dress!) should be surprising enough. My fashion skills leave much to be desired. But that’s not the awesome part.

It’s that the model you see before you is actually made up of:

• four pairs of socks
• a vacuum cleaner
• an old cushion
• two belts
• a bra

Damn right, folks. I am super awesome.

*high five!*

She (the model) hasn’t got a name yet, mostly because she was dismantled quickly afterwards so I can come up with a better way to prop her up. Also, because she’s a floozy and she’ll show her goods to anyone who looks her way. 

That tramp! Though I guess I wasn’t exactly discouraging her behavior. After all, it was me who took her out on the balcony to show the goods. Ohhh, what the neighbors must be thinking…. There was definitely some awkward groping of the chestal (yup, word!) areas. And really, I’m not sure if there is an “appropriate” way to undress a fake person in public. Try it. It’s a *little* weird.

Anyway, she’ll be making an appearance over at the Campobella Etsy shop to model some of the products.

And in the sprit of Sifia, bless her heart, I think this week I’ll recount some more times where I forgot just how I awesome I am.