L'aventure américaine

My heart skips a beat just reading the sentence above, but now, as I'm 26 years old, I think that it's finally time to go to a.... New Year's Party. You see, nearly every year, I stay at home with my parents and whomever else may be around that year and we drink margaritas and watch "When Harry Met Sally." Sometimes we play games. Sometimes we go on a walk. Last year I barely made it to New Year's because I was so tired! But the drinks and the movie are a constant stand-by and I'm guaranteed to have a good time. It's also my dad's birthday on the 1st, so it saves me a hungover drive home. The times when I've missed this? I've been in Italy with my brother (despite several cooking disasters, I had a good time) and a year in Telluride (in which I ran into my ex, got into a dismal funk and went to bed at 11:45pm). I choose to think that I'm not so much lame to stay at home with my parents every New Year's, but more, secure eno...

Happy Christmas. Happy Post-Christmas. Oops. I was supposed to wake Mom up from a nap about 10 minutes ago. But I've been puttering. Which is exactly what I'm supposed to do the day after Christmas. I think today (for rational people, not those crazies who buy a billion Santa's on sale) is a day for reading and picking up the wrapping paper explosions and watching movies and eating leftovers. I'm happy to tell you that I have done all of the above today. So... Happy day of Putterance.

This month was supposed to be relaxing, but of course, I've managed to fill it with everything. I can't believe that Christmas is only a couple of days away. I've been a little emotional lately. My brother is going back to Italy to rejoin his wife and Italian family and when I see him next, he and Elisabetta will have a little boy. While this idea thrills me and fills me with a joyousness, I still can't believe that my brother is going to be a dad. My brother still thinks that the word 'poop' is funny. My brother is going to be a dad. Really though, I can't imagine many couples who would be better parents than Elisabetta and Charles. And I can't imagine families that will be as enamored with this new baby as the Fauri's and the Jochim's will. However, babies change everything and it makes me a little nostalgic for, what... Perhaps the last time that Charles and I lived together as kids. (Except not really... That was junior high... No...

I get to eat turkey, stuffing and gravy for breakfast if I want to. Ha.

Happy Thanksgiving! I think that this is the first time that I've brought in Thanksgiving in style, being awake for the first 8 hours of it. I'm not even sure that I've done that with New Year's (usually I crash around 3am... if not before). Having done it, for the first 4 hours of Thanksgiving, I can't say that it's all that thrilling. However, I can assure you that late night cable television is not that bad. Here at the hospital, channels are full of movies (not great movies, but movies) and cop shows. I went with movies for awhile, but I'm now opting for the cop shows, since they allow me to count the hours a little better. I'm also hoping that they'll keep me more involved around five and six am when I start to crash. So... I've been feeling a little guilty lately because I haven't kept in contact with people as well as I had thought I would since a little Art came into my life. I'm also going to blame this on school, work,...

Sunday's are tricky. Football is on all day, which usually calls for some beer. However, I often have some overdue studying to do too, which calls for no beer. It's a compromise this evening. I studied with the Colts game on, gave studying my entire attention during the first half of the Titans/Jaguars game, but in order to face the rest of my OB notes, I'm combining studying with the 2nd half of the game and a glass of wine. Obviously, since I'm typing this, it's all going swimmingly.

So, this is something that has bothered me for quite some time and I'm glad that someone addressed it. Don't get me wrong, I love a good, large latte from Starbucks, but I can never call them "venti's". Because venti means twenty. And although the large hot drinks may be 20 ounces, the large cold drinks are not. And so we have have Americans, nay, people WORLDWIDE thinking that venti means big because Starbucks told us so and instead, it means 20! And tall is not small! It's bothered me, in the way that stupid little things do, since Starbucks became successful. And you will never hear me say: I'd like a grande cup of coffee or a tall chai or a venti americano... because it's small, medium or large all the way for me, baby. So, watch this clip from "Role Models." The rest of the interview is funny, but doesn't address the little things that bother me quite so well!