Post number 28

Do you know what makes you feel like an asshole? When you have ONE job involving the cleanliness of your home and you fail. My only task is to provide the supplies our cleaning person asks me to purchase. And today, I didn't have any dust cloths. I searched the entire house and came up empty handed. She was very nice about it, but I really feel like a jerk. Especially when I realized the dust cloths are still in the laundry basket from when she cleaned last week. Because I haven't washed them. Because our washing machine is the size of a thimble and I can only do so many loads of wash a day because I have to wait for the damn sun to dry everything and it keeps setting at 8 p.m. and our streetlights and the moon are hopeless at drying clothes. Believe me, I've given it a try. So I prioritized incorrectly and was all about making sure everyone had clean underwear. But you know what? You can just turn your underwear inside out and get another use out of it. But you can't do the same with dust rags.


Allora. We tried to have tacos for dinner. We had gone to the "international" grocery store (home of the 9 euro bottle of syrup) and purchased taco shells and taco seasoning. El Paso, or Old El Paso. I don't know. It's a yellow box and we buy it for tacos in America. Our first clue that these products had not  been made in America was the claim on the back of taco seasoning packet that the mix would be a "lovely and delightful treat!" An American product would never make have that statement in writing because they would immediately be sued by someone who claimed that they now needed to be paid 3 million dollars due to their pain and suffering of not having been provided with a lovely and delightful treat. Unfortunately, however, it was not a lovely or delightful treat for us either. We like taco flavored tacos. These tacos were sketchy-Indian-food-street-vendor-flavor and the shells clearly had a sell-by date of 1982. It was a huge disappointment and Mike was only able to eat five of them.

John had an after-school activity yesterday and it involved picking him up at a different bus stop. This bus stop happened to be near a traffic light and afforded me the opportunity to better observe people and pass judgement on them.



Like this man, for example. I don't love the salmon color pants, but I do love that people here wear so much color, so I won't knock him just because I don't like the salmon color. Mike would call these pants "pink" by the way, because he maintains that my sister and I are the only two people in real life who describe colors as "salmon" or "charcoal." Or "dark blue."
I do love the color of his shoes and I think they are an appropriate match for the pants. Can we guess where he faltered? His socks. Gray is certainly better than white or black or brown in this case, but I think he missed an excellent opportunity for a fun pair of patterned socks. Oh, and please don't let the leaves on the sidewalk fool you.It is not fall. It is still 87 degrees. I think the leaves are just dead due to the exhaust fumes.

an up-close look in case you thought he didn't really need a pair of fun socks.

This suit is perfection. 

How do you feel about this man's suede slip-on loafers? I don't feel good about them. I also don't feel good now that I see the man on the other side of him noticed me taking pictures. 

Tourists. The dead give away is the appropriate attire for the weather. 

I hope you can see this woman driving her motorcycle in 6 inch platforms. This is why I am a consistent Fashion Don't in Italy. I would so be on the back page of Italian Glamour magazine with captions pointing out my lack of salmon pants and suede loafers. How often in America do you see women so well-turned out while driving a motorcycle?  I mean, I watch Sons Of Anarchy. Obviously Gemma is a hot mess, but even Dr. Tara turned all biker babe when she and Jax got together. Did you see the season premiere? Whoa! I so did not see that coming with Tig's daughter!

Here is Mike pretending he doesn't notice salmon-panted vegetable  lasagna behind him.

So, basically, the moral of the story is, don't eat tacos in Rome and if you're in a motorcycle gang, do not kill a rival gang's daughter for revenge unless you are positive that they are the ones who shot Clay.