Archive for July, 2007

We have been busy for the past three weeks.  Our friend and Sophia’s godfather, Steve, was here for nine days.  He was here from the end of June through the Fourth of July and left July 7th.   We went into DC a couple of times, as he is house hunting for his next duty assignment with the Air Force.  On the 1st, we met up with Mimi, who was in Waldorf visiting her father.  We met at a bookstore in Waldorf, and went out to eat at Uno’s Chicago Grill.  It was a pretty decent restaurant for Waldorf.  After that, we “cruised” 301 for something to do.  We found a nearby bowling alley and went to bowl a couple of games.  It was nice to see Mimi again, and she had really grown up since the last time we saw her (which I believe was two years ago).  She told us that she is coming back with her brother and sister in February, and we are looking forward to seeing them all. 

As all my leave was exhausted during our recent trip to Italy, I had to work on my birthday and our anniversary.  Antonella and I had discussed the latter before our trip, and she had accepted it.  We went out to dinner at Solomon’s Pier after work and had crab cakes and spent some time with Steve and Sophia.

The next day, the 4th, we grilled some steaks and went to the local fireworks display.  As it did not start until 9:30, Sophia was asleep halfway through it.  She enjoyed it while she was awake, but once she went to sleep she didn’t even flinch when the rockets exploded.

This past weekend, my parents were here.  They arrived Friday night (their flight arrived at 11:30 pm, so we got home at 1 pm), and Sophia was wired so they got to spend some time with them.  Our water well died that night.  My father and I spent a couple of hours trying to troubleshoot it the next day before just giving up.  Two of our neighbors now have wells being dug, so I imagine ours just went dry.  As such, it will be about five grand to dig a new one.  What rotten luck!

So, I am looking forward to a quiet relaxing weekend for a change.  Hopefully, we will get that this weekend!

Today, we left for Sorrento.  Antonella’s brother Guido was off of work, and some friends of ours were staying in Sorrento.  He suggested that we take Sophia to a eye specialist, as he wanted to make sure nothing was wrong with her eyes.  I don’t know if he suspected something because of some behavior, or if it was because he knew that preemies have a tendency towards bad vision problems.  In Maryland, we missed the follow up for Sophia’s vision appointments, but had not gotten around to making that appointment up.  So, I did not protest much when he wanted to schedule an appointment for later that afternoon.

There are at least two ways to get to Sorrento:  one way is the drive down the Amalfi coast, the other is a more direct route that cuts between Salerno and Napoli on the Napoli side of the Amalfi coast.  As I drive so much at home, I am not a very good passenger.  Last year, when we drove down the winding road to Amalfitana, I started to feel ill.  So, we went with the second route, as it is also much quicker.

When we got there, we had to drive around a bit to find parking.  We had arrived a bit early, so we went down the hill for some photo opportunities.  It was a lot further up the hill than down.  We found some stairs up the back side of Piazzo Tasso.  It was probably fifty or sixty feet back to the top.

We met Al, Genise, Pat, Diane, Rich, Carrie, Shelby, and Greg? at a caffe in the Piazzo Tasso.  We talked about their adventures, our misadventures, and had some good coffee.   Guido understands a lot more English than he can speak, and our friends got to use the Italian that they had learned to communicate with him.  After an hour or so, we had to head back so Guido could go to class.  He got out and told me to drive us back.  As I don’t feel comfortable driving in Italy, I let Antonella drive.  She drove very slow, but we made it back in one piece.

After some time, Guido returned and we took Sophia to Solofra for her appointment.  It was quite strange, as there was no nurse or receptionist of any kind.  We waited a little bit and went in to see about Sophia’s vision.  The doctor had to put the drops in Sophia’s eyes to dialate them.  Sophia got very upset about it, and he still had yet to examine her eyes.  We had to wait fifteen minutes for the drops to take effect, so we went back out into the lobby while the next people were ushered in.  After about a half hour, we went back in.  Sophia was kicking and screaming, yet he was able to do it quite quickly.  He said that Sophia’s eyes were just fine.

After we returned home, we talked a little while about the next day’s festivities.  It was Italy’s independence day, and like most Italian holidays, they were going to eat a LOT of food.

For the past few years, I have seen many perfectly good words get flushed down the tube.  English, perhaps not one of the richest languages to start with, is losing words.  And most of this is due to ignorance.  I watch “Are You Smarter than a Fifth Grader?” every time it is on, and I am speechless.  I saw a lady guess how to spell “Yak.”  It was a 1st Grade spelling question being guessed by a 44 year old woman.

One of the many nifty words that is misused to the point that I have given up the idea of ever seeing it used properly is the word alumnus.  I can see a license plate saying VT Alumni as being correct, as there can be more than one person in a car.  But a shirt?  How many people can fit in a shirt?  (Correct answer: 1).  So, why would a shirt say Alumni?  If you really wanted to get anal, then you could pull out the old alumna (singular feminine) and alumnae (plural feminine) and make arguments for those orphaned words.

I know there is this push for equality between the sexes, but in my mind:

• A female that acts is an actress, not an actor.
• A female that tells jokes is a comedienne, not a comedian.
• A female that operates on people is a doctress, not a doctor. (Though I realize this is pretty obscure)
• A female that is married is a mistress, not a “mizzrezz”.  Other languages have particular names for the “other woman.”
• Ma’am is a contracted form of madam.  There aren’t too many brothels these days (exception: Nevada), so if I call someone madam as a sign of respect, please have the intelligence required to deduce that I am not insinuating that you are a female pimp. (pimptress, perhaps?)

I could go on with these nice gender specific titles and how we flushed them out of our usage, but I’m not going to.