Achmed Eyes

I'm leaving for Italy tomorrow to see my daughter. I should be asleep. I want to be asleep. But my eyes look like Achmed, the Dead Terrorist , even when I lie down and pull the covers over my head.

Achmed is unaware he is dead, so he keeps talking and threatening people ("I'm a terrifying terrorist.") I seem to be unaware that I'm wide awake. I keep telling myself I'm almost asleep, even while counting every car that passes ("Why aren't those people asleep in bed, like me?") I'm either very excited or really, really tired--and just too dopey to know it.

I spent the last few weeks moving at full speed, doing more things than I did in all of last year. I bought a bargain house in California and did the things you have to do when you buy a house--from 1400 miles away. I'm becoming best friends with plumbers, electricians, and handymen here in the northwest, as I get the condo ready for Young Geezer's renter. I'm listening patiently (OK, bad pun) to the doctors who want to play with sharp instruments in my insides before I move to the desert. I've been movin' and groovin', as we boomers used to say. And hey, man, movin' and groovin' takes a whole lot more energy than it used to!

Having reached the age at which my dad first showed signs of Alzheimer's, I'm ecstatic at this proof my brain can still multi-task in a big way. Yeah, Baby! After a year of unemployment, I wondered if I still have what it takes to manage big projects. It appears that I do. Unfortunately, what I don't appear to have is the ability to stop.

Let's see. I need to sleep like a baby, so what would a kid do? Warm milk? Nah. I'm lactose intolerant. Just stay up? Nope, I'm waay too tired. Hey, wait, I'm starting to get sleepy. Oh, I get it--all I needed was a good, kid-sized whine! Right here on my blog. All ri-i-i-ght!

OK, I'm off to close my Achmed eyes now. (Hopefully, they'll open on command when the alarm goes off in a few hours.) Tomorrow night, I'll be so full of real Napolitano pizza, I won't need a whine to get to sleep (just a little wine.) (Yes, I know I made two terrible puns in one post. No, I don't care. Stop your whining!)

Molto buono!

Come, Vacation on a Volcano!

My daughter loves volcanoes and Italy. I think she would have loved Italy even without volcanoes, but the fact that Italy has lots of those steaming cones makes the place pretty much irresistible to her.

She's lived and worked in Italy for almost two years. I haven't seen her home or met her Significant Other. She thinks it's time I did both. On the barely audible phone call, she asked if I want to accompany them to an island with a volcano (what else?) Sure, I said. It sounds like a nice break from lawyers and real estate agents and unemployment offices. Why spend my savings on food and gas when I could be going to Italy?

The name of the island is Stromboli (and you thought that was just a big, rolled-up sandwich!) Describing it as an island with a volcano is a bit optimistic. Pictures on Google Images show a volcano sticking out of the water with a few buildings clinging to its base. A pretty volcano, and beautiful water, to be sure, but still--mostly volcano. Still OK with me. It has a beach. She likes volcanoes, I like beaches; what could be more perfect?

I'm sparing my savings account from sudden death by leaving and returning midweek, taking "multiple airlines" (read: lots of stops, some with incredibly long layovers), and traveling really light. I plan to avoid jet lag by putting myself on Italy time for a week before I go. I think I'm quite clever. I might not feel so clever when I'm going to bed at 1:00 in the afternoon and getting up at 10pm, though. It's kinda like graveyard shift--but without any co-workers to talk to. Scruffdog is going to be really confused when I start talking nonstop while he's trying to sleep.

I'm only half-way through the first of 10 Italian language CDs my daughter told me to get. I hope I at least get to the part about "Which way to the evacuation boats, please?" I've never stayed on an active volcano before. In any language.
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