On Long Distance Relationships and Naked Lady Parties

Yesterday I went to a BBQ hosted by one of my book club friends. The first half of the get-together was a Naked Lady party wherein you take clothes, shoes, purses, jewelry and the like that you no longer want and offer them up for exchange. Whatever is left goes to the Goodwill, a womens shelter or some sort of charity. It was pretty cool. I only took a few things but I think next time I will really dig in my closet and drawers and take more things. If you ever get invited to one, go and take lots of things. You'd be surprised the little treasures you can find. Many of my friends wear really cute clothes and when I ask where they got them, they almost always answer Goodwill or at a Naked Lady party. Fun!


As those of you that read my blog know, the Italian and I have been at this long distance relationship for 4 years. We were hoping for him to be here by last year but what with the global economical meltdown, we had to put that on hold. We are hoping he can be here by the summer or at least the end of the summer. To be completely honest, I've sort of put a dead line on it. This type of relationship never gets easier. I'm sure the odds of a relationship like ours actually standing the test of time aren't very good. Our relationship, thus far, has survived the time and distance but it has not been easy. People tell me all the time that they don't know how we do it. I'm not one to give advice. I can only speak from my own experience but this sort of relationship is not for the faint of heart or weak-minded people. You have to really want it to work and you have to really trust the other person. If you are the jealous type, forget about it. You will not be able to sleep at night. Speaking on the phone can be a challenge due to the time difference, schedules, work and even just the tone of voice you hear on the other end.


If the other person has had a bad day but doesn't want to spend their limited time on the phone with you talking about it, it can create a misunderstanding. You can hear it in their voice and naturally, you ask if all is well. They say no, but you know there is etc, etc. These, are some of the challenges the Italian and I have come up against but nothing serious enough to create a rift because we are both very dedicated to each other and to making this work.

Ultimately though, we are both humans with feelings and it is hard, extremely hard to be away from one another. In social situations, my friends always ask, when is the Italian coming back? Those that haven't met him, ask when he is coming and are anxious to meet him, as am I for him to meet them. Last night was one of those nights. My friends were at the BBQ with their husbands and kids and they all asked when he is coming and that they look forward to meeting him. It should be easy right? I mean, he should just be able to hop on a plane and make his way here or vice versa for me. But really, it's not. There are legal fees to be paid for immigrating, one would have to financially support the other until such time as a work permit can be obtained, etc etc. I'm way more spontaneous than he is. I can be a "fly by the seat of my pants" kind of person, but the Italian is so not like that. He is way more conservative in that respect. He believes these sorts of things take careful planning and a lot of consideration, he's definitely old school. I mean, I just met his family after 3 years because he wouldn't take anyone home unless he was sure to marry them. This is another difficulty of LDR's. Cultural or religious differences can break relationships. Our cultures are not so different that this would be the case for us, but it can happen. Ultimately, our cultures, fundamentally speaking, are quite similar. Mine has just been Americanized a bit but essentially we have the same morals and values. We are both Catholic so this hasn't been a problem for us either. He has expressed to me though that he wouldn't marry someone who was not Catholic.



What it boils down to is that we are best friends. We trust and respect each other and that's why this has worked for us. Again, I will say that it has not been without effort. When we are physically together, we are a team. We work so well together and are so supportive of each other. We like to joke with each other, cook together, read together, watch movies, go for passegiate, concerts, etc etc. Politically, we tend to disagree but it makes for interesting conversation.

He helps me clean and do laundry. I love that he is always ready and willing to help me. Not all men are that way, unfortunately. I've known from the beginning that he is the man I will spend the rest of my life with and I can no longer imagine life without him. The attraction was instant. This fall our LDR will culminate in marriage and these last 4 years of phone calls, flights, emails, texts, tears and laughter will come to an end and our life together will finally begin.

Trust and tenacity are what it takes to survive the test of distance and time. Without these two, fuggetaboutit!

Airport Meetings & Destination Milano

I went to bed around midnight on the 21st knowing I had to be up 3 hours later. There was just so much to do before I left. I had a 6:30am flight and what with all the snow storms going on all over the place, I figured I better get an early start just in case. My friend Darcy graciously offered to drive me to the airport at the ungodly hour of 3:30am. Thank goodness for good friends! She also took care of my car for me while I was gone which saved me close to $200 had I parked at the airport.

The best part about having to be at the airport so early was the coffee! I love Coffee People! They used to have shops all over Portland but now they only have 2 locations at the airport, so this was truly a treat!



I was about the 3rd person in line to check in and the guy behind me commented on my stack of suitcases. "You don't travel light, do you?" I laughed and said, "No, I've never been one to backpack anywhere. Plus it's Christmas so I'm smuggling gifts!" Turns out he's from New York and a graduate of the Maritime Academy in the Bronx which is located in the neighborhood I lived in for 4 years. Nice guy. He came into Portland on a ship and said that he really loves the city :-) He mentioned that he liked it a lot better than Seattle. We got to talking about what Portland is known for and he specifically said he loved the variety of beer here and that the East Coast just doesn't have the quality beer that Portland does. I loved hearing that, I just wish I were a beer lover! I'm more a wine person. I do enjoy the Ruby from McMenamins but that's about the size of it. He wasn't on my flight though, so once I checked in we wished each other Happy Holidays and off I went to the gate. While waiting for my flight a woman sat next to me and we started talking. It turns out she is my neighbor, literally lives across the street in the townhomes and she is married to a man from Italy. Quite the coincidence! She was going to NY to visit her daughter who is in college. She was a vicitm of the snow storm that hit the East Coast and was actually supposed to fly out 2 days prior. This trip started so well having met these two nice people. This is what I love about traveling. Meeting diverse people from everywhere. These two I happened to have a bit in common with :-)





















When I arrived in NY I walked over to Terminal 1 and went up to the departures area to check in for the next portion of my flight. I should mention that the first portion was on Delta and the second portion was on Alitalia, which is a Skyteam partner of Delta. I arrived to the news that my flight was to be delayed 9 hours due to snow at Malpensa. I was really disappointed because every moment I have with the Italian is precious, so every moment spent in Terminal 1 was a moment lost with him. Alas, I had no choice.



Initally I called my friend Rachel who lives on Long Island and she was happy to come and pick me up but I told her I needed to check with the airline to see what they wanted the passengers to do. They asked that we check in and wait at the gate in the event that the snow stopped and Malpensa was back up and running. So I called Rachel back and told her I'd have to stay there. I really wanted to see her and her son who I haven't had the pleasure of meeting since the last time we saw each other was when she came to visit 2 1/2 years ago. The airline gave us a $10 voucher (which buys you all of a bottle of water and some pretzel's in NY), so I settled in and started watching movies on iTunes. One by one I watched several planes take off, Paris, Mexico City, Taipei, another flight to Paris, Munich, etc. I started to feel like I was on the movie Terminal! No communication from the airline whatsoever. I felt particularly bad for the families with small children. They were all restless and crying. The parents exhausted. This sort of put it into perspective for me and I stopped feeling sorry for myself asap!



When they finally announced boarding, in true Italian fashion, everyone bum rushed the gate. Forget boarding group 1, 2, 3 and 4 in that order, it was every man, woman and child for themselves!



It was a long uncomfortable flight and I got absolutely no sleep. I felt like a zombie when I finally arrived around 4pm Milano time which is 7am Portland time (the next day!). It took about an hour to get my luggage, then when I finally walked out the door, I looked through the crowd of faces and didn't see the one I was looking for. Then out of nowhere I got the biggest hug and kiss. I was so happy! Exhausted but happy. It was as though not a moment in time had passed since we were last together. I'll admit that I was a bit worried about this as distance and time sometimes puts a damper on relationships but I was immediately put at ease with his warm reception. We took the pullman (which is what the locals call the bus, which is not a city bus but more like a Greyhound bus) to the Stazione Centrale, then took the underground to my hotel.

For the Love of Calcio aka Futbol aka Soccer...

The Italian and I share a love for the sport. My Father played in a Semi-Professional League in Mexico and then a league here in the States, so I grew up around the sport. Not to mention the fact that Mexico has a spectacular national team known as El Tricolor (the Italian national team is known as "i Tricolore"). My favorite regional team from Mexico are known as "Las Chivas". They are the team with the most wins in Mexico and are from Guadalajara, which is near where my Father is from. Unfortunately, there isn't a whole lot of money for the sport in Mexico like there is in Europe. In fact players like Rafa Marquez and Andres Guardado often leave Mexico in search of better compensation for their talent. Rafa plays for FC Barcelona and in fact when I was in Barcelona visiting the futbol stadium, the employees there expressed to me how much they love Rafa, which of course made me very proud.






Ale, is an FC Inter Milano aka "I Nerazzuri" fan. I would say it's his second love, but who I am kidding?? I remember in the beginning of our relationship he said something to me like, an Italian mans calcio team will always be his first love because a wife can always be traded, but his team, never. Ha! I like to think I have taken the lead in that race, or at least I am neck and neck!! Anyhow, on my first visit to Milano, Ale treated me to a match at San Siro against Parma. Now I have been to many sporting events. Laker games, NFL games, college football games, baseball games but nothing compared to this. I have to say that Italian (and maybe German) soccer fans are truly the craziest fans I have ever come across. I've never seen anything like it! If I remember correctly, I was the only woman in that section, also known as the Bob Uecker seats here in the states, so it's probably better that I didn't understand too much Italian at the time because I am pretty sure there were some pretty vulgar things being said. I had fun though and I hope to go to many more matches in the future, especially against teams like Juventus, AC Milan and Roma. Am I being too ambitious?? I have to admit, their song is pretty catchy. Have a listen and admire the hotness!



When I saw this video of this amazingly talented 6 year old, I was stunned! This kid truly has skills. It's like he's dancing with the ball. His name is Madin Mohammed and he is from Algeria but has lived in France for the last 3 years of his life. He is being compared to Zidane and is already on the radar of several big clubs. Let's hope there isn't too much pressure put on this little guy.







Mexico and Italy's national flags have the same colors. It's kismet!

Ale wrote a nice post about about a project by Inter called Inter Campus here

Wordless Wednesday

I'm Back to Blogging, He's Back in Milano

The month practically flew by.......but we did so many things and had such a great time. He made some new connections(important ones!!) and I continued on in school. I must confess, I took a few days off to enjoy with my Ale, but no harm no foul. I still got good grades on my tests, that's all that matters and I am only 2 and a half months away from Graduation!

We are total foodies and tried lots of new restaurants and caffes and have yet to post some of our reviews on Yelp because we are avid Yelpers!! He also cooked a lot. I'm so lucky to have such a good cook for my Fidanzato! I've learned a lot from him. Admittedly, I don't like to cook much. Baking is more my thing, although I haven't done much of that lately either so as not to sabotage my lifestyle change.

I will miss some of the cute things he used to say like, "field and tracks" instead of "track and field" when we watched the Olympics. "Gender Bender" instead of "Fender Bender". Isn't he so cute??!!

But more importantly, we grew closer and stronger together and there are big things in store for us, but I can't elaborate on that just yet. You'll just have to tune in and see what happens!

Here are some of our adventures:
Here he is with Smokey the Bear at Timberline Lodge in Mount Hood, Oregon. Safety first!! And us together with the volcano as our backdrop.


















Ale by the Hood River and Mt Hood and the Hood River Valley.
There are more pics to share and I will post them later. Oregon is already showing signs of Fall. The temps are a little cooler and the breezes a little crisper. It's my favorite season of the year and I hope it brings good things!

In Hindsight Instinct is Everything Part 2

I woke up in the recovery room feeling really groggy and like someone was sitting on top of me. I remember feeling thirsty and the nurse asking me if I wanted some ice chips. She asked me how I was doing and I told her it felt like someone was sitting on me. She smiled and said, "Yes, you will feel that way for a couple of hours." I must have fallen back to sleep because when I opened my eyes again, Dr. K was there. She told me that they were able to remove Shrek laprascopically and that Shrek was benign. I asked if my ovaries were intact and she said that they had to take the one that Shrek had pretty much swallowed whole. They tried to carve it out, but it was no use. Shrek devoured my little ovary. She reminded me that I all I need is one good functioning ovary to conceive. While I am happy to have one, I couldn't help but feel a little bad about losing one of my girls. I distinctly remember thinking of Lance Armstrong. How he must have felt.

Once I was a little more conscious, they wheeled me back to my little short stay room and there was my knight in shining armour waiting for me. A lot of what happened for the next few hours is a bit foggy. I slept a lot. I do know that I was given some prescriptions for pain medication and I didn't bring my insurance card with me, so Ale went back home to get the cards for me. Then he went to the pharmacy and paid for my prescriptions. I replay the things he did for me in my mind and I appreciate him so much more everytime. The nurse brought me some crackers and told me to eat them and drink some water. They wanted to make sure I could keep food down and that I could go to the restroom on my own before letting me go home.

It must have been 3 pm when I finally got to go home. My post-op orders were to eat things that are easy to digest, such as Jell-o and apple sauce and to get up and walk the length of my apartment every couple of hours. I asked Ale to stop at Fred Meyer to buy the things I needed. While he was in the store, I decided I would call BJ (from the job) to let her know that my surgery was a success and I would only need 2 weeks at most to recover. She told me that they decided to hire someone else. Wow, I was pretty bummed because she said that they were going to get a temp. Oh well, things don't always work the way we want them to. So it was back to square one for my job search. Ale was in Freddie's for a long time, but I figured the poor guy had no idea what he was looking for so I waited patiently. Dr. Feelgood really gave me some strong stuff. I honestly started to feel really good while I waited in the car. I mean, I didn't feel much pain. In fact, the next morning I woke up at 4am in so much pain and I felt an incision that I didn't even realize I had the day before. The strange thing is, a lot of my pain was in my arm and shoulder. Weird. I think they must have had my arm stretched out on one of those little boards because the nurse had asked me if I had any issues with my arms before my surgery. I told her I have a recurring shoulder injury on my left side from tennis. The pain was on the right. I had no choice but to take the pain meds they gave me. I really don't like to, but I was in so much pain I was almost in tears.

Over the next couple of days Ale cooked for me and helped me get up to walk around. He asked me (Italianism #1) how I could possibly eat that toxic waste called Jell-o. I told him Jell-o was something that my Mom would give me as a kid when my stomache was upset and I liked it. I remember him saying something like his nonna would have a heart attack if she ever saw him eating something like that. My knight in shining armour is the food police, seriously! There are so many Italian rules for eating. What to pair with what, etc.....At that point, it wasn't the first thing on my mind, but I know he only tells me those things because he cares about my health.

The Thursday after my surgery, I was up and walking around when my cell phone rang. It was Dr. K with the Shrek pathology report. She told me that not only was Shrek a dermoid cyst, but it was also an immature teratoma, in other words, a cancerous tumor. She advised me to make an appointment with Dr. McC as soon as possible to see what she thinks we should do. She was regretful for having to tell me over the phone but she wanted me to know as soon as possible. I seriously felt my heart sink to the very pit of my ruebenesque belly. I felt my whole world crashing down on me. As soon as I hung up I started crying. Ale held me and told me it was all going to be ok. I think I cried more for my Mom than for me. I didn't tell my Mom about any of this. I figured it was going to be simple but with Ale going back to Italy in a week and the possibilty of me having to have surgery again, I would have to tell her because I would need her to come up to Portland to help me post-surgery. Everything seemed to be happening all at once. Ale was leaving soon, I lost the job I had worked so hard to get, I just found out I had cancer.....it was all just too much. So now maybe you can understand why I appreciate Ale so much. He was here for me through all of this. He made my days happier, when they might have otherwise been grim. I knew I had to be strong because I was going to have to face the music all by myself because my appointment with the Oncologist would be 2 days after Ale left.

Dr. K told me that they sent Shrek up to Washington for a second opinion from a Dr. that is an expert on these things. So my appointment with Dr. McC is going to be based on he results of that second opinion.