A Picture is Worth A Thousand Words.

After Palin's speech last night, I donated money to the Obama campaign. After McCain's speech tonight (one that damn near put me to sleep AND I must have downed at least half a bottle of Pepto Bismol) I donated again. At this rate, if these Republicans keep giving speeches I'm going to have to file for bankruptcy.

My bad: Gov. Palin does actually have a passport. She got it in 2007 when she had to go to Kuwait to visit the Alaska National Guard. She has also listed a "stop" (i.e. layover) in Ireland on her foreign experience resume. Pathetic. I've spent more time at Schipol airport in Amsterdam that she did in Ireland.

AND

for attempting to appeal to the "special needs" population, I say...Hypocrite and shame on you. She CUT funds for special needs programs in her state. Hmm, a Freudian slip on her part maybe?

A village in Alaska has lost it's idiot.

“Jesus was a Community Organizer, and Pontias Pilate was a Governor.”

https://donate.barackobama.com/

Palin: Are You Kidding Me?? The GOP Has Lost It's Proverbial Mind

I am sitting here watching the RNC and listening to Palin's "speech". This is a joke, really. Michelle Obama's speech was far better. Michelle Obama is far more fit to be the VP than Palin. Palin has no where near the education or experience that Michelle Obama or Hillary Clinton do. She can't even see Barack. She was a small town mayor who had to hire a city administrator to help her do her job because a town of 6,000 or whatever was too much for her to handle. Um, how about a country of millions?? Taking cheap shots at Obama saying he's unqualified, WTF??? Let's compare apples to apples here. The woman has ZERO experience on foreign policy and I don't even think she's ever been out of the country. She probably doesn't even own a passport. But I digress.

Sarah Palin is far right politically, and contrary to what the GOP would have you believe, her experience does not qualify her for the 2nd most important position in the country. This is a cynical gamble on the part of John McCain - shame on him for putting this country and the world at risk in such perilous times. It's funny how the GOP is always touting itself as the party of national security - what a joke!

Do these people realize that McCain is 72 years old and not in the best of health. If something happens to him, she becomes President. OMG! The world is laughing at us right now, seriously. The London Times is calling Palin "An Apalling Candidate". She just mentioned no earmarking in her speech, yet her record clearly shows she earmarked in the past. She is being investigated for abuse of power (i.e. corruption) after less than two years in office. That sure shows something about her leadership style. And now she says she wants to build more nuclear plants!!?? She wasn't even properly vetted before McCain announced she was to be his running mate. I won't even comment on her family.....Mamma Mia! You can read more about her here: http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/talk/2008/09/about-sarah-palin-by-someone-w.php

I'm really scared about the way politics are going in this country. This blog is not going to get political, but I just had to say something. I'm going to change the channel now because I'm getting sick to my stomache. I'm so glad I live in ultra-liberal Oregon. I'll never leave this place. God help us all......!

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!

He's Almost Here!!

OMG....I am sitting here in class counting the minutes....the seconds....for his plane to land. It is now 11:38am and his flight is scheduled to land any minute now. I'm gonna drive to the airport like a bat outta hell!! I've got butterflies in my belly!!
Gotta run!

Stolen Again!

When I got home from school today I checked my email and saw that I had a message from my Ale. In the subject line it said, "News from Murphy". Hmm....A strange but intriguing title. After reading it, I understood that he was referring to Murphy's Law. He said that as he got off the tube, he walked to the parking lot only to find that his "Cinquecento" had been stolen, AGAIN! His cinquecento was stolen last year too. He had to spend a few hours at the Carabinieri's making a report. Luckily there wasn't much gas in it the first time, and the perps ran out of gas in Monza, so they were able to recover the car. Now, another hour lost at the Carabinieri's office making a report. I hope they find it soon. Before he comes here next week would be nice. My poor Ale has had so much bad luck with his little car in the last 6 months. It also got hit while it was parked and of course, no note left. Then his sister got into an accident while driving it (she was OK, thank goodness). Those of you in Italy know that insurance and taxes in Italy for cars is so expensive, even for a little Fiat. He's so frustrated. He even mentioned the word "voodoo" in his message. I felt so bad after reading it. I wanted to call him, but I figured he probably didn't want to talk about it, so I figured I'd just message him back.

A few weeks ago my car got broken into. It's really rare that it happens in my neighborhood, but I left my backpack in my car and I guess it was just too tempting for someone not to pass up. It was completely useless to them because all it had in it was my schoolwork and some school supplies. Nothing of real value to a thief. It was of value to me though because I had to do all that school work all over again.....ARGH!! Thankfully, they didn't take any of my school books which were on the back seat because those are expensive to replace. I did have my TomTom GPS locked in the glove box, but they didn't bother to try to open that up, thank goodness! I keep it in the apartment now. I did have to swallow the cost of replacing the window they broke because my insurance deductible is $500 and the window wasn't quite that much but it did set me back $267. It may not sound like much but I'm a student now, living on a student's budget so it did sting a little bit. Street parking sucks! The police report was all done over the phone. The officer told me that there wasn't much they could do, which didn't surprise me. He told me to go looking in the dumpsters in my neighborhood because the thieves usually dump the stuff after taking what they want. Well, as terrible as I felt that my backpack was stolen, I wasn't about to stick my head in any dumpsters looking for it. Like I said, there really wasn't anything valuable in it, so I cut my losses.

It's terrible that we have such callous people in this world, but unfortunately, that's life. It's hard not to feel worried about something like that happening again. I try to think positively and hope for the best. But to have your car stolen not once but twice has got to be discouraging.

Jessica in Rome: if you are reading this, there seems to be something wrong with your site. Unless it's just me (but I've tried on two different computers), whenever I try to log on to your site, it gives me an error prompt. It says Internet explorer can not open the site. Operation aborted. It's just happened in the last week. Please let me know if it's just on my end. Thanks!

Giving Thanks

Those of you that have been reading my blog since last year know that I was hospitalized last year. You can read abou it here, and here. I really didn't get into too much detail about what happened to me. It was the scariest time of my life and the Dr's feared I would never recover. Fast-forward to 8 months later and have a made an almost complete recovery. I say "almost complete" because I am still having follow-up visits and have been told by my Dr's that you really need to give it a full year to be considered completely out-of-the-woods. To this day there has never been a formal diagnosis made and no one knows how I caught whatever it was. I seem to be a medical mystery of sorts. I had spinal taps, CT scans, MRI's and although they found that I had encephalitis, and my spinal cord fluid had an extremely high white blood cell count, they still couldn't pin point anything in terms of giving it a name. The "last resort" treatment was steroids, and thank God, it worked. Of course, I gained weight as a result of the steroid treament. A lot of weight. 50lbs. to be exact. This has been the most difficult part for me, in terms of my recovery. I've been working really hard to get the weight off and so far I have lost 10lbs. I'm very motivated and determined, so I'm sure I will lose it all in due time.

To be honest, I don't remember much of it. It's like I lost 2 months of my life. I got really depressed about it because it's like losing control of your life. Now I see things a little differently. I am so much more appreciative of things and I feel like I have been given a second chance at life. Even just going for walks, I take my time and really take in my surroundings. Sometimes I cry when I think about what I've been through and how far I've come, because I am so happy to be alive.

Today I was cleaning out my room and I came across an email that Ale wrote me while I was in the hospital. I won't get into the details of what it said, but it made me so emotional that I burst into tears. I can only imagine how he must have felt being so far away and unable to be with me. I am so lucky to be loved by this wonderful man. He stood by me (albeit from thousands of miles away) and never gave up on me. I feel so blessed and I thank God for him everyday.

I had the support of family, friends and strangers alike. I am so thankful for everyone's thoughts and prayers. They really moved mountains for me. I really feel in my heart that the worst is over and I have a bright future ahead of me. I wake up every morning with a renewed energy. I am anxious to see what the future has in store for me!!

Ale will be here in a week and a half and I am so excited!! I must admit that I am a little self-conscious about my weight, but he knows how hard I am working to change that. I have lots of activities in store for us throughtout his visit and you can believe I'll be blogging about it!!

Again I want to thank everybody for your prayers and support. They won't soon be forgotten.

Is There No End In Sight???

I was walking down West Burnside on Friday and saw this. I couldn't believe the prices at this gas station! There were gas stations not too far from here that were considerably cheaper, but people were still buying gas here. Here's a cool website where you can find the cheapest gas in your area gasbuddy.com It includes the U.S. and Canada. I've been using it, but luckily I only have to fill up once every two weeks since my school is only 2.5 miles away. I'm thinking of taking public transportation this summer. The problem is that there is no direct bus or Streetcar to get there. I would have to transfer and that gets time consuming.
I know that gas is more expensive in the UK and Europe, but still, this is getting ridiculous. We Americans are used to paying a lot less. I hope this gets better soon.

Please note: This is not a Friday the 13th joke! Unfortunately, this is very real. Happy Pranking!!