St. Francis

Just got back yesterday from a great week in San Francisco!! Despite 4 days of a weird flu I caught somehow (which was only worsened by the stupidest move ever of downing a Ghirardelli hot fudge peanut butter sundae at the height of my fever...), it was FANTASTIC!

San Francisco is a totally unique, amazing city. It is people friendly, healthy, bright, fun, quirky, hippie and groovy. You can't get a bad meal there it seems (Andrea said he'd move there for the fresh tomatoes alone - extremely high props from an Italian!). I could absolutely see Andrea and I living there - its only downside being that there aren't really any extreme weather changes there, which is sort of sad. Oh, that and the fact that it's on the other side of the globe. Otherwise, though, I think Andrea and I would move there in a literal heartbeat.

We did all sorts of stuff in SF besides the aforementioned Ghirardelli Square. Chinatown, a tour through the Mission Murals, Mission Dolores, Lombard Street, a Frida Kahlo exhibit at the SFMoma, Alcatraz, Golden Gate Park and the Japanese tea garden and flower conservatory, a drive across the Golden Gate Bridge, the aquarium, Nob Hill, the Financial District, walking all along the Embarcadero up to the Ferry Building (we never did get back for the caviar we wanted to try though). And, like I said, all that dabbed here and there with a fantastic meal.

Our main motivation for going out there in the first place was the arrival of one wholly unique, awesome wedding invitation from dear friends, and so our last couple days there, or the Wedding Extravaganza, were the most wonderful cherry on top to an amazing week. Cheers and congrats, Adam and Eliza (and Patty, who may just be reading this!): may your lives be filled with the same beauty and color as your wedding day!
Andrea and I all dolled up for the wedding.

Drill baby! Drill!

So, I just lived through (barely) the unfortunate experience of watching Giuliani's RNC speech.

I don't know that I've ever been more offended, more embarassed by politics. Ok, that's not entirely true. I've sort of had that same vomit-in-my-mouth feeling for the past 8 years, every time W donned a sari for a press conference or made a wincingly painful joke in grammatically incorrect English. Though, if we're to listen to ex-mayor Giuliani, Obama is the one who's "the least experienced candidate for president of the United States in at least the last 100 years."

After listening to Giuliani's mindless propaganda, I have to ask myself: am I supposed to be ashamed of my college degree now? Humiliated because I love New York City? Outcast because I don't believe that yelling "zero...zero....zero..." at the other candidate is an acceptable way to run a campaign? Well, I guess they're right...I guess I'll just give up now. Lord knows I essentially hate America anyway, I don't know why I should even get the right to vote! *eye roll*

I keep waiting for the Dumbing Down of America to hit rock bottom (lord knows I thought we'd already arrived there), but it just keeps getting worse!

Whirlwind

I'm back!

What a whirlwind trip - including a missed connection and a fleabag Paris hotel on the way over - to NJ/NY/FL to visit family and friends and my attempt at a vacation! Amid the running and traveling around a lot, we managed to get in a visit to the MET and the Museum of Natural History, we visited Pop Sam and Mariel in Florida (eeek humidity), we celebrated Emily and Andrew's 5th birthday, we got to be there for opening weekend of the 9th annual NaCl Festival and we spent a lovely weekend in Manhattan where we even got in some batting cages and a bit of bowling!

Here are a couple pictures from the trip...

Yankees Game

The birthday boy and girl

Soccer fun at the bday party

Andrea/the world's largest weenie at the Brooklyn Diner!

Visiting with Pop Sam, Mariel, Barbara and Joel in Florida

Surviving the Florida humidity

Hanging with the girls at Mer's baby shower

Guardian Angels

Antonello and Novella very sweetly told their priest about how Andrea and I "took them under our wings," in a matter of speaking, when the twins were born, and explained that though I'm Jewish and Andrea chose never to be Confirmed, they really wanted us to somehow be part of the babies' baptism ceremony. The priest, in an unusually "Christian" manner, agreed to it - said we could "shadow" the two official godfathers and act as sort of "Guardian Angels" for Gaia (me) and Alice (Andrea).

We were both really touched by the sentiment and honored to be there for Gaia and Alice - who just get cuter and smilier every time we see them!

Andrea and I with Antonello with Gaia, Novella with Alice, Diego (Gaia's godfather and Antonello's brother), Davide (Alice's godfather and Novella's brother)

Jazz is in the air

(beer in hand, waiting for the fun to begin)

I heart Umbria Jazz! Hip cats and non, casually strutting around the city with cups of refreshing beer, swinging their head to the beat of whomever happens to be up on stage riffing away. Tickets are around 15 Euros for stand seats and actually knowing anything at all about jazz is an optional (thank goodness, in my case).

For our first pick of this year's festival (July 11th-20th), we went last night with Romina and Gianni to see Italian jazz pianist Stefano Bollani playing together with some fabulous Brazilian musicians - literally music to my ears! Too bad the evening couldn't just end there, though. After that was another 2 hours straight of Brazilian Caetano Veloso...or Caetano "Noioso" (the Boring) as I have renamed him. One man + his guitar + 2 hours of suicidally depressing Brazilian songs that all sound the same = a very fidgety Jodi. Not my favorite, but Monday night we go back for Cassandra Wilson and I'm sure it's going to be awesome!

BBQ!

This picture makes me happy.

The Colpo d'aria

First of all: Happy belated 4th of July everyone! I hope your bbq's and fireworks and beer brawls went smashingly. I had to work all day but Andrea and I are cooking up some burgers on our electric grill tonight in honor.

Which brings us to today's blog, boys and girls. Since the past week at work has pretty much been a constant push-and-shove between me and my co-workers about none other than the AIR CONDITIONING, I thought I would post the translation of an article I wrote a couple years ago for the now-defunct "California" magazine here in Italy. Reading it over gave me a smile and made me realize with both a sense of comfort and of fear that things over here will never change...

Enjoy!

Winded
by Jodi Krumholz

There is a little known fact that in Italy, every man, woman and child is deathly afraid of what they call the colpo d’aria. Even the name is fairly scary (or, at least the way I pronounce it). More than a mother or two has been known to lock her child inside the house because of it. Fathers everywhere have learned all the self-defense methods known to man to protect their offspring from it. Teachers and colleagues, neighbors and local politicians. It is the greatest common denominator that exists in present-day Italy. And evidence of it can be found around the world. Scared yet?

It’s the wind. Yup, you read that right: wind. The wind through the trees, the proverbial wind beneath my wings, a windy morning, a winded statement. It’s all scary, it’s all dangerous. That invisible stuff that you and I have so naively dubbed with the generic name “oxygen”—it’s after you, and it can kill you.

I know, I know, it may seem ridiculous to our untrained ears. But just imagine this: you are sitting peacefully in your office at work. Room temperature at a comfortable 72 degrees. And then your colleague comes around, invites you out to lunch. You stand up, pick up your wallet, walk out the office door and down the corridor, past the front desk and down the elevator. BAM. Wind. It goes up your shirt and touches your (gasp) unprotected neck. Caresses your cheek and kisses your earlobes.

That’s it, right there: the beginning of the end. You might as well head back up to your office, pack up your things and head home to bed for the rest of the day. Life, as you know it, is on its last legs.

At the very least, you will have picked yourself up a nice little fever. 99, 100 degrees. If you’re lucky, that is! If you’re really unlucky (if you forgot to put on an undershirt this morning, or if you haven’t eaten any fruit for the past few days), you will most likely have to run to the bathroom, too. Probably stay there for a half-hour or so, doubled over by the force of (mildly) intense stomach cramps.

Then you will probably start sweating (if you haven’t already made up a living will, this might be a good moment to do so...). That tank top you have on under your t-shirt, layered sweater and scarf draped over your shoulders will most likely turn damp with your own disgusting perspiration. Cover up, young impressionable! Your father would do it, your grandfather before him would have done it...your great-great-great ancestor probably invented covering up. So don’t argue with me, and cover up already!

So why, in (almost) all seriousness, is this colpo d’aria so scary? While the rest of the free world writes poetry about walking through open fields, shoe and shirtless, wind in hair and through fingertips...why are Italians so afraid of the wind?

In layman’s terms, they believe that a sudden change in temperature can weaken the body and cause illness – in particular, can cause fever and stomach problems. Has this, you ask (I can hear you) been scientifically proven? Well, like most old wives’ tales, not really. Is it the power of suggestion? Is it that extra just-to-be-safe gene that their grandparents have passed down through the generations, in a critical attempt at preserving their species? Or could it be an age-old excuse to keep heating bills at home down (the higher the heat in the living room, the more you’ll feel the wind when you go back outside, deary)?

Whatever the reason is, people, I am here to tell you how to protect yourselves. Close your windows tight at night, open them only in the morning hours to make the house feel fresh and new. Keep your room temperatures as close to the human suffering point as possible (only then will you manage to keep away the fever gods). And – whatever you do – do not leave your house without a scarf, a wool hat and a pellet gun (not really, but it can't hurt). Because you never know when the colpo might sneak up on you and – in an unexpected violent turn of events – breeze through your hair and make you miserable for (precisely) the next 14 minutes.