It's done. I've sworn allegiance...

... to the Italian Republic yesterday. Hopefully, I don't burn in their debts of hell for this.

Was tickled pink to have shaken the mayor's hand — once as a foreigner and then as an Italian citizen. He even handed me a small book containing the constitution and a small flag. The flag just makes me go teehee all over. Have told the husband that, from now on, I will greet him by waving with my tiny, tiny Italian flag when he comes home from work. And that during the next World Cup, I will hang my tiny, tiny flag outside our window... though, since our neighbors use officially huge flags, I'll probably back out at the last minute for fear of being ridiculed for the size of my —erm— flag.



Photography fluke:

Was rather pleased when the instructor clapped his hands last night and said that this fluke happens to be a prime example of Rembrandt lighting — an effect that makes the shot appear as if natural light was coming from a window.

I took around 60 pics and only this one got the thumbs-up sign.




Currently wild about:

Lucky Wreck by Ada Limon. Her writing just makes me want to die because it sure feels like heaven (mine). Here's an excerpt from her longish poem, The Echo Sounder:

   2
When she is eleven years old, she thinks
her body will be like that of a fish. She does
not want to decay before she uses it.
She is confused in the dark. She is never
scared. She is convinced that she can talk
to God and she asks him a question.
She does not get an answer, so
she makes one up. She believes the answer is:
everything stops, the food is in the mouth,
but the mouth is not there,
the water flows, but there is no creek.
She understands now that bodies can swing
from trees and whole families
can be locked up, that people die the way fish do
starving sometimes, gutted and tortured
by children who think they are being
scientific and responsible. She thinks God
must know this and therefore he is ugly.
She decides God is no good, but he must exist,
he must exist so she can hold him accountable.
She decides this and then forgets.

Woooooheeeee! Ain't she divine?! Love this interior monologue with its surprising twists and turns, plus mind-opening theistic-social observations.