It's been a coon's age since I wrote here, and I have two things to blame. The first was when I was in America over the holidays, and that was because I was visiting many of you! So no complaining. Besides catching up with family and friends, eating my fill of American cuisine, and raiding the local Blockbuster, I was also organizing a cabaret/fundraiser for Studio East, my old theater school back home. I'm happy to say that with the help of many of my fellow alumni, we were able to raise about $1,800! Hooray! The money goes to help the Studio move into their new space, up and out, new and improved!
My second scapegoat is my new work schedule. While I was in the States on vacation, two leads on jobs were brewing back in Italy: one as a babysitter for a sweet little 1-year old, and the other at a jewellery and antiques shop in town. The shop is absolutely my favorite in all of Siena... in fact, the only reason I got offered the job at all was because I spent so much time there as a customer and befriended the owners! Well, both of those jobs came through, so now I'm dividing my time between singing Sesame Street songs and polishing silver teapots.
Which is all why I had to laugh when I was riding home on the bus today (a trip that takes 45 minutes each way... yuck!), browsing through my iPod's endless albums of musicals I still haven't listened to, and here's the song I came across:
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"A Very Nice Man"
from "Carnival", by Bob Merrill
Did you ever in your life
See such a lot of wonderful things
Every shelf is stacked
So jam-packed
That you have to hang the rest on strings!
What a very nice saucer!
What a very nice vase!
Here's a cover would surely
Cure a
Shabby
Bureau.
This is
Sure a very nice place!
You're a very nice person
With a very good heart.
And with one of those
Honest
Kindly
Faces.
It's a very good feeling
To belong in a place,
Working hard as you can
For a very nice man
With a very nice face!
It seemed the end of the world
To meet with such a bitter disappointment!
And not a friend in the world!
But in the nick of time
The man with the very nice face
Said, "Come on into the place
I appreciate it a lot."
What a very nice bracelet
What a wonderful ring
I declare that if I were
Rich I
Don't know
Which I...
Can't the rich buy beautiful things?
What a very nice picture
In a very nice frame
They're so real you can almost
Smell those
Roses
It's a very good feeling
To belong in a place,
Working hard as you can
For a very nice man
With a very nice face!
Where is there another shop
With a such a marvelous stock
Ribbons and beads
Geranium seeds
A frying pan that's a clock!
It seemed the end of the world!
Two "elcentimes" is practically a pauper!
And not a friend in the world
But in the nick of time
And angel out of the blue
Said "Let me give it a thought,
I might have a job for you"--oo!
What very nice doilies!
Made of very fine lace!
How in heaven was this one
Slipped in?
Stitched up?
Snipped in?
Still its
Ripped in a very nice place!
What a very nice pitcher,
Though the handle is off!
But who says that a
Pitcher
Needs a
Handle?
It's a very nice feeling
To belong in a place!
To be young,
And strong,
And have
Ambition!
I could rise to high position!
It's a very nice place!
You're a very nice man,
With a very nice face!
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Now, I'm sure that everyone has those moments when a song of any particular genre seems to pertain ridiculously well to their life. But I have to say that Broadway musicals do it in far more hilarious ways than rap. Somehow I can't imagine Snoop-Dog uttering the word "doily".
So between the two jobs, I'm a busy busy woman, and that's my excuse for slacking on the blog for so long. I'm out of the house these days from 7:30am-8:30pm, and Sundays are spent doing all those "necessary" things like laundry. (And yes, a very indulgent trip to the Pitti Palace in Florence this past Sunday, the first time I've been out of Siena since we got back.) But now that things are settling in to more or less of a routine, I'll try to contribute more often.
Oh, and by the way, the Sunday before last I managed to find enough time between laundry and cleaning my bathroom to make boeuf bourguignon with a side of roasted potatoes, which I gleefully served to Angelo's Sicilian friends. They all looked at it rather warily. I'm fairly certain most of them were trying to remember if there was a pizza joint open on Sundays nearby, and Angelo was mumbling something derogatory about dishes that take 4.5 hours to prepare, but you should have seen how quickly a recipe for 6 people disappeared down 4 gullets, and they were all very liberal with their compliments. So thanks, Julia Childs! A French recipe via two Americans and four decades to the mouths of Italians.
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