Gelato on a cone?

Sarah Bringhurst Familia

We are supposed to be in Italy. The week before we were to return home, between two weddings, Christmas, and New Year’s, we realized that we had substantially overestimated the number of things we could accomplish in three months, even at a frenetic, positively Southern Californian pace. So we called our Italian airline, AirOne, which as you remember, considers carseats unsafe for children. It appears that AirOne employs one lone Indian customer service agent. It took us a few days to catch him on duty.

When we finally did, he said there was no way he could look up our reservation without a code from Expedia, where we’d purchased the ticket.… Read more

Not so Christmassy at all

Sarah Bringhurst Familia

The explosion of the Space Shuttle Challenger in 1986 rewired my five-year-old mind. It’s not so much a visual image that I remember, but the description of the charred glove found at the scene. From then on, I was horrified by anything to do with outer space. Though I was a confirmed bookworm with varied tastes, for at least eight or nine years afterward I religiously avoided the little rocket sticker that designated science fiction at our library.

I had a similar experience a few months ago. We had been searching for a new business supplier and considering a factory in Pakistan.… Read more

Christmas Blessings

Sarah Bringhurst Familia

We had our little Christmas play at Family Home Evening on Monday. Tony had Axa do the casting. She cast herself as Mary, and Raj as Joseph. Raj’s baby doll Rachel (named after Benjamin’s fiancee) was baby Jesus. Grandma was the angel, and Grandpa was a wiseman. I was given the role of narrator. And Tony? He was a sheep. His costume was the best, though. He wore Raj’s special snuggly sheepskin. The play proceeded according to script until the sheep crawled in with Raj’s sheepskin laid over his back. Raj turned his back on Mary and the baby, climbed on top of the sheep, and began sucking his fingers and twirling Tony’s hair.… Read more

Chocolate Chip Pancakes

Sarah Bringhurst Familia

Blogging time’s been hard to come by lately. I don’t blog about our business, or I would have plenty to blog about. We’ve all been sick this week. However, we did go out to lunch yesterday with a lovely lady we met while campaigning for Proposition 8. Actually, we met her the day of the election. When we went to vote, we noticed that outside the polling location there were only people passing out flyers for No on Prop 8. Tony got in trouble at the polling place, because he wore his Yes on 8 T-shirt, and no biased material (including clothing) is allowed inside a polling place.… Read more

If you have friends in California

Sarah Bringhurst Familia

On Tuesday, Californians will vote on Proposition 8, which will define marriage as between a man and a woman. Here are a few of the reasons I feel a need to vote yes and stand up for traditional marriage:

In Massachusetts, where gay marriage is legal, a Christian adoption agency went out of business to avoid being forced to place a baby with a gay couple.

In Arizona, a wedding photographer was sued and paid $7000 in legal fees for refusing out of personal conviction to photograph a gay reception.

In Massachusetts, a second-grade girl came home from school and told her mother she had learned she could marry a girl.… Read more

Carmel Valley Blues

Sarah Bringhurst Familia

The perennial allure of San Diego has caught me by surprise several times this week that we’ve been back. Of Carmel Valley specifically. The only draw toward La Jolla is the original one: the Temple. But Carmel Valley attracts me subtly, like the perfume of a beloved flower, half-forgotten, buried in a complexity of scents, but every so often wafting clear and unchanged, a glimpse into an elusive dream. The streets are immaculate, the landscaping perfect, the architecture harmonious, and the weather flawlessly blue and balmy. The well-groomed palm tree is ubiquitous here. Yet somehow, the meticulously executed surroundings are only a backdrop for the true beauty of this place.… Read more

Underdressed in Milan

Sarah Bringhurst Familia

No, make that severely underdressed.

On our way out of Italy, we decided to make a day of it in Milan. We planned to take the 7:45 bus to Cuneo, then a 9:00 train, which would leave us in Milan around 12:30. However, for some reason Raj woke up at 4:45 in the morning. He lay in bed, quietly humming to himself with his eyes wide open, for the next half hour. Finally, we decided to get up and leave on the 6:10 bus and get there an hour and a half earlier.

So we madly packed up the clothes that hadn’t been quite dry the day before, did our last-minute cleaning, and finally got the children up.… Read more

Pazienza

Sarah Bringhurst Familia

I had intended to celebrate the 100th post on this blog by taking it public. It has been private for several months, ever since we were in difficulties with Teresa in Saluzzo. My hope was that we could celebrate the 100th post by having Tony’s Italian citizenship officially recognized. No dice. But I’m making it public anyway. I’m tired of feeling like if people knew my thoughts they wouldn’t like me. They would. And it doesn’t matter anyway. My blog is a true story.

This has not been the best week as far as citizenship is concerned. Mainly, we have been getting more and more apprehensive that it would not happen before we left for our trip to the U.S… Read more

Mission Impossible

Sarah Bringhurst Familia

Last time we checked with Gianfranco, he had still not received faxed responses from either Manila or San Francisco. As our time ticks away, we decided it was time to call out the international troops.

Amusingly, enough, Tony got up at 1 a.m. Thursday to call Manila. After several dozen tries, he succeeded in getting past the busy signal to an unhelpful secretary, who put him on hold and then hung up on him. He called back immediately, and when the same secretary realized it was he again, he transferred him without speaking to him.

However, the person to whom he was transferred was Italian and didn’t really speak English.… Read more

Cookies

Sarah Bringhurst Familia

Today was Giorgio’s birthday. Being American Mormons, we decided to make him cookies. We made thumbprint cookies, but instead of filling them with jam, we filled them with, yes, you guessed it. Nutella! On Carla’s birthday last month, we inadvertently crashed her party when we stopped by with cookies on our way down for our nightly walk. So today we took Giorgio’s cookies at lunchtime.

It appears that we successfully pulled off a social encounter in Italy! Carla told me that Giorgio was very touched, and that he had asked her to invite us to his party in the evening! She is making what she describes as a “very unhealthy” chocolate cake for him.… Read more