Finding Leah

johnny depp was cute in that film

2006-10-06T19:50:25Z

My pirate name is:

Dirty Ethel Rackham

You're the pirate everyone else wants to throw in the ocean -- not to get rid of you, you understand; just to get rid of the smell. You have the good fortune of having a good name, since Rackham (pronounced RACKem, not rack-ham) is one of the coolest sounding surnames for a pirate. Arr!

Get your own pirate name from piratequiz.com.
part of the fidius.org network

well, not EXACTLY

2006-10-05T07:31:36Z

Back by popular demand.
Lately I've been anxiety ridden and obsessed.
The Franklin cover up/Johnny Gosch story ate me whole and has spit me up.
My never ending list of bureaucratic things to attend to hounds me.
I feel out of touch with the world and myself, family* and friends...
and blogs. My current attention with piano playing has even dwindled.
Instead of vanishing, I escape reading big books cover to cover.
I derive some comfort from blogs and blogging, there is some hope and relief that blogs can tell me more than bogus classic news reporting.
My neighbor and friend in ABQ, Kris, MIGHT come to Rome round Christmas. Finding a decent priced ticket would be helpful.
New lessons with ESL students are going ok.
* I MUST write them.

yay

2006-09-19T06:02:04Z

I advise that >weak of heart and/or non curious by nature< blogreaders should avoid examining the following link.

http://p216.ezboard.com/frigorousintuitionfrm10.showMessageRange?topicID=5911.topic&start=1&stop=20

Yesterday it occurred to me that I am not in the USA....if I was I could find someone to teach me how to post photographs onto my blog entries.

Gill Bills somehow? recently decided that she wants to learn to cook. She attends the school of full immersion. She made a quiche last week and last night prepared chicken and Italian style potatoes (chunkily cubed in the oven with olive oil and onions instead of rosemary). Does this mean she's soon going to invite boys over for lunch and dinner?

Parent orientation tonight at her school...

I've begun to teach again and the anticipation WAS much worse than the actuality (wondering if this is also true for my pupils...

Thank you Colin Powell

2006-09-16T11:32:33Z

A bit late in the 'game'? for lack of a better word..Was happy to read that Colin Powell wrote Sen. John McCain a letter saying that Congress MUST NOT pass Bush's proposal to redefine (by narrowing the US's interpretation of ) US compliance with the Geneva conventions. Bravo. Bush was forced to create his proposal because last June his existing court system to prosecute terrorist suspects was ruled ILLEGAL by the US Supreme court AND it violates the Geneva Conventions...
The Geneva conventions were created after WWII, I think it's important that the US atleast tries to respect them...(despite the President).
On a cheerier note- I'm making chicken soup, since Roman and Italian weather in general has decided to imitate Northern Scotland...Chicken soup making encouraged me to hunt through what I call 'the dark bottles'. A good part of Italy is at not all food substances are packaged by industries. I've been given bottles of grains,pastes,spices,capers,oils, honey, stuffed peppers, jams and none of them are labeled. Because they're not labeled I tend to forget about them after their placed either in the pantry or fridge. This is a leftover of my having grown up in an industrialized society.
The bad news is that I forgot to buy cat food at the supermarket and now Brocca won't stop meowing and swatting at me and I don't want to go back out into the Scottish drizzle.
Other bad news, www.websleuths.com won't let me post to their Johnny Gosch thread because I don't have a paid for email address, how sucky. They do have the best J.G. stuff around...
Rosalyn has moved to Paris. Gil asked about him the other evening. Boo-hoo. We'll HAVE to go visit.

la notte bianco

2006-09-10T13:59:15Z

One night a year, Rome following in Paris' (the city, not the Hilton) footsteps, hosts an all night affair. Museums, theaters, clubs, libraries, bars etc etc are open all night- lots of entertainment and public transport is free and running through dawn. The roads in the center of town are closed to traffic.
This is the festas third year...it miserably failed the first two years because of rain rain rain, what's more the first year it coincided with a countrywide power outtage and so there were no street lights or trams.
This year, finally it was GREAT. SO much fun. Concert hopping I ran across lots of old friends I hadn't seen in years. Everyone was so darn happy. James gave me a big hug outside the Bocca della Verita and told me he loved me..Had a drink with Deborah outside the newly rennovated Fontana di Tartarughe. Luca and Pierluigi stopped me on the road to Campo di Fiori.
Rome should do this once a month instead of annually!

uncertain

2006-09-06T07:21:47Z

That is, uncertain WHICH mood I'm in exactly, at any given time recently...
This past weekend I found myself in a bout of depression, good ole thick depression. Gil was at her Dad's and had I known she was going be there, I wouldv'e tried to escape to Ischia for some early September beaching- attempted a last stab at summer. But instead I remained in Rome. Pippo and Ross were away too.
After two or three days of being seriously stewed, something mysterious happened. Fully expecting to wake up in the same mood I'd gone to sleep in, instead, I woke up happy, determined, even jazzed! I decided to attend to the list of various bureacratic and general house care things I've been procrastinating on. It was as if I dreamt something that made my head switch.
Then, last night I became frustrated, overwhelmed and anxious. Spread too thin between bureacratic responsibilities, being a Mom, being a girlfriend, being a friend, wanting to escape (costs money) and wanting to conserve money, having to get my shit togethor for this beginning school season....so I slept on the sofa, which is where I'd slept when I'd had the miraculous better mood switch last time. Instead, this time I woke up to my teeth grinding.
For escape I've been reading various web accounts of the Johnney Gosch-Bohemian Grove-Franklin affair. Then yesterday I bought a book about Opus Dei.
I discovered that not only does the USA NOT keep a body count of dead Iraqi civilians (or so they state) but also that IMPOSSIBLY they say they do not keep a running count of military deserters and/or people that were given dishonorable or less than honorable discharges/ prison sentences for changing their minds because they couldn't cope with having to kill people anymore. Ha! The military also says that most people awol NOT because they can't embrace any military moral but because they have committed crimes. Just one more twist, of course. IF they desert they HAVE committed a crime, so that MUST be their reasoning, right? ( No, wrong, huh.) I'd like a count of ex military recruits that have abandoned their military careers because it gives me hope.

war path part III

2006-09-03T13:08:53Z

Well, Maria Ruzicka, may she rest in peace, was on it, the civilian death count that is, until she died from suicider's car bomb on the infamous airport road from Baghdad not long after Saddam's statue toppled. Her legacy is a group called CIVIC (www.civicworldwide.org)

They post a pdf called 'Iraq: counting the casualties' One part I quote;

"WHY NUMBERS MATTER
Civilian casualties are the most tragic consequences of war. In the immediate wake of the staggering number of civilians killed and injured in World War II, the international community recognized this and created a handful of documents to govern the laws of war: four Geneva Conventions of 1949, their two protocols of1977, and customary international law (principles widely accepted and considered binding).
Together, they provide detailed rules on how civilians and captured combatants must be treated such as:
warring forces cannot intentionally attack civilians or their facilities;
all feasible precautions must be taken to minimize harm to civilians;
attacks that do not or cannot discriminate between combatants and noncombatants are prohibited;
and, attacks causing disproportionate harm to civilians - those outweighing military advantage - are prohibited.

The Fourth Geneva Convention (officially “Convention IV, relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War”) specifically emphasizes protecting noncombatantsfrom harm during periods of armed conflict. The rules apply not only to officially declared wars—an increasingly rare step taken in our modern day—but to any armed conflict as well as cases of partial or total occupation of a territory, even if there is no armed resistance to this occupation. The Fourth Convention is now considered customary international law; therefore, nations at war must abide by its provisions and will be held accountable if they do not.
Common interpretation of the Fourth Convention holds it unethical to launch an attack indiscriminately in such a way that may knowingly cause non-combatants to be killed and any military objective must be weighed against the number of civilians likely to be harmed in achieving it. In modern warfare, it isn’t feasible to completely prevent civilian casualties and this is well understood. There is, however, a legal and moral obligation to proactively avoid harming civilians to the fullest extent possible.
Since the U.S. invasion of Iraq began in 2003, CIVIC has urged the Pentagon to implement a mechanism to record the number of civilian casualties incurred by U.S. forces. The number of civilians harmed by operations is an important measure of how well U.S. forces are doing in avoiding harm to civilians.

*****Logically, if there is no effort to count civilians, there is no way the U.S. can adequately back up the claim it is doing everything it can to avoid civilian casualties and abiding by its obligations under international law.***** (asterixes mine)

We must also remember that every statistic released on civilians killed and injured represents real human lives and families torn apart. The Pentagon being forthright with the information it keeps on civilians in conflict would let the citizens of Iraq know the U.S., in its authority position, recognizes their suffering and respects those who have been harmed."

Other body count facts I've dug up;

According to an early LA Times article the Iraqi Health Ministry's (which was the first ministry appointed by the US) statistics director was ordered to NOT to count the bodies, by the planning director who takes his orders from the Ministry director, though this was later denied. (by Abbas-the ministry director)

The people reporting the counts from the morgues and the people who collect the data and choose to reveal it or not- are not the same people.

Many Iraqi civilians DON'T bring the bodies to the morgue because they are afraid that this will reveal to the attackers of their families who they are and put them at risk for further assault.

The Iraqi (puppet) health ministry itself is pissed off w/the US Forces and is threatening to not work with them anymore.

I'm not alone with this Iraqi civilian body count desire. Many media sources and humanity organisations are frustrated too.

I wonder if what the Bush administration says regarding the danger of releasing civilian death counts because of it publically revealing to insurgents their effectiveness, is just a cover excuse to avoid having to face responsibilty to the Geneva conventions.

the war path

2006-09-02T22:28:40Z

Is it my Aries nature? NO, I mean, Ross is a Scorp but he atleast was ready to indulge my morbid curiosity ( up until when the cumulative research results were too depressing- NOT because of the numbers but because of the impossibility of getting numbers.)
So I was happily surprised when the NYTimes reported on rapidly escalating Iraqi civilian deaths ( NOT because of the escalation but because they atleast reported on it.)
I sent an email to Michael R Gordon the chief war correspondent which wrote the article, and author (co-author?) of a big book about the gulf war>OIF.( 0IF= Operation Iraqi Freedom). Apparently, many people associate being dead with being free, but not me, and NO that's NOT what I wrote him. I simply wrote that me and my Scorp friend were somewhat scandalized that a google search couldn't cough up any credible figures, and asked him if he knew where I might look to find some. Remarkably, my email made it through the NYTimes screener/sorter and to Mr. Gordon's box and he wrote me back;

Heather,

There are a variety reports that deal with this. In general, civilian
casualties are not tabulated with the same precision as military ones.

I am attaching PDF's of Pentagon, Congressional Research Service and
Brookings Institution reports that have data on this.

Also see the site below.

http://icasualties.org/oif/

Michael Gordon

3 attachments — Download all attachments
Iraq casualities.pdf
44K View as HTML Download
DODquarterlyreport.pdf
1290K View as HTML Download
brookingsiraq.pdf
404K View as HTML Download

SO I read the pdfs. The first one,a Congressional Service Research report was quite upsetting; " No Iraqi or US Government office regularly releases statistics on Iraqi deaths." " The data underlying this chart is classified because it could allow insurgents to assess the effectiveness of their attacks." There was a reference to a website Ross and I had checked out that was totally bogus. ( IMPOSSIBLY low figures that G. Bush has quoted. Even Jack Straw, said their numbers were unreliable and I add, deceivingly so.
The icasualities website has only relatively recently began to include reports of dead civilians.

I wrote Mr. Gordon back:

Thanks again for taking a moment out to answer my query..I read
through the documents you sent me links to. The Congressional service
report was frightening; " The data underlying this chart is classified
because it allow insurgents to assess the effectiveness of their
attacks." and " No Iraqi or US Govt. office regular releases of
statistics on Iraqi deaths...". The (http://icasualties.org/oif/) has
only more recently begun to assess and report Iraqi civilian deaths. I
agree that civilian casualities aren't reported with the same
precision as military ones, but unfortunately, it seems, they haven't
been reported with ANY precision since the source....

OOps! I'd meant to save a draft but accidently sent instead of saved an incompleted email SO....
I continued my message in a further email;

Hi Michael,
I accidently sent off that last email before finishing it...to continue;
IBC only counts deaths that they read about in English language papers
with at least two corroborated sources.
I'm just an ordinary person attempting to place this ongoing OIF into
a somewhat realistic perspective. I'm sure that obtaining any more
accurate counts of Iraqi civilian death toll since the onset of OIF is
not a simple matter but the government DOES seem to have a vested
interest in NOT having the public see this information which of course
makes learning more difficult.
Can you tell me what usually happens when civilians die in Iraq? Are
the bodies taken to morgues? Do the morgues have records? Or, surely
there are hospital records somewhere, or data that measure death rates
before and during OIF.
It may seem that I'm morbidly obsessed with the death count...I don't
know why exactly, it just seems important for me to try and measure
somehow the immeasurable suffering of human beings left behind as a
result from this invasion.
Anyway, sorry for bugging you with my twisted opinions.
If you ever come up with other ideas that might help me to learn about
the civilian deaths in Iraq, again, I'd really appreciate learning
more,
Heather( Rome, It)

He wrote me back (again!);
Heather,

The Iraqi authorities keep statistics on such things. So does the United Nations, drawing on Iraqi morgue records and other sources. I believe some UN figures are referenced in the Pentagon report. At any rate, you might try doing an internet search for UN statistics.

The NY Times has written about the Iraqi and the UN statistics. Here is a article that was done earlier this month. It mentions morgue records. They are generally reliable, but not all inclusive.

Michael

August 16, 2006, Wednesday Late Edition - Final
Section A Page 10 Column 5 Desk: Foreign Desk Length: 1157 words

"Number of Civilian Deaths Highest in July, Iraqis Say "
By EDWARD WONG and DAMIEN CAVE; Sahar Nageeb and Qais Mizher contributed reporting for this article.

BAGHDAD, Iraq, Aug. 15....

>>>Well, I'm not going to post the entire article, which I thought was very good, but only a few of the relevant bits to my haunting search;

"July appears to have been the deadliest month of the war for Iraqi civilians, according to figures from the Health Ministry and the Baghdad morgue, reinforcing criticism that the Baghdad security plan started in June by the new government has failed.

An average of more than 110 Iraqis were killed each day in July, according to the figures. The total number of civilian deaths that month, 3,438, is a 9 percent increase over the tally in June and nearly double the toll in January."

"The Baghdad morgue reported receiving 1,855 bodies in July, more than half of the total deaths recorded in the country. The morgue tally for July was an 18 percent increase over June."

"When the tally for civilian deaths in July is added to the Iraqi government numbers for earlier months obtained by the United Nations, the total indicates that at least 17,776 Iraqi civilians died violently in the first seven months of this year, or an average of 2,539 per month."

"The Health Ministry did not provide figures for people wounded by attacks in Baghdad but said that at least 3,597 Iraqis were hurt outside the city in July, a 25 percent increase over June."

"United Nations officials and military analysts say the morgue and ministry numbers almost certainly reflect severe undercounting, caused by the haphazard nature of information in a war zone. Many casualties in areas outside Baghdad probably never appear in the official count, said Anthony H. Cordesman, a military analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a research group in Washington." The United Nations has been tracking civilian casualty figures by collating numbers from the Health Ministry and Baghdad morgue. Last month, it announced that the Iraqi government's numbers indicated that 3,149 violent deaths had occurred in June, or an average of more than 100 per day.

The statistics were significantly higher than previous civilian death tolls, and indicated that the news media had drastically underreported the level of violence in Iraq. The United States government and military have declined to release overall figures on Iraqi civilian casualties, or even say whether they are keeping count."

My last email;
Michael,
That is a helpful article, again, thank you for helping me out. It
occurred to me that I might want to enquire about UN figures as the US
government certainly doesn't seem to want to expose much ( if they are
counting...and it's hard for me to imagine that they aren't.) Looks
like I'll have to do a little math to arrive at present cumulative
results..
It's curious to me that anyone would deny that Iraq is entering if not
already in a civil war, certainly civil conflict and it's resulting
pain have been escalating. I hate it when things have to get worse
before they get better, however, despite sadness (and, I confess, some
rage), I prefer to try to learn more about the situation rather than
ignore it.
Take care, Heather

haven't seen any 'scopes for awhile

2006-09-02T09:34:53Z

Aries
Dear God, please give me patience... and could you do it right now?

Taurus
Dear God, help me accept change, but not too quick.

Gemini
Dear God! Who is God? Where is God? Why is God?

Cancer
Dear God!!!

Leo
Yes?

Virgo
Dear God, please make us perfect and don't mess it up like You did the last time.

Libra
Dear God, please help me to be decisive, but on the other hand, what do you think is best?

Scorpio
Our Father, forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors, even though the b*****ds don't deserve it!

Sagittarius
Dear Lord, if I've told you once, I've told you a million times, help me stop exaggerating.

Capricorn
Dear God! I'd like to ask you to help me, but I learned a long time ago not to rely on anyone else!

Aquarius
Dear God, I know I like change, but this chaos is ridi culous!!

Pisces
Dear Lord, as long as I'm going to drink this fifth of Scotch tonight, please use the stimulation for Thy glory.

iraqi civilian casualities-body count

2006-09-01T11:22:30Z

http://www.unknownnews.net/casualties.html
Yesterday evening Ross and I decided to google in order to find what we might regarding a current Iraqi civilian death toll since the beginning of the invasion.
result: almost nothing.
One site named Iraqi death toll or Iraqi body count was OBVIOUSLY way under, and we mean WAY under...SO under that it seemed like deliberate propoganda and yet, almost all of the other sites Google coughed up quoted the BS site ( G. Bush too quotes the figures on that site).
The last publically available USA Govt. count for Iraqi SOLDIERS was in 2003.
There was virtually next to nothing new regarding civilian body counts, which was already up to 80,000+ after eight months of conflict.
The site I link above was the best we could find.
That there is NO real current news on Iraqi civilian deaths due to bombings, shootings, and war acts is pretty outrageous.
No one's counting because these people didn't/don't count?
Is it not SHOCKING that there is no news or hardly any regarding Iraqi civilian death toll resulting from the conflict? To make myself feel a little uplift from this depressing reality I read a bit on USA soldiers who've AWOL ed to Canada.

dream #?

2006-09-01T08:31:00Z

Was being instructed musically by watching different pieces move on a chessboard. (In more ways than one--when chess pieces were moved musical pieces were created or replicated) When moved, the rook, queen, bishop created or replicated different musical notes, chords and sounds, their combined movements creating melodies--if you move the rook, it sounds like this, if you move the queen like this. I asked, "...But what about flats and sharps?" and was shown that if you added a small token, like a hat or trumpet, (similar to the playing pieces of Monopoly) to a chess piece than the altered chess piece=note became flat or sharp. Like a rook with a trumpet= an F Sharp, a pawn with a hat- a B flat... Enthusiastically speaking about this revealng new instruction at a party, I began to demonstrate it by moving the chess pieces to a song, "Mercy" (which was on a compilation CD Shermie sent me a while back). A friend of mine also attending the party, who was supposed to be my moviemaking friend Gayle from LA and is black but in the dream resembled an Asian dwarf (that resembled another dwarf I saw on a CSI rerun last night) was excited that I'd chosen 'Mercy' as the song to perform with the chess pieces and to sing. She wanted to sing it too BUT we disagreed about what the words to the verses are, although we agreed as to what the words to the chorus are.

not yet Sept.

2006-08-29T11:22:06Z

Am feeling a terrible angst about the school season beginning again, and having to buckle down to scheduling; lessons, students, traffic, Momming. Surely the anticipation is worse than whatever the actuality will be.
Rosalyn FINALLY found an apartment to rent in Paris, where he'll be attending a 4 month studies program. GEE it'd surely be wonderful and more entertaining if he'd write in his own ( now abandoned) informative blog...but Oh well. Not my business to tell anyone else what to do when. Maybe, hopefully, Gil and I will be able to go visit him there at some point.
Yesterday he and I went out shopping in closed down Rome for a yellow candle. The one euro shop was closed but I found one at UPIM. A horrible yellow color- bad electric yellow, but undoubtedly yellow. No one ( but me) knows why I needed a yellow candle, ( I told Ross because I didn't have one-which is true BUT not the WHOLE TRUTH). It has to do with witchy stuff...Grimoire writing.
I've had some fun with Blues independent studies, enough to chew on for now, ie. enough riffs and options for left hand and right hand maneuvers. I guess the GOAL is to eventually impose the exercises onto a circle of fifths, to help me learn and remember all of the different chords. I'm very happy Blues of all things have brought pleasure back into piano playing because Ms. Gera in all her seniority and abuse is a blues piano. The blues ALSO leave the door open for Pippo and I to goof around musically in fresh ways. Getting him to follow along with rythmic guitar to various USA pop songs was becoming stale.
Last night I went to a dinner at Pippo's bro's. There was a French guy there with a Brazilian woman whose sisters live in France.
We were Spanish Anna speaking French and Italian, French Aldo on French, Italian Romano on Italian/French, Pippo on Eng/French/Italian, an Italian couple on Italian only, and the Brazilian Erika on Portugese/French. It was FUN to listen to the French and respond in Italian. NO one cared if we weren't speaking the same language. It amazed me that I could understand as much of the French as I did. Guess I've been inundated with European grammar and latin roots more than I'd realized.

today's lesson (s)

2006-08-28T00:18:13Z

It told me to go to the coffee shop and say I'm playing comp chords and tritones, but I can't be bothered to look these up in the Italian/English dictionary for a translation so I'm blogging about it instead..
Tritones were considered evil in the middle ages...maybe that's what terrorists used back then.
I made it to chap 9 sec 4 (sounds to me like sumthin from a law library--) in the free online blues lessons at www.unlimitedpianolessons.com
Otherwise, I saw a very cute, clever British TV program called 'creature comforts'.

cool dream

2006-08-25T12:40:50Z

When I went on a lonnnnnnggggggggg walk this morning I remembered a cool dream I had last night.

There was a 3 ft tall stained red/pink arched gate. The fence on either side of the gate was stained blue. The grass on the other side of the fence was bright green. A man took a photo and I decided that I liked the subject so much that I wanted to take a photo too.
One photo wasn't enough though. I wanted to take 1000s of photos of all the textural and colorful juxtapositions I kept finding. They were everywhere! Yellows with lavanders and deep oranges and smooth with bumpy and airy and I clicked, click clicked all around. Was great fun.

Ms. Gera

2006-08-24T19:18:54Z

OK. My piano isn't perfect. One of her FAs is way outta tune, one of her other FAs sticks sometimes. She bellows a bit much BUT I've made a fun little discovery...when classical music can sound absolutely ruined by outta tune keys, BLUES can sound just fine. I like to imagine old pianos like her being played a lot in cruddy Mississippi dives.
I am working my way through
Old Joe Clark's Boogie and
Worried Man Blues.

ribbons

2006-08-22T15:40:55Z

In Italy people place a big light blue bow on the door when boys are born,
a pink one when girls are born.
Coming in today there was a light blue one and the doorlady told me that soon there would be
a pink one too. I haven't seen any bigbellied women about so I was happily surprised. I like babies in the building.
Doorlady said the building needs babies because their are too many old folks and they die.
Like the little old lady who lived at the end of my hall.
No one knew she was 84 years old, Signorina Carla.
Her Mom and sister used to live there too but they died before I ever could meet them.
Signorina never married, had no living family except a cousin.
She was SO SWEET! A mouse of sorts...thin, petite, her hair never turned white.
She never cut it either but sometimes rolled it up in a bun- a natural grey mass.
She always smiled or grinned, I'm not sure which, when she saw me, which was usually waiting for the elevator, or outside the building on days we both took out the trash.
She did all her own shopping.
She did all her own everything.
She was TERRIBLY shy, and spoke if she felt she had to, in a quick thin high voice. I could consider myself one of the fortunate few whom she permitted to share the elevator with. She wouldn't get in an elevator with strangers and she wouldn't get in an elevator with men. I'd have to plead with her that I REALLY didn't mind if she wanted to get in the elevator carrying trash or grocery bags.
Once she went to the rooftop storage and the door to the rooftop stairsblew closed and jammed,
locking her out on the rooftop.
I heard a call," Signora! Signora!" but it was very faint. I opened the front door but no one was there.
I continued to hear the call and went out on my terrace where she was leaning over the side of the building trying to get my attention so that I might rescue her- which I did.
The Signorina ALWAYS wore midcalf lengthed grey or blue skirts with a navy or grey cardigan. She was always either in all grey or all navy or some combo with her navy old lady shoes. She NEVER wore a hat of any kind.
I think she was a little deaf because often her tv or radio were somewhat blasting but I didn't mind I was happy she was there.
Now, of course, she's no longer there. On her last trip to the hospital she had problems getting a taxi. The doorlady called an ambulance and had her sit down to wait for it. She refused to be put in the back of the ambulance. She walked to the ambulance and entered it through the side not the back door, she didn't want anybody seeing her.
When the doorlady went to check on her at the hospital, the staff told her that Signorina had been transferred to a home, but wouldn't give her the exact address. Doorlady couldn't find a home in the neighborhood they'd said. Desperate doorlady went to the police (she's friends with the Chief). The Chief said he'd ask the hospital because damn tootin the hospital staff better tell HIM where little lady was.
Little Lady had been sent to a morgue. Brain hemorrage.
A Dio Signorina,
Ti voglio bene,
la tua anima e il tuo spirito pure.
Spero che sei a pace e in la compania di spiriti che ti ama.
Hai guardagnato tuoi ali...
Grazie eterne per i tuoi sorrisi e per la tua gentilezza qui a terra,
dalla tua vicina di casa.

money, american style

2006-08-20T22:18:00Z

phew... I was beginning to sound like a long version of 'a few of my favorite things'.
I've been trying to rent out Pippo's studio using Craig's list. Almost all the people who write in response to the notice I posted are American.
They want to rent the place but they don't want to send deposits. The site unseen thing or the International fraud danger. I'm about to give up on Craig's list because I prefer people seeing the place first. Then, first come- first serve. When they arrive they can call me to ask if it's vacant, without requiring me to get all informed about their travel times. Ha! They can pay 4 times as much to stay in a crap hotel with a shared bathroom IF they can find one! They can pay six or eight times as much to reserve a place at a hotel...I don't even know if my bank here does paypal anything.

cont..

2006-08-20T06:58:38Z

sidewalks covered by crunchy leaves
children's smiles when they've lost both front baby teeth and the adult ones haven't grown in yet
playing jotto on long train rides
the alps
seasoned chesapeake bay crabs
the paris metro
pedicures

what do you LOVE?

2006-08-18T10:43:27Z

Potatoes
clean laundry
kittens
thunderstorms
forests
inquisitive children
good coffee and cakes
pink grapefruit sorbetto
unexpected new compilations on cds
the smell of tangerine blossoms
abandoned industrial areas on waterfronts
fireplaces
mystical surprises
laughing
the sea
fresh fish
music that makes you cry the first time you hear it
sleeping naked
great haircuts
family
friends
adventures
roadtrips
bonuses
buttered popcorn at movies
eggplant
flowers
chimes made of old key collections
talking to people in elevators
amazing true stories
singing
smelling the back of babies' heads
french windows
balconies
panoramic views
walking
swimming
reading
writing
drawing
painting
treehouses
yachts
pianos
stand up bass
dancing
trying on hats
original innocence
plantlife
the sky
crop circles
mandalas
ruins
arched gates
gardens
Africa
inspiration

mediterranean

2006-08-17T09:55:29Z

The sea was fabulous yesterday. Wavy, cooling. Even though it was too windy out to set up the umbrella, I didn't get fried. The traffic coming back wasn't nearly as horrendous as the last time I went to the beach, a week ago. However PARKING was more horrendous. Because it was the day after a national holiday and national holidays NEVER last just one day here- seemed all Rome remaining Romans went to the beach.
I finally received an email from one of the 217 tenants. They had Sam toss the sofa and diningroom table, but offered to reimburse me for them. I don't know what else they or he decided to toss without asking me. Cest la vie.
Is anyone else having trouble commenting to Bro's blog? My comments don't go through.
I want a new job. I don't want to teach ESL anymore, I'm tired of it.
Gill Beans is off with her friends in Holland. The lowlands music festival. Yikes.

who are you?

2006-08-16T08:58:56Z

Worthless baron odor?
Rewrites cherub art?
Jelly symmetric blur?
Bantering oboe?

Autonomy opens
mooney anus pot
uneasy moon top
anyone out mops
monotony up sea.

All this and more from www.bored.com

-her best freshwater acne

where are the sleuths? leah info..

2006-08-15T14:26:29Z

Leah's father was named Bill Blair Mcfarland.

There is a death record of a Billy B Mcfarland that died in Los Angeles August 27th 1975. According to the death record he was born in Tennessee. Social Security # 547-44-8677. Bill had several brothers; one was named Jack and another named Nelson. Bill had served in the Navy. He became a laser physicist and worked for some years fo Hughes Airwest in S.CA.. He'd lived for sometime on Encinal Canyon Rd. in the Malibu hills.

Leah's mother's maiden name was Donna Ibbitson (or Ibbotson). She married Bill Mcfarland June 20th, 1961 in Los Angeles County. When they first married they lived in Los Alamitos, CA. Donna's parents (Leah's maternal grandparents) were living in Half Moon Bay, Ca in the early 1970s.

Leah Michelle Mcfarland was born June 19th, 1964

She might have married a guy named Dorian Paul Bagley on April 27th 1986. Dorian was born in CA in 1961 and his mother's maiden was Clark. Dorian is now married to someone else and may be living in Aurora, CA.

What would you do? Give up? If not, how would you look for her?

leah?

2006-08-14T15:25:27Z

I'm gathering togethor all the info I've collected so far and will summarize it in an upcoming entry, basically, her birthplace, date, parents name, mother's maiden name, city of residence when she was twelve, town where her maternal grandparents lived, lastname of the fella her Mom later married. Some of her father's brothers names etc. Supposedly a professional private eye could find her within a few hours with all that--for like, 50 bucks. That's what I want for Christmas- to find Leah. Even though Finding Leah is the title of this blog, go figure, I'm NOT finding her. I try and try and it all bombs out.
Today, instead, I'm gonna make shish-ka-bob, bruschetta, cut finocchio, mozzerella, tomatoes, garlic and basil, and place olives in bowls.Then a group of Rome stranded folks are gonna eat our dinner on an outdoor pingpong table.
Cute, by mistake an American guy bought a cd of Pippo's band at a garage sale, so he reviewed it. He wrote that a drummer with a name like
Pi Po Pa Squini could visit his house anytime.
Pi Po PA IS a great name for a drummer and goes well with shish ka bob and ping pong.
Today walking found a photo on the sidewalk next to one of them photo booths. Just looking at it makes me laugh. It's a full grown man, handsome even, except that he has an expression on his face like he's shitting his pants. Clearly he didn't want that to represent him internationally (or even locally). Whoever he is.

sometimes..

2006-08-13T13:19:26Z

instead of having to listen to stupid ignorant racist italian convos...I am given tidbits of strangers with loveliness. Yesterday Rome was almost totally deserted, 'cept for the tourists down roun' the colosseum or stuffing themselves into the Sistine Chapel...
I visited a coffee shop that had been renewed since the last time I went there. A californian client had given the proprieter a cd and it was playing loudly, extending sound out to the otherwise silent streets. An old man who had begun to dye his hair, so that it had become the faintest of lavender hues, asked me for a light. A young woman who, I learned, was half Italian and half from Santo Domingo began to chit chat. We talked about babies and music and dance and cultures. There was a breeze. Some sort of old rock -do the twist-song was playing and so I peeked into the coffeeshop to see if the owner was bodily prone to sound- and I busted him, twisting away.
Turns out the young woman is pregnant, the owner's wife, and is busily cutting the stamps off labels of milk bottles aiming to collect atleast the thousand points required to exchange them for a vacuum cleaner.
The old man, the pregnant woman, the owner, and another Italian guy who showed up chatted about babies getting hooked on music in the womb. The couple began to decide which music they should subject the as yet unborn infant too. We talked about dancing in Santo Domingo vs. the shame associated by Italians with dance, as though dancing is something suspect if not perverted. We talked about dancing grandparents. We talked about teenage american garagebands, we talked about how what a pity it is Italians can't even clap their hands rythmically..all this with multigenerational international strangers over coca colas with lemonslices and ice. Everyone was happy. Everyone was relaxed and appreciated the company, this mini improv group selfdistanced from the tourists.
Long time since I made myself think of ten anything, so:
1.) Pippo's cat 'Micia' (meecha) caught a gecko, I worried she might bring it into the house but she didn't BUT
2.)She barfed on the guest bedroom bedspread.
3.)Rome has cooled considerably but I continue to obsess with fans and wanting to immerse myself in large bodies of water for extended periods.
4.)I commented on one of the blogs on GBs roll and have become curious about dsplit poet
5.)Twice I tried to comment to Mayor Eric's blog but the comments wouldn't/didn't post.
6.)The 217 tenants never answered my email.
7.)I would like some new songs to to begin, bella rarities.
8.)Beanhead is returning tonight but departing again day after tomorrow
9.)Read a long article in July's New Yorker about the usa soccer prob
10.) Am wondering when is the best time to pick the chili peppers growing on my terrace.

sognando

2006-08-12T09:49:20Z

The other evening I discussed dreams and dreaming with a young man who is renting out Pippo's studio apartment for a month. We spoke a bit about how sometimes the fine line between what is dreaming and what isn't presents itself..
I was dreaming this morning that there was a room that was chock full of assorted junk, baby doll pieces, brooms, books, mags, plastic jewelry, all sorts of imaginable knick knack.
( The other evening I watched an animated film and the young wizard's room was similarly decorated and I said, Hey that looks like Pippo's!)
Leading straight into the knick knack place was a clear outdoor walkway covered by a long archshaped awning. I slightly woke up long enough to ask myself what the awning may be about, wondering if a symbolic approach to dream deciphering holds any water. I asked myself, hmmm what might awnings mean, and, when did I have awnings in my life? I remembered that there were short awnings over the kitchen windows of the house I grew up in (how could I forget? they remained for most all my life, are they still there?) but nothing over the front door. The only long arched awnings I know of, sometimes cover the entrance doors to fancier discoteques in Rome.
I fell back asleep and had a nightmare about the tenants living in the house I bought. They were being evil with me, they hadn't responded to any of my inquiries about the house so I went there and they were very arrogant with me and I scratched one of them in the face with a pen. They wanted to get angry at me for doing that but I explained to the manager that I had no choice because they were being so aggressive with me and my property. When the situation and communications didn't improve I began to scream and scream. Then I awoke from the nightmare.