St Maarten babymoon

With a renewed dedication to writing, I brought my laptop on vacation to St. Maarten.   Five days later, .. I begin my writing.  On the plane.  Heading back to New York.

   "St. Maarten?" you say.  Yes (I answer).  The mother of our previously mentioned soon-to-be offspring did request such beach-i-ness.  And request.  and hint.  and beg.  and finally, in no uncertain terms, demand (albeit, not so demandingly) a beach vacation before her belly, and our lives, become unmanageable.  There really is no fighting the conclusion: My baby['s mama] wants a vacation?, I give my baby['s mama and soon-to-be-baby] a vacation.  And so vacation we did.

  "St. Maarten?" you say.  Yes (I still answer).  We'd polled and queried and researched amongst friends as to the best of the beachy deals and [typical Kory] long story short long, we stayed here - Mary's Boon.  Situated smack dab on the beach and yet, strangely enough, smack dab right behind the airport, it was an exercise in relative perfection.. vs-moderate-to-low-frustration ratio.  While thoughts of your average airport-proximate hotel usually conjures images of rarely-washed, rarely-laundered, rarely-safe budget stays, Mary's Boon, and all of Simpson Bay.. or about half of St. Maarten actually, is close enough to the two airports (1 international, 1 Carribean-local) to make the average tourist pause and look up at the loud jet or prop plane thrusting through full power on their way to ... well, somewhere undoubtedly less beautiful.  I say "the average tourist" because most islanders seem unfazed by these occasional subsonic conversation interludes.  I should say here that flights only go between 9am and 10pm and the loud, international jumbo jets take off & land about every hour & a half, tops so honestly, it's really not that bad.  

   What is bad, or can be bad [knowing me as you do, I can not describe something with at least some description of bad vs good] is:  the state of road repair (somewhere near none?).  The level of service, at restaurants and such, also lacks at times.  Sometimes maddeningly so, sometimes understandably (after 20 or 30 years of dealing with cruise-shippers, I imagine I'd also have difficulty keeping surliness under wraps).  At our hotel, we got placed in a beachfront room (which inside and out, was honestly amazing) that happened to be right behind the kitchen.  The kitchen staff, not wanting to be confined to a hot kitchen when they didn't need to be, hung out and talked right outside.  Right outside both the kitchen and our room.  Again, a minor inconvenience that we could have solved easily by asking for a different room.  IF it had really been that big a deal.  Obviously it was not.  (I mention it only because, with a hotel full of rooms, half of them vacant, why put anyone in a room right behind the kitchen?)    The only other thing I could, or at least will complain about would be the hordes of European and American ...professional-drinkers let's call them, who treat St. Maarten as Cabo-San-Lucas-Part-II.  Yes, I know the obnoxious-level goes up when you get more than 5 or 6 drinkers together but throwing up over the side of the barge-that-is-a-floating-restaurant and then hollering out "Emilyyyyyy!!  Another .. margarita before [belch] .. before happy hour ends!" will always, always get you punched in the face, by me, ...in my own private fantasy.   Other things that will get you fantasy-punched-in-the-face-by-me:  smoking too close to my pregnant wife when she obviously notices it, treating me like "the white devil" when I ask you a simple question or make a request, and fraudulently faking election results to re-elect yourself supreme d!ckhead of the universe, thereby crushing my soul and the will of the people whose freedoms you suppress daily.   [More on this in a future post]

    Ok.  Back to St Maarten  [yes, please]   It really is quite wonderful.  The water's color and warmth, the sand (rumored to be the whitest of the Carribbean), the local food, the toplessness of beaches.  Just being on vacation is euphoric enough, St Maarten seems to amplify it.  I suppose that might also be why the negatives stood out more.  Not to say that they weren't all very real issues.

  In my darker moments, I'd have to describe St. Maarten as "the best parts of a hot, dusty day in Tijuana mixed with the worst of the narrow, serpentine-ness of Italy's coastal roads, mixed with both the good and bad smells of Puerto Rico .. mixed with the overpriced-ness of San Francisco's Fisherman Wharf or Marina districts."  In my lighter, more travel-review friendly moments, I might say "all the bliss of long-wished-for divine beaches, crystalline blue waters and year round perfection of weather.  Food and drink as good as you could hope for".  What I might never be able to describe is how much we needed and loved our St Maarten getaway.

"THE" news.. yes, that kind

  By now, you might have figured out that when I haven't written in a while, either nothing is happening or everything is.  Ok, so it's more of a spectrum and lately I, we, are far more near the everything end.

  Many of you, we've already told first-hand but for the greater world at large, specifically my enormous fanbase in the Congo and southern Chad, we are.. Esra is .. where is my drumroll???  Damn it, Frank, get in here.. I said drumroll ... that's better.    Pregnant.   Expecting.  Mom-i-fied.  Dad-i-fied.  Initiated, inaugurated, inculcated (oops, sorry, not inculcated).  Having gone from that group of humans that do not have children to (soon, though it feels like now) that group of humans with them.

  We are, Esra is, 15 weeks along and our little foetus looks more or less exactly like this:

I sort of want to know the sex of the baby but Esra doesn't so we're going to keep it a secret until/unless the moment comes where Esra does want to know.  And then we will know.  And then I will tell you.  Either way, as you can see in the photo, our baby has awesome written all over it.   It's developing with textbook perfection.. as our doctor told us "your baby is A+ .. you have an A+ baby".  Little did I know that the school grading system also applied to the gestational process. (or that "your baby is A+" would then have to be rephrased for us as ".. you have an A+ baby")

Not pictured in the ultrasound are those little cutenesses that have developed this week: the ears, the eyes moving from side mounted fishy eyes to forward facing, wiggling fingers and toes, and breathing, sucking and swallowing (relative cuteness level undetermined).

More pictures and news to come, including belly shots (like it or not) ((Esra's, not mine)) as her belly balloons babyward.

As for me?  Wow.  it's all so much to absorb.  Thinking about it sometimes brings about a dreamlike daze that I should probably avoid while driving.  How else can you tell I'm a slightly different person?  I'm going to sign off before I write half a novel.  Like I normally do.

So many changes.

Turkish word of the day

I downloaded a Turkish-word-of-the-day app for my iPhone.  this was the nugget of wisdom for the other day:

Just thought you'd want to know.

So many changes, so much the same...

  It's rare that I'm not sure whether a lot has happened or not.  You'd think life might be more straight forward.  Most worthy of note, on the subject of me and my world, is winter ending, specifically my most-hated Daylight-"Savings"-Time.  Banished are 4pm sunsets and the borderline seasonal affected disorder no one wants to admit happens.  Good riddance, DST. Stay away longer next time please.  Also gone, less joyously, is Esra's 6 year daytime job at Real Networks, everyone's 401k's and stocks and such and the global ennui that 8 years of presidential mismanagement can sometimes bring.  Work, for me, flutters in & out (mostly out) with a week or three or few days here & there - an uneasy modus operendi to be sure.  

  .....The most recent job was on ABC's Fringe, produced by JJ Abrams of X-Files (and many others) fame.  An old work-friend of Esra hooked me up with an informational interview with the set designer and as timing would have it, their Art Dept PA (production assistant) would be out on Grand Jury duty for 3 weeks, so .. cover for him, I did.  

  .....The job itself was pretty .. pedestrian,  let's say.  It's a union tv show which means that, in the art department at least, any duty that technically should be done by someone in the union, has to be done by a person in the union (and not lil' ol' me, despite how much time or interest I had to spare) - this is all under penalty of someone getting fired so .. actual work for non-union Art PA's on union jobs is usually pretty limited. And so, I got a bit lot more experience being an Art Dept office PA - which I suppose is the same as a regular Art Dept PA... minus all the nonstop driving around picking up and returning stuff, occasional heavy lifting, all the hands on assembly of the various things that'll actually be seen in a show - so basically everything)    

  .....I did a bit of research, I delivered some monster guts 

 to location (my first day on the job, sadly, it was the highlight of my 3 weeks on the show), I made a lot of copies, did a few runs into the city with the art department car but for the most part, I sat in the Art Dept office with the Art Dept coordinator and chatted, surfed the web via iphone and petted the dog belonging to the (married) set designer & art dept coordinator.  The pay on that job was ...humbling but the hours and people were truly some of the best I've seen so far. 9am - 6pm sharp is unheard of for .. well, any position on any job in the entertainment industry.  The Art Dept coordinator was actually a really great mentor in helping me get on the road (finally) to take the test to get into Union 52 (for set dressers in NY) and generally being a fountain of great information on the industry itself.  Coincidentally, a big brouhaha of industry scandal hit the front pages of entertainment consciousness while I was there.  It seems that Governor Patterson hasd not renewed the huge (30%) tax credit that was being given to the entertainment industry to continue bringing tv shows & films, commercials, etc to New York.  Fringe has all but announced that they are moving to Vancouver for their second season (an interesting component to the NAFTA treaty, I found out, is that ABC can bring only the top tier of production people up to Canada (producers, directors, DP, art dir, set designer, set dec, a few others) - whereas a Canadian program coming to the US could bring their entire crew to work legally in the US.. thanks again NAFTA) and many more shows will be leaving New York, not to mention all the new shows that wont ever start here.  We had union and industry reps on set lobbying a government rep to bring word back to Albany that there's thousands of people about to be affected, we'll see how much affect it had by the time NY's yearly budget is pushed through.

   ....aaaaand since Fringe (it's now 2 months since I wrote all the above. oops) .. I've worked on .. not all that much.  I did a Maybelline commercial(s) where I mostly drove two set decorators around NY while they shopped (I helped shop where I could but in NY, parking is something is so randomly regulated, you could park legally for a minute and get a ticket or park illegally for 7 hours and not get one.  You could also swear you parked legally but end up getting towed (oops, sorry Amer's Nxt Top Modl)... long story short, the most effective method for avoiding tickets is someone staying with the car.  There are times when this feels like the worst punishment imaginable, other times I think I have the sweetest job ever - I've chipped away at novels while stressed out coworkers search a dozen stores for the right shade of fuchsia pillow to accent a couch (that may or may not end up being visible in a shot).  

   ....And then there's the other kind of job I do occasionally.. the non-commercial / non-tv/film job.  This time it was an H&M clothing line launch for H&M execs, industry buyers and journalists.  Done in four adjoining rooms of a classy hotel in the meat-packing district, it was, as all events are, a joy not to have to jockey for the one freight elevator with camera crew, grips, lighting, etc.  Having 100 or 200 people working on the same job in the same space gets to be a bit much.  The event jobs are also great for the opportunity to be a little .. well, arty.  I get to paint, sew, maybe do some light construction, carpentry, some light electrical wiring maybe.  There's a bit more respect, all around, for everyone's abilities as equals in set dressing - a problem that has been frustratingly slow-going (on the tv/commercials/film jobs) in working my way up through the art department ranks - petty politics and high school favoritism, ass kissing.. oh it all goes on in the entertainment industry too.   But I digress....

   ....The second part of the job was a party for said same clothing industry people, journalists and .. well, whoever else gets invited to those clothing line launches.  It was to be held aboard a huge old boat, formerly used for riverboat gambling, docked at the South Street Seaport.  A sleek three story number with two elevators, full bars and a dance floor.  With a musical performance by Grace Slick.   Sounds cool, right?   No.  Not right.  The boat, we found out, would not be moving away from the dock during the party (though it would be moving up and down and this way and that - we were all seasick within an hour of working on the load in).   Not only would the boat not be cruising the Hudson or East Rivers but party goers would not be allowed on the many decks to smoke or drink or enjoy the view.   Luckily, I was on shift 1 of 3, meaning I helped finish the set up for the party and then took off with a few others to wrap up the hotel location.  Shifts 2 and 3 were present for the party itself and the wrap up of the boat at 5am (striking everything, putting it all back in our two 14' "cube" trucks) so that shift 1 could come the next day and return everything to the various prop and rental houses where we got the stuff, days before.   And that's how these jobs go.. hurry to load in, wait around while other people do their thing, then load out in a hurry & get everything back to where it came from. All done so you can do all too similar things with a different company, god knows when.

   ....And so the freelance waiting-for-a-phone-call fun begins again.

and Kory from Brooklyn writes in to say...

A month ago, I heard a rumor that President Obama would be considering ending daylight savings time because studies have proven that it doesnt increase productivity and it wastes energy.  Ending daylight savings time would "be in line with [his new] energy policy"

Today on the Brian Lehrer show, they asked 'what are the top 5 things Obama can do to help NY" so being the DLS-time hating, smart ass that i am, here's what I wrote on WNYC's write in poll

less than 5 minutes later, I heard:  "and kory from brooklyn says (of top 5 things obama can do for NY this year): # 1 .. end day light savings time .. # 2, end day light savings time, # 3 end day light savings time, # 4 end day light savings time # 5 increase funding for MTA"

and then discussing briefly with his in studio expert, said: "kory from brooklyn, why dont you call in & explain why ending daylight savings time would help NY"

(the answer of course is 5 fold:  1. DLS-time does not increase productivity or energy savings and so abolishing DLS-time would be in line with a streamlined energy policy.  2. Arizona and much of the world survives quite well without it. 3. being in a state that experiences actual, changing seasons, a standardized sunset time would decrease Seasonal Affected Disorder symptoms.  4. anything that helps NY, helps the nation as a whole.  5. Adopting a standardized clock would add weight to global non-seperatist feelings about our new administration, ie. that we are rejoining the rest of the world. (metric system still be damned, though))

sadly, as I was on the phone being interviewed by their pre-interviewer person, my buddy matt heard: "Kory from Brooklyn just called in ... but we're out of time. call tomorrow"

If I'm around tomorrow and listening, I'll call in.. If I get on, I'll paste a link to the podcast here...   [I listened in the next day but no such prompting for call ins]

 "I don't really care how time is reckoned so long as there is some agreement about it, but I object to being told that I am saving daylight when my reason tells me that I am doing nothing of the kind. I even object to the implication that I am wasting something valuable if I stay in bed after the sun has risen. As an admirer of moonlight I resent the bossy insistence of those who want to reduce my time for enjoying it. At the back of the Daylight Saving scheme I detect the bony, blue-fingered hand of Puritanism, eager to push people into bed earlier, and get them up earlier, to make them healthy, wealthy and wise in spite of themselves." (Robertson Davies, The Diary of Samuel Marchbanks, 1947, XIX, Sunday.)

Reasons you should elect me Zombie Overlord for the upcoming Zombiegedon

Greetings human-but-future-zombies,
I'd love to take a moment to share with you reasons why I should be your Zombie Overlord for our upcoming global zombie apocalypse.

I will love brains. Yes, any legitimate campaign to be zombie president should begin and end here but since we will all love brains, I will have to bring more to the table and so I will tell you this: I will love brains more than you do. How can you know that? Eat my brain and find out. You wont, will you? That's right you wont because as humans, it is against the law. Also, zombies dont eat other zombies so I guess you'll just have to go on faith for this one.

As your zombie president I will curb government excess, namely, there will be no government. This means no zombie air force one, no zombie vacations, no large zombie cabinets of overpaid advisers. Can my opponent promise this? Can my opponent promise anything? If he can, that means he is talking to you and he is not a zombie.

I'm tough on crime. There will be no crime, but still. Your fresh brain is yours to eat, not your neighbors, not the mob of likeminded zombies you travel with, Yours. My team is currently working on ways to enforce this. I call it: One Brain, One Zombie. In the future, I will most likely refer to it as "Braaaaaiiins" (assuming my lower jaw has remained intact).

In the first 100 days of my Zombiedency I will propose plans for finding and and then eating all the brains. Underground bunkers, fortified malls and chain linked compounds will be no match for our tireless dedication to eating all the brains. They will be so very tasty and there is no reason we should not have them.

I am strictly against sniper headshots, decapitations, being shotgunned in the face and / or other crowbar-like weapons thrust into and / or through our heads. It will be the only way to kill us so let's stop the violence before it starts, people. We all love a good, dramatic growl and moan but when Mr MovieHero has his sawed-off pointed right at your slack jaw, duck. Live (undead) to moan and drool another day.

Speaking of moaning, I know we cant add additional words to our vocabulary (of Uhhhhhh) but could we at least start pointing? It would great aid in helping others of us know where the humans ran off to.

With your help, we can make the future a feast of brains and glorious, bloody flesh as we turn humans, all the humans, into zombies. I'd like to lead you, future zombie. Towards .. a brain. Yes, that one. go get it.

Yours truly,
Gnarrrrrgllllarrrr ChompArrgh

Covering covers # 1 - Song to the Siren

In a new, ongoing series of utterly awesome things that come from the mind of me, I present the most bloggy thing I've done in quite a while: wholly biased reviews of every possible cover I can find of many songs that warrant such a collection. Reviews, anecdotes, wild tangents.. all of it for your amusement, my folly and the greater benefit of research scientists everywhere. Your welcome, internet.

I've always known that the first song I'd cover-catalog, so to speak, would be Song To The Sirens. Why? I'm not sure. It's so ballady and emo, you'd think I'd be too cool for school to label it one of my favorite songs ever. As a goth teenager with a self-stifled picture of musical history and genres, I mistakenly thought this song was created by This Mortal Coil (2nd version below).
Alas, no. Written in 1967 by Tim Buckley and his writing partner Larry Beckett, it was first released on Buckley's 1970 album Starsailor ..later released on Morning Glory: The Tim Buckley Anthology, the album featuring a performance of the song taken from the final episode of The Monkees TV show [March 25, 1968.] Wikipedia actually has a great page of background info on the song (thank you internet?) so check it out if ya like. Otherwise, on to the versions....

SeeqPod - Playable Search

• Song to the Siren by Tim Buckley (1971)
  • Song of the Siren by Pat Boone (1969)
  • Song to the Siren by This Mortal Coil (September 1983)
  • Song to the Siren by Cul de sac (1992)
  • Song to the Siren by Beasts of Paradise (1995)
  • Song to the Siren by Sally Oldfield (1996)
  • Song to the Siren by The Geoff Smith Band (1997)
  • Song to the Siren by The King (October 5, 1998)
  • Song to the Siren by The Czars (September 19, 2000)
  • Song to the Siren by Susheela Raman (2001)
  • Song to the Siren by Sheila Chandra (2001)
  • Song to the Siren by Vengeance (2001)
  • Song to the Siren by Barraka (2002)
  • Did I Dream (Song to the Siren) by Lost Witness (2002)
  • Song to the Siren by Damon & Naomi feat. Michio Kurihara (2002)
  • Song to the Siren by Robert Plant (June 24, 2002)
  • Song to the Siren by James Yorkston (June 5, 2005)
  • Song to the Siren by The Engineers (October 31, 2005)
  • Song to the Siren by David Gray (August 2007)
  • Song to the Siren by John Frusciante
    
  
  
  Of course, the version I most want to find now is the Pat Boone one, which I of course, because I want to find it, .. cant.

gmap pedometer rules

10/14/08 - in addition to the not-shown 1/2 mile to the subway to begin the day (& 64 calories burned, Woooo), today I walked back home from Washington Sq Park, what I thought was surely 10 miles but was really 6 miles.

Of late, [no work then cursed work]

Work, of late, is non-existent.

Nothing, as in none, as in no-calls, as in nada.

I've texted and called and emailed everyone I've ever worked with, to no avail. Either I dont hear back because said people are in just as dire straits or I hear back that nothing is doing or I hear back with condolences, the economy is bad, hang in there, deal with it. Ok, no one says deal with it.

And sooo... on to Plan B.

what is plan B? I.. was hoping you'd tell me. But since you feel the need to keep it a secret from me, I reckon I'll have to find it out for myself.

I'm guessing, hoping, coming to the realization that it is probably this, writing. I'm guessing, hoping, coming to the realization that I have little else to fall back on, other than typing-related temp jobs and/or my herculean physique. Since my definition of herculean differs from that of reality, that is probably not as much an option as I'd hoped it'd be.

What to do, where to turn, how to do that which I do not know what is what.

[update] probably three days after writing the above, I got a job on a show not-quite-but-close-to named The U.S.'s - Soon To Be - Uppermost - Person-Paid-To-Be-Beautiful-Displaying-Things-You-Can-Buy .. ok a little a lot switcheroo'ing of words for more sensical words should now be employed. Alas, the equation wherein my lack of work + worry about it = finally getting work that you end up regretting taking... read on
[update] [update] The job was jinxed from the start. I really should have seen so from the get go. I was told over the phone that I would be a "set dresser / set decorator / driver" - quite the wide variety of duties and skill levels. Set decorator is often a position commanding much higher pay, respect and responsibility and being that I didnt sleep with anyone, have not been a set decorator yet and am not connected to those people in the industry who give jobs to their friends despite no qualifications (ohh yes, it happens), I should have realized that what was actually meant was "set dresser / the driver for the set decorator" which, ok yes, was a let down but hey, I actually like driving in NY (see reference notes: Reasons Why I Am Insane) and working with an experienced set decorator can be fun and depending on how cool they are, you can sometimes learn a lot and help with choices they make, shop on your own and interfacing with the rest of the art department to help get all the necessities for the show checked off. This was not one of those set decorators or jobs. No, I was the driver, my set dresser title lost somewhere in the back of my minivan full of purchases the set decorator made from BB&Beyond, C&Barrel, Pottery.B, Macy's, etc, etc while I waited in the car, trying to avoid meter maids.
[update] [update] [update] You take what life gives you, change what you can & be nice about the rest - finding the time to read three books and occasionally helping out when purchases were too heavy to get to the car. Getting assigned a few solitary shopping assignments helped offset realizations that I was, despite the niceness of all that great reading time, a not-at-all-glorified cab driver.
And this should probably bring me to an explanation about the apparent bitterness in my discussion of the work I do. Much as with probably all industries, the lower rung or two or three of workers are the general, catch-all worker-bees that make the ladder not slip on banana peels or be made of things like packing peanuts. You see the ladder but someone had to go get it, set it up & then let people walk all over us it. Being that many things are reachable from the lower rungs, we it get walked on quite a bit, taken for granted and sometimes overlooked in the drive to become higher rungs. (this is an amazingly dynamic ladder built by fairies in the Cloud Village of Bad Analogies) But I digress... Luckily, I am not the bottom-most rung. Sometimes I am mistaken for such but usually, I can see the rung below me and putting my self loathing in perspective, I feel sorry for said lower rung, re-evaluate my place in the entertainment universe, at this point in my life, wonder about the relative worth of working 10-12-14 hour days for sometimes half or a quarter of the pay of a lot of other people on the set and then resume anew a completely reinvigorated sense of self loathing and doubt. Jealous? Yes, I know you are. It's ok, you can work through it.
What makes a job good or bad? Almost two years into the business, I can confidently say, it is the people you work for (and sometimes with). It comes down to personality flaws and the lack thereof - specifically, how people talk to eachother, regardless of station in life or industry. What makes life good or bad? It seems to be the same, most often. Can you communicate the same, or different things to different people without being a jerk about it? Honestly, that's really what it's all about. In the entertainment business seemingly every industry, a lot of people cant. (Those who can huddle and comiserate about those who cant). And so, simple requests, easily asked turn into passive agressive bursts of insecurity and subjugation. Most departments will be a mix of good and bad communicators, hopefully yours has the good ones near the top.
[update] [update] [update] [update] Long-story-short, the job lasted a month & praise be to [random deity here], another job came along to save me from the low(ish) pay, the snippy, unpleasant people on the job and the bad luck. Did I mention I got the minivan towed on the last day of the job? No parking 4-7pm means 4:01pm, no matter how many other cars are parked (and then towed) from the same block. There are no enforced traffic laws in NYC, just parking, as that's where the money is and will always be. It was my first time ever dealing with a towed car and, this being New York, it was just as soul sucking as you'd imagine it to be. A few other unfortunate happenstances left me more in doubt about my future in the industry than should happen on any job really. Maybe I'll talk about it more after the show airs & finishes it's run but this one truly felt cursed from start to finish.

IF - by Rudyard Kipling, read by John Facenda

IF - by Rudyard Kipling, read by John Facenda

John Facenda could read an environmental impact report on run off from a smelting plant in the Ukraine and it would sound like butter. Gold butter. with diamonds in it. spread on platinum toast. with a side of cash money jam. ... You get the picture.

Truly an amazing poem by an amazing author by my favorite voice ever.
(give it a minute to load, it's well worth it ... if it doesnt load, hit Refresh)

writing and writings

As if divined for inspiration to keep writing, I've run across a lot of writer-themed motivational quotes lately:
The man who writes about himself and his own time is the only man who writes about all people and all time.
- George Bernard Shaw
.... Move over G.B. Shaw, you hack! I've got some writing to do, then! Ahem.. what's that? remain humble? fine. whatever.

However, something I can never only hope to equal someday, in humanistic wisdom and the placement on dentist & doctor office walls everywhere. This should be tattooed on babies at birth (ok, not tattooed on babies at birth) and memorized as early as possible, recited in class in place of the Pledge of Allegiance. I've been meaning to post this for months, now:

Desiderata
Go placidly amid the noise and the haste,
and remember what peace there may be in silence.

As far as possible, without surrender,
be on good terms with all persons.
Speak your truth quietly and clearly;
and listen to others,
even to the dull and the ignorant;
they too have their story.
Avoid loud and aggressive persons;
they are vexatious to the spirit.

If you compare yourself with others,
you may become vain or bitter,
for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.
Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans.
Keep interested in your own career, however humble;
it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time.

Exercise caution in your business affairs,
for the world is full of trickery.
But let this not blind you to what virtue there is;
many persons strive for high ideals,
and everywhere life is full of heroism.
Be yourself. Especially do not feign affection.
Neither be cynical about love,
for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment,
it is as perennial as the grass.

Take kindly the counsel of the years,
gracefully surrendering the things of youth.
Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune.
But do not distress yourself with dark imaginings.
Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness.

Beyond a wholesome discipline,
be gentle with yourself.
You are a child of the universe
no less than the trees and the stars;
you have a right to be here.
And whether or not it is clear to you,
no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.

Therefore be at peace with God,
whatever you conceive Him to be.
And whatever your labors and aspirations,
in the noisy confusion of life,
keep peace in your soul.

With all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams,
it is still a beautiful world.
Be cheerful. Strive to be happy.

-- written by Max Ehrmann in the 1920s --
Not "Found in Old St. Paul's Church"

Honeymoon - disposable camera Capri thru Ravello

I got the photos back from our disposable camera we bought on Capri (but ended up not really needing - but used anyway ... how's that for a run on sentence?)

here's a lil' slideshow of said same pho-tos:

...and a direct link to the VIEW ALBUM mode is here.

Honeymoon pics .. and captions

----Honeymoon - from NY up thru & including Capri

if you want to view all the pictures together in one place - VIEW ALBUM mode, click here

------Honeymoon - from Positano up thru & including Ravello

if you want to view all the pictures together in one place - VIEW ALBUM mode, click here

-----Honeymoon - leaving Ravello (for Benevento/Rome) up thru & including leaving Rome for NY

if you want to view all the pictures together in one place - VIEW ALBUM mode, click here

'Italy' Journal - (or, honeymoon wrap-up)

ALAS.. the below is a probably-altogether-too-detailed log of all that we did on our honeymoon. It is perhaps more for me and Esra to aid in memory and laughs years down the road than for anyone else (good protection against you finding any of it boring, eh? : )
Also .. Thou (you) shall not pass judgement (unless it's heaping praise or cash prizes) upon what I write, how Esra and I live, eat, drink or the things we (ok, me) admire or poke fun at. I am 'me', with my own outlook, possibly probably different from yours, describing on behalf of Kory (and yes, Esra to a degree, unless/until she writes her own honeymoon-wrap-up), the things I experienced and how I absolutely-love-my-wife for allowing me to continue the enjoyment of experiencing. I offer sincere condolences to husbands out there with wives who are not understanding that men are still boys and boys will be boys.
Also importantly, it is not for you to care who else is reading this. I, or Esra deemed you worthy, mature & respectful enough of us to share kory's semi-sorta-twisted view on our honeymoon.


9-6-08
- WEDDING! day. Rain! (a separate journal entry talking about the wedding to follow)
- something we would learn later from an italian local:
" sposa bagnata - .. . . "a wet bride
, sposa fortunata" .. . is a lucky bride"

9-7-08
- AM: wake, quick dress, quick drive to hotel in Fishkill for family & friends goodbyes
- back to Catrock to pack up a wedding worth of stuff with family & friends-of help
- back to NYC, unload now-Fully-packed zipcar & return it
- chill watching NFL kickoff game (thank you Oh Lords of Football, please don't leave me again) while Esra emailed our Capri hotel (spending 4 hours gathering train schedule details etc so they can meet us at Naples train station .. to no avail. they later claimed they didn't get it (although they DID get it because they had the pictures of us she included, so they could identify us at the train station))
- pack till 1:30 am

9-8-08
- surf around (calmly) on computer while Esra does last minute packing scramble (not as calmly)
- 5 minutes AFTER we'd agreed to leave the house, I witness Esra .. getting in the shower to shave her legs!! I am flabbergasted and stop her, playing the Angry Cop Role with "Ma'am, step away from everything NOT-leaving-the-house-right-this-minute-related"
- car service to JFK, minor rush through check in to gate.
- JFK runway changes place us 15th for take off (45 minutes inching across JFK property)
- 7 freaking hour flight. Ugh. Kung Fu Panda though proves to be quite awesome.
- Steward on flight gives us free wine, then champagne as Esra befriended him in line at JFK pizza place (me loving her more and more for the beautiful irony of airport pizza before flying to the land of pizza).
- however... wine + champagne + airplane seats = kory no sleep. sense arrival of grumpy-Kory to come.

9-9-08
- Roma! get airport food (surprisingly good), coffee (surprisingly small), and being the Raider-dork we all know me to be, insist that I check Raider score of the game played while we were in the air, at an airport internet terminal (surprisingly humiliating.. a 41-14 loss, ugh)
- a walk over to airport's train station finds the automated ticket system bottlenecked down to 2 machines (out of 7 or so), & tired-newlywed tempers flare getting tix to Rome train station.
- at train station, get coffee, WC, a pressed sandwich I thought was being pressed only to find the guy had forgotten about me & had to end up giving me it unpressed so we could catch our train to Naples.
- aboard train, join 3 nearly-non-stop-talking Italian 20-30 somethings who chat & chat until ticket agent comes through, finding one of them with an invalid ticket. in addition to getting kicked off at an unscheduled stop, he gets a €400 fine!
- other two guys KEEP talking to us.. tho they speak 25 words of English each & we rely mostly on Esra's Spanish & hope for the best. Best happens as we all awkwardly manage to communicate for the whole ride.
- Get to Naples Central station. No meet-&-greet present as arranged. Mild tempers, phone calls to Orsa Maggiore (our Capri hotel). I soothe my panicky bride with "we're Dayani's! we kick adversity like this in the ass!". Get cab to Naples ferry port for ferry to Capri.
- get 2 risotto balls, calzone, beverages and one ferry to Capri please!
- met at dock by hotel's driver (ahem, WITH our picture), driven up Capri's OhMyLord-barely-8-foot-wide roads, thru the town of Anacapri to Orsa Maggiore. Sweet Italian Jesus, it is awesome.
- N-a-a-a-a-a-a-p ... a nap of ages.
- sit out at pool for sunset-iness, make S-l-o-w pool entry (yes, I know.. quick pool entry is better, I did slow entry to spite everyone who's ever said Just-Get-In! to someone), a lil' swimmin', pool-hugging, rejoicing in honeymoon-ness.
- get prosciutto & melon at pool, olives with white wine. marvel at being .. in Italy.
- *, shower, begin writing these mini-day-summaries.
- wine on our room's terrace with sea & moon view
- ravioli caprese & veal scalopini (with, of course, Capri lemons.. auuuuggg) ... because we didnt have a menu & Esra was asking them what we should order over the phone, Esra tells me "I ordered you something scalloped. Whatever it is, I'm sure it'll be good". It was veal and it was amazing.

9-10-08
- breakfast (god bless ye merry Europeans for loving Nutella so), leave Orsa for the day, finally
- tempers flare over who'll, of all things, carry our not-at-all-heavy guidebook and who'll go back for digital camera battery we forgot in the room. neither of us do, tempers settle.
- walk up to Piazza Vittoria in Anacapri town center, get disposable camera & a calzoney-thing.
- tour Alex Munthe's Villa de San Michelle. amazing.
- chaaaaair liiiift! sooo freakin' beautiful & totally safe-style-scary. deposits us atop Monte Solaro for pics, espresso, chips & lemonade. experience first bit of locals-who-hate-tourists attitude, shrug it off.
- begin 2 hour walk/hike down, head right at fork in road to Santa Maria a Cetrella & continue along path, we thought, to Anacapri, Instead, we reach a mountain edge with an 800' vertical drop off, decide to not continue that direction. Take pics & backtrack to fork in road, passing all the "stations of the cross" statue-reliefs placed along the trail. Dusty as hell, beautiful everything-everywhere, carefully navigating winding switchbacks, taking pictures and then I hear: Wyyyyeaaahhh!! - a garter-type snake quick slithers up a rockface near Esra. We eat a berry off a branch, I play Boy Scout, looking all-knowledgeable about everything-in-the-universe as I've recognized an anise plant for her. (thank you San Diego shrublands, overgrown with anise)
- near the bottom, pass homes & gardens growing fig & lemon trees, grapes, etc, etc, etc, etc (did I mention "etc"?)
- check out a local-family graveyard
- back to & through Anacapri
- next to Chiesa San Michelle is church building only containing drawings of all different Capri churches. Then to the Chiesa.
- take pics of an italian wedding in progress in Anacapri's main piazza. quick beer & 'tost', small-supermarket stop.
- back towards Orsa Maggiore, watch sunset along way, stop at a mini-mart for peaches, nectarines. (best. peaches. Ever. no exageration...also necartine and lemon the size of a football.)
- Say hi to 2 lambs living in someone's front yard.
- At Orsa, check out rooftop garden, pick, eat a fig.
- shower, nap, Esa reads & ate her alloted Fonzies, drank Peroni whilst getting ready
- took cab (an open air cab with a retractable fabric cover, they're all over the island) to Capri-town, walked & saw shopping areas of Capri-town.
- dinner at Restaraunte Da Giorgio, window-seated (our "luna de miel"!), white wine, caprese salad, figs/ham. White clam spaghetti for Esra, shrimp scampi for K, assorted fish, red wine, pizza bread as bread.
- more walking, kissing, honeymooning, looking over Bay of Naples
- walk to Quisisana where Esra's friend stayed on their honeymon, have a limoncello & water, play the people game ("that couple is from ____ and they do____")
- make out with statues (see pics), get taxi back to Orsa.

9-11-08
- 'quick! breakfast time almost over'. breakfast.
- check internet for boat rental details and ok, fine, I also checked football news.
- lounge at pool, write this, swim, eat lunch at pool.
- get ride from Fabio (no, not that Fabio) down to Blue Grotto, rowboat in, wow. Esra swam
- walked hillside path to 'Da Giovanni' for prosecco & Campari, pics of cliff jumping kids
- find MUCH much lower rocks (20-10 feet) to jump off of. I jumped & dove & dove & dove & jumped & dove off sweeeet sweet rocks.
- bus back to Orsa, shower, *, sunset, nap
- get ride to Ristorante Materita in Ana Capri for tuna, anchioves salad, 1/2 a pizza, tagliatele con lemon gambori, pasta with zunchini flowers, wine, limoncello
- walk the 20 min beautiful winding road back to Orsa

9-12-08
- 9:30 wake up call, breakfast
- finish packing, pay bill, ride to No!-wait, Esra buys glass thing in Ana Capri while I wait with taxi at gas station (€100 to fill up his tank!). ride to Capri town, check bags in a .99cent-type-store that, it seems, checks bags for tourists. on to rent boat
- Boat & boat & boat around the island. You do not even KNOW (so i'll tell you) how much I love driving a boat. (a lot). it's a little ridiculous.
- swim at 'green grotto' (see our pics) more boat & boating. return boat, have icey lemon granite thing & mad dash to ferry for Positano!
- arrive in Positano, haul bags up & up & up stairs & ramps to a tourist info place that informs more stairs will be involved. take said more stairs to taxi. kick self for not using the island's porter service.
- check in at Pensione Maria Luisa, a family run hotel, truly awesome.
- shower, nap, go to terrace for a coin-op coffee (that ruled) and a smoke
- stroll (past the two recommended restaurants) down & down road, captivated by the awesomeness of Positano. side stairs to shortcut a switchback is crazy beautiful as well.
- unsuccessful shopping attempt (shorts for me, sarong for Esra)
- dinner at La Terrazo - bellisimo! see a wedding party there, in bathroom we run into "Iyem thu moothAH o theh BRIYEED, ACHHH!!" Ok, her accent was really only 1/10th as thickly scottish, but for the rest of the trip, she was basically Groundskeeper Willie to me, popping into conversations Esra and I would have where any kind of accent was being talked about. This cracked us up (and still does) to no end.
- stroll, more fruitless shopping (Es-only), more strolling, hazelnut gelato (auuugg), catch bus up the hill
- drinks at Montemare terrace bar, chat with cool waiter guy, back to Maria Luisa, sleep

9-13-08
- wake to thunder, lightning but no rain. then Rain. big rain. a torrent washes down steps (literally covering every step in about an inch of rushing water, people almost got swept away). Rain cleans Positano but good.
- automat coffee then breakfast supplies from hillside market, back to hotel, eat in community dinning area, watch clouds.
- "Positano bites deep. It is a dream place that isn't quite real when you are there and becomes beckoningly real after you are gone" - John Steinbeck
- Walk down the one way road into town, shopping for lemon spoon rest, among other things, continues (background: on possibly our first day in Capri, I saw a ceramic spoon rest with an all yellow background and three lemons painted on it. Being that the Amalfi coast is known for it's ceramics, whenever we'd be out shopping, I'd have us pop into ceramic stores to look for the elusive yellow-lemons-on-a-lemon-background spoon rest. It is also quite possible that I did not see but dreamed said spoon rest and/or that I was imagining some ideal amalgam of different spoon rests I'd seen). Esra buys sarong beach bathing suit coverup thingy.

Interjection: I'm writing this in a coffee shop on atlantic after going to the post office to insist our On Hold mail isnt un-On-Holded. (to which I was told "well you aint got no mail here so it MUST be off-hold. here, I'll give you a # to call to Off Hold it" - grr. never put your mail on hold) So I'm in this coffee shop I've never been to and about 5 street youths, for lack of knowing what to call urban street youth without coming off as un-pC, just came in & said "yo, can we play ouiji board if we buy something??". the guy behind the counter says "what?", they repeat, he says sure, they shuffle to the back.
Behind me now i hear "yo! ... YO! you know how to play this game?" ... a timid girl not knowing which way to answer says "i think you .. just ask it questions and ... then it .. sorta answers you". The guy says back "YO, i DID that, it dont work, look!" then immediately to someone else near them "yo, You played this game befo?". then a minute or so later to his friend "damn nig@a i TOLD you this sht don'work, keenan straight up playin you nig@a. be all movin' sht widdis fingers & sht"
Incidentally, I think the guys who work this place are trying to drive them out by playing JCMellancamp's "Hurt So Good" (it's almost working on me is why I thought of it)

- go in to town church, take pix of bloody knee Jesus and pix of the cross allegedly stolen by pirates during a storm, only to then hear ghostly voices of Posa! Posa! ("put it down, put it down") to which they did to which the storm subsided to which the pirates ran away like scared girls. I'm sure the italian version of the story is a bit more heroic. Positano is named thusly because of the Posa part of said word.
- watch italian wedding party prep for a wedding in said church. Esra shops for a beach/bathing suit cover thing which ends up being, I have to admit, pretty cool (see pics - then again, what DOESNT she look good in? am I right? exactly) then, to the beach! which praise Neptune, is a topless beach. Now, knowing me as you do, or soon will (more of, maybe than you wish to) .. I love the boobs. Always have. Some people are legs guys, I appreciate little more than a fully natural, non-plastic pair or human (female) boobs. And no, there's no other way to say it. Not 'breasts', that's a clinical term some people (mature people) think of as the 'correct' term to use. No, 'boobs'. 'Boobs' is (are) fun and playful and beautiful and before I continue, I should say that Esra condones said boob-love and thinks my love of boobs is cute, harmless and lovingly-borderline-obsessional ..in a GOOD way. which it is, all of those things. I do not, did not, Stare at said boobs on the beach, but neither can my biology avoid them and, I think, psychically, I knew where they were, exposed, at any given moment through my ever keen sense of boob-dar. It was then that I probably insisted that, being on a European beach, Esra should take the opportunity (and me vicariously? 'Dr Freud to the waiting room') to go topless. Did guys walk by and look at her boobs? yes. Was I proud as hell of it? hell yes. Why, you ask, since they weren't my boobs on display? I don't know, I just was. deep down, I know you understand.
- We power-tan & read (despite being from SD and having middle-eastern olive skin that tans way better than yours (sorry), I'm not much of a go-out-and-tan-person). Es un-topless-ifies herself to go & get a panini and a €3 sprite (which was not quite €3-delicious). Still, the paninis we had in italy were honest-to-goodness better than all but (i'm guess-timating) two that I've ever had.
- back on the beach, I'm torn between Esra's toplessness and some italian teens playing in-the-breaking-waves soccer. Somehow, I manage to peep both, enjoying Es's toplessness way more (at this point, with my favorite pair in sight, I'd forgotten about the other boobs still on the beach).
- more sunning, reading, toplessness-enjoying then ... what the .. rain?
- price out grilled squid at 5 different restaurants, end up at what would have been nearest choice to beginning of search.
- Having bought a Scopa deck, we ask a local to remind me what the Scopa rules are. He explains the expert version that old guys play before explaining the little kid version I knew. we play

- slight tension. K tired. silly argument.

- K walk's back up to hotel (20 mins) while Es writes postcards.

- Not having soap on hand, I shower using a h-e-uuuuge lemon we brought from Capri. Bad, bad (bad) idea. It sticks everywhere. Good news is I smelled lemony fresh.

- Nap, wake to an open Peroni being handed to me, listen to Lou Monte's italian classics on our mp3 player/speakers, dance.

- walk to Medditeraneo for wine, anchioves antipasto, filet mignon w/ spice cream, fish of day, strega! limoncello crema! and Pietro Rainone(.com) italian classics on guitar/voice.

- walk down to a guidebook-recomended dessert place (Zagara). Enter the italian twilight zone. Watch a love boat style lounge singer in super tight white package-display-pants (who, swear to god, looked just like Ricky Gervais, I'm still not sure it wasnt him) crooning out Wham!'s "Careless Whispers". Eat the recommended Positanese chocolate cake (which Es swears was good. Me? eh.) & a lemon cake thingy with a beer & limoncello. Watch a May-December weird hookup (attempt?) in progress.

- As we're leaving, I hit the bathroom, come back to comically interrupt greasy meatball dude trying to smoov-talk m'lady. He gives me the Machoman Handshake. We leave. I proceed to not miss single life.

- Busses have stopped so we stumble (not really stumble, though tipsyness was in effect) up hill.

- take pics, *, sleep.

9-14-08

- wake slow & nice, *, shower, breakfast upstairs.

- cannon, firework fires from an opposing hillside, echoing all through and back, across the U-shaped hillsides of Positano.

- walk down. Es buys white top, I buy her a mustard skirt (damn my love of all things mustard colored!). I try on orange linen pants, remember that I am not a gay European dance club owner, take pants off. Coffee at Bar Murino.

- run into Chris & Beth, one of my best men's wife's best friend and husband who also got married on Sept 6th & happened to be honeymooning in Positano!  yes, it's a small world after all ("e un piccolo mondo dopo tutti")

- internet checkage, pizza at Buca Di Bacco.

- walk along Via Positanese De America to Spiagio (beach) Fornillo.

- beer, vodka & soda for Es. aranciata (riceball - freakin' deliiiicious)

- Elevator(s) up to Pensione Maria Luisa, nap.

- walk up & up & up to Il Grottino Azzuro for wine, bruscetta, spagetti carbonara, swordfish, misto di pasta. Es buys a bottle of their house wine.

- walk back down & pix along way. to Mediteraneo for more Scopa, drinks.

9-15-08

- Slow & happy wake, coffees, chat w/ the proprietor Carlo.

- walk down to Bar Murino, exchange $ for €, check internet while Esra watches a wedding-in-progress. (Raiiiiders win 23-8, yeayy! ..football score, not wedding score)

- grab coffee, water, sit on beach, write this + postcards

- toilets, internet to print addresses, toilets again? limoncello. walk back up

- Pack, pay, chat with Carlo, take bus down, get lemon granite while waiting for ferry to Amalfi.
- ferry to Amalfi

- turns out what I thought was our hotel in Amalfi is actually our hotel in Ravello, about 3 miles away. This irks me as info on website was a bit misleading. Oh well.

- get a cab to the hotel (Villa Scarapariello Relais), a 10th century castle turned primo-residence(s) on the steep coastal hillside. Wow. The place is sprawling. We have a terrace in addition to about 30 other places on the grounds we can chill, relax and honeymoon. Oh and there's a pomegranate tree right below our room.

- put bags down, Es reads while K takes nap. Es swims in ocean (they have a private dock sort of thing, of course, jeeez) w/ some Swedes while K hikes back up hillside to room for bathing suit. Return, swim.

- shower, lounge while Es readies, *, walk down to Atrani, the nearest village that everyone's recommended as being more chill than Amalfi but just as (or more) quaint. the walk to Atrani (& Amalfi beyond) is a bit sketch - a narrow "two laned" road (in America it'd be considered a 'narrow one-way alley). "Walk on the seaside only", they say. We do manage to never get killed on said road, for what that's worth.

- Buy stuff for lunch the next day at a market on the way. K then charged with carrying Esra's super gay fabric bag for the rest of the night. K looks fabulous.

- 'Leap of Faith' short cut down a that-narrow-winding-stairway-amidst-locals'-houses-looks-like-it-Could-head-into-the-town-piazza-but-man-it-looks-a-bit-scary.

- Dinner in the piazza (umberto) at something-something-Luisilla. Fish ravioli, ziti in onion sauce (cooked for 4 hours! MmMmmM), filet of fish in lemon sauce, egglant, house wine, Es is curious asks for shot of Cynar [insert thumbs down symbol here ... blech]

- walk up Arani street thinking I would recognize the cave restaurant I'd seen on Mario Eats Italy. Do not find.

- back down to water edge then back to piazza for a wine & beer. sitting next to annoying 3 drunk girls with an italian player guy who was absolutely angling to sleep with all of them. (lead drunk girl ended up being on our flight back, incidentally enough)

- taxi back. "the nighttime rate is €20" says taximan. which Es does not like in the slightest, *.

9-16-08

- 9am wake up call. slow wakies spooning while loving view from bed (mountains, ocean, italian hillsides.. y'know.. all that beautiful crap). Barely make it to breakfast in time. write this.

- laid out by pol, read, up to room, ate on terrace, back to pool area, more sunning.

- up to room, Es readies self, K naps, we wait for bus out on road.

- end up walking 1/2 way to Atrani before bus comes to fork in road for Atrani/Amalfi and Ravello (the hillside Ravello, not coastal Ravello).

- Amalfi! finally! (we sort of planned the honeymoon around Amalfi which is why I was a bit disappointed to be in Ravello, not Amalfi)

- walk down side streets to a limoncello laboratorio (who'd charge €75 for s/h to the US? Ya, right). Weird stoner girl and two guys seemingly hit on me, us. (Because of my awesome Skinny Puppy shirt from high school with the Gustav Dore etching design from Dante's Inferno?! it's possible)

- in to the piazza itself (wow), browse/shop our way up the street (yes, more spoon rest hunting)

- Es gets ham & cheese pastry thing & 3 mini balls (minds out of the gutter people, rice & cheese balls), a beer & an espresso for me.

- up to the Chiesa (church) for pix. I light a candle for mi mama. back down steps.

- more walking, shopping, browsing, hit up the tourist office, totally unhelpful.

- back through town to "travel agency" for info on scooter, car rentals. totally helpful.

- Es buys K most awesome wallet in the world.

- up & down & around & through steps & passageways to (restaurant) El Teatro (an old, converted children's theater .. thanks kids!) for a liter of wine, salad, veal scallopine with lemon, squid with mint sauce

- back to travel agency, get Strega factory address, Es calls bank to clear up a non-issue.

- to piazza, get a limoncello & strega, merangue & macaroon, bus back

- drinks on terrace Nastro Azzuro, Mmmmm, music, moon, *.

9-17-08

- slow wake, *, shower, breakfast

- read on our terrace, walk into Minori, btchass-bank-clerk coldcocks my $/€ exchange attempt

- on to Maiori. Es has egg panini, K salami. bitter lemon & orange soda. rent scooter! (ciao!)

- up to Ravello! (ciao!), park. check out small, empty cave church, up to Northern piazza.

- take pix, eat a plum, check out a 5StarL hotel & it's view, in to check ceramic stor-naments, check out the park from the movie Beat The Devil! more pix.

- to Villa Rufolo - accidentally go immediately to exit! oops. back thru, view V. Rufolo.

- tour the town & shops a bit on way to Convent San Francisco (complete with bench marking a spot where Saint Francis of Assisi supposedly sat). pix, on to Vila Cimbrone.

- no one's at the ticketbooth so I whisper "keep walking", this does not work as ticket taker appears out of thin air. walk throughout the Villa, wow. truly amazing. (see pics, as per usual)

- back to & thru town. stop at ceramic store where a gloaty-boobed-saleslady brags that she "just sent these to Rachel Ray and these to Oprah, these to Bloomingdale"

- Scooter (ciao) back down to Atrani then to Amalfi, buy presents, SITA bus tix for later so we can go out and eat, drink, take bus

- back to Villa Scarpariello (ciao!), nap, Es showers, miss bus, walk to Atrani, tempers flare.

- dine at Paranza, K sullen (tempers wear away at me), fish appetizer baked w/ mozzarella, pasta di mare, risotto scampi (not so scampi'y), Es suprises K with prickly pear dessert (we kept seeing them growing everywhere). Deem desert to actually be Hard-Innedible-Seeds-With-Essense-of-Cactus-Flavor. maybe we just got a bland one. outside, a beautiful tan siamese cat mewed at us incessantly. funny, cute, a little scary (stop, already!)

- down to piazza, Es gets limoncello, K still sullen (ed note: get over it already, dude)

- cab back with same driver, sleep (not with driver)

9-18-08

- slow wake, resolve sullenness from last night, breakfast, ready for day.

- scooter (ciao!) to, up through Amalfi, on to Conca Di Marini for the

- Grotto de Esmerlda (emerald colored water, same idea as blue grotto - underwater hole lets light in, lights an enclosed cave). elevator dwn to it, steps down, up, Es needs bathroom so back down, up, elevator, in to ceramics shop (still no spoon rest) to use bathroom, back down elevator, stairs, 10 to a boat around .. what turns out to be a 100' by 100' cave.

- only .. let's say .635 as cool as the blue or green grottoes. a nativity scene underwater? really?

- wenchy coffee puller makes K Hulk angry. Es buys postcard, then ciao! to & up & up through Minori. See a dog hanging out with a chicken hanging out with a horse.

- Stop for gas, open tank, wait, wait, look around, ask someone, "oh, we are closed".

- back through Maiori a bit, drop off scooter (ciao, ciao!)

- Es chills at beach, K walks, looks for travel agency

- SITA bus back to Scarapiello, read at pool, ta, rest, read, wind kicks up so up to room.

- shower, *, ready selves.

- hurry to bus (then wait for it) in to Amalfi, btchass tourist office unhelpful again.

- pass another ceramic store, ask if Es wants to go in, get "I'm going to kill you if you dont buy one" look back. And whadayaknow? a spoon rest! it wasnt yellow lemons on yellow background but IS a yellow-lemon on a pomegranatey background which we'd both agreed was a viable alternative. I impress Es with bargaining skills (tho I kick myself 'cause the guy seemed like he might have gone lower)

- on to restaurant on beach with amazing view of Amalfi.

- anchioves, spaghetti (in 'paper envelope', with fruita di mare), seabass, white wine di Volpe in honor of my Volpe-last-named set dresser friend who's hooked me up with many a job. espressos, limoncellos.

- walking, Es gets a chocolate thing, lemon dipped in choc.

- volunteer girl for teachers gets 50p out of us. walk, no soccer bars, please, drink at bitchy Bar Francais, 1st no tip of the trip

- miss bus back (plus our tix were expired, but Es wanted to try anyway), have to take cab. €30 please. Es: NO! get our hotel manager up here right now! ok, €25. NO! Ridiculous! Ok, ok.. 20. Ok, 20. (I love this woman). drink a beer, wine, Es no likes people talking below, starts making racket while I try to quiet my cutely drunk wife. turns out to be quite hilarious. *, sleep

9-19-08

-8:30 wake up call, get to breakfast at 9:30. (getting out of the house is not Team Dayani's current strong suit)

- back to room, pack, check out w/ young jerk dude (vs the awesome dominique with stories and admirable bitterness galore and the 4 month old hair dye job and possibly 4 month's-dirty pants)

- cab (a mercedes no less, most cabs in italy seem to be mercedes & alfa romeo, or weird euro-minivans) to Salerno. windiness of Amalfi coast makes us both nauseated in a matter of minutes. somehow survive the 15-20 remaining minutes there without hurling (or hurTling, as in: off the steep cliffsides)

- get to Hertz in Salerno, car isnt ready so to bank, exchange $ for €'s - for which the guy enters my passport info into a computer, xeroxes it, faxes that off, makes me sign 3 documents, faxing 2 of those with 3 receipts for everyone. Other places we've changed $ have barely glanced at passports (Istanbul didnt even do that, just give us $, yo!)

- go to a kebab place (first middle-eastern food of the trip) but the taxiguy before us gets 7 or so portions of shaved chicken skewer meat so there's barely room enough for one shwarma-esque sandwich (auuuuggg, non-italian-deliiiicious), Es gets piza next door, back to Hertz

- load up our typically-italian-Euro-tiny-car, start car, lurch forward, stalling out... Oh. stick shift! Yeay! (do american rental car co's even offer stick shift anymore?)

- follow Hertz-lady's directions out of town, mess up, circle Salerno traffic for 25-30 mins, find Autostrade, finally! ciao! to Benevento (Strega factory location)

- follow signs to Avelino, get to Avelino then uhh.. then what? get lost. try to 3-point-turn, cant get IN to reverse, mild panic, realize need to pull up on stick shift sheath thingy.

- ask at gas station / coffee bar / bar (yes, a fully-liquored bar inside a gas station/coffee bar/bar), find Autostrade again, On To Benevento!

- Es says, in same escalating tone each time, "korRY!" each time I (safely) pass a car. Arrive in Benevento but it's huge (sorta, 60K residents we later hear) and we're supposed to find a factory in a huge (looking) town?

- Es uses her (mostly) Spanish & we ask two different guys, not really understanding but hear "train station" which we end up somehow running right into (not Right Into, but in front of) and what happens to be right across the street? The Strega Factory.

- which. Is. Closed. (K manages to not cry (on the outside))

- Buzz in to security area, make impassioned plea to italian security guard guy who gets a lady on the phone that we make impassioned plea to who says our visit is unexpected but she will be down in 10 minutes to talk to us. (K still not crying). Lady shows up with a gift bag (which I think is very nice of course but am sad because this is probably our "parting gift"). Alas, she says "if you dont mind the rain, I will give you a tour of the factory"!! this would be the moment the happy-crack was released into my blood stream. Despite mild'ish headache I've been nursing all day, I am out of my mind thrilled. Es snaps pics as we get a full, awesome, personal tour. Moderate rainfall ruins Nothing. Happiness increases tenfold when I realize she's going to let us into the closed Strega shop out front. I shop the F out of that store, buying 2 bottles of Strega reserve (aged 10 years in wood barrels and not sold in the US), strega crema, strega baba, a bunch of chocolate and part of my gifts for my groomsmen. And a t-shirt. And she gave us 6 strega glasses. And the gift bag had a buncha sweet Strega shwag of course. Again, I say, Heaven, my surroundings were. Also, she gives us directions to the outer-circling freeway for Rome (exactly like D.C.'s-"beltway") called tangenzione.

- Drive, drive, pass cars, rain sucks, drive some more, drive.

- stop at an AutoGrill, get best Oh-Good-Lord-I-Am-SO-Hungry food ever. Phone eats our phone card while trying to call the girl who's hooking us up with our vrbo.com vaca rental.

- Drive. dont stop to call Elena (above mentioned girl, bitch), drive, K stressed, Es stressed, freeway traffic, Roma tangenzione reached but we still dont know where in Rome we need to go (poor planning perhaps? perhaps) Es says: roll down your window then, I'll ask someone! to which I'm thinkin' 'yyyeah, that's really gonna work'. Somehow, someway, it works. Sort of. A lot of the which-way-should-we-turn or which-road-should-we-take-now we chose completely out of imagined instinct so if there was a patron saint of dumb luck, he must have been in our glove compartment.

- Es asks where Stazione Termini is (central train station terminal) and for a phone card at a Tabacchi (cigarettes & phone cards arent sold in stores, only "tabacchi" shops, usually a news-standy kinda place, usually with an espresso bar attached), no phone cards, try next tabacchi, yes! phone card. make the call to Elena (bitch!)

- Ugh. Elena .. tells Esra over the phone that.. she is, not at the flat we're to stay in, but home already. (it is 20 minutes after 8pm, our meeting time was between 7-8).. and that she wont come back to let us in to the place, we can try again tomorrow. Esra pleads, begs, pleads more and finally loooses it. hystrionics ensue.

- K is a F'n champion at soothing his now insane bride. drive around, looking for hotels, traffic sucks but within 20 mins, find nice great hotel, check out rooms & take it despite price. circle car, bellhop unloads our bags and embarassingly-huge-Strega booty haul, get to room, chillll on bed with eyes closed, then a little (our first of the trip really) tv, a little more tv while Es readies herself.

- pizza? ok. pizza, beer, veggies & grapes brought back to room to watch more Fantasia with (the hypnotically-freckle-boobed) Barbara D'Urso. Es says it's ok if I marry her too (ok, no she didn't, but she DID let me remain magically-captivated and commenting on said natural and gravitationally-hyperactivated-boobness - have I mentioned how much I love this woman? (Esra I mean, not Barbara D'Urso))

- We drink 1 beer each of the 3 we bought, pass (the F) out, sleeeeep.

9-20-08

- wake at 8:30, *, fun, quick shower, up to roof garden for breakfast

- throw a small piece of cut melon at a pesky pigeon that has the balls to land on the corner of our table. It misses and flies off side of roof (hopefully hitting another pigeon on the street below)

- get car from garage, get turned around trying to find Hertz, go back to gas station, ask, find Hertz, it's closed.

- Es goes in & asks at a ritzy hotel, gets directions to a mall with a Hertz in underground parking area, return car! Yeay! Ciao! (I've never been so happy to get rid of a car), find bathroom, accidentally bump into a guy going in to bathroom area, Es says be careful (of Rome muggers)

- I imagine, and then go into detail relaying to Esra, the whole imagined-fight I just had in the bathroom with two muggers involving my use of multiple shin kicks (your brain shuts down temporarily with a good shinbone strike, it's true). Also, sneak-attack ice cream headaches are employed, wherein I shove ice creams into the faces of my assailants until they are also mentally-incapacitated by delicious, but brain-freezing ice creams. To this date, I believe this to be my finest and most foolproof imagined fight scenario yet.

- Down to Spanish Steps, have awesome mushroom pizza with truffle oil from small pizza-by-the-kilogram quick-pizza-stop (best of trip, possibly).

- to Trevi fountain, recreate photo taken 30 years prior of me in my dad's coat, at Trevi fountain. pics & more pics, drink fountain water. To pantheon, pics

- towards colliseum (into 2 churches along way, you almost cant avoid sweet churches in Italy), stop at Supermarcato (K loads up on typical K-travels stuff (shampoo & toothpastes in Italian)), get food at sidewalk restaurant (gnocchi with gorgonzola & pears, salad). To Vittoriano.

- Up & up & through Vittoriano, on to colliseum

- Tour dude tries to sell us on joining his tour group-with-extra-tickets. Turns out they Don't have extra tickets but as we've been chatting, he hush-hush walks us past a 30 minute line to a different window (the didactic (audio) tour line). Audio tour colliseum. As awesome as I sorta-halfway-but-do remember it from when I was 8.

- Out of the colliseum, we head up to a park to catch the last bit of sun before sunset, rest head in Es's lap, a great moment.

- Up through rest of park, quick peek into Chiesa Santa Maria, past Basilica fountain, then on & on. In to a bookstore, a tabachi, buy 3 packs of smokes & fonzies then realize our paper money situation is too low to account for smokes/fonzies AND cab rides to dinner & train station tomorrow. Embarassingly explain to guy need to return for cash we just paid.

- back to hotel, naaaap deeeply. Es showers, readies self, keeps readying.

- tempers re: readying and where her "approved ATM's" are, where our restaurant she picked for the night is (far) and how we should go about Getting a taxi there.

- taxi comes, to fountain area, find the recommended restaurant, it's 2 million thousand € per plate (slight exageration), back down street to Casa Romano, get seated outdoor. Appetizer, wine. Es is too cold, we move inside (only after drunkly-loud, singing dutch girls clear out). Great bacomati spaghetti, not so awesome meat in white sauce (cooked awesomely rare, tho they never asked our preference), spinach, bottle of chianti, back to hotel.

- In taxi we bet how many miles we walked that day (Es: 8.8mi, K: 10mi ..winner TBD)

- Es gets in a mood about taxi rate, questions & requestions taximan about it.

- back at hotel, Es arranges wake up call, we pack, more packing, sleep (only 4.5hrs - ugh)

9-21-08

- 6am wakeup call, Es gets up and readies

- 6:55 K out of bed

- 7:05 we leave room, check out downstairs

- taxi arrives, we give last €10 we have, get credit card train tix, train to Fumicino airport

- No signs to "Terminal 5", find the shuttle bus for it anyway, go through 1st security check, get to check-bags, then security scan then passport stamp line then another shuttle bus to Another terminal. Duty free, get food, deal with food-place-chaos. Finally at our gate where we board yet Another shuttle bus to our plane.

- I'm excited to have my first window seat of the trip (I've deferred to the Mrs up to now but no more!) only to find out that our seats are in one of those middle isles.

- George-Clooney-athon holds interests (go George Clooney, gooo!)

- meal on plane is the first pesto I've seen in all of Italy (that we've seen).

- land, passport control, get bags, cab back, blah blah blah, we're home!

Thoughts on, after being back:
Someone recently asked me "Kory+wife=bliss, right?" - not sure if it was meant tongue in cheek or not, I answered it seriously. In hindsight, I summed up a lot of what we've been feeling since the wedding:
'bliss' being relative to the moment, it comes in waves, mostly. honeymoons are funny that way, vacations too i reckon - both geared towards fun & relaxation yet everyone i've been with on one (well, been on vacations with, at least) always seems to suffer a share of tempers at just how that fun & relaxation are to be had. since we've been back though, there's definitely an overriding sense of a heretofore-unknown-type of bliss that's taken away a lot of the old petty nonsense & bickering that used to crop up. maybe it's 'no more wedding and honeymoon planning' but it's weird, i cant shake the feeling that it's somehow coming from the wedding ring itself. Or the strange "oh my god, we're married" feeling which for a while is probably still gonna have us both thinking "wait, we're not OLD enough to be married!". ya, 38, and i'm feeling like it's something only older people do. weird. giddy. ....blissful.

ALSO: there'll be an official journal entry with slideshows for all the below, but if you want a sneak peak (that doesnt include a disposable camera I havent gotten back yet to upload nor the wedding photographer pics) ... feel free to copy/paste the below....

----K & E's wedding wknd pics
http://picasaweb.google.com/esragaffin/WeddingWeekend9608?authkey=4nj60hEcqxo

----Honeymoon - from NY up thru & including Capri
http://picasaweb.google.com/esragaffin/HoneymoonUpThruCapri?authkey=nj_z4qNW4Nw

------Honeymoon - from Positano up thru & including Ravello
http://picasaweb.google.com/esragaffin/HoneymoonPositanoUpToRavello?authkey=d3Cq48IS6P8

-----Honeymoon - leaving Ravello up thru & including leaving Rome
http://picasaweb.google.com/esragaffin/HoneymoonTOSorentoUpThruLeavingRome?authkey=fKEfT_g4VGs

Wedding Pix .. part "our camera"

And lo, unto the happy couple, a glorious wedding did appear. See for yourself (the pics from Esra & Kory's camera only.. the wedding photographer photos will be posted as soon as we get them)

(to view all the pictures together in VIEW ALBUM mode, mouse over the slideshow below, then the text bubble box, bottom left and click on the underlined "Wedding weekend" link)

Bachelor Party pix party

I just uploaded pictures from my bachelor party in the Catskills .. they can be found approximately right here:

pictures I may or probably-may-not-have posted

did i ever post the pics of my old place?  284 Mulberry btwn Prince & Houston?  like I said I was going to do when I moved in there?   maybe I did.  maybe I didn't... and so: