lord.  have mercy.  on my soul.

i just spent the last TWO HOURS trying to get onto wordpress to write this blog.  i’m sorry my posts have been so flighty and infrequent, but it’s not me, it’s the internet!  something must change!  i cannot work under these conditions, and when i’m not able to “work” i end up doing things like this:

Spirit Animal.  Oil Pastels on “wood”, or whatever our armoire is made of.

ugh, now i’ve got a headache from screaming at the computer and i lost my train of thought.  will just read D-Listed for calming 5 minutes then begin again.

remember all those gory slaughtered pig photos i took at the purcita’?  well, i had them printed off, and i compiled them in a hand-made book with an absolutely adorable pig on the cover (my artistic skills are just off the charts these days).  a touch of glitter to give the book a girly vibe (a vibe that is lost upon sight of the first page: severed pig foot photo), and copper wire to tie it all together, adding a touch of class (or to suggest industriousness).  i’m gonna give it to Porchis- as in, to both eric and fabio- tomorrow night as a Thank You for letting me observe and ask annoying questions.  i don’t know about fabio, but i have a hunch that the gruff, tough-guy eric has never been gifted a glittery pig-slaughter photo booklet before.  so i’ll let yall know what sort of a face he makes when he sees it.

the weather is so amazing here right now.  we are edging into fall ever so elegantly, a leaf turning red here, a leaf turning purple there.  it’s as though Collio’s performing a ballet this autumn, each vineyard taking their lead from the next, each tree waiting for it’s cue to take center stage.  the air is still so warm, the nights are starry and clear, and the mountains have not yet acquired their snowy gun-metal gleam; they’re still a foggy blue.

i think this indian summer weather is making everyone a bit more feisty than usual (cut to: last november: everyone miserably nursing their beers and walking around sopping wet in the icy rain).  there were four parties scheduled for this past saturday, which is not something that happens often around these oh-so-quiet parts.

the first party was in honor of the anniversary (or “birthday”) of Eventual Mente, the communist social club run by our dear friends Davide, Roberto and Andrea.  The Cormons soccer team (of which Davide is the star) had a game scheduled for that afternoon, so the boys decided to just throw the party there, at the field.  the game began at 3pm (we lost, but valiantly!), and by 5 the party was in full swing.  Held in a dingy Concession Stand area which had been magically transformed into a swanky club house with the help of a couple of space heaters, pic nic tables and a sparkly Go Poppi Go banner made by yours truly, throngs of people turned out to wish EventualMente “tanti auguri”!

the guests were served three different types of pasta, various panini (salami, mortadella, formaggio, mmmm), imported beers (slovenia), cake and something akin to a rice krispie treat which was made by someone’s mom (also served by someone’s mom).  There was dancing, singing, beer guzzling, prosecco popping…at one point Bentley had a broom and was sweeping people’s legs.  All in all the festivities resembled a crude Northern Italian version of one of Capote’s legendary NYC cocktail parties.  All that was missing was a chandelier from which to swing (and I don’t think anyone was wearing pearls).

At what felt like 4am (but was in reality merely 8pm) FL and i bid our polite adieus and headed back into town.  We were full from all the salami and cake, desperately in need of water and/or fresh squeezed orange juice after having consumed a bath tub’s worth of beer each, and were ready for a change of scenery.

but what is there to do in cormons at 8pm on a saturday night when you’ve already eaten and drank your fill but are feeling too young and revved up to go home and watch a movie?

nothing.  there’s nothing to do except eat and drink more.

so we sucked it up and went to Porchis, where parties numbers 3 and 4 were happening simultaneously.

  we lived out the rest of that saturday night cheerfully, chatting with friends (everyone who is anyone who was not at the EventualMente party was at Porchis), wishing various people happy birthday, discussing the OUT! OUT! OUT! of that horror of a man, Silvio Berluscino (consensus: they’re happy he’s gone, but have absolutely no faith in “whoever comes next”.  they just seemed jaded and distrustful and exhausted by the whole thing.  hoping for the best, though!), and intermittently stuffing our faces with delicious prosciutto crudo and cotechino snack bites (Fabio does it just perfectly…a tiny little slice of grilled polenta, topped by a tiny little round of cotechino.  friuli drunk food is the best).

FL’s adorable brother matteo was there, “in action” as we dubbed it.  apparently saturday night got to him, too, for he was in rare form.  assured us that WHATEVER THE COST he would make sure that FL’s mom made to the Georgia wedding in August.  it’ll take some valium, though, he imagines.

2am, and we realized that we were out way past our bedtime.  with streamers flying past our heads and the shouts of some sort of soccer chant in our ears, we bowed out.  at home, snuggled in our heavenly bed by 2:30, we considered the night a success.

we were woken (or roused, rather) at 11 sunday morning by a call from FL’s bestie, Pich.  He’s recently begun dating a girl, and thought the time was right to introduce us to her.  why don’t we make them lunch, he suggested (naturally wishing to impress this girl with what fabulous cooks his friends are).  we suggested he buy us lunch instead (arguing that his appearing both rich and generous might work more to his advantage), and told him to meet us at 2pm at a restaurant outside of cormons.

the girl is beautiful, and v. nice!  will not disclose her name or the cute photo i took of her and pich until it is for sure that she will be a regular fixture, but FL and i give her two thumbs up.

after a delicious lunch of fresh gnocchi with sausage and radicchio, grilled chicken on a bed of arugula, salami sauteed with balsamic vinegar (a super traditional meal), frico with potato (classic friulano) and a bottle of the house Cabernet Franc, we set off to the town of Cervignano for the annual Festival of St. Someone-or-other.

The streets were lined with booths selling clothes, hand-made goods, shoes, food, parakeets…we drank a vin brulee’ and browsed.

Late that night we stopped to see some band play and FL just went wild with dancing fever.  I spent the next two hours laughing hysterically and just about exploding with love while watching FL attempt the salsa, the samba and a country line dance.  the boy’s got moves.  Running to the nearest cafe for a glass of water, he came back with a glittery plastic ring he’d bought off one of the passing gypsies and got down on one knee in the crowd.

“I know the battery in this ring will only hold out till maybe tuesday, and that it’s made of plastic, but it’s sparkling now, and that’s what’s important.  for right now, let’s pretend it’ll sparkle forever, ok?  and let’s say, for right now, that this is me asking you, on one knee like the americans do, for forever.”

i said yes, obviously, and just, like, dissolved in tears of LOVELOVELOVE and everyone who wasn’t tripping over us clapped and cheered.  i think the best part of not having had a formal “engagement” scene to put on a pedestal, is that now we get to enact faux-engagement scenes whenever we want, always knowing the other will say “YES!”

then FL got up and started a conga line.