Vorrei una bottiglia di vino

Italian class went pretty well. I'm having flashbacks of Spanish, which makes it easier to learn. I kept wanting to speak Spanish in Japan, anyway, which isn't even close. At least if I want to speak Spanish in Italy, it will almost make sense. Plus, the teacher is telling us about things that we might encounter in Italy, which is nice. After one class, I know how to order wine, beer, and pizza as well as how to ask where to find the bar (same word, only it's more of a coffee place than our bar), so I'm pretty much set. ;) Oh! Fun fact: "panini" is actually the plural form of "sandwich" in Italian and "panino" is singular. Also, "bruschetta" is actually pronounced "brusketta."

Toastmasters was not as fun, mostly because I had to listen to way too many speeches go off on a tangent about health care reform or the president. I forgot that I worked with a slew of Sarah Palin supporters. The topic could be something like "If you could have any job for a day, what would it be?" and the answer would be "I would be President, because nowadays they don't have to listen to the people and they can do whatever they want." Other people were sneaking in things like "the last administration had it right because they lowered taxes after 9/11 to stabilize the economy." They failed to mention the whole...impact of starting a war against the wrong country, for example, although that seems like a rather large omission. Everything they said about Obama are the same things I could say about Bush, which was amusing. That would have been the perfect time to make my speaking debut, huh? At least it would have made an impression. The main speaker even talked about the fact that there are two sides (and biases) to every story and you need to hear both of them to develop sound opinions. I could almost hear them thinking along the lines of "good thing Fox News is fair and balanced."

Speaking of politics, sort of, I just came across this quote from Michelle Obama about her relationship to Barack: "I think we have a wonderful marriage. I love my husband. He's my best friend. But I always like to talk honestly about it because I think about other young couples who think there are no struggles to get here. And there are. That's part of it. The message is—work through the struggles. Start out with somebody that you respect and that you trust so that when you hit the bumps that are inevitable you always have that foundation. I tell Barack as mad as he can make me I look at him and I say, 'I really LIKE you. I like you. and I like the way you think and I like the person you are.' It's hard to stay mad too long, when the person is someone you like." I think that's sweet. And important.

I'm almost looking forward to tomorrow, I think. I mean, I hope I have a reason to look forward to tomorrow. Curiosity got the best of me and I bought a bottle of chocolate wine recently, so at the very least, I should consider opening that bottiglia di vino.