Back and packing

Each year, Fall does fewer things to endear itself to me.  In fact, I think it goes out of its way to make me hate it more and more.  This year, my least favorite season leached out of its boundaries into August and well past December.  Fall, I shake my fist at you and the grimness you bring. 

Suffice it to say, I didn't feel much like "blogging", and now I need a vacation.  Enter my cousin Gretchen and her plane tickets.

"Cousin," she said to me, "We need to go somewhere funny.  Somewhere we'll laugh hysterically."

"Like that time in Florence when the pigeon crapped on your head?  That made me laugh pretty hard" I said.  And truthfully, it was one of the funniest things that happened on our trip to Italy last year.  We had just descended over 100 stairs from the top floor of the medieval villa where we were renting a room.  Stopping at the bank machine, I looked up and saw the fluffy wagging nether-regions of a windowsill full of fat Tuscan pigeons.  Backing away just in time, I almost heard the "splootch!" as Gretchen screamed and was hit.  My first thought was that I didn't think I could climb those stairs again, so I whipped a Wet Nap out of my purse and began dabbing furiously at the glob on her scalp.  "I need a shampooooo!" she wailed.  "But cousin, I have a Wet Nap right here!" the mother in me said consolingly while dab-dab-dabbing.  I now know, for future reference, that pigeon poop plus Wet Nap equals a very sturdy glue.  And so, up the 100+ stairs we went, gasping like a couple of old smokers (we're not), laughing so hard I almost ralphed over the railing.

Somehow, I don't think pigeon crap would have been as funny if it happened at home.  Likewise, I don't know if that pasta we ate was really fantastic, or if it just tasted that way because we were sitting on a roof overlooking the Duomo on one side and the Piazza della Signoria on the other.  I'm pretty sure that we stand a good chance of going someplace funny, with good food...

And that place is Amsterdam [insert jokes about dope and hookers here].  There are stroopwafels!  There's a store with 200 kinds of cheese!  There are museums and houseboats and canals and all of them are not here.  That's good enough for me.  

I have an aqua polka-dot suitcase, and I am leaving all my work at home.