E' da una vita....

I will not bore you hear with the myriad excuses for why I haven't been blogging. I fear I have lost you, dear readership. It's November 23rd, more than a month since my last post. Will UTNS have to be considered a do-over?

Perhaps. But not before I tell you that my neighbor C., her husband, her two kids, her friend from Denmark with 3-month-old baby, La Bimba, and I took the funicolare to the Vomero for Thanksgiving dinner at another expat American's home. This would have been nothing special had it not been for the fact that C. was carrying the turkey -- the cooked and stuffed turkey -- in an Ikea bag. The bird was really stinking up the joint and C. was mortified. Luckily, I was yabbering in Italian to a Spanish friend about the turkey and Thanksgiving and so on, so the Neapolitans all breathed a collective sigh of relief that signified, "Meno male! E' il tacchino che puzza, non gli americani!"

La Bimba is growing up fast, throwing mini tantrums, shouting "mio mio mio," refusing foods she once loved, calling me mamma instead of mommy after having spent all of 5 hours with her Neapolitan cousin (just goes to show how many times an hour a Neapolitan child says "mamma"), saying new words like bapf (which means bat) and otch (watch) and ox (socks). We head to NYC next week for a long stay and I am looking forward to showing her the lights and riding the subway and seeing friends and family and just being New Yorkese.

Hope to be blogging again soon.