It’s been a week filled with terrible news.
Boston, the explosion in Texas, and children going hungry in Greece.
Our hearts and prayers go out to all of our sisters and brothers in pain and in grief.
May G-d bless them.
Someday, Georgia P will learn about how hard life can be, how cruel the world.
But this spring morning in central Texas, she’s just a little girl with a pearl earring.
Buona domenica, yall…
Tracie P, Georgia P, and I had a blast over the last two weeks in Italy.
But we sure are glad to be at home in Texas with all its comforts (and high speed internet).
Thanks for following along and buon weekend, yall! Lots more fun posts on what we ate and drank (and my notes from the wine fairs) to come…
She’s our little butternut squash…
We’re on our way to Italy tonight… see you on the other side!
The photo was actually taken by my uncle Manny Parzen, the famous statistician.
As you can see, brilliant minds think alike! ;)
Seriously, hag sameach (happy festival), yall!
We’re heading over to the Rosenbergs’, our Austin cousins from the Levy side of the family, for the seder tonight. :)
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When suddenly I stumbled on that face
That face, that face
That dangerous face
I mustn’t be unwise
Those lips, that nose, those eyes
Could lead to my demise
That face, that face
That marvelous face
I never should begin
Those cheeks, that neck, that chin
Will surely do me in
“That Face” from the musical The Producers
She is the love of our lives…
I can’t love Tracie P enough for giving her to us…
buona domenica… happy Sunday, yall… :)
Above: Ringo Starr appeared at the Bottom Line in New York and the Tonight Show in Los Angeles the week the Iraq war began, ten years ago. My band opened for him in New York. Here’s a link to the NY Times article above, dated March 23, 2003 (the photo was taken at his LA show).
“Iraq War’s 10th Anniversary Is Barely Noted in Washington,” reported The New York Times this week.
On Wednesday, March 20, 2013, we marked ten years since the war began.
I remember that week in 2003 like it was yesterday.
On my way to sound check at the Bottom Line on West 4th St., I had to cross a protest parade on 5th Ave. A few days prior, my band’s manager had called to let me know that we would no longer be headlining the bill: Ringo Starr had replaced us and we’d be opening for him.
It was a surreal moment for me. At once, the world seemed to be falling apart (world war three was about to begin) as I was fulfilling a lifelong dream (to share a stage with a Beatle!).
As Ringo and his band rehearsed “Yellow Submarine” during sound check, nostalgia for the Summer of Love — when I was born and when youth culture embraced a utopic “imagine” vision of the future — was palpable in the room: outside you could hear the chants of the anti-war protesters as Ringo walked his band through tweaks to their set.
If only the Washington regime had given containment peace a chance…
Thanks for letting me share this memory with you and let’s hope and pray that Georgia P’s generation will know many decades brighter than the last…
Remember the malathion-spraying helicopters in the opening sequence of Robert Altman’s 1993 love letter to Los Angeles, Short Cuts?
That movie and the 1989 medfly invasion in my southern California are such vivid memories of my early adulthood.
If you work in or around the wine industry, you know that fruit flies can be a chronic problem.
Ever since Tracie P quit her job in wine sales to be a full-time mother, we’ve had a lot less trouble with fruit flies (she used to come home every night with a wine bag full of open bottles she had “shown” that day).
But especially as we have begun to consume a larger quantity of organically grown fruits and vegetables, we still get the occasional fruit fly.
Mrs. B (my mother-in-law and the world’s number-one nanna) can’t remember where she read about the remedy but it’s worked out great for us (thanks, again, Mrs. B!): simply pour roughly a “finger” of red wine vinegar into a glass and then add 3-4 drops of dishing washing detergent.
The little critters are attracted to the vinegar but when they land on the surface of the liquid, they are unable to free themselves from the viscosity of the detergent.
As cruel as it sounds, you need to make sure that they die before you flush them down the drain (if they’re still squirming, they can reside in the drain and reappear later).
Buona domenica! Happy Sunday, yall!
Do Bianchi 