This is a story about one such argument.

I don’t remember how it began. Few great battles in history have marked beginnings. We say it was the assassination of Ferdinand, we suggest that it may have been the killing of Crispus Attucks and four others on a chilly night in Boston, but we are only guessing – trying to add sense and order to a situation where there likely isn’t one. Where there is only chaos and conflict.

I can tell you this: we were in London, and the turbulence at our table was in stark contrast to the unseasonably warm and sunny weather outside. I stated my piece, firm and reasonable, and was refuted by sheer madness. I shook my head. He shook his. Our voices grew louder. Our (okay, fine – my) attacks grew personal. I said some things about his mother, and her lack of a gag reflex, that I now regret. But still, I maintained my position. And that position is this: IT IS CALLED CILANTRO.

He disagreed, of course. “It’s called coriander,” he said, a claim which sounded all the more legitimate thanks to his English accent. If Patrick Stewart claimed that the sky was pink, we’d all believe it, on account of that damn accent. But I wouldn’t be so easily swayed.

“No one has ever been more wrong that you are now,” I said. Not even the guy who occasionally comments on my blog about how the holocaust never happened.

“I don’t see how I can be wrong if I’m telling you, factually, that’s what we call it,” he replied.

“And I’m telling you factually that YOUR FACE IS WRONG AND YOU ARE A TERRIBLE PERSON,” I screamed, and told him that I recently saw his mother servicing a fleet of young sailors. That was cruel and wrong. I really shouldn’t have said that, and most definitely should not have recreated the scene using Photoshop and some old beloved family photos.

He was undeterred, and kept pressing his point. I kept shaking my head. No, no, no. It made no sense. Perhaps we had misunderstood each other. Before it turned into an unfounded bloodbath, I needed to clarify that we were talking about the same thing.

“It has green leaves,” I said, my voice strained by vitriol, but still clear. “… it  resembles parsley, and can be found in many Mexican dishes. Do you know what I’m referring to?”

“Yes. It’s a herb,” he said, making a point of pronouncing the “h” in front  of the word “herb.”

I let out a half sigh, half growl. I could only handle one epic disagreement at a time. We’d address the proper pronunciation of “herb” later.

“Yes,” I said, teeth gritted. “The HHHHHHHERB.”

“Yes. The herb. Coriander.”

“CILANTRO.”

“It’s called CORIANDER.”

“AND YOUR MOTHER IS CALLED FOR A GOOD TIME.”

I don’t know how long we went on like that. It may have been minutes, or days, or weeks. Time has no meaning when you are yelling at an Englishman. My aunt has been married to a Brit for 50 years, and I am certain she would agree with this sentiment.

Looking back, I realize it was an entirely absurd argument. Here in the states, the entire plant is called coriander, as are the seeds. But the leaves are called cilantro (the Spanish word for the plant) and for clarity’s sake, it makes things much easier. Go to a store looking for coriander, and you’ll find a dried spice. Search for cilantro, and you’ll end up with a fresh, leafy herb. In the U.K., so I am told, the whole dang thing is called coriander, and the leaves are called, intuitively enough, coriander leaves (or, on occasion, Chinese Parsley). Ask for “cilantro” and you’ll get wrinkled brows and confused looks. It’s just not as common a word over there.

We might as well have been quarreling over eggplant versus aubergine. Like the superfluous “u” in “humour” and “colour”, the transposing of the letters “e” and “r” in words like “centre”, it was just one of many inconsequential things that separates the English and the Americans. There would be no resolution to this.

In the end, we agreed to disagree and I promised to stop pledging money to neo-Nazi organizations in his name.  I suppose it was all for the best. After all, is it not our differences that make life interesting? If everything were the same everywhere, wouldn’t travel be pointless? Yes. OF COURSE. Of course. Our idiosyncrasies and foibles make the world grand, I reminded myself.  And I believed all that nonsense of tolerance and goodwill until our last day in London. Right up until we were in a cab on our way out of town. That was when we saw this restaurant’s sign:

Forgive the terrible photo. I had rage fingers.

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If you supposedly call the whole thing coriander, WHY THE HELL IS THERE A WHOLE CHAIN OF CAFES (with reportedly terribly food) CALLED CILANTRO? HUH? EXPLAIN THAT.

Your move, buddy.

We're not in hell, I promise. Hell's flags are different.

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You know that old joke about heaven and hell? How in heaven, the police are British, the engineers are German, the cooks are Italian, the lovers are French? And how in hell, the roles are jumbled up? The police are German, the cooks are British, and, perhaps most cruelly of all, the bureaucrats are Italian.

And while the more culturally sensitive of you are rolling your eyes at the broad brush with which that joke paints Europeans, a few of you, like me, are knowingly nodding your head. If you’ve traveled at all, you know that the police in the U.K. are generally lovely, and you know the feeling of pure relaxation that comes after hearing your airplane pilot speak to the cabin in German-accented English. And if you are truly unfortunate, you know the hell of any organizational, governmental, or bureaucratic system in Italy.

For those of you unfamiliar with it, here is pretty much things go: take a bunch of screaming people. Put them in a room. Make sure no one has any idea of the specific details of their jobs, and that, upon any request to do the work for which they are paid, they look at you with scorn and exasperation. Add a coffee break every half-hour or so, and a cigarette break every fifteen minutes. And give substantial days off in the event of local festivals, and the birthdays of any saints, including all of those minor and fictional (“We can’t go into work! It’s St. Giuseppe the Flatulent’s Birthday!”). You know now what it’s like to work in Italy.

In every airport, train station, museum, or governmental office I’ve been in, I’ve scratched my head wondering exactly how anything gets done. Like, at all. I don’t expect big things (like citizenship or passport applications) to go through, but I don’t understand how all the small things, like the fixing of  leaky pipes and grocery-store deliveries, happen at all.

This is the miracle of Italy. Not the ancient ruins or the amazing food or wine or the art that spans centuries. No. It’s a miracle that the entire boot-shaped peninsula (and the island it’s been mercilessly kicking since god was a boy) hasn’t been swallowed up in a black void of nothingness. Bill Bryson puts it best in the delightful Neither Here nor There (read it immediately if you haven’t already. I’ll wait.):

The country has the social structure of a banana republic, yet the amazing thing is that it thrives. It now has the fifth biggest economy in the world, which is a simply staggering achievement in the face of such chronic disorder. If the Italians had the work ethic of the Japanese, they could be masters of the planet. Thank goodness they don’t.

And so, given this bacchanalia and chaos, you can imagine my concern when Rand and I were departing from Fiumencino airport in Rome for London a few weeks back.

We were, I was sure, going to get sucked into that black void.

We approached the security checkpoint not in a line, for queues don’t exist in Italy, but in an amorphous blob of people. The smell of humanity was thick in my nostrils as I braced myself for being yelled at (I am always being yelled at in Italy. But that’s another blog post. One I promise I will get to). Despite an entire lifetime of being screamed at by Italians, I have built up zero sensitivity to it. Quite the opposite really: my response to it is Pavlovian – my blood pressure spikes in anticipation. This is a problem when one considers that essential yelling is to Italian life – people do it constantly – even whispering in Italian requires you to raise your voice.

Given how often I was yelled at stateside by security agents, I could not imagine what the Italian equivalent would be. From our position (mid-blob, slightly to the left), I could already hear the Italian-equivalent of the TSA barking at people. I nervously started wringing my hands as the blob lurched forward, and a young mother with a baby strapped in a carrier to her chest was thrown to the front.

I watched intently as the agents explained she couldn’t go through with the child in the carrier, and that she’d have to remove him. The young woman looked nervous – she didn’t seem to speak much Italian. Finally, one of the agents snapped impatiently, “Stai da sola?” Are you alone?

The girl nodded.

“Okay,” the agent said. “I’ll help you.”

And in that moment, I remembered why, despite all the crazy, I love Italy. The mother handed her child to the agent, who in a blink transformed from a disgruntled Italian airport worker into the Roman equivalent of Maria Von Trapp. She bounced the baby up and down gently, cooing at him, while his mother finished removing the carrier and walked through the metal detector to join him.

No shouting. Not even a single tear.

Moments later, a second child arrived at the security gate with his mother. He looked about five years old, green-eyed, with a mop of curly ash-blond hair. Another agent was monitoring his side of the line – a large, gruff man with slicked back shoulder length hair.

“Veni,” he barked at the little boy. Come.

Here we go, I thought to myself. The black void, come to swallow this little Christmas card of a boy.

“Veni,” the agent repeated. “Veni, tesoro.”

Wait, what? Tesoro? Seriously? It’s what my uncle called me when I was little. Tesoro mio. My treasure.

Come, treasure.

And the little boy skipped through, and the agent ruffled his hair absent-mindedly as he passed.

In this manner, something crazy happened. The blob advanced. No, it wasn’t lightening fast. And yes, there were raised voices. It was chaotic and noisy, punctuated with the occasional burst of laughter, the ruffling of a child’s hair, the cooing of a baby. This is how things happen in Italy. It doesn’t have the cool, mechanical efficiency of Germany, or even the U.S. for that matter. It is grimy and crowded and intimate and a bit pungent. But things do happen.

On the other side of security, Rand and gathered our belongings. A woman behind us had just walked through the metal detector, and set it off. Her eyes widened, mortified. She held her arms up above her head, and froze.

The agent, the gruff one with the slick backed hair looked at her impatiently.

“Madame,” he said, “Put your arms down. I’m not a police officer and you aren’t under arrest.”

And yet, her position, almost absurd in its vulnerability, is required of people going through the backscatter machines in the U.S. And here, he was rolling his eyes as she held her arms up. The entire scene? It was downright un-American.

It was Italian.

The waiter comes by with the haughtiness and exasperation of someone who knows that the gratuity is included in the bill. My uncle will remind me that this isn’t just because we’re in Italy, but also because we’re in Rome. It’s somewhat like New York – people are rushed, people are busy, people are yelling. It isn’t because they are angry at you (or if they are, it isn’t because it’s personal). It’s simply what life in the city is like. As we rattle off our orders in Italian (yes, Rand included), our waiter seems less disgusted with our table. My uncle’s Roman accent surely helps, as do, I suspect, my cousin’s big green eyes.

My family laughs at my reaction to the service, but I tell them I’m just glad I haven’t been yelled at. It seems that I’m always getting yelled at in Italy … or by Italians (that is another post. I promise you).

I order cacio e pepe pasta – a dish so absurdly simple, I’m wondering why I’ve never ordered it, much less made it. Butter, pecorino, a tiny bit of pepper swirled over fresh pasta.

Carciofi romani in the background.

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Rand  doesn’t get what the big deal is, but trust me: it is fantastic. My cousin orders the same thing, and my uncle, ever the local, goes full-Roman:

Trippa Romana. Notice the hands, so constantly in motion, that they're blurry. It's my belief this is how Italians burn off all the extra calories.

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Tripe doesn’t scare me. I actually like it a lot, and I grew up eating it. My grandmother would make it in a runny, tomatoey broth, and I’d gobble it up without the addition of cheese. I remember my brother hating it, but I loved it. I ordered it once stateside, at Lidia Bastianich‘s restaurant Felidia in New York, and was disappointed. It was mushy and tasted – forgive me on this one – too clean. I ate barely half. The waiter looked at me sympathetically – I was the girl who was trying to be a foodie, who took a risk and couldn’t stomach it (sorry, again). I wanted to explain to him the whole story, but obviously didn’t.

Here, though, in the touristy-restaurant that isn’t touristy at all, my uncle’s tripe is perfect – salty and chewy and intensely flavored. I keep stealing pieces and dragging them onto my plate, a streak of orangey-red against the white of my noodles, and feel suspiciously like I did when I was a kid.

The tripe is salty, and it makes me thirsty. I notice that our bottle of water – ordered with our food – never arrived, and I decide to ask the waiter about it. My family warns me – service in Italy isn’t like it is the states. Water glasses never reaching empty, bottomless baskets of bread – these do not exist in Europe. And so, out of fear of committing a huge Roman faux pas, I gently grab the waiter’s attention.

“I am terribly sorry,” I tell him, flashing the brightest smile I can. “I know the gentleman is busy” (yes, I used third-person formal) “but when he has a moment, could we please have a bottle of water?”

Now, compare this the traditional Roman way of asking:

“Hey, asshole, where the fuck is my water?”

No, I’m not kidding. Cuss words pepper Roman dialect and no one bats an eye. But here I am, at the equivalent of the local diner, using third person formal to ask for water that we had already ordered. There were two ways in which this could go down: I was either going to make someone feel very badly, or I was going to get laughed at.

In actuality, both happen.

The waiter, after looking shell-shocked for a few long seconds, cracks. I have caught him so off-guard, this foreigner with her extreme politeness, that he is immediately apologizing. “I am so sorry,” he says. “My colleague brought your bottle to another table.” He immediately brings us glasses and a bottle, again blaming his coworker and apologizing.

I smile and thank him profusely. Someone feeling badly? Check. Someone laughing at me?

She lost it.

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Check.

My little cousin (and my aunt and uncle for that matter) can not keep her shit together. She, my aunt, and my uncle, all collectively lose it when I ask for water, and again when the waiter responds so sweetly.

“That’s not how people talk in Rome!” she manages to spit out.

“Well, it’s how I talk to waitstaff,” I explain, smiling.

After lunch – one of those midday too-long extravaganzas the Italians are known for – we go for a walk, and I feel slightly out-of-place. A stranger in a familiar land. It’s an odd feeling. I take to my camera, snapping pictures of things here and there. When a tourist in Rome, act like one, right?

I see a boot on a car, and I take a picture, because I find it so ridiculous (seriously, if someone is parked where they shouldn’t be, tow their car – don’t immobilize it!)

This is just bad practice, but I'm guessing it's the only way to get a Roman to pay a parking ticket.

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As we walk away, I hear some gentleman talking about the boot.

“Well who the hell put it on here?”

“That woman just took a picture of it.”

“Well, did she put it on?”

Now, I don’t know why on earth they think this, but I turn around, abruptly. And without thinking, my hand is up, my index and middle finger pressed against my thumb in a pinched gesture, which I am waving back and forth.

And I am shouting.

“What, now you think I did this?” I scream.

And the gentleman are taken aback. No, no, of course not, they say. They are just curious as to who it was.

Okay, then. Well, it wasn’t me. And I turn and walk away. My response, this time, is quick and instinctual, and purely Roman.

And once again, my family is laughing.

Specifically, this one:

I don't know what they were doing here.

Adorable, ain’t he? Ignore the hair. It just … well, it just is.

The lovely gentleman pictured with my husband is Tom. I have, on occasion, ridiculed his brother on this site, as well as his colleagues, but there’s been sad little mention of Tom himself. Which I intend to rectify. Because this past weekend, Tom arrived in Seattle for the work-equivalent of a foreign exchange program. He’s going to be putting in some time stateside, and, as Rand put it, “making everything better.” Hence the giggling. And the running around. And the general behaving like 12-year-old girls who’ve inhaled a pack of pixie sticks and watched the entire Twilight canon. In short, we are excited.

This cultural exchange of sorts will also mark the longest time Tom has spent in the United States. And since he is a dear and well-behaved lad, I feel that there are a few terms which he, as a Brit, may want to avoid while he’s here. It’s not that they’ll get him into trouble. It’s that no one will understand what he’s talking about. And also, they might get him into trouble.

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Diary: In the U.K., a “diary” is what we Americans would call a “calendar” or a “planner”. So, when we told a friend in the U.K that we wanted to have dinner of Thursday, and he replied, “I’m going to put it in my diary,” he was probably not deserving of all the ridicule we dished out. Because here, it’s something teenage girls write in. As in,

“Dear Diary,

Today Tom Critchlow came to town and I have never been happier. I haven’t been this excited since [insert Twilight reference].

Sincerely,

Rand”

(Not an actual excerpt from Rand’s diary, which is sealed with a heart-shaped lock that I can’t bear to pick. A man’s girlish dreams are his alone.)

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Front-bottom. Clearly, I must have a weird impression of how Tom’s going to be spending this time in the U.S., if I thought that prolific use of this term might be a problem. But here’s the thing: while across the pond “front-bottom” is a kind way to reference one’s genitalia, over here in the states, well … Well, it doesn’t mean anything. But it does bring to mind having a tiny little butt where your man-bits are supposed to be. Something like this:

This might be the picture that causes Rand to insist I get a job.

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Capsicum. I once spent 30 minutes with a jet-lagged Brit trying to figure out this term. It’s absolutely impossible from context alone.

“You know … those vegetables. With the seeds. That come in all the colors.”

“Um … tomatoes?”

It was a rough night. Just say “bell pepper” and spare the ignorant Americans around you a stress headache.

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Fag. Just … just don’t, okay?

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Biscuits. If you see biscuits on a menu, please know that you will not be getting these:

Photo courtesy of Neil Conway, via flickr.com

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No. Instead, you will be getting these:

Photo courtesy of larryjh1234, via flickr.com

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They’re a bit savory and kind of like scones. And they’re what we’re talking about any time you see “biscuits and gravy” on a menu. Certainly not cookies and gravy. Although I’ve learned not to underestimate the Cheesecake Factory.

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Fanny. Riiiiight. So … this probably falls more in the category of “Things Americans shouldn’t say while in Britain,” but it’s still an important one to note, right? Because in the U.K., it means … um … lady bits. But in the U.S., it’s kind of a cute way to say one’s bum, or, more simply, an antiquated woman’s name. It’s totally innocent – and why we can have candy companies with names like Fanny Farmer.

Which I’m guessing would be akin to having a British candy company called, I don’t know, “Vagina Horticulturist.” Actually, I’m willing to bet there’s a market for that.

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Chips. This is just going to confuse everyone, because your chips are our fries, and our chips are your crisps and our fannies are your vaginas and now my brain hurts. One point of note: if you’re in a restaurant, you’ll have to ask your server for vinegar if you want it (it’s not just sitting on the tables). Vinegar on fries is a totally foreign thing here: the only people who do it are Europeans, and hipsters who are trying too hard.

In search of vinegar. For their chips.

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Pants. If someone says “pants” in the U.S., they mean trousers. My understanding is that in the U.K., “pants” is actually short for “underpants” – which I have no doubts could lead to some delightful misunderstandings. Like, for example, the time a friend of mine bought waterproof fishing overalls for an upcoming trip. He excitedly told his fellow travelers that he had a great new pair of rubber pants.

They were British. And mortified.

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Willy.

For the Brits:

That's right: it means FRONT-BOTTOM.

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For the Americans:

Aw. He IS always on my mind.

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So just remember: if an American girl says she loves Willy, you haven’t necessarily sealed the deal. Unless, of course, you actually are Willie Nelson. And in that case? Bravo, good sir. You are a treasure.

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Sod. Stateside, it’s pretty exclusively a pile of dirt. Overseas, it’s someone who’s a bit intolerable.

In the U.S.:

Image via perferredsod.com, which is a domain I really wish I owned.

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In the U.K.,

I only vaguely know who this is.

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In the U.S., you’d likely call someone a douche instead of a sod. As in, “That guy was so douchey, he could have cleaned out an entire Fanny Farmer factory.”

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Anywho, that’s about it for today’s lesson. There are other words that don’t translate well from American English to U.K. English (and vice-versa) but these were just the ones I thought were most likely to get you in trouble/deported. Anything else will probably lead to some adorable Hugh-Grant-like foibles, which will likely play really well here. So welcome to the U.S., Tom. Our diaries have never been so interesting.

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Don't ask me why I insist on blacking out my name, when you all know everything about me.

Okay, fine, maybe, just maybe, I was referring to someone I know. Still, I regret nothing. I am resentful and vindictive. This should not come as a surprise. Anyhoodle, my friend Skye, who is talented and wise, quickly chimed in:

My logic seems to imply that a state of shared douchebaggery lowers the rate of divorce.

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At this point, my dear little cousin Val jumped in. For the record, she is lovely. I’ve mentioned this before. Here she is:

Yeah, I know - she's annoyingly gorgeous.

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And as a reminder, here I am:

It's okay. I'm good at other things.

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The moral of this photographic story is that recessive genes are a total bitch. But I digress. Val and I are Facebook friends, and our posts to one another are very often in Italian. Despite the fact that her English is nearly flawless, my liberal use of slang is confusing to her. And so, when she saw my post about douchebags, she politely requested clarification:

Okay - the word "douchebag" interspersed with her Italian just kills me.

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Since most of you probably don’t speak Italian, and don’t want to bother typing all of that into Google Translate, allow me to do it for you:

Val: Forgive my ignorance, but doesn’t “douchebag” mean vaginal douche? Precisely how can two douches mate?

And, well, she has a point. It inevitably led to this exchange …

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Here’s the translated version:

Me: Bwah ha ha ha ha ha ha. Val, you are right, but “douchebag” can also mean an asshole.

Val: Under what criteria can you equate a vaginal douche with an asshole???????? I am learning so much.

Me: Languages are complicated.

Val: No … People are complicated.

My mom: (non sequitor) Hi, pretty girls!

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Aaaaaaaaand Scene!

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Rob: Bob’s your uncle! Codswallup! Bangers and mash! BLAH BLAH BLAH HOGWARTS.

Me: I have no idea what you’re talking about. Speak American, please.

Rob: Ahem … Did you know that up until the 1950s or 60s, the U.K. had non-decimal money? So we’d have coins for seemingly random amounts.

Me: (open-handedly slapping Rob across the face) Don’t lie to me, boy.

I swear, it happened just like that. Except for the parts that didn’t. Anyway, the important part is that Rob claimed the U.K. had non-decimal currency. Meaning that the values of coins weren’t based on the pound being divided into 100 equal parts. Instead, he explained, the pound had been divided into 240 pence.

And honestly, I kind of dismissed it along with all the other crazy things Rob says about England.

I feel like I should apologize for this. I'm not going to, but I feel like I should.

“We drive on the other side of the road! Bell peppers are called capiscums! We have national healthcare, and the government hasn’t collapsed!”

Yeah, right.

So you can imagine my skepticism when I received this email from Rob…

I seemed to remember a little disbelief when I told you that the UK had non-decimal money up until the 1950s / ’60s.

I got clarification from my parents while they’re here:

The smallest unit – then as now – was a penny. (Though I’ll contradict this shortly.)

There were twelve pence in a shilling, and twenty shillings in a pound.

Therefore, a pound was 240 pence.

A shilling was often referred to as a ‘bob’, eg: people would refer to a ‘ten bob note’ (=10 shillings, half a pound, or 120 pence.)

We had a florin, which was two shillings, the coin looked like you American quarters (colloquially was called a two-bob-bit.)

We had a crown, which was a quarter of a pound, but what was much more popular was the half crown: this could be described as a an eighth of a pound, but was typically thought of as two shillings and sixpence.

We had a 6 pence coin (sixpence, though also called the tanner or half-shilling) and a 3 pence coin (threepence, but more often pronounced thrupence or threppeny-bit.)

The penny was also subdivided: we had a ha’penny coin (half a pence, we had this coin until 1984) and a farthing coin (quarter of a pence)

We also had the concept of a ‘guinea’ – which was 1 pound and one shilling (ie:21 shillings) it was used until relatively recently (still an important amount in horse racing), but we’ve not had a guinea coin for a while.

Finally, the nomenclature was to use the £ sign for pounds, s for shillings, and d for pence, so fifty bob, 3 and a half pence

would be written: £2.10s.3.1/2d

Here ends today’s lesson.

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Naturally, upon reading this, I declared Rob full of crap and proceeded to slap a photo of him (as he was not nearby). But then I started doing a little research, and it would appear, as crazy as it sounds, that Rob might actually not be making this up. For years, the monetary system was outdated, and pounds were divided into 240 parts (before you start freaking out about how crazy that is, tell me how many feet are in a mile. Yeah, you have no idea, do you?) That changed on February 17, 1971, a.k.a. Decimal Day, when the monetary system switched from the old pence (worth 1/240th of a pound) to the new pence (worth 1/100th) of a pound. A few years prior, the first of the new coins made an appearance on the High Street, causing a lot of confusion, but fortunately very little rioting (The English are very polite. If this had happened in Texas, there would have been blood).

So, wow. Rob was right. He wasn’t just messing with us. I guess I can trust his postscript, too:

Did I mention that if you press the back of the 25p coin in the correct way, it plays a recorded message from the Queen of England?

Ah, the English. So like us humans, and yet, so different.

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Have I mentioned how good I am?

I mean, technically good?

As in, I rarely ever, every break the law? In that respect, I’m an angel. By all other definitions, I’m basically on par with people who eat puppies and talk during movies (Quiz time: guess which of those activities I do regularly!). But that’s beside the point – as far as the state of Washington is concerned, I’m hardly evil at all.

At least, I was. Until tonight. Because tonight, in my very own home, a law was broken.

In front of my mom.

And my aunt and uncle, brother-in-law and husband. And my dear, adorable 15-year-old cousin, who I allowed to be corrupted.

Basically, the scene went something like this:

My brother-in-law was coming to dinner tonight, and since my aunt and cousin are visiting from Italy, I figured I’d invite them too, along with my uncle. I don’t know how my mom found out about it, since I left no forwarding address at my last place of residence, but whatever (also, I may have invited her, and she may have been a delightful dinner guest. I’m admitting nothing).

Rand opened up a bottle of wine, and he went around the table, filling stemmed glasses. All of them. Including one he had placed in front of my dear, uncorrupted, 15-year-old cousin.

“Babe,” I said, positively oozing sarcasm, “Are you trying to get Giovanni drunk?”

Rand shrugged. “Why not?” he said.

“Yeah,” Giovanni’s mom chimed in, “Why not?”

Of course, Giovanni didn’t get drunk. No where near it, actually. This is in part, I’m sure, due to the fact that he’s, like, a million feet tall. And also because, as a young man living in Italy, he’s been trained to drink a bottle of wine with dinner since the age of two. Instead, he was in the company of family, drinking a small portion of wine with dinner.

BUT NONE OF THAT MATTERS. Crimes were broken. Laws were committed. CRAZINESS HAPPENED.

Here’s a basic rundown of what happened (I read somewhere that police like to have this sort of thing, because it makes conviction easier. I assume that since I’m helping the police, I’ll get full immunity.).

• My cousin leaves Italy, a hellish and unhinged place. The entire country has no official drinking age, resulting in moral depravity that is destined to tear the country apart. Italians, as a result, are deeply unhappy and unattractive people. Behold:
  -
  

  Ewww, right?

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• He comes to America, where SHIT IS AWESOME.
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  America: Replacing bread with donuts since 2008.

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• I invite Giovanni, his parents, and my mother over to dinner. Storm clouds gather on the horizon.
• My husband pours Giovanni a small glass of wine. My aunt and uncle, so entrenched in their own depravity, have no problem with this.
• GIOVANNI DRINKS THE WINE. Thunder rumbles and lightning cracks.
• He doesn’t get drunk, but rather exhibits a maturity that most people twice his age lack when in the presence of alcohol. BUT THAT DOESN’T MATTER. In failing to stop him from imbibing, we break the law and are all instantly damned to hell.
• I am going to have to devote my life to Jesus and Paula Deen in order to be forgiven.

And there you have it, folks. Instead of teaching my cousin about all the wondrous things that American has to offer (Capitalism! Cherpumple! The highest number of prison inmates per capita!), I allowed him to be corrupted by drinking wine. He should have waited until he was 21 and got blitzed while in a seedy bar, rather than learning to respect alcohol in social settings from a young age, surrounded by loved ones. That’s the way we do it here in America, WHERE GOD LIVES.

Fortunately, he’ll be going back to Italy soon, where that sort of thing is legal. Then we can put all this ugliness behind us, like we did Feminism and permed hair.

And I can go back to being my sweet, law-abiding self.

-

P.S. – I just remembered that I occasionally speed, attempt to cheat the system whenever possible, and am constantly violating copyright, despite being a copywriter. So I guess I lied before about not breaking any laws. But you believed me, so we’re both kind of at fault.

More than anything in the world, really (with one glaring exception). I am obsessed with it, in a way that few people will understand. Occasionally, I will rifle through old pictures, and find photos of cakes I made long ago. I remember them fondly, like old lovers.

I long for them in the middle of the night. When I daydream, my thoughts fall to them. And I must make a conscious decision, every time I am at the grocery store, to buy groceries and not an entire sheet cake or three.

Recently, a friend of mine got married, and I started dancing around in anticipation of the cake, and other numerous goodies that were on the dessert table. And after standing an excruciating few minutes in line (DEAR GOD THE HUMANITY) I was finally able to get to the front, where I might have piled an obscene number of sweets onto my plate.

Later, I sat amongst my friends, frosting smudged across my lips, drool dripping from my mouth, and slowly slipped into a mild diabetic coma. It was glorious.

“I want more cake,” I managed to wheeze. My lungs were being crushed by buttercream.

“Then get a second slice,” someone said.

“I already did.”

“Then try one of the little cakes,” they suggested.

“You mean a petite four? I already had one.” (I know cake terminology well.)

“Then get a cookie.”

This is where it started to get embarrassing.

“Um … I did.” I said.

At this point, everyone started to giggle. I would have, too, but my abdominal muscles had turned to sponge cake. I have suppressed any shame over my sweet-tooth. I simply eat my weight in vegetables and do copious amounts of yoga in a struggle to counteract it. And still, despite my efforts … This baby? She got back.

Moments after finishing my plate of goodies, Rand appeared.

“I brought you a slice of cake,” he said. This is why he is the love of my life. However wonderful cake is, it will never be able to bring me another slice of itself.

“I couldn’t possibly,” I said, and everyone laughed. Then, slowly, their grins faded. Why? Because I ate the third piece.

Like I said: I love cake.

——————

A few months ago, another friend of ours – Rob – got married, and we were unable to make the wedding, as it was in England. When Rob got back to the states, he told us he had a surprise: he had brought us a slice of his wedding cake.

I nearly died. Cake. FOREIGN CAKE. So overjoyed was I by this news, that I didn’t bother to ask any of the relevant questions that may have already popped into your mind: Mainly, how the hell can cake survive a trip back from the U.K in one piece? And how old was this particular piece, anyway?

After all, Rob got hitched in early July …

But no, these things did not bother me. THROW CAUTION TO THE WIND, my heart screamed. THIS IS CAKE!  NEITHER RAIN NOR SNOW NOR SHELF LIFE NOR SPECIOUS QUALITY WILL DETER ME. Ahem. Besides, as Rob explained, English wedding cakes are generally fruitcakes, which means they’re loaded with alcohol, which preserves them. Longtime readers know how I feel about alcohol and dessert (Blah, blah, blah margarita cupcake!).

And they last forever. No, really. FOREVER:

They weren’t like our “sponge cakes” as Rob described them (which is an accurate term for what we consider cake here, and yet, we never specify that. We generally assume all cakes are sponge cakes, don’t we?). They have a limited shelf life. But what Rob had brought? It might outlive us.

Rand distrusts the cake. But wouldn't you, if you met your greatest competition for your wife's affection?

-

Rand was wary. I was not. After all, it’s cake. My first love. My truest friend. So when Rob handed me a plastic container containing a dark slice, I might have done a happy dance.

But I tried to reserve my excitement. This was a different animal, I reminded myself.

But ... it's still cake, right?

-

I scooped up a small bit with my fork, and brought the dark, dense confection to my lips. The verdict? It tastes of rum and spices, dried fruit and sugar. It reminded me of the holidays. There was a layer of marzipan and icing on top, which for some reason brought to mind a licorice all-sort: chewy and fragrant and very, very sweet.

Rand and I both had the same reaction: It was pretty good. Clearly, it was an excellent articulation of an English wedding cake … but it wasn’t what I had hoped it would would be. I won’t crave it in the middle of the night. I won’t think about it when my husband is out-of-town and I’m feeling lonely.

Pictures of me eating sponge cake are unavailable, as I can moving into my face at speeds my camera can’t keep up with. This is not the case with fruitcake:

Things that make you go, "It's pretty alright."

Was it cake? By definition, perhaps. But in my heart, it wasn’t. The proof? I didn’t devour the whole thing.

Well, not yet anyway.

*Note: there were cuter photos of me eating cake, but Rand decided to make them cleavage shots, so they’re not included in this post.

Instead, this post has everything to do with me. Or, more specifically, my mom.

See, she’s just discovered Facebook.

Since joining, she immediately friended one of my ex-boyfriends, posted half a dozen links about the existence of extra-terrestrial life, and called me every five minutes for days on end, asking me if I had seen her recent status updates and what I thought of her new profile picture.

The result is awkward, yet somehow endearing. To my mom, the internet is a new and strange place. She’s been an immigrant before, and now she’s a digital immigrant, to boot. She’s traveling in a strange new world, and only vaguely understands internet etiquette. She says things on Facebook that I wouldn’t in a million years consider posting.

And yet, there’s nothing wrong with that. Because when you explore new lands, there’s no right or wrong. It’s kind of like travel (HOLY CRAP, I AM MANAGING TO TIE THIS POST TO TRAVEL). You may not know all the customs. You may do things that other people find strange, or weird. But as long as you’re open-minded, willing to make friends, and your heart is in the right place?

Things will be just fine.

So, without further ado, some crazy/delightful ways my mom has used Facebook, and a few faux pas she’s committed.

1. Here are three posts from her in a row. Tell me if you see a pattern.

Did you find the pattern? That's right: each post starts with a consonant.

-

2. Quizzes are apparently as worthwhile and legitimate as sworn testimony. My mother found out which 18th century philosopher she was, posted the results, and then proceeded to do a ton of research on said philosopher. Upon discovering that there was something she disagreed with, she immediately deleted the results of the quiz, freaked out that her friends will now think she’s bonkers, and posted roughly half-a-dozen status updates about how she really doesn’t believe in a categorical imperative. Somewhere therein? I received a frantic phone call about the incident.

No one is going to take the results that seriously if they involve Jessica Rabbit.

-

3. She and my Auntie P. bicker on Facebook. I’m not gonna lie: This is pure awesome, and I occasionally have been known to egg them on.

They insisted walking me home, otherwise I'd "get murdered."

-

4. She takes things far too literally. So if you ask, “What’s on your mind?” as Facebook prompts people to in status updates …

-

5. She doesn’t realize when a phone call is better. When my brother’s cat died (he had left it with my mom a few years ago because his then-girlfriend-now-wife was allergic), my mom announced it on Facebook before telling anyone. Actually, she didn’t so much announce it as vaguely reference it (which she felt would be easier on everyone), leaving us to make our own conclusions …

-

6. Movie quotes? Yeah, she ain’t gonna catch those. Still, it’s pretty cute how encouraging she is, given that out-of-context, my brother sounds nuts..

If you can immediately guess the movie, then you are a bigger dork than I.

-

7. Sometimes, she makes sense. These are the scariest moments of all.

You wish your mom was this awesome.

-

8. She makes up emoticons. I have no idea what this means:

I think this is a chicken being urinated on.

-

9. She … Well, this is just awkward:

But still, I kind of love her for stuff like this.

-

10. She takes a stand against the most random things. Don Quixote has his windmills. My mom has sidewalks.

Don't get her started on the douchey crosswalk.

Crazy, right? And yet, so damn delightful. A lot like my mom, actually. After all, I might complain or tease or poke fun, but honestly, if she used Facebook like everyone else did? I’d be miserably bored. Remember that next time you’re traveling, and are fairly sure the Italians (or the French, or the Germans, or whoever … but mostly the Italians) are nuts. If we were all the same, it would be so damn dull.

Plus, I’m sure if I looked hard enough, I might find something inappropriate that I had said on Facebook …

Okay, fine. I didn't have to look hard at all.

Wow. I’m kind of an asshole.

No, I wasn’t drunk. Nor had I ingested any sort of chemical that would cause me to wax poetic over my own cultural identity. But when you’re surrounded by folks who’s grandparents or parents or great-grandparents hail from vastly different places, it’s a strange and interesting thing to think that we all fit under the same big star-spangled umbrella. It’s a warm and happy thought, actually (provided you don’t think about the plight of Native Americans. Then, the warm and happy feeling dissipates pretty quickly and wonder if heading to the casino will assuage your guilt. It won’t).

My thoughts were made more complex when I asked my husband why he considered me “Italian.” For the record, I don’t, nor have I ever, described myself this way. I generally say, “My family’s Italian” (when I’m not saying, simply, “My family’s nuts.”) But I describe myself as an American. I was born here. I grew up here. And yet Rand will, on ocassion, say, “My wife is Italian.”

I asked him why he did this. And to him, with his Jewish-American parents and grandparents, my upbringing was foreign. We spoke mostly Italian (though my mother and brother and I didn’t speak it generally amongst ourselves, when any other family members were around, it was almost exclusively Italian). On weekends and during the summer we ate a big meal with my grandparents at around 2pm. It was pasta. Nearly every single day without question, pasta.

My parents on their wedding day, along with my mom's family, in Rome. Notice my nonno never took off his shades.

Nevertheless, I don’t think it was an Italian upbringing. Nor do I think it was Italian-American (that is a different animal all together, and one more foreign to me than most things I’ve encountered). I think, instead, it was an immigrant upbringing. Rand’s logic in calling me Italian isn’t entirely accurate, but it does reflect a key element of his thinking: that my upbringing was not a stereotypically American one.

And yet, and yet, and yet. When I think about all my friends – my undisputedly born-and-raised-in-the-United-States friends, I realize that many of them had upbringings similar to mine. Though they weren’t Italian, they were the children of immigrants, nevertheless. They spoke Korean or Spanish or Norwegian in their homes. Their parents didn’t have American accents (and some spoke little to no English at home). They had Vegemite or kimchee or other “strange” food items in their homes that needed to be purchased at specialty shops. The only difference for me was that pasta and tomatoes are sold at the regular grocery store.

Our relatives were all from somewhere, and it wasn’t here. We were bonded together by our diversity, our shared sense of being “the other.”

When I went to Italy, this realization hit me stronger than ever. I sat with my cousin’s friends, watching shooting stars on an August night over their village. A few of them chatted, casually mentioning their parents or other relatives whom everyone else knew. For many of them, their parents had been friends. Their grandparents had known each other. Their families had been in the same village for hundreds of years.

And I realized: they were all Italian. Every single one of them. I mean, it’s obvious, I’m sure – but imagine hanging out with a group of your friends, and having them all be the same ethnicity. It’s such a rare thing to come by in the United States, that the thought of it just sounds bizarre. But more than that, it was so strange that were Italian and lived in Italy. There was no sense of being an immigrant or foreign or different. Not sense of moving some place.

It was so weird.

Every American I know is American and something else. That’s what it means to be American, really. And so, getting back to my family …

My mom is Italian. Despite her American citizenship and American children and having lived here for 30 years, there’s never been any doubt of this in my mind. She’s loud and neurotic and can’t wait in line to save her life. People note her unidentifiable accent and ask her where she’s from, to which she proudly replies, “Rome.”

Many words come to mind when I think of my mom. "American" is not one of them.

-

A few years ago, my mother and I spent two weeks in Italy. It was the first time in years that mom and I had traveled together alone, and the first time she’d been back to Italy in ages. We were at her brother’s home, and my little cousin graciously brought my mom a cappuccino in a large Starbucks mug decorated with the Seattle skyline.

“Zia,” he said, “Because you’re American, you get the cup from America.”

My mother sat, speechless for a few moments. Finally, she spoke.

“After years of Americans calling me Italian, an Italian just called me American.”

And all I could think was, “Well, of course.”