EAT it!

So recently I came back from my dream trip to Italy. Ive wanted to go back here for about 14 yrs. For the sights but mainly because of the food!!!!
I was blown away the first time I went - maybe because I wasnt expecting much... Pasta is pasta right? .... Not that time! I was like what is this??!? Can I take it home with me?
(Yea I get pretty friendly fast when I fall in love with food . har har)

So maybe this time around I had higher expectations.... Maybe it was that old age saying - "absence makes the heart grow fonder" ... and we begin to imagine that things were really much better than they actually were..... (I can extrapolate more about this but Im sticking to the topic of food...)

Our first dinner in Italy was in Venice. We didnt look into any guide books for this - we were just hungry and assumed all food in Italy was the bomb.
So we went into here:

And I ordered this:

And it tasted like this:

Not that I ever ate cardboard boxes, but you get the idea. Oh and throw in some huge chunks of salt and maybe some sardine fishbones that go crunch in your mouth.

It was supposed to be Pesto pasta. I couldnt finish it - because half way through the meal, not only did it taste bad, but my imagination started to run as to what on earth was the crunchy stuff.
We were in shock. We didnt say much only because we arent Italian and they were and Italians are supposed to know their pasta right?! Who were we to critisize? I think they knew it tasted like crap - cause they never came around to asking us how it was, they kept giving us the sketchy eye look and gave us a free glass of wine in the end.

So we were definately apprehensive for every meal we ate after that - consulting guidebooks for even the quickest lunch. Luckily it got better the more south we went. Maybe tops in Sorrento. But I was always in search of that pasta I had 14 yrs ago. Even when I was full up to the tip of my head with pasta pasta pasta - I even had hope with my last dinner in Italy in Rome. Even ordering the simple Bolognese pasta. AcK! It tasted like egg noodles.
WTF?
So I left Italy gastronomically unsatisfied and oddly enough my search continues at home. I dont know why I hope so much. That someday I will find what I once had. Maybe I never really had it in the first place. Maybe after all these years it really only existed in my head. Ughh... what was I talkin about again?.... Oh yea - food ha.
Anyhow, this is all running through my head as I sit here during work on my break searching though Yelp.ca for Italian Restos and reading the reviews and salivating over the pictures. I cant believe Im still looking for that delicious pasta.
IM SO HUNGRY!

A little time for Vanity.....

I have this patient. I find her personality extremely difficult. One day she is nice, next day, if she had a bad one she takes it out on me and everyone around her and blames us for her misery.

Ive learned to deal with it and come to some kind of compatible repore with her. I no longer try to "break through" to her because it is pointless.

She was complaining to me yesterday about all her life and health ailments. They are valid,  and I could understand her frustration.
She said something that kinda made me chuckle - given the type of personality she has.

"you and my dentist are the only health professionals that are doing what they are supposed to do for me"

I am so glad that my work is pretty straight forward. I totally feel for her and yet for her primary health practitioner.... her attitude makes it so difficult to distinguish real concerns over hypercondriac concerns, yet, it turns out that what she has been complaining of for a while was something quite valid.

Anyhow, I felt good that I was helping her as much as I could and told her the limits I had in helping her as well.
Phew! I totally ducked out of that attack!

X-continued....

Was searching all over for this yesterday...

This kid is ADORABLE!! love it!

• and yet another inspirational one :-) here...
• and another cause I like the words to this oldie song and the different way it was sung

Oh and randomly.... just cause I feel that day is coming OH so soon, and Im excited, and Im goin to dance just like this, so Im just goin to slip this in here... oh so very randomly .... :-)

X factor

I hardly ever watch t.v. Lately though, my ass is getting used to becoming a couch potato.... you know, between signing up for swim lessons and going back to yoga, and looking into golf lessons again and catching up on all the books on my shelf that are only half - read, (or just bought with the ideal of becoming well rounded by osmosis......)
Who are we kidding, Im in my many procrastinating moods once again.

I stumbled upon watching The X Factor tonight.
I like it! (the good auditions only of course and the stories behind them....I just cringe at the bad auditions and feel bad that their delusional dreams are crushed in front of everyone)

Ok so skip to the line that brought about this post :

"I dont wanta die with this music inside me....." - Stacey.

Too lazy to post more behind these meaningful words, but I needed to hear something like that today.
Read more if you wish here.