So busy, November.
Take a breath.
Take two.

Thursday, 1st, with friend Cindy and her 7 year-old-daughter, to eat NY Strip Steak Roast while we watch “The Secret Garden.”
Saturday with cousin Lauren,
Tuesday dinner and catchup with a friend, Mandy, and saluting daughter Kat on her 20th! Birthday. She was much younger when I first got to know her. Relearned how to change diapers. Remembered how one worries about every cough of an infant. Every whimper. Every cry. Every silence.

Saturday, the 10th, dinner with six North Enders, buddies, we, from three years old.
Monday, the 12th, dinner with a tenured professor from UMass, my cousin Lauren, and an accomplished musician.
Thursday, the 15th, a writer’s group meeting.
Sunday, 18th, friend Sally Chetwynd’s book launch.
Wednesday, 21st, Kat returns home for the Thanksgiving holiday.
Thursday, 22nd, Kat and I at L’Espalier.

Take a breath.
Take two.

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Tagging Today
Thursday, November 1, 2018
My 205th consecutive posting.
Time is 12.01am.
Boston’s temperature will reach a high of 60*, mostly cloudy with a stray shower.

Dinner is a pork chop and a hot Italian pork sausage done in our idiomatic manner of slow roast, broil, and hot oven finish. I chopped up some cabbage kim chee and, with the vinegar from the jar, deglazed the frying pan for a quick sauce. Spicy and delicious.

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Quiz Question of the Day:
What do you do on a 5-day vacation, after you pay out one and a half days to travel?

Hint:
HmmmM! That leaves 3 and a half days to enjoy one’s destination.

Left:
Well, let’s assume we’re going to Florence for the duration. We’ll have the Uffizi and other museums.

Second from left:
Or a walk through the Boboli or other Gardens or a piazza for espresso.

Second from right:
Or simple sightseeing, starting and ending with Brunelleschi’s impossible Duomo.

Right:
And dinner. Don’t forget dinner. Omg!

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Love your notes.
Contact me @ domcapossela@hotmail.com

Sally Chetwynd sent a quick thought on the Colossus of Rhodes:

Now, there's a good subject for a blog post, Dom: The original seven wonders of the world.  I don't remember them all, but do remember that the Colossus of Rhodes and the Great Pyramids are two of them, and I likely can drag a couple more up from the recesses of my mind if I set to it - the Hanging Gardens of Babylon is another, but I'm not sure if the Sphinx is one.  Yeah, we can go read what Wikipedia has to say about them, but that's too easy, and your posts are much more interesting.

Sally

Web Meister Responds: It is a good idea. Are you sure you don’t want to do this in between books?
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Victor Passacantilli responds to the piece on the use of melatonin:

Dom,
I started with 1 mg of melatonin 3 years ago and presently I am at 10mg. I too am concerned with where this pattern goes.
Dormi bene,
Victor 
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Web Meister Responded by mailing to Victor an Internet posting calling 30mg per night as worrisome and forwarded the piece to him. I asked him about the progression of his melatonin use. His response:

1 mg did work well for a year or so then it became apparent that I would gradually need more. After reading your post last night I decided to try just 5mg and admittedly I did get a good night's sleep???? Thanks for the info that I was not aware of. 

Short Takes:
Howard wrote about the extraordinary taste of cockles so I asked him if one sucks them down. His response:

Suck them?!?

That would mean picking them up in my fingers. This is me talking. 

I remove each one from the shell with one or two tines of the fork and eat them with a few strands of linguine, which I twirl without the assistance of a spoon, thank you. 

I set the little shells to one side, after maneuvering them with the fork and knife to dump what liquor is left in them into the bowl adding to the sauce. 

Also, when I’m in Europe, I eat like a European: knife in my right hand (I’m right-handed) and fork in my left. I don’t switch hands to bring food to my mouth. 

I can still remember on my first trip to Provence watching Americans eat in a restaurant. I don’t know what attracted my attention to it, but I realized the whole business of cutting with the right hand, putting the knife down and then switching the fork from the left to the right hand was ridiculous. The only thing more ridiculous was realizing I did it too. So from that meal on, I forced myself self-consciously to eat without switching hands. I was cured by the end of the visit. 

I don’t eat pizza, or socca, with a knife and fork though. And I do pick lobster up with my hands. 

I’ve come to prefer cuisines, like the Ethiopian, wherein you scoop up food with a bit of bread. No utensils at all. 

What I don’t like about, say, clams, is getting the liquid all over my hands. I hate having sticky fingers and palms. I do use the wipes they give you, and finger bowls if they’re provided. 

I also do wash my hands at every opportunity and never walk out of a bathroom whatever the reason for my entering it, without washing my hands, and not touching any surface except with a paper towel newly dispensed. 

People are disgusting, and all of us have hands teeming with microbes, many of which aren’t particularly good for humans. 

Anything else? 

xoxo 

hhd

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Answer to Quiz Question:
The question and the hints are red herrings. The question is premature although I do answer some of it here. The interesting part, what to do when we get to our destination, I will answer tomorrow.

Today I spent on translating my travel tickets, five different flights to go and come, in a way I can understand them and quickly locate the travel information I may want and need. Here is the work I did on preparing for the travel part of the trip:

I topped the page with the reminders:

**Reconfirm Flight 24 to 72 hours before departure and
Check in online.

DEPART FROM BOSTON:
Booking #:
Thursday,
Leave for airport at

AIRLINE
Flight
Aircraft:
Flight Time:
Flight departing on

Stop at City at o clock for 1 hour and 20 min
Change Airline
Flight #
Flight time:

Leave city at 0.00am
Flight arriving destination at o clock
Thirty minutes later (we won’t have luggage to check in) we’ll be at our hotel which we’ll select for elegance and location. Location first.

Phone Numbers and E Ticket #s:

Point is that this layout is more accessible than the plane ticket and is worth the time I invested in it.

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And so, Good Morning, this Thursday, November 1.

We’ve talked about an overly busy schedule, a partial answer to the question of what to do on a five-day trip, a couple of bloggers comments, Howard and cockles, and recasting the plane tickets in an accessible format.

And we’ve looked at some images.

Che vuoi? Le pocketbook?

Have a good day, my friends.
See you soon.

Love

Dom