OK, Maybe Just One More Post...

 FULL MOON MADNESS MIDNIGHT RAMBLE #4

If you missed the last three its because... well the last one, number 3 sucked!  I was in the throes of some dark depression, instructed to stay off my bike while my nerves healed, basically just a cold walk around town that ended feeling shitty.  Number 2... Well I think that was in Marche...  And number 1 was basically a ride around the local countryside after too many drinks at the Clan.  if I remember at all only Ms. Meerighrigri (or however you spell it) turned out because it had turned cold...

Only the STRONG will survive!  Well ok, thats not particularly true, and you certainly dont need to be strong in the classic sense to make the FMMMR rides, although being slightly "off kilter" helps.  You just need a bike, the will, some dirty jokes are helpful but not necessary, a flask helps with the cold, and this month... a sleeping bag and some warm clothes cause we aint coming back!

Dont tell anyone I camp here, its super illegal and my visa is expired...

Olmi Olmatello

after a 80k ride during the day, and the ride up over dressed, just a little vin brulee is all I needed to stay warm.

Faenza below...this is about as good as another night at the Clan looks...same same

sunrise in the mariner pines

moon setting

cafe? Si!

Olmi still partying...that guy just doesnt know when to quit!

woke to a day warm enough to forgo gloves!

note the mud trapped under Loni's front fender

More adevntures to come.... stay tuned for the new blog location...
S.

AUGURI! BOUN FESTE!! e Ciao.

So its the day after the day after christmas here in It-Lee and Im still rolling around in the post traumatic binge eating coma.  Seriously!  Between waking up at 7 yesterday hungry enough to make an american breakfast, then doing not much besides a movie, a short card game and an even shorter bet pay off, dancing around in pj's all day and ending it with a one hour "80 crazy cat moments" compilation on YouTube before I guilted myself into town to see some friends, yesterday was the perfect refreshing end to the first half of the winter.  Today I woke up feeling like posting a wrap up in photos on the blog, recapping the past few months and sharing the excitement for the next few months ahead with pictures.  Problem was, when I scanned through the couple hundred images or so all I could find was pictures of me and food!  Much worse, Im usually wearing the same friggen outfit so it appears that I have been doing NOTHING but moping around the house in coffee stained sweatpants making and eating delicious food from scratch. 

ok, so it hasnt ALL been italian cuisine

buttered walnut cookie molds

tis the season for rabbit... unless you are a rabbit I guess

chocolate salami...mmmmm

the one on the left is not for me...its for ...my...um friend...

my friends kid belly up to the sweets table spoon in hand with a heavenly glaze on his eyes

big bucket of vin brulee

another pizza nite!

had to do a little curry

double chocolate gut bomb roll cake...ok I didnt make it, but I ate it!

Not true not true I swear - and the scale can vouch for me.  Like a supreme idiot, I got on it yesterday and was surprised to see less than the end of summer!  Something about the food here man...but I digress.... There have been bike rides in the fog and cold winter wet air, there have been concerts with friends, and record release parties, there have been a ton of trips digging through junk shops trying to finish some christmas presents, and there has been alot of painting in the garage, hours of needed creative work, paint smeared hands, a camp stove and a coffee pot, a piss bottle and some punkrock tunes.  And of course, a week or so ago, SNOW!

 
This closing of the year has been the rebound I needed, and was tired of waiting for.  Life is rarely a round hole and a round peg.  We have those experiences but we rarely hang up on the times where things wen t according to plan.  It is far more common to have to roll up your sleeves and start chewing and tugging, and sawing, and filing, and rasping your way through it till you can force that friggen square peg to fit someplace it does not on the surface appear to fit.  What is it I always say..."Spit on it - it will go in!"

Its been a rough go this winter and Im super glad to have the holidays behind me.  Not to mention the Mayan Prophecies - anyone want to buy some car batteries... bottled water... how about a bow and arrow... gently used loin cloth... no?  fine.  Today feels like the second half, or maybe the 7th inning stretch (which is a baseball reference for you It-Lee'ans) or maybe just that stomach stretching moment between the third pasta and the actual main meat course, before the cheese plate and deserts.... uuuuggh!  back to food... Either way Im SUPER excited to find out what is next.  On the way home from a dinner the other night, stoned out of my gourd actually, I had myself a good laugh at a minimal thought that came to me in the main plaza after a quick look around.  I have NO IDEA what to expect in 2013!  As terrifying as that might sound to some, and indeed to the Scotito of a couple years ago it would be a horrifying thought followed by lists and calculations and solid plans.  But to me now, in december 2012, in a place so far from anywhere I ever thought I would be, in ITALY, with good friends and another dinner, with a borrowed family for the holidays, with a small tradition of my own, and most importantly on a BIKE, the thought had me almost in tears with laughter.  No matter what crazy scheme I dream up, I cannot possibly imagine what 2013 will bring me, where it will find me, what I will be doing for that little bit of money that keeps me free to travel, and the lives I will intersect with by doing so...and thats such a liberating thought.  Perhaps the freedom I have been seeking in this experience, to pay off my debts and to take life at a slower pace, to be free to go and do whatever I want to do was never actually linked to the plan I made back in early 2010.  I still have debt to deal with, and I still have a couple coins in my pocket, and I still have all my wonderfully supportive friends all over the world.  And I have had those things all along.  I have been free this whole time.  A realization that had my mind swimming as I drifted off to sleep that night.

I hope you all had a wonderful holiday season.  I know there are new babies in the picture, and a few in the oven as we say, there are growing families and all the joy and worry that brings.  There are shrinking worlds as we travel a little and there are experiences expanded by the simple day to day routine we all have.  I hope this message finds you all at the end of a great year, a year in which a quick look over your shoulder finds you dizzy with promises that you made to you.  I hope you are all safe and warm and surrounded by those you love.  I have a wild feeling about 2013...could be the christmas rabbit rolling around in my guts still... but Im not usually wrong about these things. 

Thanks for the love and support through this experience - I could not have done it without you, and whatever I do next, you will be there.

This is the last Blog post for Notes From the Pegboard... but dont worry... there will be another blog, with an even more appropos name, and more pictures, and less bitching, a few swear words for the kids, and a lot of love.  Thanks for coming with me these three years.  lets do it again.

Signing Out,
Scotty.

I can see the light...

After a few weeks full of unknowns, after being fired from the same company TWICE, after entering into the medical system with a language barrier and a terrifying pain in my...umm... "groin" shall we say, and the crippling depression that occurred as a result of not knowing how to deal with any of it much less all of it at once, I am coming around to feeling myself again.

How did this shift of perspective happen? You ask.  Well I have never been one to misdirect my anger or disappointment, and so starting off with a few well placed "fuck you"'s in the direction of what I will hereby refer to as "that bike tour outfit" certainly was appropos and helpful. What happened after is a strange and classically "me" story... enjoy.

Monday the 3rd I stopped by the garage to take a look at my pile of crap trying to make sence of everything going wrong, Dragoni was home for lunch and I had about an hour to make my acupuncture appointment.  I was depressed, not knowing what I'm gonna do, how I'm gonna do it, or where I will ultimately end up.  With a couple good phone interviews for jobs back in the states I was feeling bummed that I might be leaving these kind friends in Italy, and the community I have here.  Dragoni was sympathetic and has repeatedly said that in the spring there will be a chance to work with him, to learn some new skills in the carbon manufacturing world, and make enough dough to stick around.  Then he offered me food.  I was not hungry.  Then he offered me a beer or tea.  I was not thirsty.  The he offered to smoke me out - which I said yes to before he could even finish the offer!  I was high as shit and basking in the kindness of my friends when I remembered that the reason I was out was to go to my acupuncture appointment.  shit.

Needles in my ass and back and legs, more needles than ever before, but no electricity this time... high as a kite!  It was AMAZING!  And with every stick I could feel the energy moving from painful areas all the way down to my left foot.  No seriously.  It was not the weed either, I have felt it a few other times with the needles, but this time it was intense!  When I stood up to leave, I felt a rush of energy to my left foot that culminated in a knot just behind my little toe that I could feel all the way through my shoes on the ride home.  It felt like frozen peas under the skin.  Home for a bath I tried to message it out in the steaming hot water.   A little relief but when I got out I felt light headed and dizzy.  Sometime after fixing some food I did not eat (or dont remember eating) I fell asleep on the kitchen floor.  To bed early feeling feverish I woke in the middle of the night soaked with sweat wrapped in a bath robe on the floor of the bathroom and barely could get my hair up in a rubber band before the watery nausea turned violent in the most explosive and gut emptying barf session I have ever experienced.  Two days of complaining like man-flu, weak tea, and water, gut cramps and dead people farts and I was starting to feel like being depressed was not the end of the world,much less the wost I could feel.  The physical toll on my body and mind was enough and my body was letting me know that this would be the last three days moaning in bed.  A Three-Bond Flu as it was (three James Bond movies and feeling better) and the process of coming back strong began with the kindness of my friends here in Italy. 

Dinner with friends the following Thursday, and a dinner date with a former colleague at my favorite pizza place, during which it started to snow outside, resulting in frozen hands and snowballs in the face!!  Another symbolic change of the seasons and times ahead.  All of that week followed by a RAGING bike party on Saturday that turned into waking up fully clothed Sunday morning with scrapes and scratches and bruises I don't remember getting, wedged between two rows of shelves in the back stockroom of the bike shop that hosted the rager, a Sunday hangover to top all Sunday hangovers and a drive back home full of silence and chugging water bottles.   A day of comfort food then Monday a ride with some snow still around, more dinners with more friends, sunny cold days and freezing nights with warm drinks, catching up with homies back in the states via skype, making bread, and the BEST bowl of Pho I have ever had not in a Vietnamese restaurant (the secret is in the bone broth!) Top that with TWO free bikes to collect today courtesy of a mutual friend who does not want to pay to have them fixed, things are starting to look pretty good.  I even got invited to help make some Christmas cookies at Nona's house, earning the right to wear an apron in a Romagna Lady's kitchen is no small honour.

There is also the fact of that Big Secret Purchase that I have advertised on FaceBook - for which you wont get any clues here, but needless to say it has had a huge impact on my ability to focus towards the future, and the adventure at hand.  Here are some pictures from the last few weeks.  None of me barfing, although between the bad Chinese food, the flu and over consumption of a liquorice grappa late in the evening, there has been a fair amount of that.  Gotta stay slim for my constituents I suppose, and the Christmas cookies have begun to appear, so the downhill slide to my winter weight has officially begun.

See you all at Fat Camp 2013!  And Thanks for your support...

pictures in reverse order...

shoe covers and hounds tooth wool...toasty

thin sliced beef to make the pho perfect.  made my own broth with a few veggies and some beef bones from the butcher.

greased walnut shells to make the form of a cookie shell to fill later.

before earning the apron...

after...with Nona

after baking, you pull the shell out, and then later fill two halves with creme filling and return together...a new cookie trick from the kitchens of Romagna

oh yeah, and I ate some bunny rabbit...or cat, there was no head to verify, but it was GOOD!

first snowfall of the year...

Dragoni's team is run out of a shop that was destroyed in the April earthquake.  This was the grand re-opening party in which we all tried to destroy our livers with endless vino and mountains of food.

customs here include a drunken tandem relay race.  Notice that the rear rider is facing backwards, and also pedals backwards in the race, two laps, then switch riders and directions.  I dont remember steering but I woke with plenty of bruises and a scab on my nose...

before... the warehouse, and shop dog enjoying the silence

roll in off the bathroom roof...trouble with a capitol T

I think the carpeted landing was responsible for the carpet burn on my arm when I woke in the morning

notice the top of the bathroom, two giant jugs of vino, hooked to a gravity fed system of tubes in which one can serve themselves at the table via spigot...genius and dangerous

that was a pig...and there were two

started to feel like this....

Dragoni vs pig

dinner at the warehouse ramp party, classy view

some grappa and a tandem spells trouble.

I dont remember much after this point.  Thats Dragoni riding the tandem down the landing ramp of the jumps, the DJ was pounding at this point, and the booze was at an all time high, there were joints and grappa and I dont remember what happened next.  the perfect ending to a few weeks in the dumps.  Nothing like falling down to remind you of the real gravity of living.

the view I woke up to...

I slept alphabetically... Scapre...Scotito...Selle... in the shelving of the warehouse

More to come... maybe a clue or two as to that big purchase....
S