Driving in Italy, Michelle Obama and Gelato

Okay, now I don't ever do this, but since my sister & husband showed up today with their four kids, I think it comes with the sort of Twitter-mentality induced by trying to complete a full sentence to any one person within a certain space of time (like, say, 9 hours). So, I'm just going to share a few random thoughts about today, just because my synapses can no longer fire coherently:

- Michelle Obama & kids visited the Pantheon today. It has been twittered, and it's probably TOTALLY UNTRUE, in the friend of a friend of a friend sort of variety of info that our TOTALLY COOL FIRST LADY donning black leggings - leggings!- under a black dress asked for a doggy bag at the restaurant. You mean to tell me, my blog isn't required reading prior to a Presidential presence in Italia???!!! I mean, is she a midnight snacker? Did Barack call her up and say, honey can you pick me up a little something while you're out and about??
If not, I'm going to say in her defense that she must be travelling with Bo, and she didn't know she could bring him to the ristorante...(again, if she only read my blog...!)

- And while I'm on the Obama's case, I understand a bunch of nations promised to dump money into the endless corruption pit that will be Aquila's rebuilding. I don't know about you, but personally, I'd like to see a bit more of an improvement say, in making robust levees in New Orleans or actually rebuilding Ground Zero (8 years on...) before I see American tax dollars lining contractors' and politicos' pockets over here. I mean, how much black market money do we have to go around?
Between paying bribes to Pakistanis, Iraqis and Afghan Warlords, I'm sure N'awlins still needs to suck up its fair share... I can still hear Berlusconi laughing all the way to the bank with his G8 Show n'Tell.

- We walked around town to hit the best gelateria in Rome (in the lovely Garbatella area) where the kids dished into pure frozen nutella. But, my nephew wasn't allowed a full €1.50 cup of it (2 scoops), because it was more costly to produce.
I suggested we merely pay more, or, get two cups with half nutella in it, and then swap halfway through... This sort of shenanigans just boggles the mind...or, turns you into a full-fledged-always-looking-for-the-angle paesano.

- We surveyed the damage of the fallen trees in the 'hood, which, in a way, was a godsend. Because so many were fully uprooted, trunks and all, the sidewalks were actually free of all the mini-stumps left by the tree cutters union ["My job's to cut down, ma'am, not to pull out stumps"] in its wake.
Now I wonder what will become of all the mini pits along all the sidewalks...Will they just naturally fill with trash? Or, will we end up having to pull out of them old ladies and blind people periodically?

- Earlier in the morning, a man riding down the oncoming lane in order to make his left turn (they're usually on the crosswalk at this intersection, so this was actually an impeccable driver), got front-ended by a young woman on a motorino. Although clearly his fault, he managed to convince her of her caprice while bending over to survey the scratches left on his bumper.
I offered my assistance in not letting her literally get taken for a ride by this joker, but to no avail...As my nephews sang to me a bit later, "Car, car, c-a-r, get to the right or you'll be tar".
Only problem was, even when you're on the right, you're wrong!