it even makes capitalizing the first letter of every sentence hard.

I’m 4 days away from my birthday in Vienna and I am so excited. We leave on Thursday and the big panic will begin on Wednesday, for now I enjoy the calm before the storm and I sit here wishing for a snowy birthday. This week has been exciting. And not just because WotLK came out (only WoW lovers will get that), and not just because I have a Blackberry phone that is rocking my pants so hard they keep promising to fall off. The thing that has filled my heart with yeah has been reconnecting with Mrs. Harris. She was the principal of my beloved school: the International School of Rome. I always say I’ve had the happiest childhood, but this woman had so much to do with it. And it is such a powerful emotion to reconnect with people from so long ago. I hope I can snatch her for an afternoon meetup and just bask in her glory and my memories.

The lazy has also kept me from posting a blog entry about our formidable guest: The Producer. Back in August 2007 (on a warm Saturday afternoon, in fact), my in-laws threw us a good riddance farewell party. During that party, a band was born. Sarah, Angela, Ben, Matt, Brian and I decided to celebrate the momentous occasion by forming Nothing But Socks. We lost one producer to the celebrations, but Sarah has taken it upon herself to keep the band going by making a Producer herself. He is fantastic and his moustache screams nothing but (socks?) respectability and good business sense. He arrived to us 10 days ago and we gave him time to adjust to the time difference. We finally took him out on Saturday and this is how it went…

He got on the scooter and demanded to drive, but then decided otherwise when faced with the fact he’d be wearing a helmet. Turns out his vanity trumps his need for independence.

It seems as if the Producer is flying through the streets of Rome, he does have a cape after all.

We finally arrived at the comically named café for our knitful afternoon.

Here The Producer sat us down for a pep talk. Notice the stern look and business posture.

Once we were done with our pre-knitting strategy, we dove onto the yarn. Some people more literally than others.

And when I started slacking, he made his way to me and set me straight.

It was finally time to relax. The Producer, despite being a very conscientious man, managed to drink his puny weight in red wine. Notice the wobble in his demeanour.

We waited for him to sober up, backpacked him up and moved onto new adventures.

We went out to dinner to one of our favorite places: the Greek restaurant whose name we ignore. Here is The Producer posing in front of the restaurant.

And here is Cara explaining the ins and outs of the gyros to him.

On the way back home, I decided to show The Producer my school. I feel like a bio-pic would be quite a boost to our band’s career and we went scouting for locations. That’s the window of my last year’s class. Tell your kids!

And here The Producer is about to reenact the famous fountain scene from La Dolce Vita. The fountain is not Fontana di Trevi, but the fountain from my favorite square. The picture quality is pink and horrible, apparently Ben’s camera is on its way out.

And then we all went home and enjoyed a quiet evening. The Producer is making calls and arranging meetings, this reunion will happen!

The weeks I’m having, I tell ya! We had guests this week and it was fun. I met this fantastic girl (should I say lady? that just makes her sound old) on Ravelry and when she was asking around the forums for suggestions on where to go in Italy, I just couldn’t keep my mouth shut and invited her and her husband to stay with us. Talk about gracious guests! They stayed with us only a couple (four) days, but we tried our best to make them enjoy Rome. And our way of enjoying Rome is mainly through food. We brought them to some of our favorite eateries. That’s where my tale of woe begins. Yesterday was Sridhar’s birthday, so we thought we’d take him to Baba. This place is amazing and never fails to satisfy our ever expanding appetites. Anyway, we rented a car and drove there. They want you to be there by 9 and no later and, having walked the walk of shame once, we got there at 8ish. We sat down to knit and chat and WOOSH! my hair happened upon a candle. There is no damage I can see (but if you’ve seen my hair, you know how it would be hard to tell), but the smell just lingered on and on. Dinner was really good and at the end the whole restaurant joined us in celebrating Sridhar’s special day. He said he had never celebrated his birthday, which made the whole dinner even more special.

They left this morning, stealthily. Ben and I decided to fight the blues of solitude by spending outrageous amounts of money on a new computer. We braved Rome’s public transportation and hauled the loot from the other side of Rome. It is from said new computer that I am currently writing this entry. I am having to reinstall EVERYTHING and that is taking way way too long. Once I have WoW up and running, though, oh will the fun begin.

Life has been decidedly not in the suck department lately (jinxing it much?). We’re going to Vienna for my birthday and I am looking forward to it.