Okay, while searching for a back entrance to a local shopping area (Hwy 7 & the 400 for those of you in the T.O. area), I found the BEST named street:

This won’t make sense to those non-Italians reading this blog, however I found it just high-larious! That’s because “adesso” means “now” in Italian. Could you imagine saying to a customer service rep “My address is 123 Now Drive.” Tee hee. This just made my morning.

As we’ve been hearing all week, today is the 10th anniversary of the death of Princess Diana. There were reports about what the princes were doing to celebrate it. There were reports about what you were doing when it happened. There were reports that Camilla was debating on whether or not to attend the memorial.

And what happened today, the actual anniversary?

The memorial went on. Camilla didn’t attend. The princes were eloquent in their eulogizing of their mother. And the world went on.

So, I’ll answer the ubiquitous question: where was I the day Princess Diana died? I was in Italy. I’ll actually never forget the day, because of the most amazing joke I made on that day. My parents had gone to my aunt’s house for lunch, and as we had only just arrived the day before, I was still jetlagged. So I went over a little later on in the morning, as the lunch preparations were occurring. I hadn’t watched any tv, the news or listened to the radio, so I was surprised when the first thing my mother asks me after I got into the house was “Guess who died?” I took a quick look around the room and seeing that everyone was still present, I replied “I don’t know, the Pope?”

Silence.

Then…

My father burst out laughing so hard he nearly fell off his chair! My aunt dropped her spoon and told me I was going to hell for that one, and my mother simply smiled.

You see, this was 1997, Italy, and Pope John Paul II was a frail old man. I thought it was a legitimate guess, don’t you?

Needless to say, I was rather surprised when I heard it was Princess Diana. Being in Italy, I was in the same time zone to watch all the news reports and ceremonies. I even took a train at 5am from Perugia to get back to Milan in time to watch the funeral at 1pm. (Okay, that wasn’t the only reason I took the train. I was going out with my cousin & her friends that night, so it was a two-fer). Some friends of mine walked down to the Princess of Wales theatre here in Toronto to place some flowers there amid the growing pile.

And that’s that. On to the work day.

I’ve been meaning to start off another blog, this time about sports, seeing as most of my friends are sick of hearing about me go on and on about them. So I’m gonna go play with my virtual friends and see if they’re interested. hahaha. If you want to go read my rantings, go check out row39.wordpress.com.

Yes, it really does. I’ve been rather remiss with my knitting over the last 6-8 weeks as I’ve been traipsing about the province and country on vacation. Here I am in Horseshoe Bay with the Rock Queen:

And here’s the Rock Dude at the Vancouver Canadians’ baseball game:

The piece de resistance of the trip? A photo of me in front of Sarah McLachlan’s house. Yes, that really is her house. No, I won’t tell you what the address is. But the point is, I know. And no comments about how the picture is just me in front of a bunch of trees!

But now that I’m back to work, I’ve continued progress on my yellow/green/blue ballband dish towel. Here’s a picture again, in case you’ve forgotten what it looks like:

It’s not all that different from this photo, it’s just a little longer. I figure about another week or so of knitting, and it’ll be done. I may just tackle El Segundo, however I might also just start another ballband dish towel, but in a different colour. I haven’t yet decided.

Also, for a new job update: things are going well at the new job. They don’t quite know what to do with me, which is kind of funny, but also a bit frustrating as well. I’m managing to pick up things as I go along, but still, it’s a tad annoying. Otherwise things are good.

So I’ve now completed two days at my new job, and all in all, things are going well. That is to say, they’re extremely confusing, as they’ve never had a technical writer before, so they don’t quite know what to do with me. But once I get things set up and everyone around me trained, things should go swimmingly.

What have I spent the last two days doing then? Surfing around their internet wiki page trying to figure out what everyone’s talking about. I’m working for a commercial company, which is a new thing for me, so I’m not used to all the retail talk. So I’m learning all the lingo, and all the development processes for their products too. Basically, I’m doing lots of learnding, as Ralph says on the Simpsons.

I’m looking forward to getting things settled down, the first item being: who do I report to? No one seems to know, plus there were a few people on vacation yesterday, so that hasn’t helped the confusion factor. But I’m meeting with either one or both of my bosses tomorrow in a meet-and-greet. Hopefully I’ll be able to get my page o’ questions answered too. I’ve got a whack-load of general company ones to get answered, as well as some technical writing-specific ones too. All in all though, I’m quite hopeful, so keep your fingers crossed that this feeling continues! hahaha.

Okay, on to some relaxation at home now. Ciao!