D&L’s Excellent Adventure (As Expressed Through Poor Poetic Verse)

The Good

Communism is red
Lake Balaton is blue
Deane and Luke like langos
Almost as much as I do.




The Bad

Communism is red
Gellert Baths aren’t exactly blue
Deane doesn’t like secondhand smoke
There was nothing we could do.


The Ugly

Communism is red
This is a ditty
Although Café Godot wasn’t open
I’m guessing Goomba wasn’t pretty.


Visit To Statue Park

There once was a man named Lenin
Who sent Europe into a tailspin
After the fall of the wall
His statue not small
Was moved to exile next to Stalin

Good Morning Sunshine

I was excited this morning to find the two blogs I follow most closely collide over my favorite subject: Penelope Trunk gave a critique of Gretchen Rubin’s recent book “The Happiness Project".

Nothing in Penelope’s post was too revolutionary – happiness is contagious and being actively aware of and interested in your own happiness increases happiness – but it did spark an interesting debate: are being interested in your life and being happy with your life mutually exclusive?

Penelope says it is; people are drawn toward either happiness or interestingness at the expense of the other.

I disagree, as evidenced by the disparate subjects of my two favorite blogs (happiness; intentionally provocative career advice). It all boils down to one’s definition of happiness.

I can see how the two could be mutually exclusive if you define happiness as contentment. You have a comfortable, relatively happy life in Boston but you get antsy and move to another country because you want to experience new things. Once you arrive there, you meet many interesting people whom you never would have met had you stayed in Boston, see places you never knew existed, and get a kick out of the bizarre language, food, and customs. At the same time, you decidedly are not content. You accidentally shoplift. You have superficial relationships with your coworkers. You are homesick.

But if your definition of happiness permits being uncomfortable and confused, then you still can be happy. Although not necessarily content.

Many people admit in retrospect they were happiest during a journey to achieve a goal. And I would think journeys are interesting - as long as they are to pursue something you care about.

Perhaps this is all rationalization about choices I have made, but it seems very dangerous to think life cannot be both happy and interesting.

And for the record, this is my third favorite blog. So perhaps I shouldn’t draw too many conclusions from my blog preferences.

Best Hungarian-English Pluralisms

Pluralizing words in English often makes no sense. Why in the world do I drink beer (plural) but have a few beers?

Not exactly acing my own Hungarian lessons, I can imagine how difficult it is for Hungarians to learn English and deal with our random grammar rules. But it still is funny to hear slip-ups ever so often. My favorite common plural "mistakes" are:

Shrimps
"I love little shrimps in my fajita." -Iguana Bar & Grill, Budapest

Fruits
"...identifying low-hanging fruits." -Every board presentation I have ever worked on

Monthies
"How many monthies have you lived in Budapest?" -Co-worker

Testicles
"Relax your testicles." -Govinda Yoga Instructor
(OK, so this one was a complete mistake; I think she meant tendons or muscles or something but she mentioned "relaxing our testicles" throughout the entire 1.5 hour class.)

Holiday Recap

Per tradition we began Christmas Eve with a visit to Bob's Diner in Millis. Uncle Jay looks is unhappy because the kitchen was unable to make his first request; he was later satiated with a Bob's Big Breakfast.


Next year we need to go after 11 AM to take advantage of Bob's deep fryer.


We returned home to continue cookie decorating and, in a bout of clairvoyance, I adorned Rondo with holiday-inspired shoes. However, unlike Donny Marshall, I did not criticize Rondo for wearing them.


Is there anything more beautiful than a heaping pile of Little Nasties?


We all agreed Olivia (black one) got shafted on her holiday frock, so Mom & I rectified the situation at TJ Maxx the following Saturday.


Feliz Navidad.


Uncle Jay gave an animated fireside reading of Mom's annual Christmas (4-page news)letter.


The pile of clothes on Dad's left likely first will be worn...around 2018.


We had a delicious Christmas brunch. This photo will be included in Mama Bochicchio's Holiday Recipes book slated for publication Summer 2010.


Blast from the Past - Mama and Papa Bochicchio's New Jersey Christmas 1982. (Who are those blonde-haired, blue-eyed children?)


Grandma, Aunt Anne-Marie & Uncle Tony.


Again, how many sets of children did my parents have before my sisters and I?


I love this picture. Typically Dad reserves this level of concentration only for Yankees games legal briefs.


Awwww...Christmas dresses. Now only the dogs sport them.


Kara and Krista both sporting Mogley-esque haircuts.



In related news, Nina's fab bf Jeff gave her a flip video for xmas.
Nina, Lynettey & the Fam threw a Christmas / welcome-back-from-The-Pest party on Sunday.

Countdown to Boston

I always look forward to going home for the holidays but am especially excited this year. It’s not like my life in Budapest isn’t good; things are great or at least no worse than they would be if I lived in Boston. So why have I been obsessed with all things Christmas for the past month and a half?

I often feel uncomfortable here – whether I am trying to do Agni yoga in Hungarian or my coworkers abruptly stop all conversation when I walk into the office kitchen. This is not necessarily a bad thing, and part of the reason I wanted to live abroad in a non-English speaking country was to be out of my element, but it has been difficult not having a familiar, happy place (hanging out with my best friends or being lazy on my couch in Boston with the dogs) where I can go to recharge.

Let’s take last Wednesday morning.

Walking into the office, I run into Zoli, the guy in charge of company cars. I say hi and a few words in Hungarian, and Zoli avoids eye contact and nods (my Hungarian lessons are a disaster; my revised tactic is to smile like a lunatic and greet everyone I see). When I get to my desk two minutes later, I have an email from Edina that Zoli wants to arrange a “programme” with me. I respond, “That would be great!!!” because if you don’t use excessive punctuation or emoticons in email, you are perceived as an unfriendly bitch. After a few more emails, it is decided I am going with Zoli and Csaba – another guy who works with the cars – to Zoli’s house for lunch, which will be cooked by his wife, Viola.

This wouldn’t be so strange but I don’t speak Hungarian, and Zoli and Csaba certainly don’t speak English. We end up having a hilarious lunch where Zoli’s wife cooks a delicious, HEAVY meal of garlic soup (sorry, coworkers), meat in creamy sauce, cucumber salad, and roast potatoes, and we mime and communicate in broken English and Hungarian.

Lunch was awesome but at the end of the two hours I am ready for a nap – and not just because of the heavy meal. But I cannot take a nap because I need to go back to work and keep up the Alex-represents-Americans-well routine.

So I am V to E excited to come home to a place where my family and friends already know me, and I don’t have to try to articulate my personality through hand gestures and simple sentences. And Christmas traditions like Bob’s Diner, Dutch Baby, and Mama Bochicchio’s annual holiday (news)letter make the holidays even more familiar and comforting.

See you all in Boston soon!

Blast From The Past

(I do realize I just did a 180 - not posting for 1.5 months to updating the site with alarming frequency. Yes, I am still employed.)

But I had to share the most recent post from my sister Kara's blog The Art Cart, ruminations on the New England art scene. The first two paragraphs cracked me up.

Most of the time I am incredibly irked when celebrities try to "multi-talent" themselves. One of my favorite examples is Ms. Simpson-Wentz. It became pretty obvious, after her stint on SNL, that she could not sing. Then she tried her talents on the big screen, then on the small screen and then she tried to name a baby (Bronx Mowgli?!?).

I'm really sorry, Mr. and Mrs. Simpson-Wentz but the last time I called a child Mogley my little sister was trying to slide down the banister at our house. She had a Buster Brown hair cut and the only clothes she had on were some white undies. She reminded me of the kid in the Jungle Book and so I started calling her Mogley's Butt (I got grounded for that, if you're wondering).


Me, Cuz Anthony, Cuz Jennifer, Kara, Cuz Lauren, Krista (aka Mogley's Butt) a few years prior to the aforementioned incident.


Kara, you seem to be sporting a Mogley-esque haircut yourself...

My New Year's Resolution...Probably More Than You Wanted to Know

When I get stressed, I write lists. In high school, I was borderline obsessive. Every Friday night I would write a “to-do” list for the weekend on a legal notepad, put it on my desk, and not relax until every item was crossed out. I toned it down in college because I didn’t want my roommates to think I was psychotic, but the fixation didn’t go away. I now limit myself to six simultaneous lists on my blackberry notepad; any more and I feel the need to keep a list of my lists, which even I realize is ridiculous.

Living by lists creates two problems. First, I waste an incredible amount of time making lists when I could be doing stuff. Second, I focus on knocking off items on my list rather than solving the underlying issue or problem.

This is why my (early) New Year’s resolution is to start solving problems even if they don’t fit nicely into list format.

(This epiphany sounds incredibly stupid in writing.)

Mindlessly browsing the Internet Inspired by this post, I took action. Like Gretchen, my body temperature stays around negative 20 degrees. Right now I am sitting at my desk wearing a shirt, sweater, fleece, scarf and winter jacket. Balazs next to me is wearing a t-shirt. I actually make decisions whether to do things based on how long I will have to be outside. Pathetic, right? And I start ski lessons this weekend.

So I went to Tesco and bought a space heater for my office. Then I googled “long underwear for women that you can’t see under clothes” and ordered several pairs. Five minutes of not-so-strenuous thinking and problem solved (well, TBD).

And the best part? I put “buy heater at Tesco” and “order long underwear” on my to-do list.