“Nothing but heaven itself is better than a friend who is really a friend.”
– Plautus
Well, J. took the GMAT today and scored a 720 (way to go, love!), Venice is going to be interviewed by the local paper tomorrow for a petition she’s started, Lexie is engaged, Hennessy is getting married any second now, my brother Gio got an impressive scholarship to virtually any school in the US and he’ll be making a final decision about where to go by the end of the week, my father retired and has decided to move…to the States! Which makes little sense to me, I’d have picked Tuscany, personally. My mother, her Classics degree from Cambridge fresh under her belt, is in the US already going through an intense Latin program that should make her a nice candidate to teach Classical Studies Stateside.
Our family is already dreading moving. Apparently, one of the highest accolades that the kids’ school gave itself this past year was getting in fewer fights than the year before. And they chief form of entertainment was lighting fires in the school and then calling the bomb squad. Interesting. “We’re going to be the weirdos now. Don’t tell them where you’re from, where you’ve lived, or what you’ve done,” is my father’s advice, “LIE.” You know that when your pretty spectacular family, though I say so myself, is planning very hard to be inconspicuous that life is about get odd.
My whole family and I are going to be on the same continent for the first time in six years. Permanently. Bizarre!
Small Dog Syndrome 
720!! Way to go, J.! That’s the average score for admissions to the Harvard and Stanford MBA programs.
Would you like an agent? I’m available.
So, I haven’t commented here before, but I must. I simply must and I wish that italics existed in comment boxes so that I could make the “must” aspect of my comment even clearer. Than I already have.
Wow.
After reading your post, I now concede that my life is clearly the most boring existence on the planet. Proof: I took my dog to the groomer’s today. I gave the groomer a ten buck tip. I went to the Apple Store to look like an idiot with a question about my iPad.
I aspire to your inconspicuousness!
Dianne, Hambone’s Mom aka The Trophy Wife
Dianne! How lovely to hear from you, so to speak! We at Small Dog are faithful readers of the Trophy Wife.
However, I must point out that I have neither a dog nor an iPad. So your life is clearly far more interesting that mine! I mostly live vicariously through the interesting people in my life, Hambone/Daughter included!
“LET THE GAMES BEGIN!” is all I can think of with all of you on one continent.
C,
I don’t see Hambone in the Dramatis Personae. Can you enlighten?
Old school friend, who now lives in Fargo. We had to reenact scenes from Shakespeare for extra credit, she was Hamlet, and someone called her Hambone on accident. It stuck. I was several characters smashed into one called Osratio, or Oz. We were fairly liberal in our interpretation.
Sincere congrats to J., who gives our family both brains and class. Go, guy!
NEVER say ‘permanently’! Dad and I are waiting for the day when we can visit you and J. as you live in some of the far-flung corners of the world. Tuscany tops my list, too.
xoxo