Mexican and Mario Kart

Il mio amico Katey fa il bagnino - My friend Katey is a lifeguard.

I started this morning by assisting Brandon with the cleaning of his room. Its amazes me how he can live with so much clutter. Honestly, I've slowly accepted it to some degree. Its his room and he needs to learn to manage it himself. Occasionally it gets so bad that I cannot sweep or mop or find dirty clothes so that he can have clean clothes - especially socks and underwear.

Brandon and I drove Katrina to work today. On our way home we stopped at IKEA for a few things: file drawer folders, lingonberry sauce, meatballs, and gravy mix, as well as another plant for the apartment. We also had lunch there. Brandon and I shared a 20 pc meatball plate. Yum!

We also stopped at Bici Mania. I've been wanting a new computer for my road bike. I bought one a few months ago that was too basic. I needed a couple more key functions, like average speed and time elapsed. I bought the same computer, but instead of a 5 function, I got an 8 function. My old one will go on my mountain bike. Oh, the Italian road bikes are so beautiful!

I spent the early afternoon working on plans for our Amsterdam/Germany trip and began making plans for our Switzerland/Austria trip in August.

Sometimes the similiar words can have similiar but somewhat different meanings. For example: To say something is stupid or someone is stupid in the US usually has a much harsher meaning than to say they/it are silly or dumb. In Italian, I have heard the word 'stupido' fairly often lately - and no, not in reference to me. If you look the word up in Italian, it basically means 'stupid'. But in reality, its used in place of 'silly'. Ex- That is a silly game, why would anyone play it? That game is stupido, why would you play it? It just does not have the harsh conotation that it does in American language.

Here is a wonderful word that Brandon taught me. He learned it on the playground: merda. Look it up in Italian...lol. I think most of us have said this in English one time or another...some more than others.

More sweeping and mopping this afternoon. I can sweep our apartment almost every day and get a dustpan full of dirt and cat hair.

Watched the Tour. What a great race. Happy about Alberto's results. Not sure what Lance was up to?

Brandon and I met Mike and Katrina at Mexicali for dinner. Mike gave Katrina a ride and they came straight from work. We enjoyed some drinks in the bar upstairs before heading down for dinner.

After dinner Mike came over for a late evening of Mario Kart. We raced and raced until our thumbs were sore. And Brandon still wanted to race when Mike went home after 11pm.