Yesterday I have my first ever colonoscopy. Normally they say you should wait until you're 45 years old. But I think that's not so much because it's a good idea to wait and more of that insurance won't cover it until then. I was talking with a doctor recently and mentioned that my father had had colon cancer and he said, "Oh then you shouldn't wait until you're 45 yous should start when you're 40." Mmmk, well I'm 44 and a half years old, so great.

Regardless, I got it on the calendar and scheduled it for this year. My gall bladder surgery had not only met my deductible, but pushed me over my out of pocket maximum for the year, so it would be covered at 100%. Although I have to admit I didn't ever verify that it would be covered, so there very well could be a massive bill coming. We'll cross that bridge when we come to it. Colonoscopies, insurance, deductibles. Could I BE any more adult?

Everyone told me the colonoscopy was no big deal. They just give you some of Michael Jackson's milk and you doze off into blissful slumber. NOT really the whole story folks. Before you do that you have to spend an entire day eating nothing and taking absurd doses of laxatives and Miralax. I don't think they do the prescription jug of juice anymore, since you can accomplish the same thing by abusing over the counter drugs. It was so terrible. I couldn't sleep the entire night because I had to run to the bathroom every 15 minutes, nauseously hungry, and trying not to get dehydrated.

Sure the actual procedure was pretty nice. I really did prefer the propofol over the general anesthesia for a full blown surgery. Waking up was gentle and peaceful, not jarringly confusing with missing bits of memory. They did find 2 polyps and those are being biopsied so all in all I guess it was a good idea that I got this done, but please jebus don't make me do it more often than every 5 years. I am not looking forward to the next one.

A few years ago we attended a wedding in Austin where Daniel bumped into an old friend he hadn't seen in years. This friend told him he was now living in Milan ever since he had claimed his birthright citizenship in Italy. If you are descended from an Italian citizen and can prove it, you can claim your jure sanguinis right to your own citizenship. Italian citizenship, of course, comes with full rights and privileges of a European Union citizenship allowing you to live or work anywhere in the EU.

It wasn't for a while after we got home that we really got curious and started looking into whether this was a viable option for Daniel or not. We knew for certain he was Italian by blood, but just weren't sure exactly what the rules were, if we could sufficiently prove it, etc. We finally decided to take action and looked up the consultancy that his friend had used and set up an appointment. The guy did some genealogical research on the fly with us watching. He did it so incredibly fast using a multitude of tools. And what I appreciated the most was fast and accurately he could type. He was just zooming around the internet, pulling down documents, loading them into a folder.

He told us we could proceed and gave a list of documents to procure. And it was a lot. Basically every birth, marriage, and death certificate for EVERY member of his lineage all the way back to his great-grandfather, Segundo. It was time consuming and bureaucratic, but not terribly difficult. For some of the old documents from Italy we had to hire somebody to physically go look them up. The rest we could pretty much order online for a nominal fee. Some of those were quick and easy, some required telephoning some lady in an office in upstate New York and asking what the dillyo. But after a couple of years we had compiled the full list.

That then had to be notarized and approved as legit by the US government before they could be translated and sent to the Italian government. Then we waited. Last December he was informed that he had won his elective court case in Turino, Italy and was now a citizen! There was still more waiting for this decision and the resulting paperwork to be officially filed and on record in Asti. But we got notified last week that his Italian birth certificate and our Italian marriage certificate are both on file and official!

For next steps, he has registered online as an "Italian Living Abroad" and we'll probably have to wait a few months for that to go through and get approved. Then he will have access to services from the Italian consulate in Houston including getting his passport.

All we have to figure out then is when and where we're moving to in the EU.... Stay tuned!

I have been keeping up with my DuoLingo lessons. The streaks and friend streaks and leaderboards do enough to make sure I never skip a day. That and the incessant notifications from the app. But ... I do have one distraction from my language lessons.

DuoLingo has chess lessons. I've always wanted to learn to play chess, but beyond learning how the pieces move and then getting destroyed repeatedly in online games, I never pursued it. But now I'm getting little tiny play by play lessons of different scenarios and how to respond and why. I am BY NO MEANS good at it. God damn, is it ever hard. When I do go on Chess.com and play strangers, I do NOT do well. I get so nervous and make so many bonehead mistakes.

I will say this though. I know very little about openings. And I'm completely lost in the midgame. But the endgame. Man do I seem to be good at the end game. After my opponent has decimated my ranks, I can dance around, gobble up their pieces, avoid checkmate, and usually in even the most dire circumstances end things in a stalemate draw. I'm sure a lot of that is due to me being matched with people with similar ranks who don't know how to close out a game and against anyone competent I would be dead in seconds. But it's still fun. I wish I could play someone I know regularly but I can't find anyone willing to play me. So if you have a Chess.com username and want to play with me leave a comment. I love saying leave a comment like anyone is reading.

Also, side note. I now know what a Queen's Gambit is and honestly it's not that cool. It's just an opening move/moves. It sounds like it's some kind of dramatic endgame sacrifice of your queen to win the game or something. But nope. Just the first move or two with your pawns.

Las Vegas was a blast, just like I knew it would be. Daniel knew that we were staying at the Bellagio for his graduation gift, but what he didn't know is that we had a deluxe lakeview suite on the corner and that chocolate covered strawberries and champagne were waiting for us when we got there. So that was a fun arrival. We looked out our windows and played with the electric drapes for a while before hitting the town. We mostly played Wheel of Fortune and Monte Carlo slot machines -- the two most popular ones with bonus spins possible. Neither of us lost as much money as we had planned on losing, so in that regard, we won. One night I even drank until I was wasted and the casino paid me $10 dollars to do it. If that isn't winning big, I don't know what is.

So that was our strategy. To try to drink all night and pay less than what we would have paid at the bar. Since a beer was anywhere from $6 to $8 at most bars, that really wasn't hard to do. Here's a couple helpful hints for any of you heading over to the desert. The first time the waitress comes around, tip her something good. $5 should do it, $10 if you're looking to get wasted. Then they'll take care of you by replacing every empty bottle with a full one. You might have to fuel the fire every few rounds with a few ones, just to keep her thinking she might get more money out of you once you get drunk. The other key factor is to make your money last a long time at the slot. The only effective way to do this is to not play. We would put money in, pull it once, light a cigarette, smoke the entire thing, talk to the waitress and the people next to us, finish a round, use the bathroom ... and then pull it again. Of course, naturally, you're going to get faster and faster as drink goes on, but that's where teamwork comes in and your partner should tell you to stop. We usually took turns, so one of us could slow the other down if we were getting low on our beer to gambling ratio.

One night Daniel took me out to a fancy dinner at Le Cirque. That's French for The Cirque. It's in the Bellagio and it's probably the nicest restaurant I've ever been to. Only 16 tables in a small room swaddled in tapestries and rich mohogany, and a view of the fountains. Tres chic. I had the rabbit symphony. A plate with a bunch of different preparations of rabbit. I am the worst vegan ever. The fun part was that when you walked in there was a huge terrarium with all the rabbits in it and I got to pick the one I wanted. (No, not really, but isn't it weird that it's acceptable to do with lobsters but the thought of doing it with bunnies is kind of offensive?) I was completely stuffed after a seafood medley, rabbit symphony, and a mango sorbet with coconut foam extravaganza for desert. It was an incredible meal, I highly recommend. Especially if you can get someone else to pay for you.

We also saw Blue Man Group, which was incredible. The first hour or so was just them staring wide eyed at each other and audience members while people laughed uncomfortably. Could have done without that. But the last 45 minutes were so badass that it totally made up for it. I would also highly recommend Blue Man Group. I'd tell you more, but I don't want to spoil it. If you're really curious, I'll tell you about it in person.

Our flight home was canceled and our new flight was about 6 hours later (during which I won $80, so not all bad) and then that flight was delayed about an hour. So getting home was a bit arduous. Especially since we were both ready to come home. Vegas is magickal and riotously fun, but I wouldn't recommend any more than 3 nights at a time. It gets tiresome of everyone you meet doing whatever they can to get their hands on your money. But we finally arrived home with little incident and promptly laid on the couch. And that concludes story time.

I've spent the past couple of days at my parents' house playing Wii and opening presents. I got a navigation system and an Art of Shaving kit and a mango slicer. Not a bad haul. I gave Daniel the T-qualizer shirt and he gave me Planet Earth, the entire season, AS narrated by Sigourney Weaver, the true version. I have some more to open on xristmas with Daniel's family so more on that after this. Peace.

Well I hope everyone had a wonderful Solstice. I know I did. Now that my holiday season has come to a close, I would like to wish everyone celebrating Kwanzaa this year a wonderful time, as well as all my Jews in da house hittin up Channukah. I can't think of any other celebrations during the holidays, so if I forgot one, it must not count!

I am laying in bed right now. I woke up kinda early in comparison to recent days because I kept having horrible dreams. I had one that I don't remember, but I know I woke myself up by screaming. Then I had one where the Texas A&M Diving team was recruiting me, but they were gonna make me do a fancy dive off the top platform, and for some reason I agreed. Then I had one that I was lost in a school and every room I went into was more fucked up then the next. So I figured fuck it, I'll just stay awake.

As soon as I get off my ass, I am going to get in the car and drive back to Plano. I'll be there for a few days, and then back in CS for a couple days, and then its off to Galveston to get on the boat. Weeee.

I have some wonderful news for all of you. I am so excited I can barely sit still. I was watching the Food Network last night and there was a promo for a new show called Dweezil & Lisa. As if I had to clarify which Dweezil & Lisa they were referring to, its Dweezil Zappa and Lisa Loeb. They've been dating for some time now, and now they're going to host their own show on FoodTV! Holy crap! In case some of you don't know, I have been Lisa Loeb's biggest fan since like the 7th grade. There hasn't been this big of a merger of my interests since I found out John Denver played with the Muppets. It starts in January and you better believe I'll be watching every episode. Its a Solstice miracle. I love you all and I see you soon!