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.

I do hope that 2009 has found you well. I've certainly had a helluva start. My two week long vacation is ending tomorrow and I just don't know how I am going to cope with it. I've had a good couple of weeks though.

First, my entire family came into town. I currently have 5 nieces and 2 nephews, and was just informed that there's another on the way! It was really fun to play with all of them and give them crappy gifts that they loved. Although, I will admit that the Hannah Montana electric guitar I got for my niece Kelsey was pretty rocking, even though it's already broken. So we did the whole xristmas thing and I spent more than a few nights driving between Addison and Allen to my parents new ridiculously large house. I got wine from my brother in the gift exchange and now the wine fridge is respectably stocked. And I got the new Nikon Coolpix camera from my parents. I highly recommend this little gadget. It is so freaking advanced. I guess when you only buy one camera every decade, they're bound to improve slightly.

The other reason everyone came was for my parents surprise 35th wedding anniversary. We'd been planning it for like a year (I helped a little) and had some extended family and a lot of old family friends hiding in the banquet room at Sneaky Pete's in Lewisville. Then when my parents came in with my sister for what they thought was an oddly dressy, far drive to Lake Lewisville just for dinner, everyone yelled HAPPY ANNIVERSARY and the merriment proceeded. DJ iMernex even DJed the party which was pretty fun. There was "free" beer and wine so I think everyone managed to have a good time and I know my parents really appreciated it. And I got the buffet leftovers so Daniel and I ate chicken and roast beef for a week.

Then we did xristmas with Daniel's family over at our apartment. His mom made filet mignon wrapped in puff pastry with some sort of filling. It was really good. We were in charge of vegetables so we served leftover green beens and potato wedges from the anniversary party. Waste not. Then we did a little gift exchange. His dad gave me a really cool shirt and a fedora that I adore. I think his sister helped pick it out, but it's pretty bangin. And I gave his brother guitar picks, guitar strings, and a guitar strap. And he was perfectly gracious even though I thought he might be like, "I don't have a guitar, you dick." But then I surprised him with the guitar I had wrapped up in the other room. It wasn't easy getting all that on the budget that was set but I managed to do it. g*d, I love pawn shops now.

Then there was New Year's Eve. We had a bunch of people over. There was a lot of food, dancing, tons of booze. We really had a good time. Gotta tell you though, it's that time of the year when Febrehabruarv starts sounding really good to me. I was thinking that maybe I wanted to do that master cleanse again, but then I read my blog from last year and decided against it. All the descriptions of sleepless nights, heart palpitations, and incessant heartburn jogged some memories I'd obviously repressed. Maybe in another year. I think I'll hearken back to the febrehabs of yesteryear when it was easy and fun, good clean living.

I think that brings us up to speed. Happy 2009, bitches. See you around..