8 Aug 2021> started a new thing where in order 2 determine what movie we watch @ night we look up the patron saint 2 see what they inspire, so we looked up the patron saint for August 8 + it's St. Dominic > in the wiki pg for St. Dominic it says:

"The story is told that before his birth his barren mother made a pilgrimage to the Abbey at Silos, and dreamt that a dog leapt from her womb carrying a flaming torch in its mouth, and seemed to set the earth on fire. This story is likely to have emerged when his order became known, after his name, as the Dominican order, Dominicanus in Latin and a play on words interpreted as Domini canis: "Dog of the Lord."

> so we figured this was a sign we was meant 2 watch Lords of Dogtown, which we're always up 4 re-watching, probly seen it a ½ dozen times > but why stop there, why not use patron saints as a writing prompt in much the same way 1 might use the I Ching? while we were on the skating/ surfing theme also started to watch 100 Foot Wave, but these attn seeking adrenalin junkies got 2 be annoying after an episode or 2... all they care about is how big a wave is, not how they surfed it or whether they enjoyed it

> also recently starting watching the Reservation Dogs series (which is awesome) + a documentary on Chaco canyon which was intresting but kept putting us to sleep > we started to rewatch Rounders cuz we couldn't remember if it was any good but Matt Damon's wife was super annoying so we had to stop watching > also started to watch Little Big Man which was also laughably bad + random

13 August> 2day's patron saint = St. Cassian of Imola, a teacher that was burned @ the stake by his students > there's a reference to St. Cassian of Imola in The Confederacy of Dunces so we got 2 wondering why it had never been made in2 a movie... + evidently lots of ppl have tried, seems every 1 assigned to play Ignatius T. Reilly dies b4 they can finish the movie... John Belushi, John Candy + Chris Farley > even John Waters tried to make it w/ Divine as Ignatius T. (?!) but gave up, saying the movie was cursed... so no CoD film exists 2 watch > there's a «Cassian» character (played by Diego Luna) in Rogue One but that looks bad + not available on what we got > then we figured Lean on Me was appropriate since it's about a headmaster (Morgan Freeman) @ a lost cause school in NJ (true story)... it was okay, Stand + Deliver is much better > «Cassian» was also called Cassius so figured maybe we'd rewatch the Ali movie, but 20 minutes in2 it realized we didn't like it much the 1st time around, certainly not worth rewatching

14 Aug> getting down 2 the wire... 3 days til liftoff > so much paperwork 2 get in order + hoops 2 jump thru > visas, «nulla osta», vaxine card, EU dPLF («digital Passenger Locator Forms», «green pass», etc. + u got to make sure u have proof of all this shit > these days a lot of this stuff is digital + u got to be able to know where 2 find it on your phone... + what if your phone dies? what if you're like us + never use your phone so ain't so quick to retrieve shit? maybe we shd post our locator barcode here for ez access so if our phone dies we can just tell them to go to 5cense.com

+ we got to get covid tested w/in 48 hrs of our departure wich aint ez since most PCR tests take more than 48 hrs to get results back so u got 2 pay 2 have it expedited... seems all a big racket > + evidently when we land in Italy we got 2 get tested again + download sum ap on your phone so they can monitor where u @ + if u test positive they geotrack u 2 make sure u don't leave your hotel or wherever you're self-isolating (tho seems ez enough to just leave your phone in your room?) > Italy is 1 of the 1st countries 2 require proof of vaxination 2 go 2 restraunts which is all fine + dandy but u can only imagine the red tape 2 get 1 of these «green passes»

> last time we went to Italy for 6 months (in between our permanent stints living there) we lived out of 1 suitcase (+ a carryon) + we're gonna do the same this time... pretty much just books + clothes, this is all we're bringing...

+ actually we got 2 more books last second today, a book of poems (dual language) by Pasolini (who's from Bologna) + Cortazar's Hopscotch > we dwelled long + hard on whether 2 bring our mandolin or guitar but in the end opted 4 the midi keyboard that's small enough to fit in our bag > Re-watched Black Orpheus (hadn't seen it since late 80s... still classic) + 2 Days in NY which was pretty bad, neither of which had 2 do w/ whoever the patron saint was (couldn't find anything relevant) > also started 2 rewatched Handmaiden which is classic

15 Aug> speaking of locator forms + bureaucracy, seems the 1 box of Calamari we sent to Pittsburgh is officially missing so we had to fill out sum sorta «mail recovery» form that was beyond Kafkaesque... we probly spent more time providing info about the missing books than we do using the SPD new titles form > intresting to think of a postal employee reading our description of the books ± finding the book + looking thru it going WTF