Happy Birthday US Navy!



Navy Ball ~ 2010

 On Friday, October 13, 1775 ~ the United States Navy was born as the Continental Congress ordered the construction of a naval fleet - if you can call "two sailing vessels armed with ten carriage guns and swivel guns" a fleet! The two ships were manned by crews of eighty and were sent out for three months at a time to intercept transports carrying munitions and stores to the British Army in America.

This was the original legislation, out of which the Continental Navy grew and as such constitutes the birth certificate of the United States Navy.

"Over the course of The War of Independence, The Continental Navy sent to sea more than fifty armed vessels of various types." The Continental Navy began the proud tradition carried on today by our  United States Navy, and whose birthday we celebrate each year in October."

This past Saturday night, we, CDR & Mrs. Philip J. Pelikan, attended the 235th Navy Ball in Naples, Italy!  And rather than trying to manage taking a nice picture when we got there, we took this picture at the house just before we left (in our repaired car - by the way - ['all dressed up and somewhere to go'] navigating the narrow road just fine).
We had a great time! Papa was honored to give the Invocation during the ceremonial portion of the evening. In attendance were six Admirals, one General, a plethora of senior officers and distinguished guests - including the US Consul General and over 360 in attendance (mostly US Navy). We enjoyed meeting quite a few new people and even some that we've known in the past. The food was delicious, the band was exceptional, and the venue a complete success!

Ciao, Bella!  Mimi

Helpless, Helpless, Helpless!

I learned a little more about myself Saturday evening as I trudged up the hill from the "dead" car in the middle of the road; I much prefer my personality in happier times! Also, I would rather write when I'm lighthearted than when I'm sad . . . so, it pains me to write today. I wanted to tell you what happened to us last night though, so I must write! With this in mind, I will try to eek out some words and divulge how the other night, I came to be slowly making my way up the very steep Roman road that winds its way to our recently acquired Italian home, rather than enjoying the lovely evening planned with colleagues and friends at the idyllic Italian restaurant we were headed to. As I was laboring up the very steep hill in my nice clothes, and Papa in his, I could just make out the faint echo of an old Neil Young song from my teenage days in my mind, and felt 'Helpless, Helpless, Helpless' with each agonizing step! It was all I could do not to be extremely upset at my husband as he zoomed on in despair ahead of me, since he was the one who'd backed into the wall and rendered our very recently purchased car - "dead in the water!" (not a good testimonial as to my attitude, but there it is nonetheless) It's difficult to even describe how narrow the road is, and the car we have is just a little too wide. We should actually have something a little smaller, and having to back up was not good . . . it's actually never good! Everything seemed to converge at once that evening; the rain, the darkness, cars coming in both directions, no where to pass, etc. It was the "perfect storm." An accident waiting to happen, I suppose. To top it off, we were on our way to a "Hail and Farewell" and WE were being hailed!! There was no way for us to get to the dinner and say good-bye to the outgoing XO after "the rendering of the [car] death." We don't have a second car and we needed to be at the scene of the accident to make sure a tow truck came to move our car out of the road as quickly as possible.  We were "all dressed up with nowhere to go" - literally!

Obviously, we had to do something, but WHAT? We tried to find numbers from our orientation class notes and call the base emergency 911 number so that an interpreter could help us get someone to come out on a weekend, at night, to tow the car. We finally got that worked out. And it's a good thing we had enough Euro, otherwise . . . there's no teller nearby, our neighbor was out of town, we aren't within walking distance of the train or bus! It was looking grim! The towing company only takes cash! 50 Euro to tow the car 1km!! Yikes! But, fortunately we had the cash; why, because we were supposed to PAY for our [sniff] nice dinner earlier that evening!
I was rapidly sinking into that sadness hole I was talking about earlier! But stop and think, I said to myself, all in all, this situation is more of a hassle than anything else. . . it could've been so much worse!. At least no one else was involved and we weren't hurt, apart from our muscles being a bit sore from the sudden stop. As I sat on my couch later on, clicking away on the keyboard with my mom in the states on msn instant messenger, for the first time since moving here to Naples I felt small and far away! I guess it all just hit me. So, after I "hung up" from chatting with my mom, I sat on the sofa for the longest time just feeling a bit sorry for myself! I "typed" to mom that I needed to be by myself for a little while and pray and think things through. You just do what you have to, even when you don’t feel strong enough or brave enough or even well enough.


I went to bed a lot earlier than usual Saturday night, which for me is kind of a big deal (those who know me well can attest to this), wishing we could live the day over somehow. But, alas, we couldn't and it's a new day. We're doing our best to plod through the steps of getting the car fixed and getting another car, or a rental car, etc. Papa has to get to work, we need to live and drive around. We are stuck here at the moment!
The tow truck was just here (silly me didn't take a picture of it) and hauled our car off for an estimate! Again, the fellow driving was desperately hoping we at least spoke a little Italian (poco), but his countenance fell as we told him we spoke no Italian. He spoke no English either. So, there we were again with our trusty cell phone posing as the in-between translator while our Italian friend explained what the tow-truck driver wanted to say to us and what we needed to say back to him. Ker-aa-zee Baby!


The Hebrew phrase "Jehovah 'Ezer" is translated as the "LORD [my] Help" or the "LORD [our] Help."  Am I - as Neil Young says, "Helpless, Helpless, Helpless?  Of course not! Still, is it okay to feel that way sometimes? You bet'cha! Just so long as I don't wallow in it.

Ciao, Bella!  Mimi

For Fun



Looking out our living room door before furniture



Hi,

I'm borrowing the router from the neighbor again today, and it's working pretty well actually. For my regular readers, I have an idea for you all . . . why not take some time to check out the side-bar on my blog. I have some handy little things I've put there and I'm working on update it. (If I ever get a full time Internet connection [grin] )

I have a "Picture of the Week" that I promise to keep more current, and I'll try and select a picture that I haven't posted on the blog before. And I just added a new feature, one where the program scans the entire blog to find the most popular posts and shows a thumbnail picture from that post and a few lines to pique your interest. I also have a cute little pool ball graphic with the current time here in Naples, and a link to the weather here as well. There are some interesting podcasts and family blogs, etc. So, check it out and let me know what you think. I have enabled the comment capability, so I would love that! And . . . there is a section for "Followers" too; please become one. Some of the sections are being updated, so you may notice there haven't been changes in quite sometime, but keep looking. I've designed the side-bar so that it's a place you'll want to return to regularly. I will make additions as I find what will be of interest. My Japanese friends, for example, really enjoy the "Idiom of the Week."  Let me know if there's something you'd like to see here.

Ciao, Bella!  Mimi

Anticipation

So there I was this morning, tea cup on the nightstand next to my bed; pillows strategically stacked three-high so that leaning and typing would be oh-so-comfortable as I composed my most current blog post, "whilst" gazing out my bedroom window at the islands of Ischia and Procida! The sun just peeking through the clouds with a slight promise of sunshine after a night of rain, when what ghastly thing do you suppose happened? EEEK!! An Italian message appeared on my computer screen, promptly asking for a password due to "obvious" modem problems (boo hoo). My puffy, happy day was being dashed to pieces, right before my eyes!  I can't call the Internet/telephone company myself. I must wait for "an English speaking representative to call me." I am not a lot better off than I was a few days ago . . . but, Italian life does go on.

So here I am on our neighbor's borrowed router - AGAIN - with the teensiest of connections, telling friends and family that it will be a few more days before I'm writing again in earnest! That's "if" a technician can get to our house to fix the problem "in a timely manner."

Ah, Italia!

Ciao, Bella! Mimi

Moving Day

What woman doesn't want a perfectly organized moving day? She has imagined it going just a certain way since the pack-out of her belongings on the other end. The "arrival." The "planned placement" of everything. You know what I mean; the organized look of it all when finished! Ha! Of course it didn't turn out that way. I did have hopes though. There's been this little voice inside my head saying, "It'll be okay. Don't worry." And, in the grand scheme of things, of course it will! Compared to the more serious things in life, on a scale of one to ten, this is not far up there!
As the first nip of fall cuts the air of Naples, I'm so happy to be posting a blog from the living room of our
new home! It's starting to "feel" like home and even a little bit "cozy." It's somewhat hard to believe that it's already been 11 days since our moving day . . .  and yet, here it is. 
Initially, it was to be on Thursday, the 30th, but the schedule kept changing, almost daily. The Express Baggage shipment was due to be delivered on a separate day, which would've been much easier, but as it turned out, both Express and Household Goods were delivered on Friday, October 1st! We had appliances (Refrigerator, microwave, freezer, 3 wardrobe units, etc.) delivered the day before. These are on loan from the Navy while we live out on the economy.)
At last . . . we cast our eyes upon "the goods." And for the most part things are in pretty good shape.
There have been some "heart" broken belongings, some of them beyond repair and some will just need a little TLC, but I suppose this was bound to happen in one of our moves. We have been blessed throughout our career with very good pack-outs all around.

We are almost halfway through putting things away now and the adventure continues. Tomorrow I will tell you about the "invasion of the flies."

Ciao, Bella!  Mimi

Internet, Telephone, Hooray!!





A view of the vineyard

 

This must be quick, yet even so, I wanted to make one brief post to let everyone in on some good news. We received a phone call this morning asking if we would be home for the next 30 minutes. Fortunately, the rain had postponed plans to harvest grapes on our landlord's vineyard today, so we were home working on our house. The telephone/Internet guy happened to be in our area, and would be doing a favor by stopping by to get us all hooked up, as long as we were available on very short notice!

Our landlord showing "Padre Filippo" his veneyard

To make a bit of a long story short, here I am writing to you on my own Internet connection with a telephone that actually works in our Italian home, as well! Life is good!

It's been almost 3 months since turning off utilities in our North Carolina home, so I am actually feeling a bit euphoric preparing to post through "my own connection" today. Whoo Hoo!

All this to also say . . . a rather lengthy post is being scratched out as we speak.

Ciao, Bella! Mimi

Be Patient With Me

Just leaving a quick little note on my blog here. We drove into the base (30 min) very early this morning (0630) to do our Divine Liturgy, and then did a quick swing by the commissary to buy some food and check email. I'm not sure how long it will be before I can post regularly again, but I will do my best to figure out a way to keep in touch.

Gotta run.  Lunch today with our new landlord.  More about that later . . .

Ciao, Bella!  Mimi