.: so comes snow after fire :.

This morning I went to my favourite bookstore and ordered the textbooks I need for my exam. I could have bought them online, but I liked the ritual aspect of it, of buying the books in a real store, like I used to do years ago before graduating. They should arrive in a few days, they'll give me a call when they do, and I've already had two persons asking me what I'm graduating in, and another one being really shocked when I told them I'm actually thirty. Apparently I'm way older than I look. I'm not sure how I feel about it.

In other news, I just watched the Teen Wolf finale, and it was really, really good. This season had its ups and downs, but in my opinion the nogitsune storyline saved the whole show, and will somebody please give Dylan O'Brien every single award, because that kid is so freaking good it's unbelievable. Boy, am I going to miss this storyline. Also that Bad Moon Rising scene was super great, and I kinda feel bad about it because of all the people dying, but what can I say, it was brilliant. *____________*

Surprise, surprise, iTunes really screwed up and they released the Teen Wolf season finale a few hours ago, instead of waiting until monday. Since I don't live in the States I don't watch the show on tv and I wouldn't make any difference to the ratings, so I downloaded it and watched it after dinner. I loved it. Both as a mindblowing finale and a fascinating glimpse in what the next season will be. Loved it. It also had an 80ish feel to it, in more than one detail, that I really appreciated. And it was far superior to the last final episode, less rushed, more coherent, and no 'mountain ash' moments. Awesome. *______*

It's already a torrent, so if any of you need a link, just drop me a line. ;)

The heat wave has arrived, and I have to have the air conditioning on all day. Hope this won't mean weird crazy storms next week. Anyway, I'm prepared. I got liquerice in my bag everywhere I go, for blood pressure, I drink a lot of juice, and I'm always wearing a hat when I go outside. I have this cute straw hat that looks like something from My Fair Lady that I bought last year to wear at the beach, let's see if I have the guts tomorrow to wear it in downtown Venice. It would definitely look cute and weird. *____*

I'm up-to-date with Welcome To Night Vale. In fact, I listened to First Date this morning during breakfast, and I had to stop several times to clutch at my heart and make embarassing cooing noises. Cecil and Carlos are the most adorable couple ever. And I still can't believe I finally have a m/m otp that's canon. This show is a gift.

Not to mention I had the weirdest dreams last night, mostly because I went to sleep listening to Faceless Old Woman. I dreamt of all the creepy, Lovecraft-ian creatures of Night Vale, but like Cecil I wasn't scared at all, I thought they were completely normal. Until I woke up, thought about it for a few seconds, and went "what the hell?!" really loud in the darkness.

(And on another topic we can all agree Mama Hale is the best, yay for flashback episodes!)

I've ticked almost all the boxes on my list of things-to-do-before-leaving. Only a trip to the pharmacy left, and I'm good to go. Today was the first day of summer too, and I got to wear a tank top and shorts for the first time in months. We've completely skipped spring this year, it's so weird. All while I'm packing sweaters and long-sleeved shirts, we're going to make a ten degrees jump at least, it's going to be fun. Now you see the necessity of a trip to the pharmacy.

And I got a wonderful surprise when I came home today, with this package waiting on my doorstep:



Second Teen Wolf boxset, first Person of Interest boxset and the new The National album. This is a frighteningly accurate representation of me right now. *____*

I think New Girl is trying to kill me. I'm a frail old lady, my blood pressure can't take that much.

For those of you who do not have a tumblr, Dylan O'Brien, our very own Stiles Stilinski from Teen Wolf, was in New Girl. Playing guitar. Then he was shirtless, trying to have sex. I might have made some very inhuman noises at some point during the episode.



( Sort of NSFW, be warned. )

Only four weeks until Teen Wolf returns. Deep breath. I can do this, I can survive until then.

This was such a lovely day for some of my favourite fandoms! There are lots of wonderful spoilers on twitter coming from the Teen Wolf panel at NYCC, confirming what we already thought, that this show is indeed a wonderful gift from the gods. ♥

There's an update of the Travelling Lemon project here, with pictures of what the finished book will look like. And let me tell you, it looks amazing. *__________*

Tati and I bought the train tickets for Lucca Comics and Games, and she ordered new blue contact lenses for her Fem!Castiel cosplay. Now it feels definitely real, completely official. \o/

The Vampire Diaries season premiere was, as expected, brilliant. So many things happening, all of my theories turned out to be wrong. I love it when my shows prove me wrong. *________*

Tati, who is awesome, spent a good hour yesterday creating a Stiles and a Derek for my Rock Band band. She's so talented, she's the one who made Sherlock and John too, and as soon as she finished their wardrobe and instruments, I made them sing and play this playlist:

Werewolves of London - Warren Zevon
Hungry Like The Wolf - Duran Duran
Howling For You - The Black Keys

It's as good an occasion as any to remind all of you that most of the time I have the sense of humour of a twelve year old. Thankfully, Tati shares that with me, and we kept giggling and laughing all the way through it. After all, we constantly play Staying Alive just so we can watch Sherlock and John sing it and jump around while trying to steal each other's microphone. :D

EDIT: Also, COULSON LIVES. This day just keeps getting better and better! ♥

I'm back!!! And I'm staying home for a whole month, no more travelling for me until Lucca in November. It's great but quite tiring too, and at my core I'm a lazy cat. Brace yourselves for some beautiful pictures, a Frankenstein review, and some more deliciousness, keeping with this week's theme.

First, Danny Boyle's Frankenstein. My reaction can be thus summarized: hfakgsdasdggdsakfg. It literally blew my mind, and I'm still picking up the pieces. We got so unbelievably lucky, and got the version with Benedict as the Creature. Having seen that, I can't imagine the roles inversed. He IS the Creature, come to life from the pages of the book. It was amazing and like being punched in the gut at the same time, and may I send my thanks to space_oddity_75 for letting me crush her hand during a couple of particularly shocking scenes. It was an intense experience.

The bad side of the coin was that there was an entire high-school class watching it with us too, presumably because their English teacher hit her head before breakfast or something. They kept laughing, talking, and a few of them giggled during the rape scene. What the frigging hell. It was even worse that what was going on on the screen. Are teenagers really that cruel and dehumanized now? It's an horrific thought.

After that space_oddity_75 went back home, we two had Chinese for dinner (always yummy!), didn't sleep at all because the road just outside the hotel harbored tram rails, and there was a tram going every five minutes all night. On wednesday we had the whole day to walk around Milan, since our trains back were at 6 pm, so tsuki_yagami and I grabbed our stuff, got on the subway, and emerged in Piazza Duomo. I lived in Milan for a year when I was a kid, but seeing it with grown-up eyes, in the wonderful sunlight of a hot autumn day, it was a wonderful sight.


The Duomo. We wanted to go inside, but we were carrying our backpacks, and we thought they couldn't let us in. I braced myself, and asked one of the security guys if we could go inside anyway, and he told us there were soldiers checking the bags. So I approached the closest one and asked her if she could check my bag. I opened it, and started explaining to her the contents "we just left our hotel, see, so that's my pjs, that's yesterday's shirt, that's my make-up kit, oh, and there's a jar of marmalade somewhere in there", I looked up and noticed she was fighting back a laugh, and she nodded towards the entrance. It was both hilarious and weird. :D I couldn't take any pictures inside, but believe me, it's incredibly beautiful.

( More pictures of beautiful Milan under the cut. )


This was space_oddity_75's birthday gift to me. It's Lemon marmalade. My Jam Now. And a pencil with GERTI on it and a cupcake for my bag. I'm still squeeing now just thinking about it, I have the best friends. :D


And today this was my breakfast. I woke up at 9 (I overslept, but hey, no trams!), and prepared the best possible breakfast for the Supernatural premiere. There was indeed much need of sugar and biscuits. The Stiles tea blend is now my favourite, along with Clint Barton. It's sweet and spunky and it has hints of cherries and cookies, it's amazing and funny. The cookies are the british ones, orange-flavoured with bits of ginger in them, so good. And the Winchesters are back with a new great storyline, all is well with the world! \o/


Yesterday there was a RedBubble package sitting on my doorstep, but I only opened it this morning while waiting for the tea to be done, because I have to be lucid to take proper pictures. I'm wearing the Supernatural shirt right now, actually. It's one Hell-uva shirt indeed. The Teen Wolf one reads "The Derek Hale center for werewolves who can't werewolf good and want to learn to do other wolf stuff too". :D


But the best part about that package is this Cabin Pressure hoodie. I needed one for the gym, I only have the one, a lilac Mickey & Minnie one, and I needed another for when that's in the washer. So I looked online, and found this one, Travelling Lemon 2012 championship. It had to be mine. :D

I loved going back to Milan, I loved Frankenstein, but the best part about it was meeting space_oddity_75 and tsuki_yagami in person. You girls are amazing, thanks for the great time together, and I can't wait to see you both again! \o/

Bad news of the day: I hurt my left toe. I had to fix it up on the sink, with Sakura fussing over, and blood makes everything slippery! There was much cursing, but it looks like it's fixed now. Obviously it has to happen the day before I leave for Milan, where there'll be much walking around, what with the bus and subway strike. Curses.

And now on to the (many) good news. First, there's me leaving for Milan tomorrow, to see Frankenstein! Yes! I can't wait! I only have to print the maps left and I'm ready. Both the hotel and the cinema are close to the railway station, so there's that.

Then there's the Once Upon A Time premiere, and it was amazing! So many things happening, lots of squeeing involved, and this new storyline looks even better than the last. I love all the new characters, they opened with a Lou Reed song, and they even did a little homage to Harry Potter. I want to hug them all!

Today was also the day of much deliciousness arriving by mail. My order on the Fortnum & Mason website arrived four days earlier:


I re-stocked mine and Tati's British teas, the ones we bought in London when we had that wonderful afternoon tea at Piccadilly. And since I was there, I bought some orange and ginger biscuits, and a jar of sweets I had never heard of before, called Black Jacks. God, I love trying new things. *_______*


And the rest of the Teen Wolf teas arrived, ten days early! Now my tea cabinet is exploding, and since it's 50 cups of tea each, I'm covered until late 2014. I must avoid new fandoms at all cost, or I'll fall into temptation, order new teas and I literally don't have the room. XD Yesterday I tried the Derek one, and it was GREAT. A peculiar taste, it made me think of... woods, and fog, and then there was the aconite taste, it was great and all the while it needs time to be fully understood. I have no idea how that woman manages to make these blends that taste great and at the same time describe the character in question perfectly. :D

Then, there's the new Green Day album, which I fell in love with at once. I first knew them with their concept albums, so it was weird to have new songs that remind me of the old ones, but in a good way. I'm especially in love with Carpe Diem and Oh Love, I keep finding myself humming them. *_____*

And of course, I saved the best for last, with the new Mumford & Sons album. It was well worth the wait, it's absolutely amazing. I keep changing my mind about my favourite song, at the moment it's a death match between Lover's Eyes (which is my Derek Hale number one song) and Not With Haste, but they're all so beautiful my heart can't choose.

The next entry is going to be in two days when I come back. Or tomorrow, if I get bored and my phone has good reception. See you on the flip side of the safety demonstration. Ciao!

Just got a call from Tati, who was watching the tv when a promo came on: starting 18th September, Teen Wolf will air on MTV Italy! I'm so going to watch the first episode, because I'm looking forward to hear the Italian voices. They're the same guys who did Scrubs, and that was a superb dub. I wonder if this means they're back to airing tv shows instead of reality shows. And then maybe they'll start airing music again. One never knows. Anyway, I love it when my shows go international. *______*

I'm going to Tati's for the weekend, and on sunday we'll finally see Brave in the cinema! AT LAST. Pixar movies always arrive here months later, and I have no idea why. After all, we had The Avengers a week before the USA, what's up with that? It was so hard to avoid spoilers on Tumblr, and yet I managed. I'm so excited about it, I'm sure I'm going to love it - well, it's Pixar, I'm obviously going to love it. ♥

(no spoilers in the comments, please, or I will self-combust and that would spoil a perfectly lovely weekend - also the title has nothing to do with the excited tone of the entry, but it's here because Lover's Eyes is a Derek Hale song if there ever was one, so there.)

It's been raining, with various degrees of intensity, since last afternoon. I'm over the moon. Sakura has this constant expression like she feels victimized by the rain, it's pretty funny. I slept with a blanket (a very thin one, almost a sheet, but it still counts), this morning I used the hair dryer for more than two minutes without breaking into a sweat, and as soon as I finish writing this entry I'll iron the pile of fresh laundry that's been sitting in my room all week waiting for a cold day!

I have therapy this afternoon, and my therapist, who hates the cold and the rain, texted me twice to ask me if I wanted to postpone it. Postpone it? When it's the first time in four months I can wear trousers and real shoes and jump into puddles and impersonate Don Lockwood while skipping through the last hordes of tourists left this season? I wouldn't miss it for the world!

And a much-expected package from Amazon arrived five minutes ago!



My favourite part of re-watching Teen Wolf with Tati is that everytime a character takes off his shirt, I turn around and tell her, very seriously "This part is totally necessary. Vital to the plot." I just can't help it. :D

But can we talk about how horrible that cover is? I had a huge fight with myself because I wanted to buy this dvdset weeks ago, but I couldn't stomach it because that pseudo-Twilight cover was making me sick. I know they're trying to lure in viewers, but this show has nothing do with that crap, thank you very much. They should write that on the cover! "This show has strong, indipendent, three-dimensional female characters who don't need men to feel validated". And sexy shirtless werewolves.

Next, Cinderella is finally on bluray! I'm so looking forward to seeing it, Beauty and The Beast on bluray was stunning (first time I saw it I spent the whole movie doing an impressive Colonel Kurtz impression, but with "the colours! the colours!"), I can only imagine this one is going to be just as beautiful. Now if I could only get The Little Mermaid too, then my life would be complete. ♥

When I was in high school, Catch 22 was my favourite book, along with Hamlet. I read it a thousand times, carried it with me everywhere. And it took me all these years to realize I only ever read it in italian! Shame on me! And it's only 5 pounds! Seriously, how come books on Amazon cost one fourth of what they cost here in Italy? I sometimes feel guilty when I think of my beloved local stores, but if I were to shop there like I used to years ago, I could never buy all these things. With what I spent for one dvd boxset, one book and three cds, I could buy only ONE novel here. It's crazy.

And now it's cold air that's getting through my open window. Actual cold air. This day just keeps getting better. *__________*