Laundry Beasts Unveiled

Thanks for all your guesses! The moment has arrived to reveal the winners, so without further ado, let me introduce you to the beast that plagues my laundry from May to September...(cue movie theme song to Friday the 13th)...



Yes, it's the dreaded grasshopper. Not the cute green grasshoppers that grow no longer than your pinky finger. Oh, no. My laundry beasts can get as long as the palm of my hand, and they squirt this brown stuff that doesn't wash out of our clothing (I'm not even going to try and guess what the brown stuff is. I've decided I'd rather not know). Not only that, but if one of these suckers gets trapped in an article of clothing that I've tossed into the ironing pile, it eats its way out. That's right--it munches holes in our clothes. I know they don't hurt people (no biting or stinging), but you have to admit it: they're gross. Really gross.

The photo above is a stock photo I got off the internet, as my husband left the chord we need for the digital camera in his office. However, when he brings it back home, I'll post the photo I took of a laundry beast on a pair of khaki shorts.

Okay, now that the shuddering has subsided and you're once again thankful for your laundry-beast-free clothes dryers, here's the first winner. The envelope please....our first winner is Julie C.! She's the only one who guessed grasshopper, so she'll be getting a shipment of chocolate in the mail! Woo Hoo!

However, there are two more winners! Unfortunately for me, another species of laundry beast emerges in the fall and winter. Just as the grasshoppers retreat to their underground winter abode, another beast emerges...(cue music from any horror movie of your choice)...



The stinkbug. These babies are only about as big as a dime, but they're still gross. And since we wear lots of brown, gray and black in the winter, these suckers blend right in. Oh, and have I mentioned they fly? So if one gets inadvertantly brought in with the laundry, we might hear it buzzing around the room at night. The buzzing always ceases when the lights go on...sly little devils.

And they love to hide at the bottom of socks. Once when we went to the mountains, I felt a pricking sensation on my toe after I'd gotten dressed that morning. When I removed my sock, there was the sinkbug--having survived being folded up into my socks, placed in my sock drawer, packed in my suitcase a few days later, and having my foot shoved into the very sock that the stickbug had called home. And yet, I felt no pity for the stinkbug. There wasn't time, really, as I screamed, hopping on one foot across the room and flinging my sock out of the window onto the surprised passersby below.

So...who wants to move to Italy now? Huh? As I don't see any raised hands, we'll move on to the second round of winners...

First, there's Joan--she said a stinkbug was one of those lime green bugs, but I'll give her the chocolate, anyway. And then we have Tina, who mentioned beetles...good enough for chocolate, in my opinion.

Woo hoo! Now if the winners will email their addresses to me, I'll get the chocolate (or pitcher, whichever they prefer) off in the mail.

A big thanks to cynjay, katia, africakid, danette haworth, katrina, and sruble for playing! I'll have another contest up next month, so I hope you'll stop by. And Katia, please pass the wine, as I'm trying to muster up the courage to bring in a load of laundry...

I'm back...with another contest.

Thanks for everyone's comments, and I want to apologize (once again!) for letting so much time pass in between posts. All is well, we've just been really busy settling back in. I'm going back to teaching this year at the international school here in Trieste--I'll be teaching 4th grade--so I've also been busy getting the classroom ready for Monday when the kids come (ack!).

My husband got a new digital camera this summer, and I still don't know how to transfer photos to my computer. BUT...I do promise to make him teach me in the next few days so I can do another post--a laundry post (you didn't think the laundry posts were finished, did you??) So in the next few days, you can look forward to a post entitled: Laundry Beasts.

Come to think of it, this has contest potential, doesn't it? If you can guess what laundry beasts refers to, I'll send you a pitcher from Trieste. For a photo, click here to see the one I sent to Jeff and Sue, the winners of my first contest. Although, I must say that the pitcher I'll be sending this time will be about half the size of Jeff and Sue's pitcher...although I love Jeff and Sue, it costs about a million dollars to ship one of these babies.

Okay then, let's say your answers have to be in the comments section of this post by Wednesday, September 12 (I'll check them when I wake up on Thursday morning). You can take as many guesses as you wish. In the event of a tie, I'll choose a name from a hat.

Buona fortuna a tutti! :-)

The Prize Pitcher

Yesterday I went into the city with my son to pick out the pitcher for Jeff and Sue, winners of the Get a Load of This contest. I'd promised them one of the ceramic pitchers that are typical here for serving wine--every Triestine has one of these at home. These pitchers usually have something written on them--either the name of the restaurant or a saying in the local dialect. Well, when I went to the shop that sells them, they said they don't make the ones with local sayings anymore. Ack! So the best I could do was to find one that has Trieste written on it, so I hope that's okay with Jeff and Sue. Here are the photos:

I'll get this off in the mail and into the hands of the Italian postal system (I'm not Catholic, but crossing myself nonetheless) by the end of this week. And I forgot to mention the bonus prize...aside from the pitcher, Jeff and Sue will be the proud new owners of about 5 pounds of bubble wrap!

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Jeff mentioned in the comments section of the contest post that the blogger world is a small one, and he's right! When he emailed to give me his address, he revealed that he and Sue are the proud parents of Jay Asher, one third of the Disco Mermaids. For those of you who may not have heard of the Disco Mermaids, they're a group of 3 children's authors who started a blog a little over a year ago to chronicle their path to publication. During that time, all three have signed with agents, and Robin and Eve (the other 2 mermaids--both statuesque blondes, but so nice that you can't help but love them!) are on the cusp of having their first sale.

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Jay had his first sale last fall, and it was a whopper. His agent sold his novel for teens called Thirteen Reasons Why, which will be released in October of this year. This news was huge in the world of children's lit, because as a first-time author, Jay's advance was, well, huge. Forget that it was huge for a first-time author...it would have been huge for a twentieth-time author. Which only goes to show how much confidence his publisher (Penguin Razorbill) has in this book.

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And like Robin and Eve, Jay is down-to-earth and an all-around nice guy. To illustrate this, Jay blogged about his wife's reaction to the news that his book sold, and then she became the photographer for his blog posts showing him telling Robin, Eve, and yes, Jeff and Sue--his parents. So here's the link where you can meet Jeff and Sue: http://discomermaids.blogspot.com/2006/10/when-i-told-my-parents-jay.html when Jay told them about his book sale.

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Jay, when you do this again for your next book sale (or movie deal, or Printz Award, etc.) I'll be looking for the Triestine pitcher in the background. ;-)

And the winner is...

Jeff and Sue! They successfully listed all the functions of the thing-a-ma-bob in the Get a load of this contest!

Most of you were on the right track with clothes dryer, and some of you were so close with the rest of the answers...Tina and Julie almost had it with the dry cleaning idea, except you have to put the clothes in while they're wet, not dry. And I thought Debi in Holland would be the winner when she said you could add water and it becomes a steamer...except you don't actually add the water. But when Jeff and Sue came back and cinched it with their "steam ironing clothes dryer," I knew we had a winner.

This handy-dandy contraption is a:
1. clothes dryer
2. space heater
3. humidifier (as the water from the wet clothes evapoates)
4. ...and although it doesn't actually iron the clothes, it claims to reduce wrinkles (in the clothes, not my skin...although I loved the facial idea, Cyn!)

Thanks for all your creative guesses--Dana's soundproof booth for the Miss Italy pagaent, Cyn's hot air popcorn popper and little people merry-go-round (my kids would LOVE that), Debi's hairdryer idea, Danette's lamp (we could actually use a lamp in that corner...), Robin's raincoat storage, and Jeff and Sue's pasta dryer and balloon inflator.

So what's the prize? I'd intended to go out and buy it yesterday so I could include a photo today, but it rained most of the day, which means parking in the city with three kids in tow isn't exactly easy, so I've postponed the prize purchase until later this week (remember: shops are closed today and tomorrow).

BUT, I did find a link to the kind of prize this will be. Jeff and Sue have won a ceramic pitcher, much like the ones pictured here:

http://www.istrianet.org/istria/crafts-trades/household/boccaletta1.htm

...except Jeff and Sue's pitcher won't be that big...it'll probably be about as tall as my hand. They come in different sizes, and are actually really cheap since they're so common. And just so Jeff and Sue don't think I'm a cheapskate--even though their pitcher will probably cost less than $5, the shipping will be about a gazillion dollars, so that should earn me some points on the generosity scale. ;-)

These pitchers are really common here for wine, and every restaurant has their own design with the name of the restaurant on the pitcher. There's a store that sells them here with sayings written in the local Triestine dialect, and that's the kind I'll be sending Jeff and Sue. We own one of these (which is actually packed away in storage in the states) that says:

Chi beve sto vin, canta come un canarìn

which tranlates as: Whoever drinks this wine, will sing like a canary.

I'll let you know what Jeff and Sue's pitcher says once I actually purchase it--no doubt it'll have a message just as poignant as the canary one. And Jeff and Sue, you can email me at nlorenzi (at) earthlink (dot) net with your mailing address, and I'll put the pitcher at the mercy of the Italian postal system.

Thanks for all your great guesses, everyone!

Get a load of this...

Here's something my mother-in-law ordered for me a few months ago, and it just came yesterday. Why did it take so long to arrive? No, it's not the fault of the Italian postal system (this time). The company that makes this contraption said there was such a huge demand for this thing-a-ma-jig, that it was on back order until now.

Now for the big question...what the heck is it?

That's where you come in. Inspired by the recent Disco Mermaids contest for an advance reader's copy of Jay Asher's upcoming debut young adult novel, (which I won...yay!) I'll give a prize to anyone who can guess what the thing in this photo is used for. All you have to do is post your answer(s) (you can guess more than once) here by Friday, May 5. If there's more than one correct answer, I'll draw those names from a hat to pick the winner.

So what's the prize? The winner gets a souvenir from Trieste--something you can only find here in this city. And no, I haven't picked it out yet. But I will. And I'll try not to choose something too cheesy. I promise.