For every down, an up

Needing a break from the failure of newspapers, hassles of health care and annoyances of unemployment, yesterday I took the bicycle out. My sister Michele and I had a great ride down the hill to Alki Beach, with its beautiful views of downtown Seattle on one side and the Olympic Mountains on the other, and enjoyed a nice fish-and-chips lunch at Sunfish.

Of course then it turned out that if you ride down to the beach you also have to pedal up the hill to get home. Still, all good.

A little exercise and fresh air on an usually pleasant, spring-like February afternoon. We agreed it was good day to not have a job.

Here are a few pics, beginning with Mich saddling up at my house.

SOML

President Obama is about to deliver his first speech to Congress, an appearance they’re not calling a State of the Union address -- or SOTU, as headline writers sometimes abbreviate it -- but that will feel like one. Last month, here in Washington state, Gov. Christine Gregoire gave the first State of the State (SOTS) of her second term, and a week ago today Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels offered his own State of the City (SOTC) address.

It’s that time of year. So, in the spirit of the season I’m pausing a minute for a personal assessment: the SOML, or State of My Life. Ahem. Lapel pin adjusted. Ready the teleprompters!

Although the SOTUs themselves can drone on, presidential speechwriters often include one line that cuts to the chase. Something like: Tonight, the state of the union is ... sound, challenged, hopeful, whatever the case may be.

Tonight, the state of my life is ... a mix of chaos and stasis. Staos?

In some senses very little has changed, or changes. Approaching two and a half years now since I left work to deal with my health, I remain unemployed, on medical disability, seeing doctors, popping pills, checking months off my chemo calendar. At the same time life feels like it’s changing crazily. The Seattle P-I, where I used to work and Michelle still does, is likely to close in a few weeks. But we have no official word about whether an online version of the paper will survive as rumored or, if so, whether Michelle will grab one of the few musical-chair jobs left to be had.

It’s impossible to say with any certainty what we’ll be doing three months from now or even where we’ll be living. We’re both looking for work here in Seattle, where I have family and prefer to stay, but we agree that this is no time to insist on a specific job in a specific city. As cool as the Excellent Element is, neither of us wants to live in it. So we’re looking elsewhere as well. Turbulence creates downdrafts, and I wouldn’t be surprised if M&M winds up relocating, maybe back to Los Angeles, as early as this summer.

All that’s enough to give a guy a case of the chaotics.

Partly to brace for the financial hit, and in recognition that the various federal bailouts will bail out every sector except that of dopes like us who bought a house we could afford on a loan we were qualified to receive, Michelle and I have reassessed our household budget and made significant cuts in our lifestyle. Again stupidly responsible, no doubt. To be clear, I don’t mean to whine, as we’ve merely ratcheted down to moderately conservative from comfortably affluent. I mean, we are the rock’n’rollers who spent two Pie in the Sky months on the road last year, just a couple of months after spending two weeks in Paris and Rome. We’ve had it pretty good. Ew, did you drop your caviar in my champagne? But we have made adjustments. We’re not taking any trips this year that weren’t already planned, like the April pilgrimage to New Orleans for Freda’s 70th birthday. We’re limiting ourselves to one movie outing a month. We cut back to basic cable. We’ve stopped dining out. We’re making each gin bottle last twice as long (ouch). And I’ve stopped playing poker, on the theory that you should never bet what you can’t afford to lose. That one really hurts.

In support of the new budget plan we’ve combined finances more fully than ever before. That’s a net financial gain for me but a change that makes me cringe. I’ve been financially independent now for more than 30 years and hate to surrender the feeling. Ving Rhames tells Bruce Willis in “Pulp Fiction,” “That’s pride fuckin’ with ya,” and I know that’s true. Still.

I could go on. There are indignities on the job-search front, worries on the family front, frustrations on the medical front.

A friend asked the other day about my health, and I described how at this point the effects of brain cancer feel less physical and more psychological and emotional. I struggle sometimes to think of myself as the same capable, confident person who 17 months ago spazzed out of one familiar life and into this new weird one.

Even so, as I’m sure the president is saying right about now (we’re Tivo’ing the non-SOTU), out of hardship comes opportunity. Hope and recovery are ahead. Trite as these pat lines are, I believe there is truth in them, for the individual as well as the nation.

Personally, I have much to give me strength and hope. Despite some growing pains of adolescence Gina and Franny are awesome, inspiring kids and actually fun to be around. Lovergirl Michelle and I remain totally solid, in spite of the understandable stress we both face.

I don’t know where we’ll be this time next year -- or next month for that matter. But we’ll be here. M&M abides, and the SOML is, staotic though it may be, still pretty good.

OK. Off to watch the speech. Good night, and God bless America! Please comment on Obama’s address here.

Photo credit: Top photo via whitehouse.gov on Creative Commons license.

Almondy!

We're just back from the incredible David Byrne concert -- more to come on that, including the terrific slide show Michelle is working on now -- but first I wanted to note the day's other highlight, an afternoon visit by Gina and Franny. They came bearing a cute birthday card and, better than a cake, my favorite treat from West Seattle's Bakery Nouveau, an almond croissant. Around here, those go by the shorthand nickname "almondy!" so when they arrived we all three shouted in unison: "Almondy!"

Very tasty with a cup of coffee. We also played four highly competitive games of Wii bowling. "Throw it hard and crash the pins," as my brother-in-law Manuel used to say at a real bowling alley. Those girlies crash the virtual pins pretty hard.

I'm having to resort to tricks to stay a few pins ahead. Look, over there, the Jonas Brothers!

Belated happy inauguration day

In honor of Obama's inauguration the other day I went to Obamicon.me and made these images in the style of candidate Barack's famous "Hope" poster.

Apparently a lot of people have had the same idea. I keep seeing Facebook friends who have changed their personal photos to Obamicons, and an email from the Obamicon site tells me it's catching on:

"We knew we had a fun idea when it hit us, but we had no idea we'd get this kind of response. In less than two weeks, we've had millions of page views and nearly 200,000 Obamicons have been created--and activity grows by the hour."

I enjoyed watching part of the ceremonies and parade at Mich's house, over a cup of coffee and a turkey sandwich, and Michelle and I watched the Tivo'd Obama speech at home later Tuesday night. Very good, I thought: just the right stern, serious tone to lay out the problems and yet with a believable sense of can-do optimism. (Aretha, sadly, was not as awesome as her hat.)

A bunch of friends went to Washington for the inauguration. My friend Jason, who lives there, spent the day on the Mall and posted some great photos over at his site, The Cooler. Check them out.

Did you watch the ceremonies? Your thoughts? Also, if you have your own Obama-style photo, please send it along; we'll post an M&M-icon gallery.

Happy Birthday, Gina!

We interrupt this long lull in blogging to post birthday wishes for daughter No. 1, Gina Matassa, who turns 16 today. Incredible.

A year ago I noted Gina's smarts, independence, writing ability and interest in movies. All that has deepened in the past year, as she and her friends filmed a remake of "Sweeney Todd" (unfinished), wrote and filmed an original movie, "Stella" (in editing now), and began work on another screenplay, as yet untitled. She can talk movies all day and identify composers mid-film without seeing the credits, as she did last week when we saw "Revolutionary Road" (score by Thomas Newman, it turns out). She and Michelle have really connected on the craft and pursuit of screenwriting. Gina's favorite Christmas present: Charlie Kaufman's original screenplay of "Synecdoche, New York."

She also has turned into quite the cook. With occasional help from her sister Franny or from Michelle or me, Gina whips up delicious and healthy meals, often without a recipe or in an untried cuisine. A couple of weeks ago, a terrific Thai dinner. (Gina just now texted me from school to say she was eating an "awesome pasta salad" that she made herself for lunch.)

As my dad would have said after his trademark birthday question ("How does it feel to be 16?"), "What a beautiful age!"

It is. And as Grandma Rita always says, "Live it up!"

Do that, Gina. Happy Birthday, sweet girl.

(I took the above photo of Gina last June while they were shooting a scene for "Stella" in Pioneer Square.)

Mother Flippin Rhymenoscerous

A few weeks ago I wrote about the awesome viral campaign Flight of the Conchords -- my favorite band and TV show -- are running. They're asking fans to create videos of themselves lip synching to the Conchords song, Hiphopopotamus vs. Rhymenoceros. Of course we had to create a MatassaLosi version. Here it is, starring Gina and Franny.

Nicolosi Kid Photos

My sister Renee got an awesome photo scanner for xmas, and scanned in these old negatives of a trip we took to Britain when we were kids, given to her a few years ago by my Great Uncle John.



To see the version with bigger pix, go here.

Here's some more Nicolosi kid pictures, from the Fabled Italy Days.



To see the version with bigger pix, go here.

Back to school

Not actually being in school myself, I love the beginning of the school year.

It still feels like summer but it's starting to feel like fall. It means the anticipation of the new, the chance to start again with a clean slate. The kids dress up in their new school clothes, put their new notebooks in new backpacks and, at least around here, pretend disdain for the school part of school while clearly enjoying the friends part of school. Excellent rituals all.

This year is especially exciting in our households because Franny and Gina are both starting at a new school, which means new kids, new teachers, a new routine. The Center School, located at the big Seattle Center public space just north of downtown, is a small, arts-oriented public high school, with ninth through 12th grades but only a couple hundred kids total. Gina wasn't thrilled with West Seattle High last year as a freshman and wanted to transfer this year to Center, where the film program caught her attention. Franny decided to follow along for her first year of high school.

I took them to an orientation a couple of weeks ago and got a good hit off the place. It's small enough that everyone knows everyone, which, the thinking goes, keeps expectations high and performance up and trouble down. Also, with fewer students there's not enough critical mass to support a lot of cliques. And the academic program seems good. Art is integrated into the core subjects like math, science and humanities, everyone learns Spanish, and the electives include filmmaking and other cool stuff that I think the girls will dig.

The teachers I met seemed smart and into it. The principal is positive in a way that borders on the bothersome chirpy, but she's engaged and accessible. All good.

When school started last week I begged the girls to take a first-day photo and send it to me, a tradition we've been keeping in this family since I was in kindergarten, maybe longer. Of course they didn't do it. But this week, with Greta in Los Angeles recording a new album, the girls are here at Casa M&M and I was able to capture the above second-week photo. (By Matassa family tradition, the pic should have been snapped in the morning, on the way to school, but that's too damn early for me, so this was a getting-home-from-school photo.)

Hard so far to get detailed reports on how things are going. I think it's going to be a little bit of a transition because they don't know anybody there except for Franny's best friend Lacaia, who also got in (there's a waiting list).

I'll say this: They're little geniuses at getting up, getting themselves out of here and taking the bus to school without waking up the grownups. On that basis alone, A+!

Here are a couple snaps from orientation day:

Wow

I can't believe that M&M is the No. 2 search result on Google for "behind the green glass door." That so rocks.

Here's our original post on that riddle, with riddlemaster Allison.

Wheeeeee!

So distracting we've hardly missed the Internet.

Ever since we got home from Pie in the Sky Michelle and I -- and now Gina and Franny too -- have been junkies for Wii, the awesome video game system Ronelle and her family gave us when we visited in New Jersey. We've all stayed up way too late, bowling and playing baseball and tennis until our eyes blurred and our elbows burned.

For those who haven't played the game or seen the ads, the Wii, by Nintendo, is a game system in which you don't just push buttons but actually move the game controller to control your player. So, to swing a virtual tennis racquet you swing your arm, forehand or backhand, timing it so your racquet hits the ball in the direction and with the speed you want. Same for baseball, bowling, golf and the rest. And we all spent some time creating our own personalized "Miis" to represent us on the screen. It's surprisingly, ridiculously fun. Gina and Franny even stopped by unannounced last week -- twice! -- to squeeze in a game.

Based on Wii Tennis alone, Gina and Franny have now expressed interest in playing real tennis, and Fran and I went out the other day for her first lesson.


One of the games is helping Franny in the other. I'm not sure which, but in another couple of weeks I don't expect to be able to beat her in either.

In honor of Ronelle's daughter Christin (above left, with her cousin Holley, right) we try to remember not to call the game Wii, but "Wheeee!," which really is more fitting.

(Speaking of which: Ronelle, If we send each other our Wii console numbers we should be able to exchange Miis and messages and maybe even play against each other. Hit me up by e-mail.)

The game really does make your arm sore though. We're already thinking we'll need to go buy the new "Wii Fit" program to get us into shape to play regular Wii.

Behind the green glass door

Allison had us all scratching our heads and guessing wildly this afternoon with a riddle she picked up at camp.

Behind the green glass door there is green but no blue. Behind the green glass door there is sleep but no bed. Behind the green glass door there is Michelle but no Mark. There's a bathroom but no toilet. Coffee but no Starbucks. And so on.

Why are the things behind the green glass door there, and why aren't the things that aren't?

We about went crazy trying to figure it out. Alex wasn't pleased that his sister Allison was behind the green glass door but he wasn't.

It's a fun game. In true Allison fashion, I'll let you figure it out for yourself.

Behind the green glass door there are guesses but no easy answers.

Eddie

Today would have been my dad's 85th birthday, so I'm thinking of him.

I thought of him yesterday too at the Hall of Fame, which he would have loved. Dad, Eddie to his friends, was born in New York in 1923, the same year as Yankee Stadium, and he grew up rooting for the Yanks of Ruth and Gehrig and later, his favorite, Joe DiMaggio. He turned me on to baseball as a kid, playing catch in the backyard, taking me to my first baseball game, the Mays-McCovey-Marichal Giants at Candlestick Park in San Francisco. When the A's moved from Kansas City in 1968 to Oakland, much closer to our East Bay home, he and I went to many games there, watching Reggie Jackson, Sal Bando, Catfish Hunter, Vida Blue, Joe Rudi -- the beginning of the great A's teams that went on to win three consecutive World Series in the 1970s after we moved to Oregon.

We had a pretty typical father-son relationship, I think, meaning much love and respect buried under some layers of annoyance or misunderstanding. A lot of my least favorite qualities -- I can be quick-tempered, argumentative, shrill -- I think I got from him. Also, lately, my gut. But I also see him in my own ease in varied social situations, my ability to make a friend, an affinity for numbers, my deep love of family.

My Aunt Chickie back in New Jersey, who wasn't related to Dad by blood, knows of our sometimes strained relationship. She found several opportunities on this visit, as she always does, to say nice things about him, and she brought out some cool old family photos that I hadn't seen, including of Mom and Dad with Jersey clan. That was nice.

As I was reminded yesterday, this will be the last year at Yankee Stadium, meaning it lasted four seasons longer than Dad did. But also that they both had good, long, full lives.

Happy 85th, Eddie. We miss you.

The Nicolosis

We had a nice dinner yesterday with seven of the New Jersey Nicolosi clan, including two second cousins I had never met. It was great to see my Uncle Bernie and Aunt Eve and their daughters Nadine and Marcie, who I haven't seen for years.

It was also cool to see the old basement room where we hung out as kids with our cousins for a few glorious days, sucking up hours and hours of I Dream of Genie, Bewitched, Batman and all of the American TV classics we'd never had a chance to see because we were being deprived of all culture by growing up in Tirrenia, Italy.

Bernie and Eve treated us to an awesome dinner of pasta, incredible bread, calamari, giant salads -- the food just wouldn't stop coming.

Here's a photo of the clan:



We're in an EconoLodge now somewhere in Connecticut, a few hours south of the Foxwoods Casino. ... more to come ...

Happy Mother’s Day

I’m not really big into the Hallmark holidays like Mother’s Day, but it’s Sunday morning in the Florida Keys and everyone’s lining up for brunch so I’m thinking of the awesome moms of M&M-ville.

Already on this trip alone we’ve enjoyed the excellent hospitality of Rita and Freda, the original M&M mothers, and had a generous offer (not taken) by Kaye’s cool mom Libby. Visits with more notable mothers to come, including Ronelle and Chicky in New Jersey, Renee in Colorado and, maybe, Janice’s sister Judy in Louiville.

…

It’s been a few hours now since I started this post (we had no wireless in the Keys). Up the Florida coast, through Miami Beach and now to the little beach town of Juno, near Jupiter, we’ve been accosted by uncounted men and women and little kids selling roses and stuffed animals by the side of the road – or right in the street, when we’ve stopped at an intersection – hoping to snare some last-minute Mother’s Day business.

We’re both tired. Michelle’s sleeping now -- happy for a comfortable, bug-free and air-conditioned Holiday Inn bed after a couple of hot, itchy nights camping at the beach -- and I might catch a nap too. We’ll have more stories and photos to come.

For now, Happy Mother’s Day to our moms and any others who are following along.

M&M

For Gina and Franny

This is just to see if they're checking the blog.

When we lived in Belmont Shore the girls and I used to stop at this In-N-Out Burger after spending the afternoon boogie-boarding at Huntington Beach. They loved it.


Michelle and I drove by the In-N-Out this afternoon on the way to Kaye's, and I thought of them.

Girlies? Picture comment me!

Are the flavors all as they should be?

My cool sister Michele was nice enough to buy me a going-away lunch this afternoon -- a nice break from packing for Pie in the Sky II -- but we had to laugh at our over-the-top waitress at the normally reliable Il Fornaio downtown.

Everything had to be explained just so and with a little extra flair, and the attention was a bit much. Shortly after she delivered our plates -- ravioli for Mich, capellini for me, both delish -- she was back to check on us.

"Are all the flavors as they should be?"

Mich, who had trouble stifling a laugh until the poor woman walked away, actually answered: "Yes, they are."

I muttered something to Mich about the tomato sauce tasting like chocolate.

Still, the food was good and it was great to see Michy one last time before Michelle and I leave in the morning. We get together quite often and we both said we'll miss our little lunch and coffee dates. She told me about the Kanye West concert she and her family saw the other night, and even offered to write a guest review for M&M! Can't wait for that.

Also she offered to swing by and pick up my drugs this weekend and forward them to Kaye's house but, miraculously, they appeared as scheduled this afternoon. So that's good.

Nicolosi & I still have a few things to put together tonight before we can leave in the morning, but we're actually in pretty good shape considering. Look out, open road, here we come.

(Mich, don't forget to send the review!)

My M&M calendar ...

... tells me this is Freda Nicolosi's birthday. Happy birthday, Freda.

Here you are earlier this month with the cooler half of M&M. We'll see you again in a couple of weeks in New Orleans.

'I will have vengeance!'

That singing you hear here in West Seattle is coming from all those girls, and one guy, in full costume, filming scenes in and around our house for their remake of "Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street."

I'm not sure whose idea this production was, but I know Gina and Franny and their friends are obsessed with the recent "Sweeney Todd" movie -- did I mention it stars Johnny Depp? -- and somehow they've decided to shoot their own version this weekend. Very cool project.

So this afternoon Maddy and Katy and Austin and Mim and a bunch of other kids I didn't know and whose names I already forget showed up here after school with Bean. Maddy's the director; she even had a raspberry beret and a clapboard. Austin is Sweeney. Gina is Mrs. Lovett, the Helena Bonham Carter character. Franny's Pirelli.

They seemed quite organized and got a lot of scenes in the can this afternoon. We watched the daily rushes tonight. Not bad. Katy's going to edit on her computer.

I told them that when they're done cutting the trap door in the kitchen floor and dropping barbershop victims head-first into the basement, I'd appreciate it if they mopped up all the blood. That seemed OK with everyone.

Another long shooting day tomorrow and more, probably, on Sunday.

Michelle took official cast photos this afternoon.

Blow, hump and tail

Right, sounds like a typical Friday night in college. But actually, those were the bywords we were given today as we kept an eye out for gray whales in Puget Sound. Michelle's mom Freda is in town, visiting from New Orleans, and we took her this morning for a four-hour whale-watching tour out of Everett, 45 minutes or so north of here.


When we got to the dock -- with only a minute to spare thanks to some unusually heavy traffic in Seattle -- we were greeted by a nice young woman in a dark green and black Gore-Tex jacket. Her intro was the Northwest equivalent of a SoCal restaurant server's:

"Hello, I'm Kate and I'll be your naturalist today!"

OK then, let's go!

Our tour boat, the Island Explorer 3, puttered around the shores of Whidbey, Hat and Camano islands for a couple of hours with Kate, on a loudspeaker, masking the absence of any whales by pointing out some seabirds -- her favorite is the double-crested cormorant -- and a few very cool California Sea Lions, including one that we saw chomping into a salmon he had just caught. Very Mutual of Omaha-y.

This sightseeing company, Island Adventures, guarantees that you'll see a whale on the tour, though, and Captain Mike seemed none to eager to give in without a hit. Finally he said he had received word that some grays were 10-15 minutes from our location, and he opened the throttle.

When we got there, sure enough, a group of three of these massive animals were surfacing frequently -- first a plume of vapor and water, followed by a good long view of its humped, barnacled back as it rolled through the water and then, once or twice, a glimpse of its tail, or fluke. We were close enough to hear them exhale and to smell their rank breath. Pretty spectacular, really.

We had to laugh at Kate, though, who was really into her job and couldn't contain her enthusiasm for the whales. At one point she was describing how remarkably aware they are of their own enormous bodies -- 45 feet long, as much as 3,000 pounds -- "and remember," she said, "they're living in a three-dimensional world while ours is only two-dimensional."

My stomach begs to differ; it's getting more 3-D every day.

Michelle took some great pictures of the whales, and I'm sure she'll post some soon. I just wanted to give a quick report with a couple of snapshots.

Chilly out there, though not as cold as either of the baseball games I attended this week. It was a very fun day, and as we said we were glad we had Freda here as a "tourist" to entertain. We'd never have taken the trip today on our own.

Mother knows best

I just got a St. Paddy's Day email from my mom: "This is the-luck-of-the-Irish-day so wear green and go play poker."

Now that's some good advice. I found my lucky green shirt I wore at the World Series of Poker and now I'm off to the Muck.



Lucky for me Mom didn't suggest I celebrate by having some corned beef and cabbage.

Update, 6 p.m.: The luck o' the Irish held up. I won a $500 jackpot for having the highest hand of the hour in the entire cardroom, aces full of eights. When they brought me my bonus money I bought a round of drinks for the other players at the table, and they half-applauded -- grateful for the drink, I think, but envious of my win.

Nobody was else was wearing green, I noticed. "My mom told me to wear a lucky St. Paddy's Day shirt," I said. That got a laugh.

In other cardroom news, Barry was Mr. Popularity today, with other players walking up all afternoon to congratulate him on Saturday's nice write-up in the P-I. A couple of the floor supervisors were even passing around copies for people to read.

"I owe it all to Mark," Barry sorta shouted in his funny way, which I thought was nice but embarrassing, and strictly speaking not true. I didn't really do much.

"I'll buy you a drink," he said to me, "are you ready?"

This was at 2:30 in the afternoon. I looked at him. Thanks, Barry, I said, but it's not 5 o'clock. yet.