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Teal Toes Contest for Ovarian Cancer Awareness Month
September is Ovarian Cancer Awareness Month, and dedicated readers are probably guessing that another O Foods Contest with Sara of Ms Adventures in Italy might be coming up. Well, you’re right, but that won’t kick off until next week.
Stay tuned, and if you want to donate money to the Ovarian Cancer Research Fund in the meantime, please go to our donation page at First Giving, which you may also remember from last year.
You can also indirectly donate through Seventh Generation: Let’s Talk Period simply by signing up for free registration on their site; Seventh Generation will donate $1 for each new registration, up to $22,000 (each year 22,000 women are diagnosed with ovarian cancer).
Why make a big deal of ovarian cancer awareness?
Well, because ovarian cancer is often known as a silent killer because many women don’t discover they have ovarian cancer until it spreads somewhere else; their survival rate is 45%. But the survival rate jumps to 93% when the cancer is diagnosed at an early stage, which only happens 19% of the time.
This is why it’s so important for women to know the dangers of ovarian cancer as well as the symptoms and signs, which often mirror those of irritable bowel syndrome, because ovarian cancer is not actually silent, it just whispers softly. *You must listen!*
We’ll talk more about this as the month goes on as well, but for now, please also be aware that recent studies have closely linked breast cancer and ovarian cancer through the genes BRCA1 and BRCA2. Check out Sloan-Kettering’s great FAQ on these genes.
Paint Your Toenails Teal!
So, this week in conjunction with a pre-O Foods Contest contest, I’d like to re-introduce you to Teal Toes, an organization dedicated to raising ovarian cancer awareness run by Carey Fitzmaurice, an ovarian cancer survivor:
Carey came up with the idea to encourage people to paint their toenails teal in September, especially because:
- Ribbons aren’t enough.
- It’s easy!
- It makes your toes look pretty.
- Teal, the ovarian cancer awareness color, is striking enough to make people ask about it.
Carey has lots of great resources and information over at her place, including a link to the wonderful FORCE (Facing Our Risk of Cancer), so do take a look around–especially at the page of teal polishes to get you started on your toes.
And finally, the contest. Carey has generously offered 5 bottles of OPI Teal the Cows Come Home nail polish for five lucky Bleeding Espresso readers; winners to be drawn at random.
Teal Toes Contest Rules:
1. To enter, leave a comment on this post between now and midnight on Friday, September 11, 2009 (Italy time).
2. For an extra entry, become a fan of Teal Toes on Facebook and send me a message at michellefabio5(at)gmail(dot)com to let me know you’ve done so.
That’s it!
I’ll choose the winners at random on Saturday morning and announce them here.
And by the by, if you’re feeling extra frisky, why not go out and get some teal polish, paint your toes, post it on your blog, and send me a link (or just send a photo if you don’t have a blog). Wouldn’t you love to see your toesies featured here and at the Teal Toes Facebook page?
Show us your Teal Toes, ladies! And gentleman! *Everyone* looks good in teal. Including blogs. Feel free to lift the ovarian cancer awareness ribbon above or over in my sidebar (smaller) for your site this month (please upload to your own server though).
Remember, just comment to enter the contest, and do spread the word!
Let’s make enough noise together to kill this silent killer.
Love Thursday: The Piaggio Love Ape 50
For the uninitiated, the “Ape 50” is a three-wheeled truck made by Piaggio that you can find on just about any rural road in Italy at any time of day.
Pronounced “AH-peh,” rumor has it that it’s named as such because the sound it makes very much resembles the buzz of a bee as it winds around twists and turns carrying hay, olives, lemons, or whatever its driver needs to get from Punto A to Punto B.
“Ape,” you see, means “bee” in Italian. Incidentally, the famous Vespa scooter? “Vespa” means “wasp.” Clever, eh?
So by now you may be wondering where exactly the “Love” comes in.
Right here baby:
Meet our newest toy, The Looooove Ape 50, which just so happens to have a heart spray-painted on the front.
I didn’t choose this treasure, so obviously I’m not the only one in the house who enjoys finding hearts out and about and bringing them home.
I know it’s bit gaudy and a lot ghetto, but I’m thinking I might like to keep it on there.
What do you think (besides that you’re *so* jealous, admit it!)?
Happy Love Thursday!
Badolato Hosts Tarantella Power 2009
From 22-26 August, our normally sleepy medieval village was absolutely overrun with people eager to celebrate Tarantella Power,* a yearly Calabrian celebration held somewhere in the toe of the boot depending on which town has won the contract.
Well, Badolato Superiore got it this year and for the next few years as well, so if you didn’t make it in 2009, get out your travel planners!
You may think it’s all about the tarantella, but it’s really a celebration of Calabrian culture in general–music, dance, food, wine, art, crafts, and more. So much more. So. Many. People. I’m told over 10,000 showed up for the Piero Pelù concert on the final night!
By the by, in this video, Pelù is singing a song with Marasà, who I’ve discussed before–the song also happens to be on the CD over there in my sidebar.
So, indeed, Tarantella Power began early on the morning of 22 August for P and me as we noticed an artist setting up next to our house, ready to paint the arch of the never-finished palazzo across the street.
As the morning wore on, I offered the artist some coffee (I know, shocking that I was making some), but he preferred water.
So I kept him in steady supply. It was *very* hot that day even though he was painting in the shade and even though some of the younguns from the group that organized the artists’ visits stopped in every now and again to check on him.
Sadly, I didn’t get a glimpse of the finished painting as I only happened to look down from the balcony just as he was packing up and walking away, so no photos of it either. We said our good-byes after exchanging business cards, then a few days later, our doorbell rang.
I looked down at the front door from the balcony (our equivalent of the peep hole, although admittedly, there’s very little peeping involved), and there was our new friend, Gregorio Cosentino, with a “pensierino” (small gift, although to me this isn’t so small!) for us.
Just for offering a little water to a thirsty man on a hot day.
I love Calabria.
*For more photos (with much better coloring), see my Tarantella Power set on Flickr.
Coming Back Soon…
Are you getting ready for more Bleeding Espresso? I sure hope so, because I’ll be back very shortly with new posts, new contests, interviews, an exciting foodie event, and more!
Which, I suppose, means no more of this:
Oh well. Just to be clear, I will *not* be sorry to see August go. Stinking heat and a village full of tourists gets old pretty fast to this peace-and-quiet-loving gal.
In the meantime, since Bleeding Espresso will be going through some changes (including design!), please take a moment to let me know what you’d like to see more and less of here at the blog.
For those who have already done so via Twitter and Facebook, your input is *molto* appreciated! And to everyone else, please do add your two beans!
Blog Closed for Vacation
Or, in italiano:
Yes, Bleeding Espresso is ready for a break, although I personally am not going on vacation. I’ll still be here in Badolato, still working full-time, and still making appearances on Facebook and Twitter, but without writing blog posts, I’ll have more time to spend with P’s family (many of whom are visiting from around Europe) and enjoy all the fun stuff going on here in the village throughout August:
(Click to see larger image, and then click that image for even larger print.)
Come join in if you need a ferie too!
Buon agosto!
Michelle Kaminsky is an American attorney-turned-freelance writer who lived in her family's ancestral village in Calabria, Italy for 15 years. This blog is now archived.
Calabria Guidebook
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