Euro Cup and Cream of Wheat

This month's oomo (see my post on Objects of my Obsession for more on that) pretty much keeps getting better and better. 

My week, as I've stated earlier, has not been one of the best on record and there are those of us who, oh I don't know, cook something up, to make ourselves feel better. 

If you saw the movie Sex and the City, or even if you didn't...there is a scene where our heroine is being spoon-fed some breakfast by one of her friends. She's had a really bad fall and they take such wonderful care of her. I was whining last week to my friends that I would not mind at all if someone spoon-fed me some breakfast right now.

My point - it looks as though she's being spoon-fed some creamy white cereal, and it reminded me of Cream of Wheat, the hot cereal that I ate as a child, and one of my favorite kid meals.

My mom used to make eating it really fun for us. She'd tint it with a little food color - blue one morning, green the next, then pink, etc - and we'd eat it with milk and sugar. And all would be right with the world.

So I've been thinking of how I need to go buy some Cream of Wheat, not even sure if they still sell it...but I could get very used to a habit of creamy white bland cereal right about now, even if it's already getting warm at 8 in the morning. Never mind. I need that comfort right now.

Last night I found it. Expensive! But there. The red box with the little man-chef smiling at me. My only choice was the original 2 1/2 minute recipe. I hugged it all the way home.

Euro Cup sidebar: Italy vs. France at 11:45 today. This was a do-or-die match which had a lot to do with both teams being in Group C - The Group of Death. And France is their nemesis, to put it mildly. Italy had to win today, or pack their sorry bags and go home. If they did win, they'd advance to the quarterfinals which begin later this week.

So, it occurred to me, this morning, why not, oh I don't know, tint my Cream of Wheat blue? 

Because France might wear blue jerseys today. This happens sometimes; their national jersey is blue and so is Italy's.

Oh.

Well then, I'm clever, I can think of something else. 

How about the Italian Flag? Green, white, red.

I made my little pot of cream of wheat, put some cereal in one bowl to tint it red. Some in a second bowl to tint it green. The remainder, white, in the pot.

Now the tricky part was getting the three colors to sit just so in my cereal bowl, but they did, for just a minute. It was beautiful.

I blew a kiss, to my Italian team that I just love, and enjoyed my cereal, all mixed up (so pretty!) with sugar and milk.

France wore blue jerseys today. Italy wore white. With little Italian flag emblems on them.

Italy beat France 2-0.

Color me happy.

Euro Cup + (Other) Objects of My Obsession (oomo)

I am really not big on signature acronyms, cutesy alliterations or, anything cutesy for that matter. But, I use the reference 'object of my obsession' so often that I've decided to give it the label oomo from now on.

Starting today, Euro Cup - headline/top-story/main event of SportsBites radio this last Thursday and one of this month's oomo - deserves a lot of my time and attention, so much so that Antoine (quite easily) talked me into going to English pub The Underground to watch the Portugal-Turkey match. I hesitated (English pubs are not usually my favorites) for about 5 minutes at his direct orders ("let's go!"). But, they do have many big screens airing soccer for this duration and, upon finding free parking (miraculously) only about a mile away, we walked in and there on all those screens was the beautiful Cristiano Ronaldo and his Portuguese teammates all lined up for their anthem. 

I didn't need any more coaxing to just sit my little butt down and settle in for the afternoon.

A yummy BLT, really good fat fries, and about 3 cokes later, I was happy and Portugal had won, 2-0. I started taking mental notes in there for future reference: Mon-Fri, 2 for 1 burgers 11-3, and that Manchester United burger on the menu with blue cheese and bacon did sound pretty good...Italy plays on Monday at 11:45...matches go on most of the month, often on weekdays...happy hours after about 3pm....chocolate volcano cake was today's special dessert...the service was good and soft drink refills are free....hmmm....

Plus, there is really something to be said for watching Euro football players on the big screen which I learned 2 years ago when I fell in love during the World Cup. And herein lies another oomo. Steve Amoia was my very welcomed guest on SportsBites the other day, and we got to talking about the new short, incredibly hilarious film that is probably aired all over Europe at the moment (they are so lucky), starring Franck Ribery (from France and, not the most handsome man) and Italian Luca Toni who, gives whole new meaning to um, dreamy. 

The two amazingly talented footballers are teammates for Bayern-Munich in Germany's Bundesliga and are quite the duo, both on and off the pitch. It is tremendous fun to watch them play together and their goal-scoring is just, spectacular. Their short film begins with Luca taunting Franck with the World Cup 2006 Champions shirt he wears, reminding his French friend of "second". They speak only Italian and French, respectively, but clearly they understand each other very well. The whole little episode cannot be enjoyed without laughing out loud even if you can't understand a word of French or Italian. Luca Toni is known for his gestures and facial expressions anyway and Ribery is famous for his practical jokes and being a clown.

My point is, their website and film, The Grand Final, is the new oomo. I am addicted to it.

Oh and by the way I saw Sex and The City - the movie - for the second time today. It's not an oomo but I did like it, I thought it was just really fun with great one-liners, hair, clothes, shoes. It made me laugh, and cry. A couple of my favorite parts were the reference about almost never looking back,  and, the guacamole.

Yeah. I will leave you with that. Stay tuned for more oomo, I'm sure I'll be addressing those from time to time....

Buona notte!