Yesterday I over-salted the soup. But luckily I also forgot to salt the bread. Sometimes things work out. Lately the bread I make is tiny little loaves like soft fat breadsticks. I mix about half the flour into my starter overnight. In the morning I knead the rest of the flour in along with salt. I leave it to rise for an hour or two. And then the fun begins. Dominique and I make the breadsticks together. He decides each day what shape of bread to make for himself and Axa. Axa loves crunchy breadsticks (like the Italian ones that they give children whenever you walk into a bread shop and have in little packages in restaurants), so we can make hers quite intricate.… Read more
culture shock
Ma qui non ci sente nessuno
Today is that rare thing on my blog, a multimedia day. But of course I’ll just post links, not (gasp) actually embed anything in my precious text. Someone told me last week that this song reminds him of me. Here are the lyrics:
Sprawl II
They heard me singing and they told me to stop,
Quit these pretentious things and just punch the clock,
These days, my life, I feel it has no purpose,
But late at night the feelings swim to the surface.
Cause on the surface the city lights shine,
They’re calling at me, “come and find your kind.”… Read more
Mountains Beyond Mountains
Today I did my periodic shuffle through the lone sock bag. The verdict: ten matches and 26 singles. It is possible that our family may have too many different types of socks. We’ve gotten nearly all of them as gifts, though, so I can’t complain. But my children (and occasionally myself) are sometimes known to run about wearing mismatched socks.
Being so peripatetic has its poignancies. There’s something to miss about everywhere we’ve lived. The thing I miss about Florence is the constant unspoken but keenly felt internal nudge to dress yourself up so you can walk out on the streets and do your part to make the city a little more beautiful.… Read more
First Day of School
So. School. Axa’s first day at asilo (preschool/kindergarten) was yesterday. I had very mixed feelings about it. I never went to school myself, nor did I ever anticipate or picture sending my child to school. Yet, here it is. She enjoyed it, although she was quite nervous, and obviously didn’t understand much, since the entire reason we’re sending her is to learn Italian. The school itself is quite impressive. I never went school-shopping in La Jolla or Carmel Valley, but I imagine that an upscale preschool in one of those neighborhoods would probably look a lot like this, although admittedly without that extra Italian flair for style and detail.… Read more
Traffic Law, Italian Style
Wednesday after the Questura, we went to get some well-deserved gelato, and to stop by our favorite fruit vendor, Naturamica. At the late hour of 10:30 in the morning, we found no parking spots. However, we’re Italian enough by now to know what to do: park on the sidewalk! As long as you leave your hazard lights on, even parking in the middle of the street works in Italy. Good manners apply, of course. Middle-of-the-street parking is only for short errands like popping into the bread shop or running over to greet a friend. When we parked around the corner from the gelato shop, only one other car had availed itself of sidewalk parking.… Read more
Questura Tales – Part 2
Next morning we awoke at 6:00 in the middle of a thunderstorm. Nevertheless, we quickly dressed and packed our sleeping children into the car (thank goodness we have a car now) along with breakfast, clothes for them, and our passports and documents. Amusingly enough, nobody showed up at the Questura until after 8:00. But it still wasn’t open yet. Considering the fact that we had been there since before 7:00, the four of us stood right in the doorway, which was probably the reason that my smiles and greetings were moodily received by everyone else arriving to try their luck. This time, I triumphantly received the very first number.… Read more
Questura Tales – Part 1
This time moving to Italy seems different from last time. Last time it was one huge adventure, moving here not speaking a word of Italian, with no reason but that we felt like it. Now Tony has a job with an Italian company, and that makes everything different. We have a reason to be here, and even more, a reason to not just move off somewhere else when the idea pops into our heads.
Of course, I’ve always been very serious about keeping our status legal, even in the face of bizarre odds. So of course I’ve already spent a fair number of hours in Italian government offices.… Read more
Back in Italy
We’ve made it home to Italy. That’s really how it feels. I couldn’t believe how beautiful everything was as we saw familiar landscapes unfolding themselves outside. The journey, unfortunately, was fairly miserable, although we only had one actual meltdown, in the train station at Nice. Axa and Raj had a large meltdown, and Tony and I had a smaller, more socially acceptable one. And then we all had some fabulous French pastries and felt better.
The reason the trip was so bad (at least from my point of view) was that I’d been sick in bed for a week previous to it.… Read more
Render unto Caesar when in Rome
Pussycat, pussycat, where have you been?
I’ve been to London to visit the Queen.
Pussycat, pussycat, what did you there?
I frightened a little mouse under her chair.
I’ve been asked to teach Axa’s Primary class at Church today. The lesson is on obeying the laws of the land. One of the activities is to tell the story from Matthew 22 when the Pharisees and the Herodians go in to trick Jesus with a question about whether they should pay taxes or not. On another tax paying occasion when His disciples were worried about having the needed funds, I remember Him sending them out with their nets to catch a fish with a coin in its stomach.… Read more
Fun at the Questura
I arose from my sick bed again this morning to take an early bus to the Questura. It didn’t end up being so very early after all, and I arrived around 8:45. The whole world, of course, was there before me. It was like a mini-United Nations. After gazing around at the milling crowd for a moment, I snagged someone who looked nice and asked him what I needed to do to get my carta di soggiorno. He led me over to a policeman, who was handing out numbers. I gave the policeman my carefully prepared speech: “I am from the United States, but my husband is Italian.… Read more