in search of a dream to call home
On Saturday I was making dinner while Dominique (my three-year-old) sat at the table, eating his snack. He looked over and saw that I was preparing brussels sprouts. His remark? I kid you not: “Brussels Sprouts. Hooray!” He must have continued to think about it for longer than the typical three-year-old attention span, because a few minutes later he added, “Those brussels sprouts are going to be so yummy!”
Well, one can’t expect to have a good experience at the Questura more often than once in a lifetime. Things were bad again yesterday. I arrived at 8:00 as usual, but it didn’t open until nearly 9:00. There seemed to be more people than usual. I had an appointment, but there was only a date, not an hour. They only had two windows open, and things went very slowly. The man who calls numbers seemed to be in a particularly bad mood. He kept opening the door a crack and telling everyone to stand back from the door. Unfortunately, he was always ignored, because nobody believed him that he was going to call them in.… Read more
We have a branch potluck tonight at Church. I’m making pizza. I don’t normally make pizza for Italians, but less than half the branch is actually Italian, so I’ve convinced myself I can get away with it just this once. But I never make pasta for Italians. Never. I made this resolution years ago, and it was strengthened the other day when Tony came home from work. He had been discussing food with a coworker (yes, this is one of the most common topics of conversation in Italy), and mentioned that he ate pasta for lunch every day. His coworker asked who made the pasta, and upon being told it was I, asked if I made good pasta.… Read more
I think we broke some kind of record today. We went to three different Italian government offices and actually accomplished our purpose at each one! Stop number one was the Questura. You’ll recall that last time I went I was afraid of violence, so I did have a few feelings about going (for the fourth time). We had everything all planned out, as usual. We had a slight hiccup when Tony’s alarm went off at 1:40 in the morning. Why, you may ask, would someone set his cell phone alarm to go off at such a time? (Believe me, I asked too).… Read more
For me, one of the most fascinating things about language consists in the different variations in grammatical “person” that different cultures find necessary. For example, in Tagalog, there are two different ways to say “we.” One of them includes the person spoken to, and the other excludes him. I still haven’t nailed down what exactly is the reason they need this distinction beyond the ability for subtle social snubs, but it’s obviously important to them. Arabic doesn’t include that funny “we,” but it has a plethora of what (to me) seem unnecessary persons. For example, between singular and plural there is a special verbal form called the dual, which is used to talk about two people.… Read more
Tony came home with another new phone today. New to him, at least. His job here includes a cell phone. I’ve never heard of a job in the United States where the company phone wasn’t this year’s model. I mean, there you get a phone for free whenever you switch cell phone companies. You have to really try to keep the same phone for more than two years. And there’s always a chance to “recycle” your old phone in a bin at the grocery store. I don’t know what they do with those recycled phones. Grind them up to make new phones, like old aluminum cans?… Read more
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
I didn’t tell you about our trip to Saluzzo last Saturday. We drove up through the back streets instead of taking the autostrada, partially to avoid the toll, partially because the countryside is so beautiful. This is the route our bus to Church (link) in Cuneo used to take when we lived in Saluzzo, so we’re also sentimentally attached. We even took a little turn through Lagnasco. The trees all around are loaded with red and green apples.
Saturday in Saluzzo is market day, so we bought some cheese from our favorite vendor and were invited again to visit their farm up the Varaita Valley, near Melle, Tony’s ancestral home.… Read more
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
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