After a long morning deep cleaning and organizing the house, we had finally piled everyone into the car last Saturday at noon, almost two hours later than I had anticipated. Coats were off, our lunch was stowed in the back, and the children were buckled when we looked up and saw our 62-year-old widowed neighbor out chopping a gigantic pile of wood. She had her automatic splitter hooked up to the tractor, but still. Tony and I looked at each other, hesitated a moment, and then acknowledged we’d better get out and help her. So much for our already postponed outing.… Read more
daily life
To Facebook or Not to Facebook
We skipped Halloween this year. There are people who celebrate it in Italy, but it’s more of an American fad, not a culturally entrenched tradition. Not one person has asked my children what they’re going to “be,” nor have I seen a sudden overabundance of pumpkins appear at the supermarket. The good (bad) news is, in Italy nobody seems to need an excuse for giving my children candy. Everyone, from little old ladies to policemen to shopkeepers, has a stash of caramelli in a pocket or purse, ready to be relinquished to children. And there’s no need to beg or threaten tricks.… Read more
The Firm
So, we weren’t a very good fit for the whole Corporate America thing. I guess maybe we should have tried somewhere less brutal than Southern California. We just weren’t into the hour commute (both ways!), the fierce competition with colleagues, and the boss who told Tony, “I know you’re into your family. I want someone who’s into his job” (translation: you need to take your work home every evening and weekend if you value your job).
Fast forward to this summer, when we were in Ireland, doing contract work. Out of the blue, the fantastic Italian mayor who granted Tony Italian citizenship (yes, that’s included in the job description of a mayor in Italy) contacted us and said he wanted to fly Tony to Italy to interview for a job in his company.… Read more
Snow on the Bisalta
Yesterday the wind blew in and whirled the changing leaves through the air like schools of fish. And by the end of the day, there was a light dusting of snow on “our” mountain, the Bisalta. It’s an unmistakable mountain with a funny little nick cut out of the top, and it appears on a good portion of the logos of businesses in the area, as well as in other random places.
Piemonte, the region of Italy where we live, has eight mountain ranges. Our town rests on the bank of a river that carves a little valley out of some of these mountains.
… Read more Celebrating the Light
I am all for saving the earth. Hang-drying my clothes, recycling, organic food, public transportation, even cloth diapers, I am willing to do a lot. But I have one energy-gluttonous indulgence that I just can’t give up. Incandescent light bulbs.
I think I can trace these feelings back to the year we lived in Vancouver (not B.C.), Washington (not D.C.). Situated just across the Columbia River from Portland, Oregon, Vancouver is lushly green almost to an excess. Spring is a seemingly endless cavalcade of beautiful flowers, and visits to nearby woods resemble an excursion into the Lost World. But these botanical marvels are dearly paid for – by a long, dark, rainy, miserable winter.
… Read more Frodo Lives! Or at least Grishnakh and Ugluk do. In fact, they live at my house.
They call it “Orkin.” I hear them speaking it when they think I’m not listening (or is it when they think I am listening and they have secrets from me? That’s what my parents did with Spanish when I was a child). I never quite believed those parents who claimed their children had a special private language. I guess I have to believe them now. I happened to be reading the Lord of the Rings to Axa and Dominique at naptime when we got to Florence. And we were just at the part in The Two Towers where Merry and Pippin are captured by orcs, so there was a lot of the language of Mordor floating around.… Read more
Sarah Cynthia Sylvia Stout
Don’t worry, this post discusses garbage only in general terms and contains no explicitly disgusting content.
There is a new mayor in our little town. I admit that we were predisposed against him just because he beat the incumbent, who is both the reason Tony has Italian citizenship and the reason he has a job. But now we have another reason not to vote for him when he’s up for reelection. He won’t take the garbage out. No, really.
Normally in Italian cities (at least all the ones where I’ve thrown out trash) every block or two there is a set of dumpsters for the various types of refuse (glass, metal, paper, plastic and unrecyclables).
… Read more Credi solo a quello che ti dice il cuore
Axa no longer goes to asilo (preschool), as of today. Too bad the only person to whom I can say, “I told you so,” is myself. I knew it was a long shot, considering what I know about school and her personality. As long as it wasn’t doing any harm, I was O.K. with her going, as long as it actually did help her to learn Italian. There’s nothing else I could see that she could learn better at asilo than at home. And now we’ve seen that it’s not even a good place for her to learn Italian. Surprise! Things were just not working out.… Read more
My Children Eat Vegetables
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!”
My day was made.
… 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