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October 1
We wake up early, but the debate is on at 8AM, rebroadcast so that we are able to watch it. Evidently, Bush had no control over the podiums. He looked as though he was holding on to see over the top, while Kerry stood ramrod straight and his podium seemed to come up waist high on him.
If you are a Bushie, you think he won the debate. If you are in Kerry's camp, you think he did. Whatever.
After watching the debate, we drive to Orvieto to meet Suzanne, her friend Susan Ross, and Cindy Churchill Kelly and her husband Bill Kelly. After 40( !) years it is good to see Cindy. We catch up on each other's lives a little in a café, and I take them all to a few favorite spots undiscovered by most tourists, before Roy takes Cindy and Bill to the train so that they can continue on to Rome. The four of us and Sofi walk around, checking in with Ciara at Giacomini, our favorite ceramics shop, then eat pranzo at Asino D'Oro, our favorite restaurant on a little back alley.
I eat a remarkable budino of gelled red pepperoni and then vegetables covered in a kind of chocolate sauce as my main meal. I am curious, but cannot really eat the course of chocolate over a mélange of veggies.
Others eat gnocchi castrato, wonderful salads of lettuce, capers, anchovies and cheese, broccolletti and a housemade pasta with an unusual pesto sauce.
Afterward, we pick up their luggage from LaBadia, where they stayed last night, and take them to Amelia with a detour of Mugnano and our house.
Stopping in Amelia to take a photo of Suzanne with the poster announcing her concert.
First, Lisa and a friend perform a selection of wonderful samba music. Lisa sings, almost a capella, and a pianist plays background music. She has a remarkable voice and Latin flair and surprises us; or rather, she captivates us.
When Suzanne comes on and sits at the impressive black grand piano on a raised dais, she begins to play and immediately the piano takes on a life of it's own. It seems to swell and open its arms as if to say, "Yes, I was made to be played like this!" She works the keys masterfully, and is able to do this without nervousness, telling us before that she never practices before a performance. Tonight's playing is merely a practice for her!
The room is filled with people, and they love her music, as do we. Afterward, she graciously speaks with anyone who wants to meet her. We take down a poster for her to keep as a memento, and drive home under a waning moon to little Sofi, who by now is full of pep and wants to play.
We now have a new friend, Susan, who we look forward to seeing again when we arrive in the Bay Area next month. She has invited us to stay at her house for part of our visit. We think we will be in Terence and Angie's way, with all the activity going on with the new babies, so will probably take her up on her invitation when Susan is in San Diego.
October 2
This is another lovely day, cool in the early morning hours, then almost hot at mid day. Roy drives off to do errands and Sofi and I work in the garden. I weed a little, but mostly clip lavender and santolina into round globes. There is so much to clip that I am busy all year long with more than a hundred evergreen plants to work on. The bees are still active in the huge rosemary bush nearby, and on the front terrace I see some of the big black bees, hovering over the rosemary in the fiorieras that I am told can be quite poisonous. So I keep my distance.
Inside I work on the dreaded clothes project, taking out summer clothes and exchanging them for winter ones. We always have storage challenges.
We drive up to Bomarzo for the 5:30 mass because we will be in Rome tomorrow, and love the tiny Misericordia church. It is small and long in shape, and a few hymns that we love are sung loudly by a group of women who seem to try to out-sing each other. They all frown at us until we greet them, and then break into gracious greetings. When it is time to greet each other in church, everyone wants to shake our hands.
Don Luca presides over mass, and he takes these women very seriously. Outside after mass we see his hot motorcycle parked on the little side street right by the door.
Tonight, the owls are back. Hoooo. Hooooo. We feel as though we are in the Wild West and Indians are sending up smoke signals and calling out across the valley. No, I am not smoking something, but an owl right outside our window is howling. Yes, howling.
October 3
Roy wakes up with a terrible head cold, but wants to drive to Rome, anyway. Sofi and I are fine. We all leave the house at 9AM and are parked at Ponte Milvio by 10:15.
The look and the smell of Rome are unlike any other place on earth. In a way, the light of the city reflecting off the buildings on this sunny morning reminds me a little of Venice. Perhaps it is the ocher walls of many buildings, crumbled and looking like proud old men, with that air of city elegance about them. The dirt from years of pollution is excessive, but the buildings are still beautiful.
The sidewalks and streets are another matter, altogether. Garbage, broken bottles, animal droppings are everywhere. The sidewalks are not hosed down, as they are in the smaller cities and towns. Romans seem to feel their city is above it all; that we are lucky to be able to walk in it at all.
On certain Sundays, it is possible to drive into the center of Rome without being given a huge fine. Today is one of them. During the week and on Saturday afternoons, driving is prohibited, unless one has a residence permit. The pollution is so terrible and it is so crowded that the city has had to resort to this.
At around the turn of the last century, Rome must have been the place to be. Many of the most beautiful apartment buildings seem to have been built around that time. I see the Roman numerals counting out the year of construction on several and they are built around the same time, the colors lighter than those of Perugia or Bologna. Gorgeous curved corner buildings, with balconies open to the sun, pedestals with statues or urns holding evergreen plants, profusions of colored flowers falling like ample breasts hanging over iron railings.
We are at Ponte Milvio for the antiquariato mercato held there on the first Sunday of each month. I can only describe what we see as eye candy. I play a game in my head, buying this piece of furniture, that silver bowl, this painting...Fifty years ago, Pamela DiRico and I played a game with her mother's fashion magazines. We'd sit on her mother's claret colored velvet divan with our legs straight out, tiny feet reaching just past the edge, and Pamie would take one page and I the facing one, describing our lives as if we were the women on the pages, wearing stylish clothes, sitting in the finest restaurants, with the handsomest husbands, with the most beautiful children, going home to the most exquisite homes.
Today, we come away with out spending a dime, but I do see a four-piece set of incredible red velvet fringed divani and two chairs in perfect condition that I would snap up in a moment if we had the right client. Also a pair of navy blue deco chairs with pale wood trim, right out of Architectual Digest. And then there are the paintings, in old frames, of Italian scenes. There are so many people walking by that we don't dawdle. But I always look for the little square plates with proverbs on them, and Roy looks for his black and white dogs. There are no plates. They are almost impossible to find anymore. And no dogs the right size for Roy.
We are in Rome really on a mission to find t-shirts of one style with the word Italia printed on them for the nine grandchildren in California to wear together. On Thanksgiving Day, there will be photos galore of them. One special photo will be of them sitting on a divan, smallest to tallest, all in their matching shirts. This is a one-time photo of this generation. Terence's generation was the last, with Iolanda buying the shirts then at A Cavalli in North Beach in San Francisco. After a lot of chasing around, we find the right stall near the Colliseum and just the right ones in a wonderful shade of blue.
God bless dear Iolanda and Leo. Last night at the mass at the little church named Misericordia in Bomarzo, a young woman was the reader. Listening to her reminded me of Iolanda reading at the Saturday evening mass at her church in Carmel Valley, Leo and Roy and I so proud of her. We are proud of her, still.
We stop for a panini at an outside café, because tonight there will be a big dinner at Loredana and Alberto's. We think Tiziano and Rosina and Enzo will also be there, with Enzo's leg bandaged. Tonight we'll find out what happened to this latest member of Mugnano's walking wounded. At a certain time of day, they are always out, strolling or limping along.
Roy's cold is much worse by the time we return home, and after sleeping for a couple of hours, he is not much better. I sit and write and he decides to get up to see if he will be able to rally for dinner.
Outside there is so much activity. It is time for the vendemmia of the grapes, and the village tractors arrive back in the village with their lugs of grapes. All the cantinas are open, with everyone helping their neighbor with this year's harvest. Some wine will be better than others, but there will be enough to last to fortify the cold winter months before the fire. Roy wants to help Mario and Pepe, so he'll call Paola to find out when they'll have their vendemmia.
Roy does not want to miss the cena, so we drive up and park in the square. Enzo and Rosita do not join us, because Lore only has room for six people, but Tiziano arrives. I meet Tonino for the first time, and he is a lot of fun, arriving like a whirlwind and having so much to say that he hardly touches his food.
Roy tells Lore that his new nickname is Dino, and she asks him if he is Dino Saurus. I think that is pretty funny, but Roy is not THAT old. Lore invites us right in to her kitchen to sit down.
Lori first serves sliced prosciutto and figs; the figs from the specialty shop in Viterbo. The figs are big and black and very tasty. Then we have ravioli stuffed with ricotta and walnuts from our favorite pasta shop in Bagnaia with salvia from our garden and a little butter. Then she serves a tender sliced beef with dishes of pepperoni and cipola that have been prepared earlier and are served at room temperature. The cipola are delicious, and I will definitely try to replicate this dish. Everything is tasty.
We finish with cookies from Il Fornaio in Viterbo and coffee, and I can imagine Alberto doing his errands the day before. Lore sends him out and he always knows just what to buy. We are served the wine that we brought and the Sagratino is quite delicious. I never know if we are bringing the correct wine. Alberto is such an expert. But they are always gracious, and meals there are always fun, with plenty to talk about.
I venture forward with stilted conversations in Italian, and even get a kudo from Tonino that he understands what I am saying. So although I know I am butchering the language, I am working on it. Tiziano sits next to me on the banquette, and we laugh to each other when we tell the others that Tiziano is our insegnante, but we mostly laugh during our sessions.
Tonino wants to see Scarzuola, and we agree that we will put together a group of about fifteen, so that we can have a special tour. Otherwise, they won't want to admit a small group. Roy will call this week to set something up before it gets too cold. We revisit our Catholic wedding ceremony held there on January 2nd, 2003 and Tonino cannot wait to see the fantastic creations of the former owner, a famous architect of the '50's named Buzzi.
We arrive home before midnight and Roy goes to bed, but Sofi and I stay up to watch the original version of The Italian Job with Michael Caine. It is still a fun movie. Sofi looks up at me a couple of times wondering if I'll ever go to bed, but we finally do at around 1AM.
October 4
We've decided to drive to see Uncle Harry and Aunt Elaine when we are in California at the end of next month, and I send cousin Cherie an email to see if we can stop there for one night on the way.
But Roy wants to take a photo of the shirts to make sure we have a great turnout of relatives on Thanksgiving, and we get ready to send it to everyone, with a "picture your little ones here" note.
Here's the photo:
So what to do with all the figs?
The easy answer is, "put them up in jars!" So I find a recipe for gingered figs and I think I'll try that one, changing it a little to have our own characteristic signature. Later, later, I am always thinking. They are great eaten fresh off the tree, but what happens later, when we want something tasty and the same old, same old Italian menu gets tiresome? If Roy feels better later this afternoon, he can drive to get some more caps to top our collection of little glass jars. At 5 cents each, that's a small price to pay for little gifts and tasty treats for the two of us.
But both Roy and Sofi are under the weather. Last night, before going to bed, Sofi climbed up on the chair to peer over at our bed and make sure that Roy was all right. I came to bed sometime later, after finishing watching a movie.
Today, after our photo project for the shirts, Roy is lethargic and takes a long nap. Sofi does, too. She has a warm nose, and her eyes look shinier than normal. But I am fine, and after I pick a whole big glass bowl of figs, realize that I can't reach most of them. And now I conjure up things to do with the figs...
Felice comes by, and we walk together to the pomodori garden to discuss the fog in the morning and whether the remaining pomodori will mature. I bring out Livio's handmade basket and we pick the mature ones together. Then I follow him into the cava, where he asks me if we can use Sofi's old wicker bed, which she has outgrown.
He lays the little tomatoes down on the bed gently, filling up one layer. Then he stands it on top of an old plastic barrel, and finds an old small rope mat that fits perfectly on top and closes the opening with a big slice of cardboard, folded over. I think he wants us to check on it daily, but the tomatoes will probably be drying out by themselves. We will see.
I have another new burst of energy, and take out another glass bowl to pick more figs. I find a great recipe for fig jam, so might as well make a lot of it. Roy wakes up and comes downstairs all dressed, and offers to go to the hardware store to get new tops for some little jars.
When he walks out to pay Felice for the month of October, Felice asks him if we want to
work his grape vendemmia with him on Saturday. Si, certo! We may also work on Wednesday for Enzo and Rosita and Tiziano, so may become star workers. We hope so. And Felice makes the best wine in Mugnano, so we look forward to the "spoils". And of course we'd do anything for Felice.
Roy stays awake for the rest of the evening, and after feeding him some melon and prosciutto, we decide to walk up to take a bag or garbage. Pepe and Livio and Giuliola are there standing by the old fountain across from the bus stop, and Pepe asks us if we have heard from ENEL. We have not, and he will call them in the morning to find out why. We are hesitant to ask. We'd rather wait longer for a lower preventivo.
Roy asks Giuliola about our costumes for Friday and Saturday nights, and they will be ready on Thursday. To say that I don't like my costume is an understatement, but if we don't find a better one to borrow from Orte, I will be resigned to be a muslin-draped peasant for our medieval event this weekend. These nights have been really warm and lovely, and I hope that this weekend has more of the same weather.
Last year, it was really cold in Soriano, but we lasted through one night of it. This year, there are two nights, back to back. Groan. Whatever do we get ourselves into? Those of you who know us know that we always volunteer to help our local community. This is The Mountain Play all over again, with cold weather and us dressed for Palm Springs while the fog rolls in....
October 5
We face a sunny morning, and Roy and Sofi take me to Amelia for a session with Alice. Ouch! The muscles behind my right shoulder are very taut. I have not used a heat pack on my shoulder as she has counseled, and really must do that, or the sessions will be for naught. But here's an interesting concept:
Alice tells me to take a box of sale marino grosso (the big chunks of sea salt) and heat them in a dry pan, then put them in a towel surrounded by a pillowcase. Then the salt will conform to any part of my body that is in pain. She thinks it's better than a heating pad.
I have an idea to use one of those cloth greens drying bags. In the states we bought them from Williams-Sonoma, but they are available anywhere. Roy drives to Viterbo to meet with Massimo about our computer problems, and I heat up the salt and put it in a greens bag, then hang it on my shoulder. Gee it is hot. So I take it and hold it away from my back and then close to my back, until I can stand the heat of the bag against my skin.
After awhile, it cools off, and I reheat the salt in the same pot, then repeat the same process. Afterward, I throw out all the salt, but it works wonders.
In the afternoon, I have a burst of energy and rake the long loquat leaves from the gravel on the front terrace. The weather is mild, but not too hot. I walk over to look down at the pomodori, but they do not look much different from yesterday. I hope that some of the Gold Medal pomodori will ripen. I also will attempt to dry some of them, and think that that is what Felice is trying to do in the cava with the ones we picked yesterday.
Tonight, I slice a really delicious wedge of pecorino nero, a juicy apple, and lay the slices on a wooden board. Then I spoon yesterday's fig mixture into a white ramekin and some of Shelly's honey into another. Roy arrives home and we snack on this for cena. He loves the fig mixture, so I will really put the recipe on the web site this week.
October 6
Fog greets us as we roll out of bed. Literally roll. Our mattress sits on top of a 54cm high iron frame that was made for us by Dario DiMauro six years ago. I always wanted a bed high enough that I could see out the window at the view below. And we feel as if we are sitting on a cloud. But it does take a little gymnastic vault on my part to get up onto the bed...
The temperature is mild, and by the time I walk up to Dottoressa to get the prescriptions I forgot to ask for last week, the sun has almost cleared upon the valley below. From a distance on these days, Mugnano appears like Brigadoon, rising out of the fog. All we need is John Scaman standing on the tufa rock behind our house in a kilt to transport us to another time, another place. I think often of our days behind the scenes working at The Mountain Play in Marin County, CA. There were so many plays, so many adventures, so many friends.
We hear on the news that Vioxx has been recalled, as it has caused a number of heart attacks and strokes. It is a good thing that I no longer take it, and this morning Roy throws all the boxes out.
While waiting for Dottoressa, a jolly group ensembles: Marieadeliade, Ennio, Terzo, Escanio, Franca, Rosita, Enzo. The talk is about Enzo, who stands but tells us that his leg is better. He fell after he cut down a tree. Roy tells me he fell on the cut wood. I tell Enzo that when they looked at his cut leg, they found wine instead of blood. Everyone laughs. I think they want to make me feel a part of them, even if they don't think what I say is funny.
Roy and Sofi arrive at the door of the waiting room, and wait for me outside. He checks with Enzo about the vendemmia, because Tiziano called us this morning and told us it would be Thursday or Friday. We can work on Friday, but not tomorrow.
Enzo tells us that the vendemmia depends on whether the little street in the centro storico leading to the tower will be paved. His cantina is on that street, and he cannot do his crush unless he can get to his cantina.
I ask Dottoressa about our flu shots, after hearing that there won't be much vaccine available in the US this year. I think it has something to do with the supplier, who has incorrectly mixed the formula last year. But she is not concerned, and tells us that she will have our shots for us when we return from the U S at the beginning of December.
We see Stefano and Enzo working outside Elena and Valerio's house, but the rest of the street looks the same as it did ten days ago. The vendemmia is very important work for country people, and not being allowed to do the crush is a very big deal. I am sure there is a lot of talk going on at the commune. When we walk home, we see Francesco speeding by us on his way to the Commune in his official car. He is probably taking red hot comments from the villagers to Stefano, the sindaco.
At home, I take an hour and work on the roses on the path. They still thrive, even in October, and I am able to take in about ten beautiful roses after clearing up the plants. In the midst of it all, Ennio and Bastia come by, and I let Sofi off her lead to run over to her little friend for a friendly greeting.
Roy does errands, and returns with some sausage meat to use for pasta. We have not eaten meat for a long time, and I welcome the chance to do something with it with what we have.
Standard fare at pranzo these days includes a green salad. Lattuga Romana (romaine) and rugghetta (arugula) from our orto, thinly sliced cetriolo (cucumber) if we have it, and grated cheese and capers and diced anchovies, all coated lightly with olive oil and vinegar.
I feed Sofi penne from a few days ago, taking it out of the sauce and cutting it in small pieces. Dogs in Italia love pasta, and that is the mainstay of an Italian dog's diet. Sofi gets a bonus of a little plain red sauce to coat hers today. The actual sauce consists of heirloom tomatoes put through a food mill, yellow peppers and sliced shallots.
I take a red onion from our garden, one that has been resting in a braid in the loggia, and thinly slice it, then sauté it in olive oil. The sausage meat is added next, and when it has cooked through I add the pepper and shallot and tomato mixture left from the pasta in the frigo. I add a tablespoon of balsamic vinegar and a pepperoncino and about eight minced salvia (sage) leaves. Just before the pasta is ready to take out of the pot, I add a tablespoon of butter.
We don't eat pasta sauce smothered in a starchy, heavy red sauce. I think that is American fare, and never liked it. I do like to experiment, and think that less sauce is more when it comes to coating pasta. Americans seem to like the dish to taste more like a stew, with the long noodles dredged in lots of sauce. And I recently learned that if one makes a sauce with olive oil to drizzle a little on the plate before serving it. And the same apples to butter. Although today I mix that advice up and add a little butter. before serving the pasta with freshly grated cheese on top.
I can't wait to get upstairs to sit near the open window facing the valley and write. I love the sounds, whether it is Roy walking down below on the gravel to his little workshop, a lone car driving up to the village, birds in the loquat and caki tree on the terrace, or a tractor in the field.
After awhile of writing, with Sofi making little sleeping noises in the chair behind me, she bolts out of the chair with a shrill bark and looks up at me as if to say, "Let's GO! Someone is coming in the gate!" It is Felice, and I am not ready to stop writing, so I tell her to go but she does not want to move without me. She barks and barks, and rushes down the stairs while Roy exclaims at the foot of the staircase, "Mamma Mia! What a racket!"
Felice comes to work on the land for about an hour, and in that time does some weeding. But Roy goes out to see him and they work on the cherry tree together, and then the old olive trees, opening up more space so sun can come through. These days, every bit of sun is important.
I tell him I want to dry figs, and Roy gets out an old screen as well as a shelf from one of the bakers' rack shelving we use backstage. We put the rack on top of the marble table, then the figs, then the window screen on top. Felice thinks we can put the figs right on top of the screen. He does not think birds will get to them.
So when he leaves, Roy and I pick about twenty figs. The rest are too high up in the tree to reach easily. We'll see for the next week or so what happens to these figs. Another simple project to do with the things already existing on our land.
While Felice was still here, we brought out the bags of broccoli and agretti, and confirmed that we will plant the seeds at the end of this month, in the space where the pepperoni were planted earlier in the summer. Roy has a cover worked out so that we can grow things there during the winter.
We are starting to watch some Italian language TV. The velocity of the speech is beyond our comprehension, but we start to understand why our various Italian teachers have told us not to worry about understanding every word. We should follow along to get the gist of a sentence. That is getting easier. I remember back to the first year of going to church and not understanding a single word. We are much further along than that. But I cannot dream of taking more lessons at this point.
Tomorrow we will go to a hospital in Terni so that I can get a mammography. That will be an experience. I am sure that I will have an opportunity to try my feeble Italian out on strangers, and we'll see how far I can get.
The wind whips up quickly and before we know it we are closing the windows and hunkering down before the TV. Soon it will be warm enough for a fire, and soon our firewood will be delivered. Then a whole new chapter of our lives will begin...another Fall and winter in Mugnano.
October 7
Every morning the fog continues and it is cool, but by eleven AM or so the fog clears and the sun is bright. This morning we drive to Terni to the hospital there. I have an appointment for a mammography. Have not had one for almost three years. But all seems to be well. Yesterday I received an email from a friend with the request to click on the following site each day: http://www.thebreastcancersite.com/home
and click on the "free mammograms" button.
Put this site in your favorites in your browser and click on it every day, at least in October, to help get mammographies for underprivileged women in the U S.
We spend the morning in Terni, between visits to the auto dealership and the hospital, but it is good to be at home in the afternoon. Across the street, Marino is clearing the land with his tiny backhoe, and Pia arrives to watch. The little building is torn down, so they must be ready to start to build. We hope it is a sweet little house...
Livio comes by to drop off our costumes for tomorrow night, and Tiziano calls to tell us that his father's vendemmia starts at 8AM tomorrow. Roy calls Duccio to tell him that we will be working for the next few days picking grapes, and he tries to think of the term to call us...Ah, yes. Migrant workers. So we'll pick all day tomorrow, then volunteer until late tomorrow night at the festa in Soriano as poor vegetable vendors. Then on Saturday we'll be migrant workers again for dear Felice to help him with his grapes and volunteer again Saturday night.
By the time Sunday rolls around, we'll be walking wounded. But then again, Tia calls to tell us there will be an antique car show in Amelia this weekend, and Roy would love to see that. But more importantly, she calls to say they have a new female Brittany Spaniel puppy, to go along with Charlie, the one they picked up last week. This little puppy is only 6 weeks old and has not had her shots yet. The Italians are known to get dogs this way, and although it's not a good idea, she wants this puppy and will take good care of her. When she has had her shots, Sofi will surely want to visit. But not until then.
October 8
This morning, we drive with Sofi to our first Mugnano Vendemmia at Enzo and Rosita and Tiziano's land. Tiziano is off at work digging at an archeological site in Amelia. We know that he does not much like this work anyway, so is probably glad to have to leave early.
We start behind the house, and Sofi stays near us, but in about ten minutes she is covered by birrs and brambles. I did not want to leave her at home, but realize this was a mistake. Tomorrow she will stay at home and I am sure will be relieved.
For months I have been calling Tiziano's grandfather, Gino. His name is Tito. So there is just one Gino in the village, who is 96. Tito is a spry 92. Valerio is here, but Rosita stays in the house until we finish the vines in back and move to the front of the house. She tells me that she loves the vendemmia, and picks just enough before she has to go into the kitchen to prepare pranzo for us all.
The work is not hard, but it is messy. Roy and I each have our cutters, called forbice, and I am wearing my rose gloves. I know that it is warm, but I am better protected with these. All the while, I look out for Sofi.
When we finish the vines in front of the house, Rosita leads us down the strada Bianca toward our house to another area of land. While working there, Enzo and Valerio spend most of their time on the tractor, bringing big plastic buckets up to his cantina in the centro storico. Tito and Roy and I plug away slowly and surely.
I look up and Sofi is nowhere to be found. But Valerio returns and spots her scurrying down the street toward our house. I run over to the bank and call out to her, and she turns around and stops. But her expression tells it all..."Don't you want to go home...NOW?"
Poor Sofi. We call her back and she spends the rest of the time lying by Tito's feet as he clips away at the grapes.
We are really tired by the time 1:30 rolls around, and Tito and I drag ourselves to Enzo and Rosita's house slowly at the back of the pack.
Later, sitting under the trees next to the pink house, I describe to our friends about Sofia's reaction to the first time she was scared by Nando's cat. She sounded like a car alarm, "Whoop, whoop, whoop, whoop" Enzo cannot contain himself, he thinks it is so funny. And later he laughs at me again when I tell him about Loredana and Roy and Adolf Hitler with the same birthday. I put my right index finger across and under my nose and stick my other arm out straight to confirm that the name Hitler translates directly into Italian.
When we arrive back at their house, Elena, Valerio's beautiful wife, comes down the stairs stylishly dressed. I truly feel like a migrant farm worker, dirty, no makeup, tired. She kisses me anyway, and we all sit outside for a long pranzo of: antipasti, pasta, salsiche, insalata, torte and plenty of vino. Tiziano arrives just before dessert, and we tell him we have saved one row of grapes for him to pick before he can have pranzo. But he laughs and tells us that he has already eaten.
He sits with us and by now we are so tired that we are having trouble keeping up the conversation. We leave and come home to brush Sofi and rest a little. But we cannot find Sofi's comb, so Roy leaves to find one. I sit with her on the sofa in the cuccina and gently, gently, separate the birrs from her, hair by hair. Her little beard is matted almost beyond hope. But I let her put my finger in her mouth to bite it and instead she gives me a kiss. I am so gentle with her that she is not afraid, and rolls over onto her back and just lies there patiently.
By the time Roy returns almost an hour later, her beard is totally restored and I am making good progress on her stomach. The comb helps, and in less than another hour she is back to normal. But I am SO tired. I climb into bed for an hour, but before I know it I am dressing for tonight and we are leaving Sofi to rest while we become actors in tonight's medieval performance.
Roy's parking karma is in good stead, and we arrive in the square early. We help set up the booths on either side of the street, in front of the barricades and rows of bleachers. Many of Roy's confraternity members are with us, as is Antonio, Francesco and his family, Livio and Giuliola. Antonio gives me the bags of verdura, and I set up my cart with beautiful vegetables and fruit, in Livio's handmade baskets.
We forgot how much we like these two nights, acting as silent actors on a stage that fills the wide main street of the town. The whole event is masterfully staged, with the microphones expertly set up to fill the square.
Tonight we, the poor street merchants of Mugnano, have brought our wares to Soriano, a much bigger town. But in the midst of our mercato, there is a trial of a witch, or strega. Bleachers are set up all along both sides of the street, and our hand crafted wooden stands with wooden wheels are set up in front of barricades that separate the actors from the crowd. We are all in medieval garb.
When it is time for the strega to speak in her own defense, she also sings a beautiful song. She is held by costumed men and tries to get away, but they hold her by ropes attached to her wrists. We think she is the same woman who performed in this role last year. Everyone takes his role seriously.
I am moved by tall Mauro teaching his young son about the strega and the tradition of his family's involvement in this pageant. He kneels down by Salvatore's side, and they are now about the same height. This is Salvatore's first costume, a claret red cloak, with navy tights and navy slipper-shoes, with a triangle detail on the back. His older sister, Erica, wears a rose colored dress and cap, and looks lovely.
So although all the other merchants and people strolling about yell at her and call her names and take vegetables from our carts to throw at her, I stand back, my muslin dress covered on my head and shoulders by a black shawl. My head is down, and I walk behind the others. At the very end, as she is burned at the stake, my hand raises and I cover my mouth with my shawl. Drama. Iolanda would be proud of me.
I have decided that I believe the woman is not a witch, but am the only person who believes her. (As Roy would say, this is my motivation. I recall this the first time he was dressed as a rich merchant for a formal procession in Orte. "What is my motivation?" he asked with a straight face to Alberto, who just snickered.)
Franchesco's sister, wife, daughter are all in costume, as is Francesco, complete with his walking sticks. During the trial and beating of the strega, he holds a huge black cross in front of him, facing her. When she is "burned" at the stake, he raises the cross high in celebration, showing the crowd and dancing with it.
We are silent bit actors, and most of our group throws lettuce and soft vegetables at the strega. Before, our stand was beautifully laid out. But as soon as we learn that the strega is to be on trial, most of the Mugnanese take handfuls of veggies to throw at her. I remain quiet and stoic in the back, watching, as tho I believe she is not a witch.
We walk out in the dark to music and drums, while people in the bleachers surrounding us applaud.
The lights in the town turn completely off while the actress is taken off the stand and instead a fake doll with a wig is hoisted up and the pine boughs around her are set on fire. Strangely, when she is brought in, the wind dies completely down, and it is only after the entire staging that the wind returns. Otherwise, the night is comodo. Coming home Roy tells me it is still 17 degrees, quite comfortable.
October 9
Danilo's wedding takes place at the commune in Bomarzo later today. Today is also the last day for the vendemmia, as rain is expected on Sunday.
I wake up before 3AM for the debate, and later when describing to the people at pranzo that Bush acted like a pit bull, Alessandro, Felice's grandson, compares Kerry to a Labrador Retriever. I like that comparison very much. I learned nothing new upon watching the debate, other than to verify that there are very few undecided voters. So it is up to the voting machines now. If they are all working and the votes are all counted, it will be a fair election. Why do I think that our elections are not any better organized than those of third world countries?
I wake up at 8AM and we quickly shower and get dressed, before saying goodbye to Sofi on the terrace and walking down the hill to Aqua Puzzo, where Felice's land is located. Like Enzo's, the land is not contiguous, but it is quite large. Later Felice tells us that there are several hundred grape plants, none of them new.
We arrive at 9AM, and already seven or eight full barrels of grapes have been picked. He has a crew of about six beside the two of us. Felice's son and grandson put an old hand operated machine over an empty black bucket, and the picked grapes are thrown on top and worked down the chute into the bucket by a hand crank. The operator pushes the grapes and stems through at the same time.
At yesterday's vendemmia for Enzo and Rosita, this work was done in Enzo's cantina. He and Valerio rode on Enzo's tractor to the cantina in the centro storico each time we filled up ten or so big black plastic buckets. They did this more than pick the grapes, looking and acting more like young boys playing cowboys and Indians. laughing the whole day long. Valerio rode sidesaddle, asking Enzo to open the door when they reached the village. Later we all laugh when he recants the story.
Felice's wine is some of the best local wine we have ever had. Perhaps it has something to do with the position of the vines. But Roy confirms with me that Felice spends a lot of time tending the vines during the year, to make sure they are opened up to get the maximum amount of sunlight. Many of his grapes are so full that they hug the vines, wrapping themselves around each other as if to keep warm. The skin of the red grapes is a bright dark blue in color, the skin of the whites a pale yellowy green.
I don't want to compare yesterday's experience to today's. Each is wonderful in it's own way. Today's is more silent, with Felice's happy countenance evident all about. How we treasure this man. Today he is dressed in dark blue cotton pants, a checked shirt, brown wool v-neck patched lovingly repaired on the back by Marsiglia, and a wool cap with a brim, although sometimes the brim is turned backward like a Hip-hop singer. The growth on his beard is always a few days old. He must use Don Johnson's razor.
We finish and tell Felice we'll arrive at his house in 20 minutes. He tells us, "Presto, per che io fami!" (Hurry because I am hungry!) Walking up the hill at around 1:30PM, before pranzo at Felice and Marsiglia's, we look up to see our pomodori turning fall colors. Many of them are still tiny. But I notice that in Felice's very large orto, he has many pomodori that are still green. So the view from the street is nothing to be embarrassed about.
Since Roy clipped most of the leaves off the pomodori plants to open them up to more sun, they seem suspended in mid air, like notes on a music staff. The melody is rich and somewhat salty, bursting with fat notes plunked here and there.
"Piccola? Piccola?" Roy walks in front of me up the long steep hill, and tells me not to call out her name again. She is standing on the ledge just before the front copper pillar caps. He reaches the gate before me, and in a few seconds she is racing down the gravel path at me, her ears out like two leaves of an artichoke. Her tongue finds me first, giving me a big wet kiss while she piddles on the gravel. She emotes a string of high pitched cooing sounds, repeating them so that I know she is telling us that she missed us so and is so happy now that we are home with her.
I am sorry to say that we only stay at home for twenty minutes or so, long enough for me to feed her and for us to change into clean clothes before abandoning her again on the terrace while we walk up to Felice and Marsiglia's house in the centro storico.
This is the first time we have entered their house, up a steep flight of stairs. Pranzo today is for seven of us: Italo, Felice, Marsigliia, their son and grandson. We all sit around a big table in the living room that also serves as a sala di pranzo. Pasta, pollo, carciofe, pane, torte...lots to eat and it is all delicious. We are really tired, and decline coffee, wanting to take a nap before tonight's excitement in Soriano.
We greet a frantic Sofi at home, knowing we have a busy night ahead. So I take a shower and drag myself into bed for an hour or two, and then get up to get dressed and ready for the grand finale of the Soriano Castagno Festa. Roy does the same, while Sofi looks over at me on the sofa as if to say, "You're leaving me alone again, aren't you?"
We leave the house before dark, and it is warm and windy. By the time we arrive in Soriano, which is located very high on a not too distant promontory, the wind is howling. We take our time to get to our destination, by walking through a medieval mercato, and have plenty of time to help get the stands ready before the show begins. We are asked again and again about the festa, about directions, and are able to answer a few. One man starts to ask Roy something but then realizes somehow that he is not Italian and turns to his friend and says so, and then asks someone else.
"Why I NEVER!"
An old man comes up to us with a handmade basket over his arm. In the basket is a beautiful gallina (hen). He asks us about the cheese man, and we tell him that he is not here tonight. His son got married today in Bomarzo. But he sticks around. I think he tells us that his wife sent him to buy cheese. And after he walks over to someone else, I say to Roy, "Did his wife ask for cheese, or do you think the gallina is his wife?" The man strikes a strange figure.
Later, only later, do we realize that this old man is one of the stars of the show. He returns in costume with the gallina in her basket, and has a speaking role, with the spotlight shining on him. The crowd roars and loves him. After he walks off stage, we are told to follow him up over the wooden moat and inside the city gates.
Tonight the show is the annual story of Soriano and its history during a significant time in local medieval history. In the story, told off stage by a man with excellent elocution, a different man is tried by a three man council and then beheaded right in front of us. (The lights are turned off at the final moment and he is taken away bent over in the back of a wooden wagon, with his head obscured by a castagno wooden pole and the grim reaper standing over him.)
It seems that the Orsini family is an important family in the history of Soriano as well as in Bomarzo and Mugnano. After the old man and his gallina speak, and after the beheading, we are led out of town. The drawbridge is then raised, as men enter from nearby Vignanello, and fighting breaks out. There are bonfires, and much fighting with swords and fists. But the men of Soriano save the day by killing off many soldiers from nearby Vignanello. We are brought back out and the "dead bodies" are dragged off and put in another wooden wagon. The crowd roars again, "Bravi! Bravi!" This audience loves blood and gore.
So the story ends happily, with children prancing around with maypoles and us back at our stands trying to make a living. During the beginning of the program, there are processions of drummers and also processions of flag throwers. It is all rather elaborate and impressive, with most of the musicians and flag throwers in the Orsini red and blue costumes.
The whole undertaking is extremely impressive. This whole weekend has been unforgettable. To think that we, two people from California, would be welcomed enough that we are invited to participate in a truly Italian historical recreation is incredibly moving to us. Of all the weekends of the year, this is probably my favorite, with a combination of mild but not too hot weather, vendemmias with two different village families, and bit parts in Soriano theatrical events on two succeeding nights.
October 10
We walk up to church under an overcast sky, and when we arrive, Marieadelaide is just coming out from her house behind the little church. Livio waves down from his stairs and arrives a minute later with the wine and water for the priest, uncovering the plastic drop cloths covering the altar and turning on the lights.
We notice that a few neighbors actually come over to greet us before mass. Marsiglia arrives just before mass without Felice, and tells us that he is busy in his cantina, getting all the grapes ready to ferment for the next week. On Saturday we'll probably go to his cantina to see if we can help.
After mass, we see the women of the church walk around back behind the church and walk up the little alley on the way to Pepe and Serena's house. We ask Tiziano if they are going to a meeting to plan some kind of coup, but he laughs and tells us that there is a little reception for the ladies that Carla is giving. This is the morning after her son Danilo's wedding.
We start to walk down the hill back home, and Serena calls out to me from Carla's balcony, inviting me to come up. Of course Roy comes, too. The little living room is full of women by this time, and once I call in, "Permesso?" Carla welcomes us.
Roy is at home as the solo man in this gathering, where there are sweets galore laid out on a table against the wall, as well tremezzini (finger sandwiches with the crusts cut off), which are so popular in Italy. We try a ginger soft drink, which is quite tasty, and a taste of the sweets, but mostly look at the gifts. We are told by at least one woman to eat, eat now, and then nothing for pranzo. I think it's a little early for all this food.
We are drawn to the sets of glasses, with a label of Miss Sophie, and for the rest of the day refer to our little dog as Miss Sofi.
After a minute or two, we thank Carla, wish her "Auguri" and leave to pick up Sofi and drive to the mercato in Terni.
We arrive in Terni at about noon, and are able to greet Serena, the jewelry seller, who told us about this mercato yesterday. Most of the booths are crafts. A large number sell decoupage items, a craft which has taken on a life of its own in Italia. Some items are better executed than others.
It takes us less than 30 minutes to see the whole show, and are able to get back in the car just before the rain begins with earnest. We make a quick stop at Cibus, a really terrific gourmet food shop with creative breads and pizzas and roast takeout items.
Back at home, after a small pranzo, I am tired and have a dolce fa niente with Sofi until the rain wakes me up and we go downstairs to watch TV and eat pizza and a salad with Roy.
October 11
I wake up with toothache. Roy calls Dottore Chiantini, and we have an appointment on Wednesday in Rome, after meeting with Marielisa near Bracciano.
For the weather, we have rain off and on all day. Felice arrives and we pick tomatoes. Roy is in Viterbo, and so we carry on like a couple of children. I show him the green zebra tomatoes, and try to explain what a zebra is. I do not know the Italian name for zebra, so describe the black and white stripes, and that the animal is like a horse but not so big. He asks me if I am speaking about a muca (cow). Madonna mia! Anyway, we pick a whole basketful of different types of heirlooms, and a few stray san marzanos as well.
The figs we have put out to dry are getting eaten by the vespe, so I pick them up from the table and pick some more figs from the tree. Inside, I slice lemons and make more marmellata picante di figi with fresh ginger and spices. We finish with ten tiny and one large jars. Then I skin and core tomatoes but am too tired to finish. It takes me at least two hours at the sink, just for the tomatoes. Tomorrow we'll cook and put up about six more glass jars. This process never seems to end, but we will be happy to have them this winter.
Roy confirms that Sofi has the only child syndrome. She plays wildly with her toys, throwing them up in the air and catching them herself. In the meantime, Suzanne calls and one of Judith's dogs, Louie, rummaged through Suzanne's handbag and ate a handful of chocolate. Roy gives them the vet info in Amelia and the vet is ready for them when they arrive. Inside the vet gives Louie something and he throws it right up. He's saved for another adventure. Suzanne leaves tomorrow and we'll see her in November in the U.S. Judith will be here for another week, and now knows of a vet nearby in case she has any more adventures with her dogs.
October 12
The morning sky is overcast, and the air feels like a wet blanket.
I am confused by so many Italian words. Perhaps that is why I asked during pranzo at Enzo's on Friday, "Why is there no negotiating in a negozio?, " Negozio is the Italian word for store. It also refers to the act of negotiating. When asked, the Italians tell me that tanti anni fa (many years ago), a store was the place you went to in order to negotiate for something you wanted to buy.
On Saturday, I told Marsiglia that her carciofe (artichokes) were deliziosa. Wrong. Her grandson corrected me to say that that means delightful, but the Italian dictionary agrees with me. So even when I am right I am wrong.
Tonight we'll prepare the tomatoes for more glass jars. When I look down at the pomodori orto, there are still plenty of green ones hanging on the vines, hoping for sun. So we'll still be picking them at then end of October! Next year, next year, Roy tells me we'll plant fewer, and none of the little ones.
We'll be moving the tomatoes up above the lavender garden next spring, to the spot where we planted potatoes in February. Potatoes. We have hardly eaten one since harvesting them, and they sit in lugs in the cava. Let's hope they are still good when we're ready to eat them. Somehow, this planting thing seems overwhelming. "Later, later" we're always saying. Why don't we want to eat them all up when we harvest them and they're at their freshest?
October 13
Marielisa emails us that she thinks she has sold her next door property to an ex-carabinieri from Rome. She welcomes us anyway today to look at it and speak with her about helping her to market it, and Irina is ready to groom Sofi. I love Sofi's casual cut, but Marielisa told us at her party in September that Sofi looks like she is wearing pants. So late this morning she'll be shorn like a sheep and leave there sleek and elegant...
We are ready to go early, and the car starts right up, although it rained quite a bit last night. We stop at Fedora's on the way up the hill in Bomarzo for coffee, and the car is dead as a doornail when we get back into it to drive to Rome. Roy admits that the car may look stylish, but he agrees with the pundits who say that an Alfa Romeo is just a Fiat with a sexy body.
Being Leo's son, Roy surmises that when the truck delivering milk that is parked behind us moves, we can back down the hill, turn the car around and it will start on compression. So the milk truck, facing in the downhill direction, drives off, and we put the car in reverse and coast down after it like the roller coaster at Revere Beach. When we arrive at the intersection, Roy gets out with the door open, turns the wheel hard, and luckily a kind man coming down the hill on foot walks quickly over to help. But whoop! A car pulls right up to the stop sign not looking, and we barely miss its back end.
How about that? Roy maneuvers us into the downhill direction and before we know it the car starts and we are on our way. The speedometer goes crazy, the lights flash, but we are able to keep things going until we arrive at the Alfa/Fiat dealer outside Viterbo. One hour and a new battery later we are good as new, and speeding on our way down the Cassia on the way to Marielisa's, with a new favorite dealership to take the car to be serviced.
We arrive at her house almost on time, and tour around, seeing three rental apartments as well as the property for sale. She also has a wonderful apartment in Rome that she wants to rent near Palazzo Panphili in Trestevre, and we agree to go there with her next week and take photos for our web site. She asks that we help her to market all four places.
We are becoming a jack of all trades for our slowly growing business. We check out Italian rental properties for Americans, scout for houses and apartments to buy, list rental houses and apartments, restore properties, manage and work with local contractors on restorations, design the landscaping and implementation of gardens, design and purchase interior spaces for clients, shop till we drop for various and sundry items to furnish homes or apartments, and pretty much take the bureaucratic angst out of living and enjoying Italy for English speaking folks. It appears that soon we may have our first Italian client, who wants to restore a property in lower Tuscany and put it on the market. Yum.
Sofi looks elegant and slim with her new winter cut and short nails, and we leave Marielisa and drive on down to the dentist in Rome located near Piazza Del Popolo. He is a great guy who studied at Boston University and wants to develop an English-speaking clientele. As soon as he has a web site, we will add a link to him. In the meantime, if anyone needs a great dentist in Rome, just email us and we'll give you the referral.
I have nothing wrong with my tooth, but he gives me a cleaning and Roy as well. So we can cancel our appointments that we made earlier for two weeks from now. Roy is intent on finding another little filing cabinet to work in the bedroom that does not look too functional but works well. So we drive to the EUR section of Rome, that ugly city within a city designed by Mussolini as a city of the future. It looks like lots of cement to me....
We find the store we are looking for, but have to park on a corner, and Sofi and I wait in the car while Roy checks out the store. While he is gone, a big truck tries to drive by and turns the corner right where we are parked. It is millimeters away, and almost clears us. Sofi and I are sitting inside with our mouths open. But before I can reach for the keys to turn the ignition on and open the window and pull in the rear view mirror on the driver's side, the truck starts it left turn and knocks the mirror right off it's mooring. Yikes!
Luckily, the truck does not get far. On these narrow Roman streets, it is difficult to make much headway. Right in front of him is another truck, parked for delivery. Two people stand outside a bar across the street and stare silently at our damaged car, and at me. I get out a pad and paper and write down the license plate, then see Roy sauntering down the street toward us.
"Hurry, hurry!" I motion with my right hand, Italian style, and he speeds up like an accelerating Cuisinart. I point to the mirror, then to the truck, and hand him the paper and pen. He runs over, motions a lot with his hands, and comes back with a business card and information on how to contact Fabio's trucking company to pay for the damage. The driver is so new that the manager does not even know his last name.
We drive to another office supply store, a bigger one this time, and find some packing tape that we use to tape the mirror to the side of the driver's door. Now we look like we are driving a real Italian car. Roy tells me that when parking on a narrow street, Italians often fold their mirrors in, to avoid situations just like these. Another good tip for stranieri to file away.
We wind up driving back by way of IKEA, and find a simple cabinet there that matches the one we bought a month or so ago. And then we stop at Autogrill on the way back up the A-1 for a plate of pasta.
At home, Roy can't wait to put the cabinet together, but Sofi and I try to rest because in a few hours we'll get up to watch the last debate on TV.
That reminds me. While in the dentist chair, Dr. Chiantini and I carry on a conversation about George Bush. Much as I love to talk about him, the kind doctor almost has to push me back down a few times when I want to give my opinion. It is very difficult to carry on a conversation with dental implements whirring around in a person's mouth.
I do get off a comment that Bush thought that the war in Iraq would finish with the Iraqi people acting like the Italians did after we conquered them in 1944, welcoming us with arms outstretched. He likes that. Whatever was Bush thinking? Why did he not have a plan on how to deal with Iraq after we conquered them? Isn't that 101 in War planning? What did he think the Iraqis would do...sit on their hands until we figured out what to do? And now, the Iraqi police and army that we train go into battle and more times than not, defect to the other side.
Of course they need security. Then why did we just fire all the police and have to hire them all over again? I could go on and on, but if he did not have a plan to make Iraq safe, what kind of a plan does he have for homeland security? What is he doing to secure our ports? Our planes? Why don't the cargo holds of planes get searched? Why don't vessels coming into U.S. ports get searched? What is the PLAN? Don't get me started. Oh. Sorry. My engine seems to start all by itself...
October 14
I get up for the debate before 3AM, and stay up until almost 6AM, then get back up a little over an hour later to go to Soriano for a blood test. I bring a little jar of urine to be tested, and one of the men in the lab coats asks me if I have brought him a gift of olive oil. Those guys are characters, and their attempts at English are pretty funny. Now I know how stupid I sound when I talk about dates and times and mix them all up. I am hopeful that every time I speak I get just a tiny bit better.
Alice advises me to read out loud in Italian, and that makes a lot of sense. Later in the day Roy has me translate a letter back to English out loud, and even that helps.
After we finish in Soriano, we drive to Attigliano to the weekly mercato and pick up some fresh persico, to bake with olives and fresh tomatoes later in the day. Much later. We will have a bigger meal tonight, because it is all I can do to fall into bed for several hours.
I am watching a segment of ER while the rain comes down in torrents. We never watched ER when we lived in the U S, so all these old programs are new to us now.
The fish is a big hit. The dish consists of thinly sliced potatoes, pitted green olives, fresh San Marzano tomatoes that have been skinned, cored and seeded, fillets of Persico (perch) garlic, olive oil, anchovies mashed and sautéed to a fine pulp, and olive oil. The recipe will go on the site soon. We have enough for another meal.
Sofi is full of pep, and does a race with one of her soft toys, dragging it in and out of the house, across the gravel and back again, as fast as her tiny legs can run.
October 15
Karina arrives for a short visit for one night, before Alice arrives, also for a one-night visit. With a little house, this creates a lot of excitement. We have not seen Karina for months, and when she and Sofi and I take a walk around the loop, the neighbors like seeing her again. It is after 5PM, and everyone is out on the street. At this time of day, everyone wants to walk, if only to get the latest news of the village.
Felice arrives to check out the garden and is delighted to see his old friend again. We hear later that Felice told Karina when she lived here that he must call her Signora Karina. The word carina means "dear" and it would not be proper to call a single woman "dear". That reminds me of the time our dear friends Donna and Phillip arrived. When introduced to Felice, he was very confused to be introduced to donna Donna. The word "donna" means woman. He could not understand why a parent would name their child "woman".
There is a lot to talk about with Karina, and we love catching up. In the middle of our visit, Shelly calls for Karina, and Roy asks her if they need help picking their olives. Yes they do, and next weekend will be the time they will begin. So we will have a busy weekend, and will pick both days, probably both in the morning and the afternoon. I like the idea of picking olives when the weather is not freezing, as it has been when we pick for Tia and Bruce.
Photos arrive from Angie and Terence of the babies, and they surely are cute. Look on the photos blog for their latest pictures. We look forward to meeting them next month and to getting to know them.
October 16
Peter, Karina's brother, arrives on the train from Rome, and Roy takes them both to the Technocasa in Giove to see if they can find a little place to live in Attigliano. It appears that Karina's house in Mugnano has finally been sold. I call it Karina's house, because she still thinks of it as her house until she has been fully paid by Karen. Hopefully that will happen on Saturday, when the house is sold to another party. Right now, there is a little bidding war for the property, with two hopeful buyers offering cash.
Roy and Sofi and I drive to NonnaPappa for pranzo to meet Tia and Bruce and little Gioia (pronounced joy-ah). She is seven weeks young and had her shots this am. We hope this will be the start of a wonderful friendship between Gioia and Sofi. Tia and Bruce also bring Charlie, their two year old rescue dog who we have not met. He is also a Brittany Spaniel and very sweet.
There are only two other couples in the restaurant when we arrive, and that is a good thing. For before we are through, Sofi has found her way over to the two tables and I find myself apologizing to them for out little dog, who noses around under their tables, looking for food. One woman tells Roy she is afraid of dogs. Tia brings a soft bed and toys to our table for Gioia, who is really cute, but at seven weeks her body is almost as big as Sofi's.
The jury is out regarding the two female dogs, but Charlie is obviously enamored with Sofi. Sofi likes him, too. Charlie spends most of pranzo in the car, but before dessert, when the other couples have left, we let him come inside the restaurant.
Now I know this all sounds very strange. But at this restaurant, Fidelia, who is the chef and owner, her father and mother and sister all love dogs. So they welcome the dogs, and their little daughter, Carlota, brings over a big water dish for them all. She sits with the dogs between Tia and I and is very good with them, giving each female attention. I don't think Sofi is jealous, but she doesn't seem to understand the little one's behavior.
We leave after agreeing to come to Tia and Bruce's in a couple of days, and drive home to meet a house guest and friend of Linda Sartorio's named Alice. We arrive home, Roy drives out after 5 to pick up groceries, and Alice arrives while he is gone. When Alice arrives, I am watching the end of the movie The Jackal with Bruce Willis and Richard Gere, and we agree that I should call Roy to tell him, "The eagle has landed!"
Alice brings wonderful pecorino cheese, a marmelata and an excellent bottle of red wine. So I cut up an apple and add a few salsa picantes of our own and we have a wonderful time hearing about her adventures taking Italian lessons all over Tuscany. We all enjoy sampling the cheese and salsas and drinking the wine, while Roy and I prepare the lentils and sausage.
While we are talking the phone rings, and it is Shelly, looking for Karina. Karen has agreed to sell her house to a Norwegian diplomat, and one of the conditions is that all of the things that have been stored there by Peter and Karina are taken out before Saturday. Roy is given the mission to call them both and does so, repeating each time, "Don't shoot the messenger!"
We eat lentils and salsiche and a green salad and chocolate cake and drink plenty of our local red wine and before we know it it is time for bed.
October 17
We leave for church thinking that everything is fine, locking the front gate and walking up the street. Before we know it, Sofi races up the street right in front of us! Roy takes her back to her little prison on the terrace and realizes that the side gate was not totally closed and she pushed it open, then raced down to the parcheggio, sliding her sausage shape of a body through one of the iron circles placed low on the cancello and racing up the street to find us. Roy closes the gate tightly and meets me on the way up the hill. Was it just yesterday that I concluded that she could not fit her little body through those circles in the cancello?
The centro storico looks wonderful. There are no cars, and barricades are up, but the ground is just dirt, making the village look very old, which it is. The fogna (sewer) will be connected soon to all the houses, and an antique pavement will be installed. We think will be a spina di pesce (spine of the fish, or herringbone) design.
Inside the church, Lore seems impatient with the work being done on the plaza. Their house next door to them is also slowly being completed, but they have lots of time to finish. Tomorrow the window sills will be installed and the windows themselves soon after that. It is a wonderful house, and everything will be tastefully done. Perhaps they will keep it for visitors to use. Or perhaps they will rent it out. But for now, it is a big project for them. She seems anxious to return to Rome.
As we leave the church, I take Leondina's arm and help her down the front steps, then think we should walk her home. When we get to the street that descends from the centro storico, we see a blue car attempting to drive up into the village, but someone tells them to turn around. Roy speaks to them for a moment while Leondina and I walk down the hill, and he tells us that the couple is English. He thinks they are visiting someone in Mugnano.
We leave Leondina at her door, telling her we cannot come in for coffee today, for we have ospite (a guest) waiting at our house. As we walk home, the English couple has parked and are now out of their cars, looking around. We invite them to come to our house for coffee. Their names are Jock and Jane.
After coffee and a tour, we agree to meet again. They will close on their house in a week, and will be moving in today and tomorrow. Their house is near Diego's, and we look forward to getting to know them.
Roy gives Alice ideas on the best route to take to her next stop, and we all wish her well and say goodbye. She will travel around southern Tuscany before starting a new language course in Firenze on Sunday. Then Roy spends some time working on the roses on the side path, installing another line of wire to train them up and over the side wall of the parcheggio. I get ready for pranzo as I watch the changing skyline. Today is a bright clear day, with just a few clouds in the sky, and the temperature is mild enough that we can spend time outside in shirt sleeves.
October 18
Today is mostly overcast, but it does not matter. The sheets dry on the rack on the terrace, and I am able to take them in smelling sweet and fresh. I iron the cases and the top sheet because of the embroidery, and when I do so, the fragrance reaches my nose and I am off to dreamland. In the U S, we always had a dryer, so this is new for us. I think the sheets and towels last longer, but the towels are not soft and fluffy. It is a small inconvenience, that we forget after we've used a towel the first time.
We are thinking of making some changes to the web site. I want to have a general home page, and to encourage people to contact us through the site. My latest idea is to publish a booklist of suggested reading about Italians, and about life in Italy. We will encourage reviews and additions from people who read our site, and later will publish some of the reviews. Perhaps we will even have a scoring system to rate the books.
I finally speak with Tiziana, and my violin lessons will begin again next week. She has a big contract to teach in Spoleto now, in addition to Orte, and her business is really taking off. She is a fine musician as well as a good friend and wonderful teacher. I look forward to playing again, now that my shoulder is a little better.
Felice comes by, and tells Roy that he will have 1,200 liters of wine from his vendemmia! How wonderful. His wine is always delicious. Roy asks him if he needs help but he does not. He tells Roy that the grapes are sleeping until November 11th, the feast day of San Martino di Tours. On that day, everyone has his first taste of this year's harvest. We will surely be around for that.
We walk up to the village at 6PM to see what has been done on the street project, and Mario, Ernesta's husband, asks Roy if he is doing a "controllo", or making sure that the work is done correctly. We laugh and realize that we are never in the centro storico at this time of day. But it is the best time of day, because everyone is out, talking and walking. Sofi loves sniffing around, and this time ignores Brik, who she regards as a dirty old dog. She wants nothing to do with him and snubs him.
We walk home to a fire and hot homemade bread with yesterday's lentils and sausage. With a glass of local red wine, we are settled in for another night in this our little paradise.
October 19
We spend a quiet day today, with a visit to Alice, and then the rest of the day at home. We beat ourselves up by watching FOX on the TV, but there is not much U S news other than on Fox. I am fascinated by the election, and cannot fathom that elections are better run in third world countries. But they are. We've had four years to figure out what's wrong. But it seems that the position of Secretary of State is a very powerful position, and that person seems to have control over how the elections are run in a particular state. Bush seems to be getting ready to slide into home base, sadly.
Outside, we pick more greens for salad, and it is time to plant some more plants. This time, Roy will build a cover to protect the lettuce and arugula from the frost. We have been having a small fire in the fireplace each night, and welcome the cool nights and mornings.
I mix yesterday's homemade tomato soup with a container of minestrone that has been in the freezer, and the combination is delicious. I think we'll have many uses for the tomatoes as the winter progresses.
That reminds me. The cachi (persimmon) tree in the lavender garden has fruit that is quickly ripening. The bees are all abuzz. So I'll make a steamed pudding soon. It seems very early for persimmons to ripen. I wonder if we'll have a wet and cold winter. It seems so.
October 20
We walk up to see dottoressa in the village, but she is not there. Pepe the elder tells us something about her being in the country when we see him at the bottom of the hill, but we don't know what he means. Roy calls her on his cell phone, and she tells Roy she is at Leondina's, so we walk down the hill and her door is open.
"Permesso?" "Si!" Leondina sits at the tiny table inside her kitchen with a blood pressure monitor on her arm as if she is waiting for it to bake and the kitchen timer to go off. In the meantime, Serena is there chatting and dottoressa is standing up, while drinking a cup of coffee.
We ask dottoressa if she is hiding from Ida and Ennio, but she is not. There is such a mess in the village with the pavement all broken up that she seems to have her Wednesday visiting period here today.
She checks out my blood test results, and everything is ok. But she wants to give us our flu shots on November 3rd. She definitely wants us to have them before we go to the U S. It appears that there is no shortage of vaccine in Italia. And it is free! Brava!
Karina calls us while we are walking home, and is in town for a few hours from Rome but needs a ride to the train station in Attigliano. So much is going on in her life. It appears that she and Peter and Annie want to buy Karina's house back from Karen. But Karen is arriving today from California and has verbally accepted a cash offer from some minister from Norway.
We hear that that deal may not go through, so Karina may have her house back after all. Someone will have an appointment with the notaio in Viterbo on Saturday. Until the papers are signed and money changes hands, we have no idea who will take over the house. Anything is possible.
Shelly calls and speaks with Roy to tell me that she will be putting up quince jam tomorrow. I don't think I'll join her. There is too much going on between Claudio having some reaction to his new medicine and Karen's deal. Both Catharine and Shelly have brought possible buyers to the table, meaning that depending on whose deal is accepted, one or both of them will be entitled to some money from the deal. That's the way it goes in Italia. I think it's best to stay as far away from this group as possible until everything is sorted out.
I pick a basketful of pomodori when Sofi and I are in the garden in the afternoon. Those tomatoes will not stop growing! The Juane Flame and Gold Medal and even the Black French Tula must like the climate here. I don't think these latest ones are as good as those ripening in August. They seem to have a higher water content. So I core and peel them and put them through the food mill. Then we bottle and freeze several liter bottles of it for use in soup or sugo or whatever.
Tosca emails us statistics including the latest presidential polls. It will be interesting to see how close they come on election night. I plan to spend the night on the couch in front of the TV. Being 6 hours ahead of the east coast, we're sure we'll be well into the morning before any real results are evident...if then. Our choices on TV are CNN International or FOX. Not much of a choice.
Judith calls and there is a flurry of activity here, as she is expecting a fax to come in here. When it arrives, she wants to come and pick it up but cannot find her keys. After 10PM she finds them, and drives on over while we are watching Suddenly Last Summer with Montgomery Clift, Liz Taylor and Katherine Hepburn. In the meantime, Roy sees Mila, Tiziano's dog, in the village when he walks up to take the garbage. So he calls Tiziano to let him know. That is why there has been so much barking tonight. And to think the moon is only half full. What a strange day and night we have had!
October 21
The day begins with a thick fog. Late in the morning there is a strong wind from the west, and it seems to blow the fog away, giving us a summer-warm afternoon. Judith gave us some onions and eggplants last night, because she leaves for the U S on Friday. So I attempt Lore's onion recipe by first boiling the onions in their skins and then letting them cool.
While I'm doing that, I skin all the eggplants, cut them in smalls chunks and put them in salted water for an hour or two. The latest advice from Italian experts is not to salt them and put a plate over them to sweat, but to put them in salted water to take the bitterness out, then dry them on paper towels.
So I make a kind of a pasta sauce with olive oil, slices of garlic that I remove when they're golden, and then the eggplant. After it has cooked for awhile, I put a whole bottle of yesterday's heirloom tomato mixture and let it cook down for awhile.
We have some of it with pranzo, and will save the rest to make a pasta sauce for later. I then finish the onion recipe, but although the onions look and taste great, they do not have the caramelized top that Lore's did, so I'll ask her.
We do the pranzo dishes, and it is so warm that I ask Roy if he wants to take a walk. Earlier in the day, I heard a tractor and a chain saw down in the valley, and thought I saw the tractor near the beautiful trees at the Rio's edge. I want to see if we can see where the trees have fallen, and if these are the trees that will be the firewood we have ordered. If so, they will be very green.
We don't see the logs, but see some logs down by the Rio. Then we walk up toward Karina's old house, and the gate is open. Kees and Catherine and Karen are there, and we stop in to say hello.
Karen asks me if I want to look at the bedding, and she generously gives us two down comforters and a bedspread and shams for our bed. I ask her how she is doing and she tells me that she is very stressed about the house deal. She has made a deal with a Norwegian man, but no money has changed hands. Last night, Karina called her to tell her that she could come up with the cash to buy the house back.
I try to be objective, but it is hard to do. I want to find a way to help everyone involved. So because I know the details, I tell her the story of how Karina found a way to come up with the cash. Before we leave, I ask Karen if I have made it any easier. No, I have made it more complicated. Roy tells me that that is a good thing.
Several hours later, Karina calls, and she has spoken with Karen. Karen and her husband have told Karina that if she can come up with the cash before the meeting with the notaio on Saturday, that she can have the house. Now Karina needs advice on how to get the money out of all the banks on time. That means tomorrow. The banks are closed on Saturday.
We give her Paola Berlinghetti's phone number in Todi. Paola is a very experienced person when it comes to real estate transactions. So we wait for an answer. In the meantime, I fill Roy in. We plan to go to Florence tomorrow, so Karina can call us if she needs us...
Earlier in the evening, I clip some more lavender. When we first planted our lavender, they seemed easier to clip and keep round. Perhaps I am just forgetting. But they don't want to behave, and their centers are open, the branches drooping. Perhaps if we get some more sun in the next few weeks I can clip them into submission without cutting back to their wood.
October 22
I can hardly believe that today is Friday. The days all seem to collide. Unless we have an imaginary marker to identify the day of the week, like an appointment with Alice or a violin lesson, we are not sure what the day is.
Today we are up while it is still dark, and leave as the sun is just beginning to peek its head over the horizon. We are at the Orte train station and Roy's parking karma gets him the last space in the regular lot in front of the station.
Inside, we have a quick coffee and then walk down and over and up to the third track to wait for the Florence Train. We watch station men gabbing with each other while jumping off the platform and crossing the tracks. And just before another train leaves, a couple rushes across the tracks just before the door of the train closes. This is so dangerous.
I remember when the Attigliano train station had a wooden ramp, so that people could walk across the tracks to the other side, instead of taking the stairs down and under and up again. About a year or two after we first started coming to Italy, they pulled up the wooden ramp, making it very difficult for people to cross over the tracks. I don't know if I'd ever do that. I remember too many Southern Pacific accidents with its commuter trains to the San Francisco Peninsula.
We think we bought tickets for the express train to Firenze (Florence), which takes two hours instead of the regular three. But when the conductor comes along, he chastises Roy and makes him pay €20 extra. On the way back, we stop at the station and buy the supplement there, saving us €8.
The ride is sweet, the seats are comfortable, and Sofi is able to sleep in my lap. We arrive and decide to start at the Basilica of Santa Croce. Beyond the sacristy of the Basilica is an old dormitory that once housed Franciscan friars. Today this dormitory serves as the Scuola del Cuoio, or School of Leather, where we are invited to watch as artisans demonstrate their exceptional skills of cutting, crafting, and gilding leather with 22 carat gold. We find a really beautiful wallet here for Terence, and watch while it is embossed with his initials.
The School was founded after World War II by the friars of the Monastery of Santa Croce and the Gori and Casini families, These two families were Florentine leather artists and the school was started to give war orphans an opportunity to learn a trade. The techniques of ancient leather working were taught so well that clients have been buying the school's finished goods since the 1950s, with no end in sight. We highly recommend this shop as a place to buy leather goods. It is not the cheapest, but the quality is exceptional, and if buying a wallet, the person's initials can be embossed for no extra charge.
It turns out to be a gorgeous day, not too hot, and so we take a leisurely walk across town, stopping for coffee at Piazza Santa Croce, near the shop where we bought our carved wooden kitchen chandelier. Inside, we meet Karin Whalen and her husband Bart from Portland. Bart talks with Roy and tells him that his wife is a tour leader who comes to Italy every year, and this year he decided to join her.
She asks Roy why we decided to move to Italy, and he responds, "Why do you come back each year?" She works at Reed College as an art historian, and probably is a neighbor of Donna and Phillip.
We walk down a side street and a few minutes later Roy hears someone calling out to him. It is Karin, acting as a pied piper in front of a group of travelers. What fun to meet new friends and then see them again!
We nose around shops, pick up a couple of calendars, and before we know it we are in Piazza San Lorenzo. Now most people know this Piazza as the spot to buy leather coats and belts and hats, and also scarves and other goodies to take home.
But the real star of the piazza is the San Lorenzo Market, two stories of an out of this world food emporium that sells everything from fresh Porcini mushrooms to dried herbs to fresh fish...But there is not a place to eat.
We walk around it for a while, and the place is definitely eye candy. And it makes us hungry.
So we walk back toward the train station, thinking we'll get the 2-something train back, and find Café Rose, surrounded by tall boxwood hedges, and a touristy-friendly waiter, who acts as though he's had too much coffee this morning. He offers Sofi a big steak. Instead, she settles for a little tin dish of water. Later, a woman from inside comes out with a piece of ham, which Sofi inhales so quickly I wonder if I have imagined it.
Roy eats pasta and I eat a salad, and we walk some more before heading to the train station. Sofi is not able to go into the churches, and sentries stand at the doors, so we decide we'll just enjoy the walking around today, and perhaps come back some day on our own. It is so easy to just pop up on a train for half a day's adventure.
While we're walking around, a man beckons us over, and tells us that he has two basottos, one of which he purchased from Marielisa! He is restoring a small hotel on a side street near the station, and tells us that there will be a special room for Basottos in his little hotel. He has one or two others, in Rome, and I ask him if there will be a special room there, too. He tells us that if someone stays with a basotto the dog will have to stay at his house. He clearly loves these dogs.
But what is funny, is that he also owns what he calls a storage building on the highway just north of Attigliano. We realize that it is a very very old stone building that at one time had a picture of a jet airplane on one side. We thought that meant that Roberto Vittori (Italy's only astrounaut who went into space with the Russians) trained there. Roberto's father lives at the corner of the road that leads to Mugnano. We'd surely love to see inside. Howard tells us that it is made of stone, but there are no columns inside. Very interesting.
We receive a text message that Karina has given up on buying her house back. Karen has not given her enough time to have her funds transferred. It is as if a giant blimp has been deflated, and we are sad for her. But when we get home, we find eight messages from Annie and she wants to come to see us tomorrow. Of course.
Legna and legno are two words I mix up. But today I understand, and think I can separate them in my mind. Legno is wood to build with legna is firewood. After picking up the car at the train station, Roy wants to drive to a yard outside Soriano where he thinks we can buy firewood for this year. The firewood (legna) from our local association is not yet ready, and Pepe confirms that it will be green, or not yet ready to burn.
The place is neatly organized, but we see nothing but castagno (chestnut). Roy asks him for firewood in small pieces, and he shows Roy a pile in the distance, that he can not get to for about ten days. It will be €80 for the amount Roy thinks we'll need. He tells Roy to come back a week from Monday. But what about castagno to burn in the fireplace? We will have to find out this next week.
It is good to be home, as much as we enjoy the sights and the smells and the excitement of Florence. Our little house and plot of land look so good to us. Roy calls Shelly and the olive oil picking will take place on Sunday. So we have tomorrow to play around the house. And I'll dust off the violin, set up a stand and start to play again.
October 23
We wake up to a thick fog as birds send messages to each other in the trees outside our bedroom window. They certainly have a lot to say. I can pick up a conversation with two tiny ones, but of course have no idea what they're chirping about.
Yesterday we received emails from Chris and Helena, a couple from England who found us on the internet through our web site. They want to move to Northern Lazio, and we hope we can help them.
Roy wants to research firewood, and the internet comes up with what he needs. No, we should not buy castagno for firewood. And definitely not use poplar. I think I see the poplar trees near the river being cut down. So if those are what the locals will be sold, no thanks.
Roy tells me that Kees told him there is a place in Giove for legna. So while I am working on the cataloguing of Italian books for our web site, he drives off armed with better knowledge of what we are looking for.
Annie calls, sad and angry about the house deal that fell through, and asks if she and Pete can come today for a visit. Of course, they can. Pete has come to Attigliano to see if he and Karina can rent a place across from the train station to store things now in the Mugnano house. But Annie is afraid to drive in the fog. I tell her that the sun is trying to come out here, but at noontime there is still a thick cover overhead. Perhaps today will not clear after all. If it does not clear tomorrow, we probably won't pick olives then either.
The house is full of books, in stacks in three rooms. While I'm cataloguing we've decided to resort them, so this is a good day to do this. I expect it to take days to finish my list. I love books; especially those with hard covers. I think of reading as a delicious escape, and love the feel of a solid book in my hands. Although I love to read at night before going to sleep, I can't often recall what I've read the next day.
Karina arrives for a surprise visit and stays for the night. It's always like a pajama party when Karina stays over. She is so much fun and so relaxed. She even watches Roy's TV programs with him. But she is stressed by Karen and Mike's nonpayment of the significant money they still owe her. She must wait until Monday and meet them at the bank in Rome. We are so sorry that this worked out so badly for Karina. She certainly did not deserve to be treated so badly by Karen and Mike. But if she is paid back the money she is owed on Monday, she can look back at a big lesson learned. Speriamo, big time.
Just before going to bed, I check email messages and here's what I opened up...What fun! Sean Patrick's baptism must have been last Sunday. We look forward to giving all these cute babies and young girls and boys big hugs and kisses next month.
October 24
The fog lasts until l'una, and by that time we are back from church and Karina and Roy have walked up to the village. Karina needs to see if there is a magazino for rent anywhere close by in the event the rental place in Attigliano falls apart before next Saturday. For Karina, there is so much to think about. But she tries to keep calm, only thinking that tomorrow she must meet with Mike and Karen at the bank and hope she can retrieve the money they owe her before they return to the United States.
We have such wonderful neighbors. When they began their walk, Pepe and his father and Fulvia were on the street, and before they were through Pepe the Senior came up with a place for her to have for free for a few months, right across from Ernesta's Tabbacchi. He takes them up and cannot find the key, so they walk to Pepe the Younger and it takes until Pepe comes home and picks the correct key right off the wall to be able to get inside. Karina calls Sasha to see if she can hire his truck and two workers for next Saturday and Sunday, and things begin to settle down.
While working on finding a magazzino, Karina and Roy learn that at one time Mugnano was far larger than Bomarzo, with eight hundred people jammed into this treasure of a village, which was then a real town. Church friars lived in Pepe's house, and there were two churches busy full time. Perhaps little San Rocco was busy then, too. Eight hundred people. How amazing. But then Fulvia reminds them that on the historical map in the Vatican, Mugnano is listed, but Bomarzo is not. When did the tides turn?
I can just hear the cacophony of eight hundred people milling about on this tufa hill, living with pigs and chickens and who knows what else. Today, the birds are everywhere, and the weekenders from Rome are enjoying the beautiful weather. Pepe tells Roy and Kari that there is wild senape (a mustard grass) growing between our land and Pepe's garage. So he suggests we cook it with garlic, olive oil and vinegar. Roy picks a big bunch, and I prepare it for pranzo, with a frittata of potatoes and shallots and chives and a green salad with olive bread.
By the time we sit down for pranzo, the sky is so clear that it seems more like spring. When we are through, I return to my book project and Karina and Roy decide that they want to go up to Shelly and Claudio's to pick olives. I am sure that there will be lots to pick next weekend, too, so let them go without me. Sofi and I work away, blissfully enjoying the big open windows and dreaming - Sofi mostly dreaming and I a little of both.
This morning, Don Luca brought me to tears at the end of the mass, at the singing of the last acapella hymn. I studied him closely today, and noticed that he sang with his whole heart, raising his eyes and opening his arms in a way that endeared all of us to him. I noticed that every person in the tiny church sang with their hearts open in full voice. Our priest does something to us...every one of us. His love of us is so enormous that it is all we can do to sing with him and embrace him with our eyes. He is the most remarkable young priest I have ever met.
October 25
Are we really in London? The fog is so thick this morning in Mugnano that I expect to hear fog horns. It does not clear until noon. In the meantime, we drive to Orte, passing Michelle and Karina, who are driving in our old BMW on the way. Michelle is dressed in a pin-striped suit. She means business. They are driving to Rome, hopefully to meet up with Mike and Karen at the bank. Speriamo and a little bocca luppo thrown in for good measure.
Oh, how happy I am to be taking violin lessons again. Tiziana has moved her piano and music room upstairs. Downstairs now is taken over completely by dancing and gymnastics, two things Tiziana does not teach. But the school is becoming very popular.
New scales, new things to play, and a few of the old ones. I remember seeing the little ones play Can-Can in a sing-songey way at a recital, and take note of that while I play that strange tune. But the Borodin piece is much more to my liking. I am so happy to be playing that when she starts me on arpeggios and sharps and flats I can hardly wait to practice. "Can we play this again?" is a refrain she hears from me often during my lessons. If I am not happy with the way something sounds, I want to play it again and again until it sounds good or I am too weary to keep going.
My shoulder is all right, but I have been doing Alice's arm exercises. We take it slowly today, and I am grateful for that. But I love to play with Tiziana, and she is very patient with me.
We stop to pick up some more lattuga Romana plugs to plant. The ones we have are getting too leggy and we want to have them planted before the first frost. Roy knows he needs to get going on the little protective cover for them. The little shop is near the Orte train station, and we also go in to buy a little red collar for Sofi. Her old one is looking ragged. An elderly man inside speaks a little English. His bicycle is parked next to our car across the street. He asks me how old Sofi is, and is very gentle with her.
We find a collar, and the shopkeeper asks us if we are German. He seems happy that we are American, but surprised that we are living in Mugnano. Mugnano? Hardly anyone knows of anyone in Mugnano. Sounds good to me.
Roy takes on the role of Mr. Fix-it and finds a part for the kitchen sink and repairs it in a jiffy. He likes these little projects. But the searching projects, like finding firewood, prove more daunting.
On the way back from Orte we take the back road, and six prostitutes stand in different spots along the road. Two of them are fighting for a particular spot; most of them are dark skinned. Since being driven out of Rome, many of them take up their positions on back roads leaving cities. I don't know how they survive.
Late in the afternoon, Felice arrives, and he suggests that we take down the bamboo supports and get rid of the rest of the pomodori. That is fine with me. It has been so much work to skin and core and put them up that I am thankful the crop is at its end. But what's this? We still have almost a whole basketful. So tomorrow I will work on them, thankful that this exercise will soon be over for the winter.
I put together a little bag for Felice to take home, and see him standing under the cachi tree that is located near the big olive tree. There are many ripe cachi, so I walk over to him with his little bag and he picks three to take home. It is always a joy to be able to give him some little thing from the garden.
Roy wants us to have our own medieval costumes to wear to the different festas when we are involved. Since our village colors, and those of Soriano, are both red and blue, I want a mostly blue costume, perhaps lined in red. Tiziana recommends a woman to help design and make ours, and we walk to her house to meet her, but she is not at home. So Tiziana will contact her and let us know. We have until the first weekend of May to have them finished. They will also be fine for the Soriano Castagno Festival in October.
Roy hears from Kees that there is a good place in Giove to buy firewood, so he leaves Sofi and me at home and drives to Giove. When he comes home he is really happy. The firewood will be delivered to us on Friday. He sweeps up some of the gravel and we plan where it will be stacked in the parcheggio. If we accept the wood from the village, that will be stored in the parcheggio, too. We suspect that the Mugnano wood will be green, so we'll store it there for a year before we can use it. But this wood will be hard, mostly oak. Bravo, Roy! Bravo, Kees!
October 26
At around noon the sky clears and it is as if we have never had fog. But when we go out in the morning the air is wet with dew. Alice does incredible work on my shoulder, finding her way down to the tendons. When she finishes, I can move my shoulder better than I have in years. I am supposed to have a hot salt pack tonight, but of course I forget until now. I'll see what happens in the morning. Perhaps that won't be too late.
Roy takes me to a stone yard to show me a marble step with a bull nose, to use as a simple bench outside our cancello over two tufa bricks. It is wonderful, and very cheap. So we put it in the car and drive home with it. Roy starts with four tufa bricks under it, and that makes it look like tweedle dum wearing a tiny hat. So I scowl and he knows he must change it. I don't say a word, so he tries two tufa blocks on their end, and the result is a dear little bench that looks as though it has always been there.
I stand nearby cutting away dead leaves on the closest rose plant, and Italo starts to walk toward us. Roy beckons him over, telling him the bench is for the paisani on their way up the hill. He asks Italo to try it, and Italo plunks down with a big sigh. He loves it. A grand idea. He is walking with a new bamboo pole, very green, and then gets up and gives me some advice on the rose. He wants me to feed it, but I don't agree. It is too late in the year to feed a rose. The rose will sprout flowers and then there will be frost. The roses appear anyway, with no thought to the time of year. We will have blossoms into November, I am sure. I love these Lady Hillington roses.
Tonight Roy takes me to the hospital in Terni for my gynelogical exam. I have not had once since we left the U S in 2002. Everything is fine, says Dottore Mascaffe. I ask him if his cousin's name is Decaffeinato. This is another doctor who is paralyzed. He sits behind a little desk, with a woman by his side. When it is time for him to examine me, she has to help him stand up, put his arms in the metal crutches and help him over to where he is examining me. He seems to know what he is doing, and is more interested in asking me if I am going to vote.
I am reminded of Nemo's first Vet outside Amelia, who worked in a wheelchair. I wonder what going to medical school was like for both of them. They are both very gentle men and do fine work. I have William H. Macy on my mind. Yesterday we watched him star in The True Story of Bill Porter. I wonder why he did not win an academy award for his role. Perhaps he lost out to Jack Nicholson for "About Schmidt".
At home we decide to put all the Italian books back, and Roy has a great idea of how to sort them. I take them in my arms, stack by stack, and put them in alphabetical stacks. Then I alphabetize each letter and hand them up to Roy, who places them on the book shelves in the living room. It takes less than an hour. It is good to be organized, and better to have it done than to think about it for a year or two and never get it done. Now we know where we can find a book if we want to look something up.
October27
Roy leaves early for the auto dealer in Terni to take care of some maintenance thing that is bugging him. I really respect his attention to the car. He makes sure it is running correctly. Is it a guy thing? I don't know, but strangely enough, I have only driven the car once. Those old days of speeding around Mt. Tam in my BMW are almost forgotten.
Washing clothes, cleaning, you know, the usual stuff happens here in paradise, too. I have turned the bedroom upside down and am working on making a bed skirt out of the silk taffeta Tia brought back from India last year for us. There are 17 meters of the stuff, and before I drive myself absolutely crazy, I realize that we bought a sewing aid that will do the trick.
It consists of 3.5 meters of gauzy strip, with two strings inside. I sew the strip onto the material where I want to shirr it, and pull the strings. We have two packages, so when we drive to Rome tomorrow to go to Marielisa's apartment that she wants us to help rent out, we'll come back by way of IKEA and pick up several more packages.
The sky starts clear, but before Roy returns for pranzo, everything grows dark. I hang the laundry up in the loggia, and start to cook. When Roy returns, he tells me that the wood will be delivered if it does not rain. It rains at around 5, just a shower, and when it stops Roy gets the call about the wood. It arrives and the truck backs into the parcheggio and unloads it in about a minute. It takes about an hour or more to stack it, but we are ready for the winter.
Roy arrived back with a lovely surprise, another piece of marble to stack on two pieces of tufa, and we have two dear little benches, right at the start of our walk outside the cancello. We look forward to seeing people stop there for a rest on their way up the hill from the cemetery or their orto gardens.
Sofi does not like the competition of watching me play the violin, but I really love practicing. She makes her silly noises on the chair, and lets me know if I hit a wrong note. Hey, that's not fair. She's supposed to cheer me on. Whatever.
October 28
We're in the car and heading for Tragliatella to meet Marielisa. From there we'll follow her to her apartment in Rome, which she wants us to help market. She is looking for a long term lease. The apartment is really wonderful.
We follow her there, and do errands on the way back, stopping at IKEA for pranzo and a few small things. IKEA is always mobbed. It is the only place where people can shop in one place for ordinary household things, like plain dishes and glasses, small rugs, curtains, material, etc. We never shopped there in the US, but it is a different story here. There are no Pottery Barns or Crate & Barrels, or Smith & Hawkens.
On the way back, Roy wants to stop in at Fiano Romano at the trucking company who owes us money to repair the mirror they sheared off the drivers side a couple of weeks ago. No one is there, but Roy reaches the owner by phone, who tells him the Insurance Company has the claim and it will be another week. "Tranquillo", he suggests. Roy agrees to hold off a little longer, but will go to the Carabinieri if he does not get action soon.
We find the local Carabinieri, just to make sure, and then go into the town itself. What a beautiful town. I think that any foreigners wanting to move to Italy could take this or hundreds of other towns or villages to stake their place out. But we hope they stay away from little Mugnano.
We arrive home under an overcast sky, and Roy spends a little time stacking firewood in the parcheggio. It was such a good decision to turn the property out the way we did. The space where we store the firewood is perfect, and we can bring it up on a paranco (hoist) with a hidden pole between two rosemary bushes.
This Christmas, we will set up the paranco and string lights in the shape of a Christmas tree. We'll buy the lights next week and put them up the day we return from the U S.
October 29
No fog for a change, but the air is heavy and remains overcast all day. The wind rages, and I put out the clothes to dry, hoping the wind will whip them into shape.
Today is the day we begin to make the steamed pudding with persimmons. Roy brings in six huge ones, and we make two regular ones, plus two little ones in ramekins. Those little ones we eat with tiny spoons and they certainly are delicious. Another recipe for the web site...soon. I'm going to make a couple more tomorrow. The recipe indicates that these can be frozen for up to four months, and when defrosted need to be heated up. More holiday gifts! We surely have plenty to give our neighbors. But none for our U S trip. Glass jars and customs officials portend a less than easy landing at SFO.
We walk the garbage up, and the sky is clear, showing off a jolly big moon. Oosten comes out to do the same, and tells us that he knows the Norwegian man who bought Karina's house. He is not, as Shelly suggested, a Foreign minister of the Norwegian government. He is a minister, a protestant one. We look forward to meeting him.
I peel and core and cook and process the very last of the tomatoes. These are put in bottles, sitting in the refrigerator for a few days until I come up with something to make with them. No more processing in boiling water baths. What a job! We like the results, however.
October 30
Yesterday's steamed puddings were so delicious that we've decided to keep on making them and freezing them to give for holiday gifts. So we make a double recipe this morning, using all four burners on the stove and also the oven. It takes two hours for the puddings, or budinos, to steam, and once they are taken out of the oven they are a deep dark earthy brown. Today we have two tiny ones, and over the top brandied cherries and their juice. The cherries, which were picked from our tree and pitted and bottled this August, are divine.
While we are steaming away, Catherine arrives to pick some cachi. She and Kees eat them on top of their breakfast cereal, something that makes Roy gag just to hear it. She takes a bag full, and calls Kees while she is here to ask if he has heard from Peter and Kari.
We overhear her and give her Kari's cell phone number. Still in Attiglilano, they have not called her to tell her they will be late. A few minutes later, Peter and Kari and Annie and Barbara arrive here. We think Kari is expecting coffee, but we cannot oblige, for all our burners are working on the stove, steaming the pudding. Some how the urgency of the situation evades her, and she tells Catherine that they have the lease and key to the apartment in Attigliano, but have been unable to secure the truck.
They leave to go to the house so that Catherine can determine which things they will take, and next week a truck will be hired to move Peter and Kari's things to the apartment in Attigliano. But Kari will be in Berlin with Sergio, so we have no idea how her things will be moved. She does not seem as concerned as Catherine. We are learning to stay away from these emotionally charged events, unless we can clearly make a difference. The answers seem simple to us, but then again, we are not in Peter and Kari's shoes. All we can do is to give them our love and send them on their way.
Tonight we set our clocks back, and spend a lot of time in front of the T V, listening to the politics and the war news and the "spinning" of the different factions.
October 31
This morning is incredibly windy, and we walk up to church, practically levitating with the wind to our back. Inside the church the cacophony is loud, with the church filling up quickly on this holiday weekend. Giuliola walks from row to row, quietly and gently instructing the people not to rest their feet on the kneelers. Livio has worked so hard to refinish all the pews that she urges us to be kind to them. The pavement outside has been cemented, but the street and piazza is still full of debris and lots of sand.
As she finishes, and new people come in and sit down, there are silent stares, with the knowledgeable parishioners looking to see if the new entrants put their feet up on the kneelers. A tall woman comes in and sits next to Roy and puts her feet right up. He uncrosses his long legs and sits back so that Giuliola can see her. No way will Roy mention it. But she walks by and the woman continues unaware of the rest of the people sneaking glances at her.
I turn around to walk to the front door of the tiny church to help Marsiglia in and Noreena puts her arms out to welcome me until I am right in front of her. She thinks I am someone else, but smiles and hugs me anyway. Fa niente.
Marsiglia walks slowly in and hugs me tight, whispering a secret, or is it just to ask me how I am? "Tutto a posto?" Felice stands back and lets me help Marsiglia into her seat across the aisle from me.
The church is packed. The cacophony bounces off the walls of the church and all of a sudden everyone stops speaking. There is a long silence and then whispers and then loud talking again. Roy turns to me and says, "I thought you were supposed to be quiet in church." I ask him who the Monsignor was who came up with that edict. He does not know.
I tell Roy that this is like one big family in the church, with everyone knowing everyone else. Naively I tell him how wonderful it is that there are no factions in this village. Roy tells me that Fulvia told him last week not to be so sure. On the surface, everyone gets along. But behind their closed doors, you would not believe what goes on!
Don Cirio arrives and quickly puts on his vestments. He is about five minutes late. Vincenzo opens the little door to the right of the altar and rings the bells, then steps back inside and rings the little bell next to the entrance to the sacristy to start the mass.
Yes, we are still mystified regarding what this young priest has to say. But it is a time of reflection, and I say my little silent prayers and wonder if I am a good person in the eyes of the Lord.
In the front row on the other side of the little church sit Elena's daughter, Frederica, her husband and three little boys. The boys are what Iolanda would call "darling". They all look alike, although are about a year or so apart from each other. Every few minutes at least one of them turns around to smile at their grandmother, Elena, who is the most glamorous woman in the village, and so sweet.
After mass, we see Lore and Alberto outside. They entered late and sat in the back. They invite us to see the latest changes in their new house. But before we do we all look at the marvelous job Livio has done restoring the front of their house. The door to the cantina has been completely restored and stained. The door is framed in beautiful flat tiles. The cemento on the front of the whole bottom floor has been chipped away, and in its place is a mosaic of stones and mattone, crafted brilliantly and cemented with grey grout. The corner pieces of the building are either huge white squared off stone or rows of mattone. The overall look is very old. Don Cirio comes over to look, too, and we all praise Livio.
Roy tells Livio he is going to put all the local muratores out of work, as well as the fallengnames (woodworkers). I ask him if he can work on teeth, and as everyone chuckles he says he can pull them out but not put them back in.
Lore and Alberto's house is coming along. Pepperino frames are installed around the windows and steel beams frame the inside where the stairs and balcony and bathroom will be. They are hoping the house will be finished by Pasqua. We are sure it will be handsomely done.
We walk home and Sofi is waiting at the corner of the terrace, so excited to see us. We stay at home for an hour, then pack up a steamed pudding budino and a glass jar of our own pitted cherries in sambuca. Tia is fixing a Finnish pranzo, and if she has something else for dessert, they can have ours later.
The dessert is perfect, and is served after homemade blinis and an assortment of sausages and tiny sliced lean pancetta as well as two different jams and maple syrups and a professional whipped cream canister that spurts out beautiful sweet whipped cream flowerets. Of course there is plenty of wine, as well as two kinds of grappa as well as coffee.
But the real treat of the afternoon is Sofi and Gioia and Charlie, who race around after each other after a few minutes to get to know each other. Little Gioia is now 9 weeks old, and a tubby little bundle of white fur, with a tawny patch over one eye and freckles. She is a wild little thing, and becomes a wild playmate for Sofi. We think that Charlie really likes Sofi. His stub of a tail wags and wags at the sight of her, and Tia tells us he is so happy to have a break from Gioia, who bites him all day long and won't leave him alone.
There is much talk about the election, with not much decided. Tia's brother and his wife are here for a visit, and they mostly watch. They speak a few words of English, but no Italian. Tia and Roy and I get out our cameras and take dozens of photos of the three of them. Most of the photos are erased when we are back home, but a couple are worth saving. Tia will be sure to have Angie Good bring Sofi over to play when we are gone. It is great exercise for all three dogs.
Back at home, we check in with Terence and have a quiet evening. Sofi is so tired she just lays on the couch and goes to sleep. We practically do the same, ignoring the fact that it is Halloween. I read yesterday that tonight at dusk is a perfect night to go to the Monster Park in Bomarzo. We'll save that for another year...
NOVEMBER, 2004
November 1
Today is a national holiday in Italy, known as Tutti Santi, or Ogni Santi or All Saints Day. There is a mass this morning in our little church. Outside our bedroom window there are shots fired which sound very close. The hunters are out, and I am wearing an old fall colored linen coat to church that is a trendy looking version of camoflauge. Really it is dark purple and rust and shades of green leaves on an olive background. This is my version of "blending in". Sofi growls and barks, and I tell her, "Via! Via!" or she'd stay with me just growling until I walk downstairs with her. She is a very loyal dog, that Piccola!
"Unless you're lucky enough to have a hearth." I read this morning on the Italian food website we recommend. It has been too warm to have a fire these past couple of weeks, but the newly purchased firewood is safely stored in the parcheggio under a blue tarp. I still don't have the answer to why all tarps are the same bright shade of blue, in Italy, too!
Anyway, I look forward to bringing our Tuscan grill into the kitchen to cook chops and vegetables in the raised fireplace. We are so busy with projects getting ready for winter and our trip to the U S that the days just fly by. We probably won't do the grilling until after we return.
The church is full when we step in the door. Our priest is Don Luca. This is the second of three masses on three days in a row. I like sitting in the little church, where we all sing the same four hymns a capella and the mass is repeated for this special day. Don Luca names a number of saints that I have never heard of. I'd like to find out more about them, but only recall San Liberato and San Giuseppe, two priests that are very important to this village.
After mass, we spend a few minutes with Lore and Alberto, who sit on the other side of the church today. But the big news is that we're invited on November 11th , San Martino di Tours, for pranzo at Felice and Marsiglia's to taste this year's wine. How wonderful that they want us to join them. I tell Felice that we'll bring a budino di cachi, and will probably tell Marsigla that the next time I see her.
Annie meets us as we reach our gate and comes in for coffee. She tells us that on Saturday when they went with the owner to register the apartment rental, no one was in the city hall, or commune, in Attigliano. They walked around and around and finally located the mayor, who called someone on his cell phone to come in and register them. He was afraid that he would do a bad job, 'brutta figura", so called a local policeman who did the work. On Saturday mornings the commune is supposed to be open. No wonder Italian city workers like their jobs!
So what's with registering the apartment? It's called Legge Moro, and refers to the kidnapping and killing of Aldo Moro decades ago. He was hidden in an apartment for months by people who did not rent the apartment they kept him in before he was killed. The government thinks that if everyone has to register it will cut down on crime. We don't know, but any person staying more than three days at one place in Italy has to be registered with the local police. That is one of the reasons a passport or identity card is required by Italian hotels when people check in.
November 2
This is the Day of the Dead in Italy. Sounds scary, coming right after Halloween, but it is the annual day to honor the dead, especially those who passed away during this past year. We walk up to the little cemetery in the afternoon for the mass, and it seems full of people, but when we stand beside one of the tiny buildings and look around, there are less than 50 people, most of them the regulars.
The day is lovely, with hazy clouds and a soft blue sky. Sofi is patient when we leave her on the front terrace, and joyous when we open the gate. I sit on our little bench at the foot of the walk and she flies down to greet me, with about six women stopped to watch her as they walk toward the centro storico after the mass.
We greeted Felice at the cemetery before the mass, and asked him if he came to clean up his headstone, After the mass he again proudly showed it to us, as he did last year. We are thinking of our own mortality, and year by year become more attached to this little Mugnano.
Years ago, when Augie died in the U S, he wanted his ashes to be scattered on his property in Giove. Prue had to hide his ashes to get them back here on the plane. Charlie then came and scattered them on the riverbank behind their house. Roy said last night, "Augie must be in Rome by now..."
Now there are new laws more kind to the idea of cremation in Italia, partly because there is not much room for all the people who are dying in this little country. It is even legal to keep someone's ashes in a house. So we look around, and one day this next year will have a conversation with Don Luca to ask him where our ashes can be kept in a couple of urns. We won't need an entire casket space, although we see that there are some available. It is important to plan for these things, so that the loved ones we leave behind won't have to. This is a good day to have a conversation about it.
We plan to have a rest early in the evening and get up around 1AM to watch TV for the U S Presidential election returns for the rest of the night. We'll have to get up before 10AM tomorrow to walk into the centro storico to get our flu shots from Dottoressa, but don't expect to be doing much of anything else tomorrow, except, hopefully, having happy dreams.
We have no idea what to expect, but think there will definitely be some real surprises. I have made out an excel chart with each state, listed from East Coast to West, with the number of electoral college votes needed, a box for Kerry and one for Bush and one for Undecided, with running totals. I'll be sitting up with a pencil and the chart on my lap, Sofi asleep at my feet. Roy hopes to join me, for at least part of the night as well. I find the process fascinating.
Roy tells me I have been calling the body who actual decide the election the "electrical college", and perhaps that is closer to the truth. The whole process is quite complicated, actually.
But before we "bed down" for a short nap, there is time for another round of steamed puddings. Today we stocked up at the Coop in Amelia, and I'm energized, because they taste so great, even if they take a lot of time to prepare and cook. Roy makes more room in the freezer in the loggia and we'll have all our gifts ready for whenever we need them during the holiday season.
November 3
So we stay up almost all night, and both feel numb. It appears that Bush wins the presidential election, with the Ohio vote still coming in. Even the air feels heavy. Perhaps we are just tired. But as Tosca emails us just now, it is amazing that over half the electorate votes against their own best interests. It appears to me that the country is either more conservative than I thought or most of the electorate are not gutsy enough to vote with their conscience.
I hear a tractor outside, and the villagers move along as though it is just another day. And then I remember that we are here and not there. I inhale deeply. The sweet-swelling nespola tree in flower outside our bedroom window intoxicates me, and I forget.
We walk up to the centro storico to get our flu shots from Dottoressa. She has our flu injections in a little "happy holiday" tote bag, and makes me laugh just thinking about how she moves and how full of life she is. She opens the package, squeezes the syringe to get the air bubbles out, reaches for my arm, and proclaims "Pronti!" while thrusting the needle into my arm. I can hardly feel it, but have to keep from laughing. Roy sits near me, wide eyed, as though it must hurt. I laugh at him and before we know it we're done.
And the injections are free. Dottoressa just has to fill out a form with the reason she is giving us the injection. Last year, when preparing to give me a flu shot, she said in a forceful voice, "Give me your leg!" I laughed from the bottom of my stomach and corrected her. This year she knows better, and my arm is ready for her before she is ready for me.
She writes prescriptions for Roy to get a few tests that he has not had since before we moved here in 2002. The process is simple. She writes out a prescription, Roy drives to the farmacia and they call the appropriate hospital and make an appointment for him at some date a week or a month later. For one, Roy has an appointment on Friday November 12th in Orvieto.
Some times we drive to Viterbo, some times to Terni, some times to Orvieto or Orte, depending on what the test is for. On the day of the test, we will drive to the hospital, pay a small fee (between €16 and €34), and wait until it is our turn. The doctors are always very friendly. When the tests are ready, we pick them up, take them to Dottoressa to discuss them, and otherwise file them at home with the rest of our medical records.
So far, we have had no real complaints about the medical system. Dottoressa is helping us to navigate through the difficult parts. We have had two less than adequate experiences with doctors in the two years we have lived here, but once we told Dottoressa, she found a new place for us to go for the same treatment and that worked out fine.
While waiting for Dottoressa today, the regular cast of characters wait with us: Ennio (with Bastia hooked to the railing outside), Rina and Terzo. Shelly arrives and asks us to help her appeal to the mayor and possibly also to the provincial government for additional recycling canisters and also for better signage. She no longer has her digital camera, so we tell her we'll take the photos of what recycling containers we have now in Mugnano, what they have in nearby in Bomarzo, and then email them to her. She will speak with the mayor and whomever else she needs to to get signage and more recycling containers for the village.
Shelly has a good heart. She constantly searches for the right thing to do. She is also incredibly persistent. So we'll see what she is able to accomplish. It will be good to have newspaper recycling, and better signage for the batteries, old medicine and plastic. We have recycling for glass bottles only now, although we put our plastic in with the glass.
We know that is all right, although there are no signs indicating the container is also for plastic, because we watched a huge open-topped recycling truck drive by below us early one morning and it was full of plastic bottles. Shelly tells us the women of the village yell at her when she puts in plastic, because they don't know they can. Italy can be so backward, or so progressive. There is usually no state in between.
We also ask her what's up with the olive picking, but it has been too wet. So we probably won't be able to pick olives for her this year. We are spending time getting ready for our U S trip and don't have much extra time.
Roy has another of his missions on his mind today, and we may drive to Viterbo this afternoon to see what we can find out. He needs a better long white beard and wig for his Babbo Natale costume. When we arrive back here in December, he'll be busy with his Babbo duties, and won't have time to find this part of his costume then. We also want to see if we can find the outdoor holiday lights, so that we can set them up as soon as we return.
When we drive to the place that sells and rents costumes, they have nothing except complete Babbo outfits, with flimsy beards and white curly hair attached to a cap. The store has outside lights, and thankfully Roy knows enough not to buy the kind that self distructs if one of the little lights malfunctions. We leave there for Obi, the Viterbo mini version of Home Depot, but all their lights appear to be manufactured by the same company. We'll try Spazio Verde in Terni this next week. Still no Babbo wig.
We pick up a couple of gifts for the twins, and start to research again about finding an affordable internet connection. Shelly tells us Wind has a promotion, but when we arrive they tell us the promotion finished three weeks ago. We will have to reseach options online. Again, this is really not the U.S. when it comes to buying consumer items or services.
November 4
Today is some kind of strange holiday. We do not realize that it is until we drive up to Orvieto, and the place is mobbed with people and carabineri. In the first shop, the young man behind the counter has no idea what is going on, but when we stop in to see our pals at Giacomini, Ciara's daughter tells us that today is a throwback to Mussolini's fascist years in celebration of the Carabineri, or branch of the Italian police. If there is a parade, we miss it, but on a little side street run into some women from the U S and strike up a conversation.
The woman I first speak with is an American nun, or suor, living and working in Rome for the Mother Superior of the Order of Notre Dame in Rome. We invite her to take the train up one day to visit us, and she does the same, telling her we can stay with her in Rome near the train station.
I am so interested in this woman, that I forget to tell her about two of our favorite places, the building with the faux finishes on all the walls and ceilings at the foot of the street we are on, and St. Francsco, the ti