The Gift

Giulio and Antonietta have made peace. After a week of torment Giulio came flying out of school one afternoon with the news that he and Antonietta were now friends, and the peace has held. Yesterday he sat at the kitchen table eating cookies with Nutella spread on top and talking about school.
"What did you do today, Giulio?"
"I played with the trucks."
"Was Filippo there?"
"Yes. And Antonietta and I are friends. I want to go to her house, Mommy."
"Did you play together at school today?'
"Yes." Then there is a pause as Giulio chews for a moment.
" Antonietta and I are friends, but me and Camilla no."
And so it goes. Giulio however doesn't seem the slightest bit unhappy that he and Camilla aren't friends, there is no yearning here! But seeing that Camilla lives across the street from us, and I actually know her mother, and that the times Camilla has come in our yard to play they have gotten along just fine, I'm hoping that this will pass. And knowing Giulio it will.
Eugenio has started running again. I knew me beating him by 10 minutes was too much for an ex-marathon runner to bear, and so at least twice a week we have started running together, including our second race two weeks ago, 11 kilometers of killer, muddy, hilly roads. He led in the beginning, I pulled up even towards the 6th kilometer and we ran together until the last 2 kilometers when I pulled ahead and beat him by 2 minutes. The race was characterized by the large groups of elderly walkers who did not take kindly to panting joggers trying to pass them on the narrow path that cut through woods and wound around a lake. I ran fearing for my ankles. There was the usual lavish "refreshment" afterwards, including tortellini in broth at 9:30 in the morning, and a box of cookies and a chocolate bar for every participant, no picture frames this time. This Sunday we have a 14 kilometer, so this may be the one where Eugenio beats me, I know it is simply a question of time.

Part of what helped my training so much was a visit from my in-laws Lucia and Antonio, which instead of being the customary 3 days lasted an entire week because Livia got sick and had to stay home from the nido. My in-laws, who are always at their best when someone is ill, stayed on to take care of her so Lorenzo and I wouldn't have to miss work. Having two people present who were handling all the cooking and most of the childcare left me with plenty of time for long runs around the neighborhood, breaks that were also necessary for my sanity. I like my in-laws, but we have very little in common. I come from a largish city in the US, they both come from small towns in Southern Italy, I enjoy food and like eating, they are obsessed with food and spend most of their waking hours planning, preparing, eating, or cleaning up meals. At 7:30 in the morning I would be in the kitchen preparing breakfast and Lucia would come in, say good morning and then ask me if I would prefer meatballs or steak for lunch. This would be before I'd had my morning coffee.
Antonio, in what was meant to be a purely loving and generous act brought us a whole prosciutto crudo. Prosciutto is ham, but in Italy you can get prosciutto cotto, which is closer to what we think of as ham in the US, and then there is prosciutto crudo, which is "raw", the meat has been smoked and aged but not cooked in an oven. Both are delicious. In my house we usually eat prosciutto at lunch, along with pasta as a kind of poor man's second course.
When you go to the supermarket or butchers to buy prosciutto they never have it ready, pre-sliced to be grabbed by the handful and dumped on the scale like they do at Kroger's. Instead they take from the shelf this whole prosciutto, put in on the slicer and carefully slice off pieces, laying them beautifully one by one on the paper sheet next to the slicer. They then weigh the amount, fold it up, put it in paper bag and hand it to you as a long flat package the size of a copy of "Newsweek." When I buy prosciutto I buy around 100 grams, which is around a quarter of a pound. As it only lasts about 2 or 3 days before getting a bit funky, I try not to buy any more than that or I will end up throwing it away before it is eaten. When my father came and lived with us for 3 months last year he had the staff at our supermarket in stitches because once when he ordered prosciutto he asked for 500 grams, or a little more than a pound, which seemed to the staff an enormous amount to buy at one time.

At any rate, here was Antonio with a 10 pound prosciutto for us to eat. Prosciutto crudo will keep for a long time if stored properly, but it has to be sliced correctly to get the slices at their correct thinness, and while I like prosciutto, I've never wanted one of my very own. For me, getting a quarter of a pound of the stuff three times a week was about as far as I wanted to go in my level of commitment. Now suddenly here was Antonio proudly displaying his ham and talking about how he would teach me how to slice it with the knife he would leave with us, and how we could store the ham in our storage area in the basement, it was nice and dry down there, wasn't it? I had images of myself staggering home after a long morning, hungry for lunch, getting to my apartment and then remembering that if I wanted any prosciutto I was going to have to go back down three flights of stairs and slice it myself with a knife. The thought alone made me feel tired. Then there was the question of the amount. My children (of course) won't eat prosciutto crudo, they only like cotto. That left Lorenzo and me the task of eating this thing every day, needing to consume it whether we wanted to or not before it was no longer edible. Lorenzo voiced his concern that perhaps a WHOLE prosciutto was too much for us to eat, a suggestion that was waved away, weren't your in-laws from America coming at Christmas Antonio asked. THEY would want to eat prosciutto, they would be so happy to be in Italy eating this wonderful ham, and we could also share it with our friends and neighbors......while I couldn't think of any friends who would fly over here to have a slice of ham, I realized that in the close vicinity of our apartment there are at least 3 or 4 people of a certain age who would certainly relish the chance to have some of this prosciutto. People who were born before or immediately after the Second World War have very particular ideas about what tastes good and what foods should be appreciated above all others. Our neighbor Piero would certainly love a few slices of this ham, as would Eugenio's dad who lives on the other side of the fence from us. Eugenio's dad drives up into the mountains to pick wild mushrooms, rather than buy the ones they sell in the store. They would taste this prosciutto and appreciate how it had been aged, would know that they were eating an excellent piece of meat, and they would be grateful to Antonio for letting them try some, even if their own fridges were stuffed with the same kinds of ham. But for Lorenzo and myself it was different. For Lorenzo slicing his own prosciutto is something he has little interest in doing, let alone storing it in his basement. Young men in Italy today may enjoy eating good food, but they don't necessarily want it sitting on top of their clothes dryer. As for me, well, I come from a place where the word "ham" always has the words "honey-baked" in front of it, I certainly didn't know what to do with this fatty leg of meat which I had only ever seen handled by the butcher when I buy cold cuts. In the end we convinced Antonio to leave us a plate of sliced prosciutto but to take the rest of it back to Rome with him, where he would certainly get much more pleasure out of it than we would. He was offended, and rightly so, no one likes their gifts to be refused. But now in the fridge sits that same plate of prosciutto, all but untouched since Antonio left it there. My excuse for not eating it is that he didn't slice it thin enough.

Here's to the Lady Who Runs

Giulio is in love. Or at least infatuated with a little girl named Antonietta who is in his class at school. Last week he came home and told me that he wanted to go play at Antonietta's house, OK I said, even though I have no idea what Antonietta or her mother look like. My dropping Giulio and running in the morning, already late for work and dashing back with only a minute to spare in the afternoon when there is only Giulio and two other little boys whose mothers are later than me, leaves little time to get to know the names and faces of the other mothers. Then next day as we were walking to the car he mournfully told me that he has asked Antonietta to be his friend and she had said no.
“Why did she say no?”
“Because.” was the mournful answer, and then, “Mommy, I’m sad.”
The next day Lorenzo got Giulio from school and when I came home with Livia Lorenzo met me at the door with the question, “Whose Antonietta?” It seems that Giulio had tried again to be friends with her and once again his request had been denied, leaving him feeling hurt. Now my feelings went from amusement to annoyance. Who was this witch and why was she tormenting my son like this? Didn’t she know that she would rue the day she turned him down, that she would one day see that he was the best thing to ever happen to her???
The next day Giulio and I sat at them kitchen table eating clementines, the house was quiet, Lorenzo was at work and Livia was down for a nap. I decided to try again.
“So Giulio, what happened with you and Antonietta?”
“I asked her to be friends and she said no,” he said matter-of-factly, chewing on a piece of clementine. (I know, can you believe it, Giulio is eating something that comes from the ground!!)
“Who is Antonietta friends with at school?”
Giulio always knows the fragile social web that makes up his nursery school class.
“She’s friends with Sara.”
“Are you friends with Sara?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“She can’t be my friend because Antonietta won’t be friends with me.”
It all seemed incredibly complex, especially for children who are barely four. I stupidly thought that Antonietta would be like Giulio, whose likes and dislikes can change in a matter of minutes, and yet here is someone who is dug in deep in her refusal.
As I have mentioned in previous posts, I have taken up seriously running again off the treadmill and outside thanks to the little push my brother gave me when he was home. Last week my neighbor Eugenio saw me coming back from one of my runs and asked me how far I had gone. ‘Oh, about 4 miles,” I told him. ‘Is that all?” he said, sort of joking, but sort of not, and it made me think of what Tim Parks says in his wonderful book about Italy, “Italian Education” about how Italians don’t do sport unless they are a) very good at it and b) intend to do it at the highest level possible. Meaning that I shouldn’t run unless I’m actually planning on running the New York Marathon, that the fact that I run because it’s good for my health, helps reduce stress, and basically makes me happy is entirely beside the point. I offer the excuse that I have to go to work in an hour and suddenly all is forgiven, it is understood I would have run for hours if didn’t have to go to work. Eugenio then tells me about a road race in a nearby town that’s happening on Sunday. There are four possible distances one could run, 6k, 10k, 14k, or 21k. The last two sound a bit daunting for the present, but the 10k sounds manageable. I ran a 10k once. 12 years ago. However I have been running a lot now for almost three months and having a goal would be nice so I tell Eugenio I’m interested and he says that in that case we can go together on Sunday, can I be ready by 7:30? I decide I’ll let Lorenzo have a few hours alone with the kids.
I was just about to leave at 7:20, Lorenzo was still in bed, though Giulio had just finished breakfast and was about to watch “Dumbo” when I heard Livia wake up. I pulled on my running shoes, gave Giulio a kiss and booked it out of there, deciding I would let Lorenzo deal with her for once. As I waited in the driveway for Eugenio to come around with the car I see the shutters in our living room and then in the kitchen open, so I know Lorenzo is up too.
I remember reading a book in college about life in Italy where basically the author sees one lone jogger as she arrives in Milan and then doesn’t see another one for the whole rest of her stay in Italy, which gave me the long assumed opinion that Italians didn’t really do sport, except football and racing with cars and motorcycles. Living here I have found that actually Italians are very athletic people, at least the men are, what with the swarms of cyclists I see on the road everyday, and the men and women I see out pounding the pavement on the bike path that goes by our house. I know several “bike widows” as I called them, condemned to pass long Sundays alone with children as their husbands go for 80 mile bike rides. This morning as we arrive at the event I see swarms of people in running gear, some warming up, some stretching, some already competing. It is a “non-competitive race” meaning that from 8 until 9 you start and you run or walk the distance you choose, no one has numbers, no prizes are given for 1st, 2nd, or 3rd, but really just people running cause they want to. The race, no matter what distance you run, ends in the football stadium with everyone having to do a final lap around the track before crossing the finish line, where everyone will get something for running. Eugenio and I sign up and pay then strip off our coats, (it was really cold this morning), warm up, and then suddenly Eugenio is like, ok, we’ve started. And apparently we have, crossing over a white line painted in the road. I’m expecting Eugenio to take off, even though he did tell me he was out of shape, but he stays with me though I told him not to worry and go if he needs to. We don’t talk, I mean, we are racing, and there are thousands of people and the walkers are a pain in the butt walking six abreast in some places. There are old people, young people, people with dogs, people wearing running shirts with the name of their town’s running team on them, people bundled up in coats, and one man wearing shorts and a tank top which leads me to believe that he is running the 21k. The course takes us through the center of town and then out into these frosted fields which are very idealic and then suddenly we are running along these roads that are really meant only for trackers and are filled with stones and so I have to be very careful and concentrate to avoid spraining my ankles and so I don’t really get to enjoy the beautiful country scene, the sun shining, the gleaming frost, and then on the far side of the field, the 6 lane highway. After 2k I see a sign indicating “refreshment” and I expect people to be handing out cups of water that we will take without slowing down and then throw them on the ground when finished. It is too cold to do the dramatic pour-water-directly-onto-face move that you see at marathons. I turn the corner and find a large group drinking what appears to be hot tea and just standing around like you would after church on a Sunday. The walkers, apparently. I push through them, and here on the other side the course goes off in different directions for the various distances and I turn to check with Eugenio to make sure we are going on the right one, but he is gone, swallowed up by the tea crowd and so I go on without him.
I won’t bore you with the details but when I finally get to the stadium I’m feeling good, a little tired, but basically good and when I get over the finish line I find there are people handing out small cartons of milk and here I discover the best part of road races in Italy: the food. Instead of the usual bananas, breakfast bars, and Gatorade that you find in the States after road races, there are platters of bread and jam and bread and Nutella, and more hot tea, and over on the far side are the “Alpini” with their feathered caps grilling those wonderful large sausages and giving out those sandwiches that Lorenzo likes so much. The thought of eating such a sandwich after a race and at nine in the morning does not appeal to me, though others dig in with no problem. I do however eat piece of bread and Nutella without feeling the slightest bit guilty. When Eugenio comes across the line a full ten minutes after me(!) and informs me again that he is out of shape, we go to collect our “complimentary household items.”
“Waddaya want?” the guy distributing them asks me.
“Watcha got?” They’ve got candle holders, vases, picture frames, ornaments…...
“A picture frame, please.” And I collect my ugly silver plated frame that I probably won’t ever use but I am thrilled to have.
I’m feeling pretty good as we walk back to the car. I ran the 10k in the same time I ran it 12 years ago but today was a slower course with all the walkers to get around as well as the kilometers of rocky path that I had to really be careful and slow down for, so I’m thinking that maybe it is true that having a baby can help a woman athlete. Apparently they do these kinds of races every weekend in the small towns around here so next Sunday Eugenio and I have agreed that will go to the one closest to us. I wonder if this means that he will start running again. Apparently he ran a marathon 7 years ago and since then has gotten increasingly sedentary, though perhaps my beating him today will be the motivation he needs to hit the road again.
So here’s to my new life—A mommy who races!

The Accidental Lady who Lunches

Lorenzo went online this morning and found there was a Thanksgiving Day Celebration in a small town about half an hour from us. No, the Italians are not getting on board with yet another American holiday, instead the Thanksgiving Day celebration was about giving thanks for the harvest, with the farmers doing most of the thanking. Apparently there would be animals, farm equipment (my son loves farm equpiment) and people dressed like peasants from 100 years ago, and surely good food somewhere in there too. I said let's go, it was sunny and Lorenzo didn't have to work until 5pm which gave us a good part of the day. We decided to wait on having lunch, because, as I said, when in Italy DON'T they have good food, and we rushed around getting the kids ready, though at some point in there "getting ready" involved emptying the vacuum cleaner filter and lifting the couch and vacuuming underneath it and finding two books and part of Livia's tea set hidden under it in the process.
Finally though we were putting the kids' shoes on and Giulio is singing some song he has learned at school about "Indiani" as Lorenzo ties he shoes, and so Lorenzo wants to know if this song is about Indians as in from the country India, or the Indians one finds in North America. Or, Lorenzo tells him, as they call them in Italy, Red Skins (Pelle Rossa). I leap in at this moment.
"Uh, actually in the US they would be called Native Americans." I suddenly see Giulio is 20 years time visiting his Uncle and cousins in the States, watching "The Last of the Mohicans" and casually referring to the above mentioned ethnic group as "Red Skins." Having people think that my son was not raised by Mel Gibson is going to be an upward battle on my part. Not 6 years ago I taught English at an after-school program for first graders and the teacher had made and hung posters teaching the different colors. The Green poster had neatly labelled pictures of green peppers, grass, lizards, and apples. The Blue poster had the sky, the sea, and blueberries. The Yellow poster had corn, polenta, and "the little chinese girl", choosen for her "yellow skin". Actually Asian people in general here are called "Chinese", I have a colleague who was born in the Phillipines, raised in Canada and students referring to her will be like, "You know that Chinese teacher? what's her name?" How will I ever be able to have Giulio's blundering Italian racial teachings co-exist with America's politically correct ones? This isn't going to be easy.....
At any rate, we had planned a day of petting animals, eating standing up, and possibly walking through cow dung. Therefore the children, both with runny noses has been dressed for warmth and comfort in things I wouldn't be too bothered about if they got really muddy. Giulio wore sweatpants and a sweatshirts that I usually just have him wear to school for the fact that I don't mind if he gets tomato sauce on it, and a pair of old sneakers. Livia wore a blue sweater that was mine when I was a baby and a pair of sweatpants that are getting too short. Lorenzo and I wore the classic jeans/sweater/sneaker combo. We finally set off a bit before noon, we tried to get some more cash before hitting the road but the roads to the center where our ATM is were blocked off to traffic as it was a "green" sunday, a day when cars can't go into the center. We figure the 35/40 euros we had between us was more than plenty for the three sandwiches and wine we were planning on having.
We find the town no problem ( a small suprise because I was navigating using a 25 year old map that Lorenzo won't throw out for sentimental reasons), and right away I get suspicious because even though the roads are closed off in honor of the celebration, we immediately find parking in a nearby half empty parking lot. We unload the kids, get jackets on, get Livia strapped into her stroller, load up the diaper bag and walk the long street down toward the main piazza where I can see smoke rising. "Where there is smoke there is food!" I call jokingly to Lorenzo, who I know is hoping for one of these fantastic sausage sandwiches they always sell at these things. Initially it looks promising, there are stands selling wine and cheese, animals standing in straw including a cow who is frantically mooing, and people dressed like late 19th century farmers. But there seems to be very few people besides that, and in fact, most of what seems to be going on is clean up, and we realize that basically we have shown up for an event that started at 8 this morning and basically wrapped up about half an hour ago. All the food that is being prepared (and wow did it look good) is just for the period dress people and is clearly not for sale. The town's one restaurant is obviously closed. The kids are going to be hungry soon if they aren't already, and I didn't bring anything to eat besides a few oranges and a bottle of water, plus it is already after one, dangerously late (in the North) to just be thinking about where one might want to have lunch. We drag Giulio away from the cows and hightail it back to the car, with Giulio protesting loudly that he doesn't want to go, he is hungry, as we pull out of the parking lot Lorenzo announces that we will stop at the first place we see. Except that we don't see anything. At least not anything open where one can eat. I see tons of pizzeria's, restaurants, bars all dark and shuttered and I wonder out loud where do people around here go for Sunday lunch. "Home" is Lorenzo's brief reply. I try not to look to often at the clock, but I know the unspoken rule of Sunday lunch at restaurants; they really don't want you turning up after two o'clock. We drive through one town after another until we finally see a sign for an agriturismo which makes it own wine and olive oil and inspired by it's name (San Lorenzo) we follow the signs through one narrow cobbled street after another until we come through a medieval tunnel and out into this golden valley filled with olive trees and there we see the entrance to the restaurant. I say entrance, but what I mean is a huge wraught iron gate with a long path with olive trees on each side leading off to the left. Lorenzo carefully follow the path but I can no longer hold back, "Go! Go! Go! It's 1:49!" Suddenly before us is this large, beautifully restored farm house and an almost full parking lot filled with gleaming SUVs, BMWs, Alpha Romeos. "Go in and see if they have room, "Lorenzo says, "and see if they accept credit cards." I go in, feeling inferior dressed in my jeans and sneakers when around me I see people wearing expensive "casual" clothes, women in dresses with high heeled boots, men in dress pants and Prada sneakers. There are two or three large groups doing what appears to be 1) the lunch following a christening, 2) a birthday party, and 3) people of a much higher income bracket than mine enjoying each other company. The staff however are welcoming. They don't look twice at my sneakers and immediately get a table ready, even though it is two o'clock and there are no more anti-pasti left. I glance at the posted menu and wince. 35 euros per person, which means 72 euros for lunch on a day when we weren't planning on spending more than 10 euros. I go out to Lorenzo who has got the kids out of the car and break the news to him. We debate for a minute, but it is after two, by now we aren't going to find anywhere else open so unless we want to drive 45 minutes back with two starving children raising hell in the backseat.........
We go in and are lead to a large, half empty room with a wooden timbered ceiling and a huge fireplace where a log sits smoldering. We sit down and my two children proceed to attack the bread like they haven't seen food in weeks, both loudly protesting when we try to stop them because Giulio (Livia eats like a trucker) won't eat any pasta when it comes. Crumbs soon cover the table and the floor. When the pasta comes however the are both good and sit still and eat, Livia sitting in my lap as there doesn't seem to be any kind of high chair. The place is noisy, outside well-dressed children run around on the green lawn, the baptism baby shrieks from the next room, so at least we wont be disturbing anyone too much. I'm still feeling bad about spending so much for lunch when suddenly I remember our anniversary more than two weeks away. I had thought that for our fifth anniversary we would get dressed up and go ALONE to our favorite restaurant and instead here we are in jeans with children crawling all over us, but all well. I raise my glass, "Happy Anniversary!" Lorenzo nods, then smiles and leans over and gives me a kiss. "Happy Anniversary."
After the first course the kids want to get up and move, Livia tottering drunkenly between tables, Giulio giggling behind her, Lorenzo and I sit and watch them tensely, waiting to spring into action like paratroops waiting to leap out of a plane. In the meantime one of the waitresses has gotten the fire going again in the fireplace, so we keep taking turns to jump up from our chairs and "re-direct" Livia the second it seems that she might be getting too close. It is at this point that I realize my children look vaguely like those ads you see for "Save a Child" in some poor Eastern European country, Livia in her old sweater which Lorenzo points out, also has a hole under the arm, Giulio in his grey unironed sweatshirt, both with snot dried around their noses, their shoes worn and scuffed. In a country that is based on keeping up appearances, I know we aren't making a good impression. I decide to pretend I'm a member upper crust of British society, the people who dress shabbily because they can, and get over it. Lunch proceeds in the usual manner of one sitting, the other herding children in the interminable waits between courses. The idea of hurrying people through their meal is unheard of here. I remember the "fancy" restaurant I bused tables at back in college and how the manager wanted the least amount of "wait time" from when the salad plate left the table to when the main course plate was set down, and fight a wave of homesickness. Our meal ended with me standing for the last 10 minutes of it, holding Livia in one arm and with my purse already over my shoulder, trying to convince Lorenzo to forget the coffee so we could just GO. Finally we go to pay and it was here that we discovered that this beautiful expensive restaurant, with all its well-to-do patrons has a cash only policy. Does that mean the father of the baby having her baptism showed up today with over 1000 euros in his pocket? I stand on the green lawn watching Livia crawl through dried olives that have fallen to the ground and wait as Lorenzo drives off to get more cash from the nearest ATM. I find this so irksome, all this wealth but no credit card machine, and I'm so fed up with lifting Livia off the ground and telling Giulio to not do that, whatever "that" is, that I begin to regret ever coming. We should have just gone home, nevermind the anniversary, the being together, the eating wonderful food in a good place. And then, a few minutes later Lorenzo is back and we are off, driving faster than we came because now Lorenzo has to get to work and he tells me that it has been a good day, and I'm glad for him and decide to stop being mad. Sometimes it is enough to be happy for someone else.

Going Through the Motions

While on the phone a few minutes ago with mom Giulio asked me if he could play with Daddy's spaceship, our little model space shuttle that Lorenzo bought this summer at the Wright Patterson Airforce Base Museum which now proudly sits on our desk next to the computer. Giulio took the spaceship and lay on the floor, shouting orders to it in English, something about how you have to close the door, gee, I wonder who he got that from? Five minutes later he had added this robot he got for free from a box of Cheerios, so the space ship and the robot, a stand-in for the Red Power Ranger which is wildly popular among the four year olds in his class, were duking it out. Only Giulio didn't say Red Power Ranger the way I would, he was calling it a pa-WAIR range-AIR Rosso, which is what he has heard the other children call it. It suprised me to hear such an Italian pronounciation from him, but then again, how often does he hear me talk about Power Rangers, red or green ones at that? But it reminds me that he is growing up here in Italy and not in the US, where the Power Rangers are rosso and not red.
Nothing like Halloween to really hit that point home. Each year the Italian news talks about the growing popularity of Halloween and how much money is spent on the holiday in Italy alone but I still have yet to see anyone here going all out for Halloween. No one decorates their yard or sits by their gate to give out candy to little kids trick-or-treating, and why should they? It's not their holiday, and in fact I find it (almost) irksome that people celebrate it here at all, kind of like another triumph of marketing over tradition, simply because someone figured out there was money to be made.
Italians celebrating Halloween reminds me a bit of Americans trying to get into the spirit of the Soccer World Cup. They see it, they know it is important, they know they should really be getting excited that the US beat Columbia, and yet somehow their effort falls short and when the US is eliminated, it's not that big a deal. Not like what it would be if we lived in Europe they say. What Italians know about Halloween comes mainly from the movies and American TV shows depicting high school dances and parties where people dress up like vampires. They know about jack-o-lanterns, dressing up, trick or treating, the orange and black, and how it is a big holiday in the US. But they don't really get trick or treating, which is barely done at all, and done only by older kids with a very menacing side to it. I don't think it is clear that it's intended for smaller children, and that most kids stop by the time they are 13 or 14--there are easier ways of getting candy. My own children do not trick-or-treat, they were in bed asleep by 7:30 having no idea of what they were missing a continent away. Some English/American people I know arrange with friends ahead of time to have their children come by dressed up and do a kind of poor man's trick or treating, but as it is nothing like the real thing, I really don't bother because it just make me feel bummed out instead. The one thing I insist on though is the jack-o-lantern.
The first Halloween after we moved here to this building I did one and got so many compliments on it from Terry and Eugenio and Sig.ra Pala that I decided to do it every year, that it would be my way of flying the flag, even if no one was coming to ring the bell for candy. Italians are all about pictures and statues that protect homes, cars, and people, so when I explained the jack-o-lantern would scare away all the ghosts hanging around just before All Saints Day from hanging around our building, well, it went over very well. The last two years finding pumpkins has been super easy. I usually order them from the florist across the street from the nido and he's always found these huge, Legend of Sleepy Hallow type pumpkins that looked amazing when carved. I placed my order back in September and waited for him to call me and tell me that it was in, but nothing happened. Finally on Monday I went in myself and he told me that the reason he hadn't called me was because so far his distributor hadn't had any to sell. I began to panic slightly. It was Monday and Halloween was on Wednesday and I still didn't have a pumpkin. I then went and asked at my local market if they were ordering any and they told me they were expecting four bigs ones, one of which they could put aside for me. Whew, crisis averted. My kids may not trick or treat, but I want them to remember me carving the jack-o-lantern each year, I want it to be one of our traditions, something that our extremely different childhoods have in common, so having the pumpkin was a big deal. I had also agreed to come to Livia's group at the nido and make a jack-o-lantern for the kids, though Rosella told me that she would get the pumpkins.
On Tuesday I went back to the market to pick up my pumpkin. It was raining and I left my umbrella in the car and allowed my hair to get frizzy because I thought there was no way I could carry an umbrella AND a huge pumpkin back to the car. Imagine my chagrin when instead of a large heavy pumpkin I was handed something slightly larger than a volleyball, apparently instead of 4 big ones they had been sent 8 small ones, as though what was lacking in size could be made up for in numbers. All well, I thought, beggers can't choosers, I would make do with two little ones. Then that afternoon as the rain kept coming down I got a call from the florist, the pumpkin was in, but it was a small one. Fine, I said, great, I would have three little jack-o-lanterns.
The next day I went Livia's nido and made the JOL for the kids with Rosella's small pumpkin, though apparently HER grocer had pumpkins much bigger but she had requested a small one. Obviously I don't have the right connections with the right people; the people with the big pumpkins. Sig.ra Pala had told me that this year there were only "Chinese" pumpkins available. When she said that I first thought she meant that the Italian market was being flooded with cheap pumpkins from China, but then I realized she meant that this year there were only small pumpkins around, though, she went on to say that big ones could be found in Mantova if I wanted to make the trip.
Pumpkin number 3 from the florist was larger than the ones I had gotten the day before and had a nice shape and a long stem for the handle, so I was pleased. Then when I went back to get Livia after work Rossella handed me a large plastic bag and said that she and Daniela had decided to give Giulio the JOL I had carved as a gift, he would enjoy it much more than her now grown children would and hadn't I said that I only had little pumpkins? So now I had four pumpkins to put out that evening. On the way home after getting Giulio we went to the fruit/vegetable shop and there in a wooden box outside the entrance I found an 11 pound pumpkin for sale. How could I resist? And then there were five.
So I realized that I had four pumpkins to carve and about an hour to carve them in, while trying to involve the children and create childhood memories, all before making dinner, putting the kids to bed and then going back to work for my evening class. We piled into the house and I started filling up the kitchen with the four pumpkins that needed to be carved, the fifth one was already in place downstairs, and it was here that I realized that carving in hardly a child friendly activity, especially when you are on a tight schedule. Just what I wanted, Giulio and Livia weilding sharp knives and pumpkin goop in a small space. Giulio however was really excited so I had him get the footstool so he could at least see better and a marker for him to draw a face on to his chosen pumpkin. What music does one carve JOL to? I wanted something very American, in the end I settled for Johnny Cash, most Italians have never heard of him, though we did once hear a coffee house performer in Bolzano belting out "Folsom Prison Blues" which Lorenzo recognized about five bars before I did.
The first two pumpkins were fast, the small ones carve easy and can be scooped out quickly. I don't do much in the way of artistic faces, I do the two triangle eyes, a smaller triangle for the nose, and a large grinning mouth, though occasionally I carve a tooth if I'm feeling inspired. But by number 3 Livia was trying to climb the footstool and grab the gas knobs for the stove top, while Giulio had disappeared somewhere with the blue marker. I found him drawing tentively on the tiled floor in the office and promptly banished him to his room. Luckily the marker was washable, I quickly cleand the floor and then got back to work. I finished all four in under an hour, but not how I wanted to, I mean I wanted it to be something that Giulio felt a part of but other than drawing ears on the pumpkins and refusing to touch the squishy insides, and then being sent to his room amid much protest, he wasn't involved much. It was me cranking out pumpkins while trying not to make a mess and keeping Livia from hurting herself. Maybe they are too little. Or maybe the fact that like anything that happens in my house from Monday to Thursday after 4 o'clock there are always time restrainsts and me keeping a close eye on my watch.
I finally finish and round up candles, a lighter, and put the JOL into plastic carrier bags, along with the now over-flowing compost pail (we are required to seperate our garbage), get the kids' shoes on and hustle us out the door. Luckily we meet Sig.ra Pala on the stairs and she insists on carrying the four pumpkins and the garbage pail, though I had offered her Livia instead. We head out to the yard where we run into Vanda, who I had invited to come and help carve but who had fallen asleep instead, and everyone stands around and watches as I line up and light the five jack-o-lanterns which glow wickedly in the darkening evening. Giulio is so excited he runs around yelling and laughing across the lawn, then comes running back to look at the pumpkins before taking off again. He swings his white Pat the Bunny around and around in his hand. Clearly the tears and Time Out from earlier have been forgotten, maybe this little tiny bit is what he will remember about Halloween with his mommy when he his older. Livia is too busy concentrating on walking as Sig.ra Pala watches her every step to be interested in Mommy lighting some candles, but Vanda looks for a moment and then tells me that there is one pumpkin for each kid in the building, the two smallest are Alessandro and Livia, while Giulio and Vanda have the slightly larger two. "And the really big one is Stefano," she says, which is kind of funny because Stefano could be describes as three yards of standing pump water but I agree that she is right. Five turned out to be the right number after all.

Stay at Home Weekend

We went and bought a new vacuum cleaner today. I am more excited about it than I'd like to admit, though I only used it for a moment. When we came home I took the kids to a birthday party for another one of Giulio's classmates, and left Lorenzo to clean the house, and he is pleased with our new vacuum, especially with its flexible head that makes it easy to get under furniture. The arrival of the new one meant it was time to take Signora Pala's back. There is something almost private about sharing a vacuum cleaner, in my opinion, a bit like lending out your shoes, so I had held back from using hers a lot and was glad to be able to return it. When I took it downstairs to her she told me that she has had that Hoover vacuum since 1962 when she got married. Talk about not making things the way they used to! She admitted that while she doesn't really need it just for herself she had noticed that when the grandkids come to visit the crumbs tended to multiply, something I know a lot about. Cleaning Livia off after breakfast is a bit like searching her for ticks. I find Cheerios everywhere. Signora Pala wouldn't let me take the vacuum down to the storage room for her, or help her disassemble it, wrap the various pieces in plastic, and carefully put it away. She shows more care with the vacuum than I do with my car which might explain why it has lasted for as long as it has.
When I came back upstairs I found on our hall table a folded piece of paper that Giulio had brought home from school yesterday; I assumed it was another one of his scribble drawings. Opening it I read "Menu" written in large letters at the top, with the name of our town and the words Winter Menu written below, followed by a chart with week 1 to week 4 going across the top, and the five days of the week going down the lefthand side. By now these menues no longer suprise me, but when Giulio first started going to the town's daycare and they sent home the menu I called my dad to read out the various dishes offered. This one was no different. For example, Monday, Week 1 they will be eating pumpkin risotto, bresaola (a very lean kind of beef), steamed carrots, bread, and fruit. Or Tuesday Week 3 they will be having vegetable soup, roasted pork, green beans and potatoes, bread, and fruit. The menu had been stamped and signed by the Board of Health of the province. I found the menu funny for several reasons. First of all if this was the winter menu that meant there was a fall and spring one as well. And second it was so far from the sloppy joe, tater-tots, jell-o, and milk menu of my youth that my homeroom teacher used to read out everyday. In America you run for your life from cafeteria food, in Italy you wonder if they offer a take-out option for parents. Now that's an idea! Come pick up your kid and dinner too-- that way mom doesn't have to rush around getting dinner but could instead dedicate herself to quality time with the kids. Except, knowing the other mothers the way I do, I'm sure they think that the cafeteria food isn't great shakes and that they could certainly do better. But at least these school lunches take a lot of pressure off of me. My spies tell me that Giulio eats a lot at school, always asks for seconds on the pasta. The news was relayed to me as proudly as if Giulio was showing strongs signs of being gifted compared to the other children. "Your kid can read at age 4? Well MINE always asks for seconds at lunch!" Thanks to these lunches I have no problem offering Giulio scrambled eggs for dinner, or a turkey dog, at least this way he will know that not all meals have four courses.
Lorenzo has been home all week on sick leave. He's sitting on the couch coughing as I write. It's been really nice having him at home, though we haven't been able to go anywhere even with him home. When you take sick leave as a state employee you have to be home from 10-12 in the morning and from 5-7 in the evening, the time when they supposedly send someone to check to make sure that you are actually sick, though because there are so many state employees and so few of these "checkers" no one has ever come by to see if Lorenzo is actually at home trying to get well instead of say, off skiing somewhere in the Alps. We have a pretty quiet evening planned, we are going to watch a movie that Lorenzo will fall asleep 45 minutes into and somewhere around midnight we will go to bed. Luckily I like to stay in and hang out on the couch. Except right now I have a student whose 22 and every weekend he goes out clubbing. Not that I want to go out clubbing, but somehow I feel like his middle-aged mother teaching this young whippersnapper instead of someone who is a mere (!) 7 years his senior. I have a husband and kids and I sleep no more than 7 hours a night. He has no responsibilities, other than to learn English, and can stay in bed until noon on the weekends and therefore goes out every weekend, which he should do, and if I think hard enough I can sort of remember going out on weekends to clubs and stuff, especially in Rome, when I was exactly his age. And not that I even want to go out to clubs again, the music alone makes me want to tear my hair out. But yesterday I came home, it was cold and raining, the computer was on the fritz and had been all day, making Lorenzo very grumpy as he tried to deal with it, and Giulio was hyper and Livia is teething and therefore unhappy unless I was standing there holding her, and suddenly I thought, God, what I want to do is put on my best "going out" clothes, make myself beautiful, and go out and be 22 again, just for one evening. To not feel like 29 going on 40, but just me. Instead, when Lorenzo had finished fixing the computer I put on my iPod, my running shoes, my reflective vest and went out into the damp evening and ran for four miles. When I came back I felt a young, happy 29, glad to be putting my kids to bed and drinking a glass of wine with my husband. At home on my couch.

Dream Home

Last week I downloaded a song that my brother had played for me when I was home this summer, put it on my mp3 player, and now I frequently listen to it while I run. In the song the woman sings about her dream of growing old by the fire with her partner, in a house in the middle of the country on a dirt road that's barely on the map, surrounded by flowers in summer and knee deep snow in the winter. On Monday as I jogged along listening to the song, I thought of my mother. She lived for four years in rural New Hampshire when I was in college in a house with wood burning fireplaces, on a dirt road barely on the map, flowers blooming on the lawn in summer and knee deep snow from October to May and she HATED every minute of it. Interesting how one person's dream is another person's nightmare.
I could never have imagined my home, my "condo" (I feel so silly and pretentious writing that word) when I was growing up, people rarely sing songs about 70 square meters with two bedrooms and an enclosed porch. My song would also mention having 3 bedrooms so the kids can each have their own room when they are older, and maybe a mortgage that was paid off, but after that, hey, I'm easy. One of the first things I learned when I moved to Italy was that owning a home of my own would not be easy, and the longer I lived here and looked at prices the harder I realized it would be. I seem to know a large number of people whose family's have acquired over the years various properties waiting for the moment when their children are grown and in love and ready to get married to call in the architect and workmen to restructure and transform some 1970's nightmare into something modern, large, and fully furnished. For the most part I don't begrudge people their family's reale estate empire, the idea that two people can't live together until every last detail down to the number of teaspoons has been taken care of, but there are times I want to hang a sign on our door: THIS APARTMENT IS BEING PAID FOR EXCLUSIVELY BY THE PEOPLE LIVING IN IT. DADDY'S MONEY WAS NOT USED TO PAY FOR OR FURNISH IT. THEREFORE DUE RESPECT SHOULD BE PAID TO THE ABOVE MENTIONED OWNERS FOR THEIR TENACITY AND CAPACITY TO BUDGET, FURNISH AN ENTIRE APARTMENT, AND STILL PAY FOR TWO CHILDREN IN DAYCARE/PRE-SCHOOL AND THEIR MORTGAGE. But perhaps that is a lot for one sign. I'm proud of our little place, it is not much, but it is ours, well kind of ours, excluding the part that the bank owns, which I guess actually is a lot, but hey, those are our names on the deed. I say all this because of what happened last night. Our dear friend Piero, who is also Giulio's godfather came up from Rome with his girlfriend to visit. Piero is from a town north of Rome called Rieti, he is a police officer like Lorenzo and he lived up north near us for almost 4 years before obtaining a transfer to go back to Rieti, which he did while complaining the whole time about how he didn't want to go back there but in the end accepted the transfer and went. He had helped us move in here almost three years ago and he has always been very complimentary about what we have done with the place. He finally cut apron strings a few years ago and moved out of his family's house, and rented an apartment of his own for a while. Then he met his girlfriend, and the last I heard was that they had decided to move in together and see how things went.
So last night they are here and we are having dinner and all they can talk about it how they have decided that what they want to do it come back north, that Piero is sick of his office and wants to come back here and the girlfriend hates her job, the pay is lousy, the contract lousy, and she thinks as well that things could be better for them here. We are agreeing, saying that she would definately make more money here, they could buy a nice apartment maybe and that way we could hang out more, and then Lorenzo and Piero start talking shop again so I start clearing plates. The girlfriend and I are now in the kitchen and I'm loading the dishwasher and she is watching me, which sounds mean but if you saw how small my kitchen is you would realize she was actually doing it to be polite and stay out of my way, and she asked me where we got our kitchen. That may sound like a really strange question to Americans. In Italy when you buy a house you also buy a kitchen as the former owners will take their kitchen with them when they move. They also take the light fixtures, leaving just wires sticking out of the ceiling, and the bathroom sink/vanity but do leave the toilet, bathtub and shower, perhaps because they would be too hard to cart away. So when moving the question of where you got your kitchen and how much you paid, and did you know anyone who might offer a good price becomes a serious topic of discussion. Companies that make kitchen cabinets, counters, and stove caps advertize on TV. I could name at least three brands off the top of my head and tell you if they were considered high end, middle, or low. This does not include the appliances, though they are usually thrown in with the whole kitchen package. A decent kitchen, nothing too amazing will cost you around 10,000 euros though that of course depends on whether or not it was custom designed, what materials were used etc. Our kitchen is a nice design, but not of very high quality, though the appliances aren't bad. Anyway, Piero's girlfriend starts saying something about their kitchen being ok and asking how I clean my stove top (when was the last time YOU had that conversation??!!) and I said, so what is the deal with your apartment, are you renting?
"No, we own it."
"Oh, really? I didn't know that Piero had bought an apartment."
"Well actually it wasn't him. You see my dad had bought this apartment for my sister in Rome for when she was at university, and he decided to sell it, and when he heard that Piero was thinking about buying something he said why don't we look together, and in the end he used the money from the Rome apartment and bought it for us."
"Oh." I'm trying to be cool here. Nice. Your girlfriend's dad is in a good mood and offers to buy you a place. Happens to me all the time. Well, they are a young couple, not even married, I'm sure it is a "starter" home, maybe two rooms like the place Lorenzo and I first lived in, 460 square feet, which was fine, until Giulio came along and started walking and by the end I couldn't wait to see the last of that apartment even if it was in the historic center.
"How big is it?"
"Well, it's about 960 square feet (this is a good size for an Italian apartment) and it has got three bedrooms, and a double garage."
So much for the starter apartment. One signature on a check and the girl had what I had always dreamed of, and she didn't even have kids yet. Just like love means never having to say you are sorry in Italy three bedrooms means never having to move.
Suddenly I couldn't stop myself. I blurted out, "So why do you want to leave? It sounds like you are set." Three bedrooms, did she just say THREE BEDROOMS??!!
"Yeah, well, we're just fed up with it, you know? We don't even have very good friends there anymore."
"Yeah, I know." Three bedrooms. Who needs friends when you can leave the baby to cry it out without disturbing the older kid? Suddenly I felt silly, silly standing there in my tiny kitchen in my 42 year old building, feeling pleased with my little place when she obviously had something so much bigger and better. Except that she didn't see it that way, heck, they want to come move up here where we are, though I guess they could use the money they get from selling that apartment and get something with three bedrooms here. And with no mortgage to worry about. It's like starting the game already standing on third base, instead of all the innings that Lorenzo and I had to play to get enough balls and runs to finally make it to second. It was hard not to feel jealous. I stopped trying and just went ahead and felt jealous.
On Friday while cleaning the house the vacuum died. The Made in China, 40 euro vacuum died before we had even owned it six months, and it died about an hour before I had to be at work, so no time to rush out and get a new one. As Lorenzo sat on the floor surrounded by pieces of the vacuum, I ran downstairs to Terry and Eugenio's but they weren't home. I then crossed my fingers and went back up a flight to Signora Pala's, I wasn't even sure she owned a vaccum cleaner, people of a certain age here tend to be wary of these new-fangled things for cleaning floors. My own mother-in-law cannot be tempted to give up her broom, despite the vacuum cleaner and Swiffer that we have given her in the hopes of bringing her into the next century as far as cleaning. I knocked on Signora Pala's door and she answered smiling as usual, and when I asked about borrowing her vacuum cleaner she told me that she didn't use one anymore, because it was just her living alone there so she used a broom, BUT she did use one when her sons (now both well in their 40's) lived at home. We went down to her storage room in basement where she proceeded to unpack a very elderly but clean and functioning Hoover, which she gave to me telling me that she didn't use it any more and to just keep it for as long as we needed it. After offering a million thank yous I took the Hoover back upstairs where Lorenzo said that everyone knew that Hoover was the best brand and proceeded to use it to suck up all the dust balls in a very satisfactory manner. It was like having your car break down and asking your neighbor if you can borrow their car and they lend you an old Merecedes and tell you to hang onto it for as long as you need it.
So yes, Piero and girlfriend may have three bedrooms but they don't have Signora Pala who, as I know, is worth her weight in third bedrooms.

A Strike and a Spare

In the end the bowling party for Giulio went well, though the signs were there that it might not go as planned. I ordered the cake on Monday and Lorenzo went to pick it up on Saturday morning and came home fuming. It was 43 euros. 43 euros! What was he, Berlusconi's son, he didn't have 43 euros to blow on a cake, what could I have been thinking?? I pointed out that it was for 14 people and had strawberries in it, but he wasn't interested. Then around three o'clock (the party was scheduled for 4) we got a call from the bowling alley asking if we were planning on coming because they hadn't gotten a confirmation from us. Except they had. Lorenzo had called them a week ago to confirm that we were coming with at least 10 people, and we had been told that it was all set.
"People or kids?" the lady on the phone now wanted to know.
Why did it matter? When we had originally planned the party we had explained that there would be more adults than children and the guy had told us no problem. Did this mean they would give each person a small piece of foccaccia and call it even because they were expecting children? Would we make a "brutta figura" and send people home hungry? Lorenzo got dressed, took Livia and drove over there, worried about what we might find if we waited any longer to show up. I followed about 20 minutes later with 2 guests and the cake, a plate of pizzette, and bottles of coke and spumante. And in the end there was no problem. The table was set with cups and napkins and when they brought out the refreshments there was plenty for everyone, and along with the stuff we had brought, including the cake, well, no one went hungry. What logistics were involved though in planning! In America if you put out food, people eat it. Here we had this long debate-- ah yes, well the party's at four and people really aren't hungry and planning on eating a whole lot at four, maybe just cake. But then what if they are hungry and there isn't enough. To Snack of Not To Snack, that became the question and it kept going around and around until I began to wonder why I ever let Giulio have a birthday party to begin with.
By 4:30 though, everyone had shown up, all the people who Giulio likes to say, "all together they love me." We got bowling shoes all round and we were actually able to relax and have fun though Giulio was less than enthusiastic about bowling this time, at least at the begining. The place was filled with video games and video poker machines. Instead of bowling Giulio wanted to sit in front of the race car video game and turn the steering back and forth with the words INSERT COIN flashing across the screen. I practically had to pull him out of the seat while hissing in his ear the inane threat: Giulio, you come now or next year no birthday party! He got into the spirit of things eventually, even bowled for a while, but soon he was drawn to the snack table and by the end of the afternoon I had to do his turns for him. Clearly bowling has lost its appeal, next year it's just going to be 30 of his closest friends and a big cake. I have had my fill of children's birthday parties for the time being.
The only other downside of the party was the staff at the bowling alley, the friendly guy we had spoken to wasn't there for most of the afternoon. The staff watched us like hawks and were annoyed when people got anywhere near the bowling lanes with food, something that I found hilarious. I mean, can you imagine being told in the US that you can't have food near the lanes? Who would go bowling any more? People have sit-down meals pausing only to get up and bowl strikes at some of the places in Cincinnati. I obeyed but some of our male friends would sneak a pizzette up onto the lane with them, though I doubt the eagle-eyed guy at the desk missed a thing. The staff also seemed to think we were taking too long with our party. Apparently this particular bowling alley closes for one hour between seven and eight and they seemed very worried that we were going to run past 7. One of my friends heard one guy complain to another, "They aren't here to have dinner, they are here to bowl!" when she walked by the counter while we were doing cake and presents. We did make it out in time, but I wasn't pleased, I don't like to be rushed especially when I'm about to shell out cash for the priviledge of using their fine facility.
Signs that I'm becoming Italian: I wasn't pleased with the 43 euro cake. They had obviously used frozed strawberries instead of fresh strawberries, and in a true Italian hostess tradition I passed around the cake plates while lamenting on the quality, just as Terry had done at Alessandro's birthday when she had spend over 100 euros on two cakes. No self-respecting hostess would ever taste the cake she bought and proclaim it fabulous. No, instead a debate must ensue over where one can find a really good cake without feeling ripped off, as the one you are eating is certainly not meeting the mark. A hostess can show her approval by not saying anything, offering only a vague, "really?" when people deem the cake to be edible. I had eaten this same type of cake at another birthday and I remember going on and on about it to the hostess, so much so that when it was time to order it last week for Giulio's birthday I even called my friend to double-check on what was in it so I could be sure that it was the right one. I also asked for it in the shape of the number 4. Unfortunately it was an "italian" 4, so that upside-down it looked like a 7, and the girl at the bowling alley when she put the candles on it thought it was a 7 too, so that in the end it the candles that spelled HAPPY BIRTHDAY faced the wrong way, and when we tried to switch them it started to ruin the fluffy wipped cream topping and in the end the cake facing Giulio in the photos just says HAPPY ---------, as the "birthday" part of the candles are still facing the wrong way. We only got one or two photos of the cake part. The batteries on my camera died the moment I tried to take a photo of the cake with the candles all lit, while at the same time my friend Luca, who had been given video camera duty, informed me that the video camera had just run out of the film. The new cassette that I tried to open wouldn't, and in the end I gave up. I will have to try again when Giulio turns 5.
Out of all his presents Giulio was most proud of the trophy he was given at the end of the party by the staff, which says "To the Number 1 player at the birthday party." It is now sitting proudly on the shelf in his room.

La Festa del Bowling

Giulio's birthday is on Friday. He has become obsessed with birthdays lately, actually his own birthday. It is never anyone's birthday but his. When I tried to tell him two weeks ago that today was my birthday he looked and me for a moment and then shook his head.
"No Mommy. It is not your birthday, it's GIULIO's birthday! Not Mommy's."
We had a similar conversation when preparing to go to a fellow classmate's birthday party last week, how it wasn't Carlo's birthday but Giulio's, though in the end he relented long enough to give Carlo the Power Ranger that Lorenzo had picked out. No educational, wooden toy for this kid--just China all the way. Carlo's mom was thrilled, this was THE Power Ranger that Carlo had wanted and they had been unable to find it anywhere, I just smiled and acted like it was a careful deliberate choice on our part, rather than reveal the nasty truth that he had gone to buy Spiderman and they had been sold out.
Giulio first started to "get" birthdays last year when he turned three. People were giving him gifts! And singing! And feeding him cake! And all because he was a year older. But what I think really piqued his interest was when Livia had her birthday when we were in Cincinnati in August. I'll admit it, I even posted on a website reviling people who gave big parties for babies too little to enjoy them and then went on to throw a large two-phase birthday for a one year old. We had 16 of our closest friends and family, though I fully admit that this party was all about me wanting to get the people I love together in one room with the excuse of celebrating Livia's birthday in Cincinnati. Giulio's birthday is too late in the year to ever be celebrated in the US with our family and friends back home
. We held the party at a (clean and smoke-free) bowling alley across the river in Kentucky, followed by aperativi and prosecco at our house afterwards. We bowled, kept Livia away from the balls and off the floor, ate pizza, drank a lot of beer and then opened presents and had cake, and it was a success, a sort of melding of the Best of The Red American States with a strong Italian twist. The only drawback was that Lorenzo wasn't there, he had flown back to Italy the week before to start work. The cheese and wine for the aperativi cost more than the entire party at the bowling alley, and it gave Giulio the die hard belief that he his birthday had to involve bowling as well. I don't even like bowling, and even though there are bowling alleys here in Italy, it just seems to me like the quintessential American activity, I mean, I have never seen an Italian bringing his own ball and shoes to go play, I don't even know where one could buy bowling shoes in Italy. Lorenzo always wants to go whenever we are back in the States, he was the one who was the most enthusiastic about the party for Livia, and he also happens to be very good at the game. We never go here. For one thing, I am a terrible bowler (yes-me the American), and another, who wants to bowl while trying to keep two small children from running/crawling down the lanes?
Luckily for Giulio there is a bowling alley two towns over that does actual party packages, the American version frozen pizza and pitcher of pop having been replaced by foccaccia, pizzette, and olives. We booked for about 12 people, the owner explained to us the phases of the party. Instead of eating as we bowl (isn't that the best part??) we would play a game and then adjorn to the tables where we would have the food and cake, before moving back to the lanes for one more game. There was no problem with bringing spumante, and they could order the cake too if we wanted. And so, on Saturday we will all be there, six adults, four children, and two toddlers and Giulio probably bouncing off the walls with excitement.
Part of me feels, well not guilty but sort of silly for doing this kind of party, though I can hardly justify that it was OK for Livia and over the top for Giulio. The parties we have been to so far have been your basic birthday party. The kids run around and play and then the mom comes out with food and then the cake, presents are opened and then playing is resumed. There are no themes, no bouncy castles, no pony rides. If your house is too small you book the game room at the church and have it there, though then it is up to you to clean and mop the floor afterwards. In doing the bowling party we also had to greatly limit numbers to avoid spending a small fortune, only inviting people we are close to, rather than a big group of kids from his class. At any rate on Friday Giulio will take cake and bottles of coke to school with him to share with his class and they will sing to him and I know that he can't wait, he keeps talking about taking the cake to school. But I have already decided next year we invite his whole class, I buy a bunch of pizzette, panini, Nutella, and birthday cake, and we book the game room down at the church. But as any parent knows what you want to do is make your child happy, even if it means a Saturday wearing rented shoe. Sometimes you worry: is it too much? Am I teaching him to always expect a lot?I don't think I am over doing it, at least not this time with Giulio. Is a bowling party for 12 more excessive than a sit-down 6 course meal for 10? Yes, that is how we celebrated Giulio's first birthday. You could argue it beats bowling hands down.

The Mommy Stroke

Now that Giulio is about to be four I thought it was time to move onto a new phase in his childhood: afterschool activities. Well, just one activity actually; swim class. I got the idea when I ran into the mother of Giulio's little friend Daria, who told me that Daria was taking lessons on Wednesday afternoons and she would just love it if Giulio could be in the same class as her. The classes were being held at the town's public pool, a place that any woman who has had a baby here or in the surrounding area knows because they also offer special swim classes for pregnant women. There is something wonderful about being in a changing room with a bunch of women all as pregnant and uncomfortable as you are, everyone's body being hijacked by this little demanding foetus. Friendships are born, confindences are exchanged. But later after everyone has had their baby it is more than likely that you will pass one of these women on the street and not even recognize them, no longer do they have a big belly, swollen ankles, nor are they wearing a swim cap. But I digress. Let me just say that after six years and two children, I knew the town pool quite well. It is a beautiful, 7 lane olympic length tiled pool, with spectator stands on one wall, and two walls of floor to ceiling glass on the other. You don't feel like you are swimming down in the basement, shut out from all light as you swim back and forth, instead with the sun reflecting off the water and illuminating your legs and making them look white and fleshy, you feel almost as though you are outside. There is also a smaller, shallow baby pool, which in my expecting mom swim class we used for relaxation exercises that I completely forgot once I went into labour.
Along with its beautiful pool and well stocked upstairs cafe' the pool is famous for something else: its' lines on enrollment day. Apparently twice a year they open the various courses, not just swim class but also something called aqua gym which is hugely popular with women. There are also swim classes for the elderly, swim team, and private lessons. On the day they do enrollment the lines are legendary. Apparently you go, get a number, and wait. It's the aqua gym wait that gets really brutal. They only offer it twice a week so people go early to be sure to get a number that guarantees them a space, arguments have been known to break out, though I have never been there to witnessed them. Its similar, maybe not quite as heated for spots on the Saturday children's swim classes, for obvious reasons. This way your child can go swimming without having to worry about school, homework, staying late at the office, or other afterschool activities getting in the way, and it is also when parents have the most free time. Fridays are also popular, no school the next day, at least for the preschool-elementary school kids. By the time I saw Daria's mother and booked it over there to sign Giulio up Enrollment day sign-up had been ages ago, classes started the following monday, leaving very little open. Daria's class was all full, as were all the Friday classes. The women in charge of signing people up merely gave an evil laugh when I asked about Saturdays. Thursday? Two spots left at 5 o'clock. Tuesday? Full. Monday? There was one spot left for the Monday 4:30 beginners class. I did some mental calculations. The class lasted half an hour. The time it would take to get Giulio showered, changed and back at home would put me at about 5:30, which would give me time if I had to be at work at 6.
"I'll take Monday at 4:30."
There were nine lessons in a package, which would mean the course would finish in mid-november. However now that Giulio was signed up it would give him priority over any new child signing up for the first time in November, so that if a spot opened in Daria's class, then Giulio could possibly be moved.
That was three weeks ago, and the good new is that Giulio LOVES swim class. He has this tall, bronzed goddess of a swim teacher who has them play games that involve splashing and jumping into the water one at at a time. Right now the focus is just on getting the kids comfortable with being in the water, and not on breathing or doing any kind of strokes. The mothers can watch the lessons from the lobby where one wall has windows that overlook the pool and from here I can see Giulio following the teachers instructions, playing games, and generally having fun. It would be perfectly pleasant if it was just me and Giulio, but unfortunately I have Livia with me as well, and that makes everything much more difficult. To start with Livia is walking now, a kind of staggering walk, that still gives way to crawling. She is still experimenting, while crawling is her preferred method of getting about.
On this past Monday we mange to get there early and in the locker room I have no choice but to kind of prop her up against a bench while I help Giulio change into his swimsuit, swim cap, and sandals. Then I have to change into flip-flops because you are not allowed past a certain point in the locker room wearing regular shoes. The cleaning lady who is always lurking around, sighing because someone just walked over her newly washed floor, will ream you out if she sees you headed towards the pool wearing "outside" shoes. So you have women elegantly dressed with their gold jewelry and their Armani Jeans rolled up wearing either some kind of water shoes or these blue plastic bag type things for shoes that they have in hospitals for people to wear when they go into a sterile environment. The first two weeks it was hot so I was wearing sandles and it only took a second for me to slip them off and put my flip flops on. On Monday it had gotten a bit cooler and so I was wearing sneakers which I had to take off, hurling them into the locker along with Giulio's stuff, all the while trying to keep Livia from crawling underneath a changing booth. We just use the general, open changing room when we get dressed. I take Giulio down the long hallway towards the pool, walk gingerly through the shower stall that we have to pass through to get to the pool, though luckily the shower is off, over to the bench next to the baby pool. We are early, way early, 10 minutes by my watch, and fifteen judging from the official pool clock mounted on the wall. Giulio is fine waiting on the bench, watching the other children trickle in through the shower stall, it is Livia who wants to move, making determinedly towards the baby pool which is not more than 3 feet away. I reach over and snatch her up and try to get her interested in the direction of the windows, but it doesn't fly with her. I then try and just hold her but she squirms and squawks until I put her down again. I feel myself starting to sweat and no wonder the temperature in here, according to the official thermometer is 84 degrees and the sun is pouring in from the windows directly onto us. Fine if you are wearing a swim suit, not fine if you are wearing jeans and a long sleeved shirt. After what feels like an infinity of struggling with Livia and telling Giulio to get back from the pool's edge, the goddess swim teacher shows up so I can leave. Livia and I go back through the locker room where I change into my sneakers and head out to the lobby to wait. As the lesson is only half an hour it should pass in no time but I'm with Livia in her tired-yet not ready to give up the fight-time of day. Which means she either wants to walk or crawl. She will tolerate being held, but only if I am standing up while I do it. I try and watch Giulio through the glass while at the same time keep an eye on Livia and her staggering. Now she is down on the floor which for some reason seems littered with hair. No,no, no, I bend down and pick her up, trying to interest her in the swimmers on the other side of the glass. Livia will have none of this, she wants to walk so down we go again, step, step, step, step, steeeeeeeep, fall, and she's down, and I'm bending over and picking her up and trying to distract her and she wants down and so......and so it goes on for the what seems like an almost endless half hour. By the time I head back to the locker room to meet Giulio as he comes out of the pool I am tired, and hot too as the locker room is like ten degrees warmer than the lobby. But now the hardest part is about to come, the showering and dressing. Not hard because Giulio won't cooperate, hard because you are fighting 20 other mothers for showers and space as you try and get your child ready. Giulio comes through beaming about his lesson, telling me he went under the water and as much as I would like to find out more we get in the shower room and find all the showers are taken by small children in various stages of bathing suit undress standing under the shower heads while their mothers shout instructions at them. Or in some cases shout and then go ahead and do the washing themselves. I wait, holding Livia with one arm, the towel and plastic bag with the shampoo and soap in the other, while some mother helps her pubescent daughter wash her hair. I roll my eyes in disgust, is this how they do it at home too? Finally they finish and I get Giulio under the shower, and as I am holding Livia I have to shout instructions and gesture as Giulio is not used to washing his own hair.
"Ok Giulio, put on the shampoo. Now rub! No, don't rinse! Rub! Rub Giulio! Rub! That's it..keep going! A little more! Ok rinse." Here I have to stick a hand in the shower and help him get all the shampoo out of his hair.
"Ok, now this is for your body. Rub it on your belly! Your belly, Giulio, your belly! Now your arms! No, don't rinse yet! And your legs! Good! OK, rinse now!"
It is not the most thorough cleansing, but he has been swimming, not playing in mud, so he comes out of the shower dripping wet, and I try and wrap him one handed in the towel, but can't do it right and suddenly half of the towel is dragging on the floor. We move onto the next stage of mayhem, the locker rooms where the benches and hooks are covered in bags and shoes and clothes. Some mothers ignore the signs telling you to keep everything put away in the lockers and instead keep everything out to guarantee themselves a place on the bench. We fight our way in and I put Livia on the floor where she is immediately drawn to the drain and I decide I won't think about it, and instead focus on getting Giulio dressed. He is still quite damp, but at that moment, with the heat, and the noise and Livia on the floor, and the fact that I am sweating, I don't bother to dry him anymore but just start tugging his clothes on. Why do clothes always take longer to put on when you are in a hurry? And especially when you are in a wet hurry? Ignoring the looks from the mother next to me, I have taken HER spot, I get Giulio into his clothes and start stuffing his feet into his shoes. This is no time to work on getting dressed by himself. I see Livia start to head out the door back towards the showers and bellow at Giulio to stop her. They both sit together on the locker room floor giggling. With my hair in my eyes and sticking to my nose I frantically tie my shoes and start stuffing things into the bag. I don't bother to seperate wet from dry, or to wrap up Giulio's suit in the towel. Nor do I dry his hair. It's short, he will be fine.
"Come on, let's go, let's go!' I call and hauling Livia on one arm and the swim bag on the other I make towards the exit with Giulio wailing behind me that he wants to carry his bag. We get out to the car and after getting everyone buckled in I flop into the front seat with a deep sigh. I'm exhausted, how is this going to work when I actually have to go to work immediately afterwards? Giulio however is happy, it seems that the swimming lessons are a big hit.

Down and Out in Italy

Totally nasty weather here today--cold and pouring rain, Venice flooding and the Alps getting their first hit of snow. All we've had is rain, but with the Indian summer (though can you have Indian summer in Italy?) over, we used Lorenzo's day off to do the "cambio di stagione" the change of the seasons, taking our shorts and bathing suits down to our storage room and bringing up sweaters and coats in their place. I hate my winter clothes, it's all jeans and turtlenecks, some of which I have had for years, none of the cool, adult, sexy mom clothes that I wish I owned. It was also a jarring reminder of all the cute clothes that I see in the shop windows that I either can't afford or can't fit into, the standard size for women here being a size 4. When I mentioned to Lorenzo that I hated my clothes he tells me that he hates his too, which I found surprising, I've never heard a man say what is always seen as a women-only sentiment. I can't say I blame him; Lorenzo's wardrobe is heavy on wool sweaters.
The evening news was all depressing too. Besides monks being killed in Burma, and soldiers dying in Afghanistan there was the happy news about pensioners who don't have enough money each month to get by, and how families with 2 children just can't make it to the end of the month either. It also included this bizarre story about some destitute family near Herculanium in Naples who, because their home had collapsed back in May, had been living in the town's city hall for months. The report focused on how they took baths and where the son did his homework without the reporter ever explaining why their house collapsed or why the town agreed to have them living in these offices; quite nice of them if you ask me. Imagine going to City Hall to register the birth of your child and behind the city clerk processing your form sits a man watching tv and smoking. Or at least that is how I imagine it, the camera crew went when the office was officially closed. All of this worry and unhappiness has to do with the euro, inflation, how salaries stay the same while prices rise, and the mortgage crisis touched off in the US that seems to be wreaking havoc on the rest of the world. Imagining myself in 50 years, old and destitute, living on beans and day old bread Lorenzo and I lifted a glass of red wine to toast each other and knock it back to numb the pain, Lorenzo reminding me that at least our town's City Hall is a really nice building, if we are ever forced live there. Is there anything worse than a rainy day when you are feeling broke?
At 3:10 this afternoon I started my school run, going into the center to get Livia before coming back to our neighborhood to get Giulio from the nursery school down the road. Traffice was heavy, no one wanted their little dears to get wet in the downpour, though it really was wall-of-rain out there to be fair and it was almost an hour before we got back home, both kids happy, tired, and dirty from their long day at school/nido. Due to the ugly weather I was wearing an old pair of jeans and my college era North Face rain coat, though my children, after a summer of me shopping at Target, Gap, Value City, and Old Navy looking for deals, looked much nicer than I did. I always get mad compliments on whatever Livia is wearing, which is nice because it goes a long way to make up for the fact that she always looks adorable (though maybe that is because she is a baby) and I just look OK. A few weeks ago Judith Warner in the New York Times had this whole thing about the famous Yummy Mummy, most specificallly the French Yummy Mummy, based on an essay in last months French Vogue. These are women fashionably dressed, perfectly manicured and touseled, who always get their children into the right classes with the best teachers. Their homes are tastefully decorated and clean and they make sublime pastry in their spare time. I don't know about the pastry or the tasteful decoration (another post, another time), but the moms here sure do look cute taking little Francesco and Giulia to school. Forget the faded jeans and the "I don't do Mondays" t-shirts, here they wear little blouses with cute jackets, capri jeans with high heels, or elegant boots with dresses. They always accessorize nicely too, with enormous Chanel sunglasses and matching handbags. Even casual is more restrained than our idea of casual. Ironed jeans with a sexy sweater and beautiful leather loafers. They get their hair done once a week and wax regularly. They know to go early to sign their child up for swim classes to get the desired Saturday lessons, unlike me who forgot to sign Giulio up until about four days before lessons started and all that was left was the Monday slot.
These women are also helped by their mothers, something I envy more than anything. With two sets of grandparents on hand, all things are possible. Mothers can work full time without feeling guilty because she knows her mother will pick the kids up from school and take them to swim class. Preparing lunch is never a problem either, everyone just heads over to Grandma's house for a three course meal. This week I am helping a former student of mine translate pages of his website. Yesterday at lunch time we hopped in his car and drove the two blocks to his mom's house, where she had prepared pasta, steak, spinach, cake, fruit, and coffee. This was not done specially for me, he merely told her to prepare another 100 grams of pasta since I was coming too. In Italy there is no need for the government subisidized nanny that Judith Warner claims they have in France, all you need are grandma and grandpa and everything runs smoothly. I can't help but be jealous of these women who just don't seem to realize at times how lucky they are. They sigh over how stressful if all is, trying to manage it all, and I'm sure it is, but when was the last time they hailed someone down outside their house to come in and watch the kids until their husbands got home? The family unit, including aunts, uncles, and cousins is still fundamental in Italy, they are the people you turn to first. When you need to move and assemble a new bookshelf you don't call your best friend to help you, you call your Dad who comes over while your Mom keeps an eye on the kiddies.
Lorenzo and I, with our families far away have to be our moms/dads/aunts/uncles rolled into one. There is a scene in the Nick Hornby book "About a Boy" where the main character attends a Single parents group called S.P.A.T. or Single Parents Alone Together. Lorenzo and I are not single parents, but we are alone, together. I have helped carry various heavy pieces of furniture up the stairs and stood by to hand Lorenzo tools while he fixed the car or installed ceiling fans. He in turn vaccuums, prepares ragu sauce, and goes grocery shopping. This past spring when Giulio stayed over night in the hospital to get his adenoids taken out, we took turns standing in the waiting area with Livia in her stroller (she wasn't allowed into the ward) while the other sat with Giulio in his hospital bed. Sometimes I get so fed up with it being just us, though I know my parents would move here in a heartbeat if they could. I know they are here in spirit and on the phone cheering us on, and always making us feel like the 24 hours of hell that we endure to fly to Cincinnati was worth it once we see them at the airport so excited and happy to see us. But sometimes it would be nice to take off my load and spread it out a bit amongst other people. Like having someone else to do my ironing, or knowing that if Lorenzo wants to put new blinds up on the porch he won't be counting on me to hold the ladder and hand him things. But sometimes there is something exhilirating in our Us vs. Them mentality, the times Lorenzo and I have pulled off the impossible, licked the bureucracy, pulled off a perfect wedding, completed the seemingly endless list of things to do, got Livia into the right daycare, put a down payment down on a condo using our own savings. On Monday we managed to simultanously go grocery shopping and get the car fixed all in under 20 minutes. And it is moments like these we hug and we whisper in each other's ear: Insieme siamo troppo forte. Together we kick butt.

Baby Hold On

I blame my lateness for posting on mental and physical exhaustion. Yes, the white flag has flown and I admit defeat, my children have kicked my butt. As I write this Livia is happily flinging our DVDs from their cabinet and onto the floor. Far from being the coveted "Yummy Mummy" I am officially Grouchy Mommy, Constantly Saying NO Mommy, Screaming Mommy, In Therapy for the Rest of the Their Adult Lives Mommy. Ok, well maybe not that. But being on my own with the kids since getting back to Italy has been HARD, compounded by the fact that Lorenzo is working hard at the office and the children have been home working hard on me every day. Last Saturday Livia woke up in bad mood and proceeded to yell/scream/express displeasure for much of the morning, mostly over the fact that I strapped her into her high chair while I cleaned the house. Around the time I was trying to spoon lunch into her I broke down, and called my mother, not giving a damn that it was 6am in the states and sobbed my frustration and exhaustion to her over the phone. She assured me that it was normal to feel like a mental breakdown was in order after four and half hours of wailing toddler. There are times when I see myself from an outside perspective thinking, this is not the mom I wanted to be. Giulio grates on my nerves as well, with his constant "why?" whenever he is asked to do anything. Last night we went out to a pizzeria for dinner and when dinner wasn't immediately forthcoming Giulio did his new way of expressing discontent: breath coming out in short puffs, bouncing up and down at the knees, arms held up towards me, a kind of "Mommy, want hug! " wail coming from his mouth. Lorenzo couldn't understand my impatience with this dance until I asked him how much he had seen Giulio awake in the last week and a half. He offered up a sad smile and was silent.
Relief is on the way though, Giulio started school on Monday doing half days all week before he starts full time next week. And this year he really seems to like school, the teacher is young and pretty and looks just how you think a nice nursery school teacher should look. Best of all the school is just around the corner, about a five minute walk from our house. Hello Bicycle, good bye car! But his time out the house was largely un-noticed because while he was at school I was helping Livia complete her day care placement period. Yes, we have switched day cares, Livia will now be going to the city run public daycare where Giulio went. She even has the same two teachers that he had, Rossella and Daniela. The word for daycare in Italian is nido, which means nest, a really great word to describe what you hope your child will see as a protected place, a kind of sanctuary, and they really go out of their way to make the child feel safe and comfortable there. Livia started her placement two weeks ago, and for the first week I wasn't allowed to leave the room where she was, not even to run to the bathroom. The point is at first to just get the child comfortable with the surroundings. Around Thursday she started having lunch, which I fed her the first time. It wasn't until this past Tueday (they never try anything new on a Monday after the kid has been home for two days with Mommy and Daddy) that I was allowed to leave the room for an hour while she played and then had lunch. I spent the last half of the week in the Parent's room, with a book, waiting for the occasional update as Livia went through her daily routine in the room across the hall. The first time she stayed for nap, I had to lie down with her which she seemed to find to be one big joke and proceeded to crawl all over me. On Wednesday and Thursday she went to sleep on her own. On Friday came the final challenge, if she could do her whole day, including nap and the snack that followed without me. She passed with flying colors. Actually home now must seem so boring to her after that place where everything is arranged for a small child. There is nothing she can't touch or play with or climb on. And she has gotten very attached to Rossella, just as Giulio was, which is just as well, as she will be with Rossella and Daniela for the whole two years (though for children who start when they are younger it is three years) that she is there. So no, I don't feel guilty or bad at all about leaving Livia there, with people who, compared to me as of late, are calm and aren't trying to prepare meals, do loads of laundry, or put away groceries while trying to take care of chidren.
There are two public day cares in our town, which means about 70 spots in total, and I still don't know how we managed to get in. Seeing as they are run by the town, they assemble a group of chidren that cover the whole socio-economic graph. There is a sliding pay scale, and they take a certain number of people from each braket so in the end you have a complete democratic mix of people, a doctor's child who is paying the full fee in the same class as an unemployed single mom's kid, who isn't paying anything. Much more democratic than anything I ever found in the States, including the concept that poor people should have access to top-notch childcare because they are probably the ones who need it the most. It is kind of interesting who you rub shoulders with, but that is how I have found Giulio's preschool to be as well, rich people have no problem sending their kids to the free public pre-school to be alongside their cleaner's children. Thanks to Lorenzo's policeman's salery and my 9 months out of the year job, we are paying the same amount for Livia to go full time that we were paying for her to go part-time at her old nido.
Yes, I'll admit it, there are times I think about leaving Italy. Not alone of course. I think about loading Lorenzo and the kids into the Boeing 767 and heading off to live in Cincinnati in my parent's basement until I can get a Master's degree and a good paying job. And Lorenzo can become the stay-at-home-dad that he is meant to be. But then I think about the nido and, to quote "The Sound of Music", then I don't feel so bad. And thinking that as of Monday I will have both kids being pleasantly occupied, fed, and tired out by other people from 9-3:30, well, I feel even better.

The Letter

I'm starting to get back on track here, we are alll sleeping at normal times now, even Livia. Now when I start singing "Baby Mine" she puts her head on my shoulder for a moment and pats my back, then sort of straightens up, looks at me as if to say, "You are still singing?" and then tries to free herself from my arms to drop into bed. And this is when I've barely sung the first verse! Guess my singing is worse than I thought, though Giulio likes me to sing the whole song anyway. I've also started running again, eager not to let go of the endurance I worked so hard at pounding the hot streets of downtown Cincinnati with my brother, and after the heat of the mid-west the cool air here makes running feel really easy. Something has changed since I first came to live here. Six years ago when I would try and go running around town I would get these cool looks from people like, "Whatever you are doing, please don't do it around me." I would occasionally see the odd dedicated, weathered male jogger about but otherwise I felt so conspicuous, like I was doing The Wave at a funeral that I joined a gym so I could do my running in peace, free to sweat as much as I liked. The memory of these stares has kept me off the streets and in the gyms for over six years now, rarely, if ever venturing out into the open air to pound the pavement, but in the meantime suddenly lots of people, at least in Northern Italy, have taken up running. And not just men either, women too, young, old, middle aged. Yesterday was a gorgeous day, the sky swept clean by the strong breeze which shows off the Alps to its' best and clearest advantage, and running down country roads with meadows and cornfields all around me and the sun warming my back was, well, let's just say, Cincinnati it was not. Maybe it was the good weather but I couldn't get over the scores of people I saw out running, including people running in packs. I felt like something out of The Wizard of OZ, Glinda the Good Witch waving her wand and telling us joggers to "come out come out wherever [we] are..."
Terry, my downstairs neighbor, has her sister Marta, Marta's two children, and Marta's dog staying with them for the week. It also turned out to be a blessing for me to have them because each morning this week and next Livia is doing "orientation" at her new day care center. As this daycare will have to be a topic of its' own posting I will leave it for now, but in any case I couldn't take Giulio with me so he's been staying downstairs with Eugenio and Marta and all the kids until I get home around 12. Giulio doesn't start school til Monday, but as he loves Terry's daughter Vanda, he's really enjoyed playing with her and her cousin Federica in our yard each day, and so when Marta asked me if I would be able to help Federica with her English summer assignment I quickly agreed.
This was not the first time I have been asked to help with homework. Occasionally, late in the evening there will be a quiet knocking on our door and Vanda or Stefano will be standing there clutching an English textbook and smiling sheepishly, needing help on a homework exercise. Once my neighbor across the street asked me if I would mind translating her niece's account of her class trip to Rome. Apparently she was expected to tell all about it in her 8th grade English class and just didn't feel up to the task. While I did suggest that if this niece didn't feel up to it then she probably often didn't "feel up to it" when she was in class and therefore the teacher would certainly know when the girl who had probably never used the past simple test correctly in her life suddenly presented this gramatically correct essay using all kinds of tenses, including ones she had never even been taught. Not to worry, my nieghbor said, showing me a neatly handwritten report, the niece would just be so relieved if I could do it! In the end I agreed to do it, though not because I think it is OK for an adult to do a child's homework for them, but because, as many of you are painfully aware, I never know when a babysitting emergency might strike and it might be good to have a favour owing from this woman. Ten days later she rang my bell and over the intercom told me that the niece got an "Ottimo" on her homework. Good to know that college education was good for something!
Federica's summer assignment was similar, the topic of so many back-to-school essays the world over, What I Did On My Summer Vacation. I was pretty sure I knew what to expect from Federica; a dull, straight forward account of her summer, most of it centered on her two weeks down in Calabria at her grandmothers. I told Federica just to write the letter like she was writing to someone in Italian and not to worry about translating it, we would do that together. The children and I were invited to lunch at Terry's house today, and as we were cleaning up the remains of the lasagna it came out that Federica still hadn't written the letter much to her mother's despair. "At this point," she said to Terry, "I will just let her get the bad grade at school and let her deal with the consequences." Terry snorted. "Is that what you want?" she asked her niece, "Nice way to start off the school year. Haven't even done your homework for the first day. You don't have to tell the truth, you know. Make something up, keep the teacher interested. Say you went all over Italy, seeing the amazing landmarks of each region. That way your teacher will know that you know something about history and geography too." In the end, with Terry wrangling the girls it was decided that at 2:30 Vanda and Federica would come upstairs to me, Vanda would keep Giulio entertained and I would help Federica with her letter.
At home I got Livia down for her nap, put a DVD on for Giulio, and went to work attacking my week's ironing, including one of Lorenzo's uniforms. (Do policemen's wives in the US have to iron their husbands' uniforms or do they have a laundry service?) At precisely 2:30 there was the timid knock announcing the girls' arrival. I should mention a little about Federica, she is two years older than Vanda, so she will be going into the eight grade this year and she seems like a nice enough girl, a little on the heavy side, polite, nice to Giulio, doesn't talk back to her mother, but very quiet around me.
"You got your letter?" I asked.
"My Aunt Terry wrote it."
An act of love? Or an aunt not knowing her boundries? I still can't decide but Terry's love/inability to respect limits filled two pages, single spaced. The letter started out Dear Chiara, and went on to tell a lively (fictional) account of Federica's fun filled 24 hours in Rome, complete with a tour of the Coloseum, breakfast in a "typical and characteristic Roman bar", a shopping spree in the Porta Portese market, and dinner at "quaint and delicious trattoria." Great attention was paid to what was eaten at meals, Pasta all'Amatriciana and a typical Roman dish involving fish at the trattoria, a cornetto and a frothy capuccino at the bar. Then it was back in the car and onto Calabria where they drove through the night, arriving in time to find that Grandma had lunch all ready. (Tagliatelle with tomatoes and peas, oven roasted potatoes, and fresh mozzarella.) Days passed on the beach taking cool, refreshing swims, and evenings spent at the outdoor candy stands that sold cotton candy before walking around with girlfriends through the town, engaged in wonderful conversations, until Mamma, sometimes passed midnight, called her home to bed. The letter closes with "Federica" saying she could fill a whole book with all the interesting things she had done that summer, but unfortunately dinner was on the table and getting cold so she had to sign off here. While Federica did spend two weeks at her Grandmother's, one would have been hard pressed to get even the barest details of her vacation out of her, and there was something remarkably touching about this hearty, epic letter complete with its detailed accounts of meals, as though it was the vacation Terry wished her niece had actually had, rather than the quiet, hum-drum one that had passed in its place. And now I was going to have to translate it.
My plan had been to see how much Federica could say on her own, and then help her shape that into complete sentences, but it turned out, in part because of the wordy text, that there was little if nothing that she could get out herself. When I help Vanda she always manages to come up with some possibilty of the answer, heading in the right direction if not immediately completely correct. Federica chocked on the first word and never recovered, though maybe she never had it in the first place, starting the opening sentence with "This summer..." and writing "this" as "dis." With my eye on the clock and an actual paying student coming within an hour, our little translation exercise quickly became a dictation exercise, a long tedious one at that. Part of the problem was that Federica had great difficulty spelling in English, perhaps nerves, or being unfamiliar with my pronounciation, or just not really knowing what I was trying to say, but whatever the case "and" kept showing up as "end", "at" as "et", "the" as "de". Due to the length of the letter and the waning time I found myself writing whole sentences myself without explaining what I was writing, and as she didn't seem very interested or bothered to know why something was written the way it was, I kept on doing it. When we ended with Love, Federica I reminded her again that "and" always starts with an "a", she nodded, took the letter, said thank you, and fled. The letter, written by her aunt, translated into English by her Aunt's neighbor and without a trace of the Real Federica will fool no one, but at least she did her homework for the first day. I'm hoping for another "Ottimo."