Surfacing

I had every intention of going to bed now, but Livia seems to be coming down with a cold and it looks like it is going to be a long night. I'm obviously guilty of giving her the cold because today I ran my finger over her cheek and cooed, "you're my healthy one, aren't you Livi baby?" compared to all the antibiotics and ear infections her brother had had by the time he turned one. Then tonight she wakes up with the sniffles and suddenly it's looking like runny noses and broken nights are in my future.
I just hope she is over whatever this is by next Sunday, when we have her party because Livia is turning one next week. In honor of the fact that she is my first child to have her birthday while we are in the US, we have decided to hold the party at a nearby bowling alley where the party package includes free shoe rental, chips, one large cheese pizza and a pitcher of pop, it is up to us to supply the cake. I have always thought people who organized parties like this for small children were really only doing it for themselves, it wasn't about the child, it was about the parents. I will proudly admit that for Livia's birthday this is the case. All I really want in an excuse to get people I like all together wearing rented shoes. Instead of a low key afternoon of cake and ice cream among a few highly selected people, Livia will ring in her first birthday to the clatter of bowling pins and the music of The Big Bopper. For Giulio's first birthday, lacking space and the talent to cook a large meal for many people, we invited a few friends to have lunch at our local trattoria. We had a 6 course meal including wild mushroom pasta and carpaccio and then we sang "Happy Birthday" while Giulio blew out the candle on his cake. The meal was washed down with spumante and espresso while Giulio and the other toddler present rode around on the bottom of a lunch cart. In what is one of the few advantages in having a spouse in the police, the meal was heavily discounted, the restaurant's owner was tight with the polizia.
Lorenzo doesn't mind in the least trading in "La Versa" moscato for pitchers of Budweiser. He thought the bowling party was a great idea, people in Italy would flip over a bowling party, it was so AMERICAN, his only regret is that he won't be here for it. Unfortunately, Lorenzo's month long vacation is over and now he is back in Italy while the kids and I remain in the land of air-conditioning, discount shopping, and the free refill.
I have to admit that the initial surfacing wasn't easy, the culture shock seems to get stronger each time I come back to the US. We stumbled into JFK, exhausted from our 9 hour flight with a baby whose eyes only started to close upon descent into the New York area. (Giulio however was much improved--!)We were then bumped from our next flight, leaving us with over 3 hours to take in all the the beauty and splendor of the Delta terminal of the airport. The food seemed huge, tasteless, and excessive and Americans themselves seemed so much bigger than I remembered. I realized how much the Italian way of thinking had set in. I couldn't get over why so many people would sit on the floor when there were chairs available. I could barely supress my shudder when I saw a women who had taken off her Teva sandles and was walking barefoot from one part of the terminal to another-eeeeewwwww. The air conditioning on the plane seemed too cold (me! who loves air-conditioning, always complaining that they should turn it up whenever we go to the supermarkets in Italy-me!), and when I offered ice in my drink during the flight I quickly declined, thinking what a shock to the system it would be.
I also found myself wondering what I was going to do with Lorenzo while he was here. I could only go to Target so many times. Hence the search for something different and "American" and all within a few hours drive from Cincinnati. I wanted to here him say "wow.." to be impressed, to take back something that he would tell people about back in Italy. Initially the thing that impressed him the most was all the hubbub surround Miss New Jersey and these apparently x-rated photos that she was being blackmailed with. Fox News devoted long hours to discussion on the topic. When the photos turned out to be nothing more than her messing around, fullly clothed, with some friends at a bar, Lorenzo turned to me and said, "You guys are nuts, you know that?"I could only meekly odd and agree.
It was from this search for "good" Americana and not our nation's obsession with talent pageant contestants that took us to the aforementioned bowling alley, which Lorenzo loved with its oldies soundtrack and cheap beer. It was there that we came up with the idea for Livia's birthday, as The Four Seasons played over the loud speakers. And when we came outside after two games into the muggy summer's night, there were fireflies glowing in the trees around the edge of the parking lot, and crickets making a racket in the bushes. It's moments like this that I miss when I am in Italy, these sounds and these smells together that always make me feel like I am eight years old again, standing in my yard on a summer's night catching fireflies in my hand and letting them go, before being called inside to bed.
This was not Lorenzo's first trip to the States, but his 7th. He has seen New York, Chicago, Boston, New Hampshire, and driven from Cincinnati to Denver and back. But one of the things he liked the most, not including of course New York, Chicago, or Boston, was the Wright Patterson Airforce Museum in Dayton OH, something my dad has been suggesting for like 6 years that we take Lorenzo to see. Giulio, despite our expectations, was underwhelmed. After the first 20 or so airplanes he stopped being impressed and started running around, luckily an airplane hangar is the place to do that. Lorenzo was impressed. He said "wow....." He had to be torn away from the Cold War exhibit when the kids were starving for lunch and he said he wants to come back to the museum next year. Good suggestion Dad! The best part of our day came for Lorenzo on our way back to Cincinnati after lunch. We were taking the two lane road when we passed an Amish style dairy, which sold Soft Serve ice cream. (Yet another treat I just can't get Lorenzo excited about. We order cones, all he wants is a coffee. Humpf.) I say Amish style because, despite the Amish buggy on display outside the store, this place was obviously not run by Amish. You walk through the door and are immediately met by a wall of sound. The there was an electric train that wound around bins of candy and a large mannequin dressed like George Bush over in the corner. The owner thought it was hiliarious to have the sound of a freight train playing over the store's sound system, so every 45 seconds or so it would sound like a high speed train was passing overhead. Lorenzo loved it. "This," he told me once we were back in the car, "this is what I like about America!" Other things include Goose Island beer, bagels, Reds baseball games watched at the stadium, honey mustard pretzels, cashew nuts, and Juicy Fruit gum.