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!
Sunday, November 18, 2007
Sunday, November 11, 2007
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.
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.
Thursday, November 1, 2007
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.
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.
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