eeeeew!

Ah! The Italian countryside! Cool breezes! Great vistas! And... bugs! Yes, the bug quantity here is just shockingly high. Whether it's the swarming giant gnat/grasshopper like things under the pines by the car, the enormous inch-long flies buzzing when you read outside, the wasps trying to make a nest under the loggia, the huge ants that are suddenly crawling on your flip-flop-clad foot when you look down, or, of course, the mosquitoes, all of these are rather expected outside, and that's okay, because it's their world too.

But inside, it's still a world of bugs. We were already working hard to eradicate the mosquitoes, when John had to turn his vigilance to the wasps who had started looking inside for a cozy home. He takes down around four a day, but they keep coming.

And then we noticed the centipedes, which have been increasing in number. Oh, and then there was the millipede I found by the bed, which is a truly heart-stopping creature, 2-1/2 inches long with pincers on its tail. I had just managed to conquer my fear and squish him with the handle of a wooden spoon (it was tucked into a corner), calmly lain down on the bed again, when a chunky spider crawled down the front of my nightgown. This led to further shrieking and leaping off the bed, this time by both my husband and me. It's no surprise that John had a night terror the other night. When I asked him what he was seeing? "A bug."

But I expect another night terror tonight. This morning when I got up, John invited me over to see something on his computer. I had brought my water glass from my bedside and was slowly sipping to re-hydrate after the night when he suddenly yelled at me to, "stop drinking!" My jaw dropped, the water I had in my mouth fell out, and then I noticed the large spider I had been about to gulp down floating in the bottom of the glass. Eeeeew. I think I might need to get a lid for my water glass.

chock full of memories

I think there are two kinds of short-term rental home out there. The first are investment properties bought specifically with vacationers in mind. They are tastefully decorated, set up to run well with property managers and such, the only downside being that the kitchens can sometimes suffer from bad knives and thin pots. The other kind is the family home, passed down for a few generations, and now rented out occasionally. That is the kind of house we're in currently.

Family homes speak volumes about potential memories. The paintings on the wall, the books and games on the shelf, the home-made chandelier all speak of previous occupants. There are fifty bistro glasses in the china cabinet- how many parties were thrown here? There are photos of Audrey Hepburn in the bathroom- who was her fan? The framed charcoal drawings on the wall of the dining room- were any of these drawn by an occupant of the house?

I find the experience of living in someone else's home intense. Every day I'm wondering whether someone went to China to buy that figurine or if it was a gift? Was someone religious or did they just like simple wood-carved crucifixes? Walking past any painting or tsotchke makes me imagine the family that lived with them or chose them. Especially things like the ceramic bird in the bathroom that was clearly carefully glued back together after getting smashed.

Meanwhile John sees it as a house full of props. He'll suddenly grab a candelabra and limp into the room imitating Quasimodo, or grab an Egyptian statue that kind of looks like a telephone and pretend to take a call. Clearly the memories of this house pass more lightly over him!

Flopsy

The white-yellow dog has completely adopted us. She spends all day in the yard or under the table on the loggia. A few times she has nudged the door open with her nose and tried to sneak into the house, but as much as we like her, we know where this is leading, so we always firmly send her back out.

John named her Flopsy at some point, but usually just calls her Flopper. I think the latter is the more appropriate name because she often does that flop onto her back that some dogs do to try and get you to rub their belly. Since yesterday was finally a bit warm here, John put out some water. She gulped it down. Now John is a slave to the water dish, and I think Flopsy will probably only leave to get her breakfast.

The best part is when the church bells ring (the bell tower is straight up the hill from us). Today is Sunday, so they tolled every half hour or so all morning. And Flopper joins them, howling away. It made John and I laugh every single time.

Italian mac & cheese

Today I discovered something truly wonderful: bucatini al cacio e pepe. I mean, the translation in the menu said cheese and pepper, so I should have known what I was going to get, but you never know what kind of cheese it will be, and so I was nervous when I ordered because what if it was some kind of stinky smelly cheese? But no, it was mild, salty, and just like Kraft Mac n' Cheese. The pepper added a hint of maturity to the hole mess.

And then there was the bucatini: spaghetti with a hole down the middle, like if you took one of these noodles and cut it into one-inch slices? You would get the exact pasta Kraft puts in their box. But here it's these thick tubes that you can roll onto your fork.

The meal brought happy flashbacks of cheap meals during grad school, but felt much more sophisticated. Yum.

haircuts

Today we got our hair cut. Yes, both of us. I was just going to get my bangs trimmed, but then this morning I realized it had been months since my last haircut (mid May?), and I should just get everything trimmed. John thought he should probably get a cut as well, since he has to present his book at a gala event in Berlin in a month and if it's a bad cut, he wanted time to let it grow out.

So we went up the hill to the one hair-cutting shop in Radicondoli. Two sisters run it, one of them very pregnant, and most of what they seem to do is style older women's hair with curlers. For some reason, though, we both trusted them and sat down. John proceeded to chat with the two sisters (and a woman there with curlers still in her hair) about the weather in Los Angeles. Meanwhile I decided my hair was too long and asked my sister to cut it up to my shoulders.

It was a risky move on our parts, but we think it paid off. I love my new cut, and John's nerves have been assuaged. We'll both go again before Berlin, me to trim my bangs, and John for one more cut.

new four-legged friends

We're still really enjoying this farmhouse so far, and we've learned that we have a few fuzzy friends in the neighborhood. First, John went into the kitchen to make coffee one morning, and surprised a little mouse on the counter. He says the mouse looked up at him like, "wait, what are YOU doing here?" before turning and scurrying away. We haven't seen any signs of recent visits from him, but our food is now safely ensconced in pots with lids.

Then, while sitting in the yard reading a few days ago, a large yellow dog came up to me and demanded some attention. She's very sweet and I guess she belongs to a local shepherd (according to the owners of the house), and if you sit in the yard, she will find you and want a pet. Yesterday as we set out to walk to town there was a large rustle in the bushes and the yellow dog emerged. She was thrilled that we wanted to walk to town and joined us, leaving to run her own errands once we got there.

Last night while John was out in the yard reading, a beautiful striped cat with yellow eyes joined him. She then came up to the door and was very upset that I didn't want to let her into the house. All the animals seem a bit surprised when we don't let them in and we can't decide if this is just their ruse to guilt us into opening the door, or if the owners have an open-door policy when they're here. Either way, we're enjoying their company when we're outside. Now if the horse that we sometimes see running on the hill came down to visit....

our new home

Yesterday we said goodbye to Passignano. It was a bit bittersweet- while we were ready to move on, we'd really found our place in the town. We had a final lunch at our usual cafe, and they wouldn't let us pay for it. Then we went to get some final fruit for the road, and the fruit vendor wouldn't let us pay for it. Everyone said we'd been so nice and always full of smiles and extracted a promise we'd come back next summer. It was very touching.

Around 3:00 we got on the road, and only got lost once trying to find this little town, Radicondoli (raw-dee-KAWN-doh-lee). It's not listed on many maps, and even when it is, they don't really show all the roads. Plus, it's even farther out in the middle of nowhere than we thought. But by 4:30 we arrived, settled in our farmhouse, and couldn't be happier.

The house is on a promontory overlooking the surrounding hills and valley. It's nice and cool with a brisk breeze. They have fabulous chairs in which to read. Above the house on the hill is the little town, a 15 minute walk on dirt roads. We both feel like we've really gotten away.

the cast of characters

Tomorrow we take the train to Pisa, pick up our rental car, and the following day we drive to our next home in Tuscany. So today is our last full day in old Passignano sul Trasimeno. We've been here so long even the guy at Cafe Centrale asked us yesterday how long we've been here. 7 weeks was our answer. 7 weeks! I think we're leaving at just the right time. We've been here long enough to actually meet all our neighbors and have small conversations with them, but not so long that we've annoyed them or become part of the gossip (as far as we can tell).

Our neighbors:
Next door is Neno, a 91 year old guy who is in great shape, says that he prefers women 33 and under, and makes sure to point out that all his equipment is still working. He provides plenty of laughter for the other neighbors, but it's pretty clear Neno's not joking. He has a cute little dog named Lucky. His daughter, who looks about 27, and his granddaughter, who is about 3 are in town for the summer. The granddaughter, Alice, has one of those cute little voices that sound like she's a muppet. Unfortunately she is often in a bad mood, making for a squealing muppet.

Below us is Nina, who is a sweet woman of about 60 (? it's hard to tell ages because everyone here smokes) who agrees with statements by repeating "ah" emphatically three times, "ah, ah, ah." After a week or two everyone else starts picking up on this verbal tick, so the conversations are sprinkled with "ah,ah,ah." Her daughter and granddaughter are currently visiting.

For a few weeks Gina, Nina's sister was also with her. Gina was funny and it was clear the neighborhood loved her. Gina gave us tiramisu and then patted my tummy and said this was to help me gain weight. She must not have noticed our daily visits down to the gelato store.

Elsa is 85 and lives just down the street. She has a lovely little garden at the top of the switchback stairs. On any journey into town, if you use those stairs, she's usually sitting in her garden and chats at you, not so much with you.

Haluk is a Turkish guy who has lived in Passignano every summer for almost 40 years. He's married to an antisocial Japanese woman who rarely leaves the house, so Haluk is usually wandering up to our corner for conversation.

Lionora is a 6 year old Albanian girl who loves Haluk and plays well with Alice. She likes to correct my poor Italian, and is quite frustrated that I don't speak it better yet. She told me to get a book.

Each night this group gathers below our windows to enjoy the evening and chit chat (minus Elsa, she's usually in bed by then). John, of course, is the golden boy when we walk past this nightly group to leave or enter our house. His Italian is quite good, and he's funny, so all the neighbors love him. We hear them talking about two other neighbors of ours:

Evangeline, a retired Italian professor from UC Berkely, who owns the building between ours and the castle. She gave us a tour of the apartments she rents in her building (which were really nice and had good views of the lake), including her apartment up in the attic, which had hidden balconies tucked into the roof. She told us this was where she sunbathed nude. John was pretty disturbed by this visual. The neighbors all call her Principessa, or princess, which seems rather fitting.

Then there's Andrea (recently changed her name to Elisabetta), the American who lives down near Elsa. She's an attractive woman in her late 40's who is a bit crazy. When she first moved in, our landlady Anne, being quite nice, told her that if she ever ran into trouble and needed anything, she could call her. Kind of an American helping another American sorta thing. One night Andrea calls her around 6:00 and says she needs $50, can she borrow it from Anne? It turns out Andrea wanted it for a tattoo. Anne was pretty annoyed and refused her the money. Anne had also gotten a bit annoyed at that point because Andrea enjoyed discussing her sexual exploits about which Anne didn't want to hear. Anyway, the neighbors all think she's a prostitute. John and I just think she's a bit crazy.

Phew, in 7 weeks you can gather a lot of information on your neighbors. Can you imagine if we lived here full time? This is small town living. I'm going to miss looking at the lake. I'm going to miss our comfort level with the town. But I'm ready to escape the rumor mill before we get sucked into it!

Perugia

We went to Perugia yesterday. John needed to mail his manuscript back to Random House and we decided to make a day of it. It's actually our second time to Perugia, but last time it was so hot that we basically ate lunch and then went home in defeat. Yesterday was a much nicer day.

The old city center is up on top of a hill, and the rest of the city falls away on each side. They put in a monorail line so you can get from the train station to the top, but yesterday it was out of service for some reason (despite the mini cars still moving up and down the track empty), so we caught the bus. It drops you off at a tunnel entry and you wander through a medieval dark and spooky arcade underground until you arrive at some bright shiny escalators which take you up to the level of the city. In front of us was a family with an old dachshund on a leash. The dachshund clearly found the whole experience disturbing, his tail was tucked under, and he kept stopping and looking back. It was probably the noise of the echoes in those halls. They finally picked him up and carried him the rest of the way.

We enjoyed lunch and then John sat at an outdoor cafe to work while I visited the museum. If you like religious art, this is the museum for you. It has more Mary and baby Jesus images than I've ever seen under one roof. They set it up chronologically, which was great, as you got to see symbolic painting slowly replaced by perspective slowly informed by chiaroscuro. My favorites are the early perspective paintings, where they're still working out the vanishing points, and they're still trying to make sure the symbolically important people are larger than the others so you end up with minor bishops and such at the front looking like they're children. Hilarious.

Then we had falafel for a snack. Yum. It's not my favorite thing in the states, but 6 weeks of pizza and pasta, and it was ambrosia. The drawing of the griffin, Perugia's mascot, is from our first visit to the city. It was hot, I had to stand in an awkward place to draw it, and I don't love the drawing, but we didn't take any pictures, and despite visiting twice, I've never found anything else there I want to draw. Perugia is a pretty city, just not picturesque.

bra straps

This is somewhat along the lines of yesterday's blog. Italian women are proud of their bra straps. American women do their best to hide their bra straps. In the States there are racer-back bras if you have a tank top with a narrow back. There are these little contraptions that allow you to turn any bra into a racer-back bra. There are strapless bras. There are backless bras. There are bra cups if you can't have any strap or back. America is full of ways to hide your bra straps. And with some of today's younger fashions, like the tube top, women just do without the bra rather than have a strap show.

Here in Italy, I think because they spend so much money on their intimate wear, the women have no compunction about showing their bra strap. In fact, if it's a pretty bra, I think they're almost proud if it's showing. So you see all these great summer tops and dresses, with open backs, and smack in the middle of the back is the bra strap and clasp. Or young girls will wear a tube top, and they'll just choose a bra with nice shoulder straps to wear under it.

I have to say, it doesn't strike me as very "bella figura." If you have a backless dress, it's very distracting to see straps and such. But I think they must just view it differently here. And to be honest, the way most Americans are dressed, I certainly can't say we have any claim on "la bella figura." So I'm just going to chalk that up to American prudishness (bra straps quickly leads the brain to boobs, and we just can't go there).

American prudishness

In "A Room With A View," a priest tells a story of how he was in the bath at his pension, and the cleaning lady walked in. She told him, "fa niente. Sono vecchia." Or, "don't bother. I'm old." The characters in the book laugh at this Italian nonchalance with nudity. Obviously that would never happen in England, and nor, for that matter, in the States.

The other day, Anne, our landlady, told me a story. She needed an EKG exam, one of those ones where you run on a treadmill or cycle in place while they monitor your body's response. Figuring she would need to strip down from her everyday clothing, she brought shorts and a t-shirt with her. The exam room was at one end of a hallway which was filled with other people waiting for the same exam. As each person was called, they would briefly see into the room before the door closed again.

When Anne was finally called in, she noticed that, as is common in Italy, there's no changing room, there's no separate office, it's just one room with an exercise cycle and two doctors. She asks if she should wear the shorts and t-shirt, and they say, "no, nothing but her underwear." Now, I've never had a stress test like this in the states, but I am pretty sure you would be given at least one of those paper hospital gowns. So at this point in the story I'm already cringing. My American prudishness cannot fathom stripping down in front of not one, but two male doctors, and having nothing with which to immediately cover back up. But Anne laughs and says this is just Italy.

So she strips down, they put all the little suction-cup monitor things on her, and she climbs up on the bike to start the test. It's one of those exercise cycles with the moving handle bars, so she's quickly huffing and puffing away, cycling and pumping her arms. I'm trying to imagine myself doing this in the nude, and I'll admit, I'm having a hard time not seeing myself putting my clothing back on and just walking out. But then, Anne tells me, as she's in the midst of the test, the cleaning lady opens the door from the hallway full of waiting people, and has a discussion with the doctors on whether she can come in and clean. I almost fell over. Anne's laughing about it, and that's why she's so happy in Italy. I'll stick to my paper gowns and long waits in private exam rooms....

Italian Hours

First, I must apologize to Italian FedEx, as the fault of the package was actually with the American FedEx. Italy is split into many postal codes, this region falling under that of Perugia, or PG. Somehow FedEx's computer read PG but failed to read ITALY on the next line, and sent the package to the country with that code: Papua New Guinea. I kid not. The second copy Random House mailed out arrived without problem yesterday. Still three days later than one might expect, but not the week or more we maligned them for.

Everything is just a bit slower in this country. As a typical American obsessed with efficiency it's taken quite a bit to get used to it. Stores open at 10:30 and close again three hours later at 1:30. Everything's then closed for four hours, opening again at 5:30 until 7:30. Yes, if you add that up, it's only 5 hours of working per day. But what isn't taken into account is the way the stores open. The store owners spend at least half an hour carrying out produce or product for display in the morning. The fruit vendor has gorgeous looking fruits set up on crates. The pottery seller lines the street with millions of tsotchkes. These then half to be packed up at lunchtime (though admittedly they don't put it all away, they just pull it into the store for the siesta) and then replaced for the evening shopping. Altogether it gets closer to 7 hours or so of working.

But it's every day. They do take off Sunday afternoon, but Monday through Saturday they're open both in the morning and the afternoon. And most of these businesses are run by families, so it's not like anyone's getting a two day weekend (although some of the stores will randomly close one day during the week). It's seems like it's a good daily lifestyle, but not the best week. After a seven day week for months, I can understand why they would need a few weeks off.

We're heading towards Ferragosto, the holiday in the middle of August when nothing is open because most Italians go on vacation. We're curious whether it will be a complete shut down, as it probably once was, or whether, due to influence of the global economy, things will still operate. While I say that I think people deserve holidays and decent working hours, I also have to admit that I do appreciate how a 7-11 is always open when you need it....

Italian FedEx

John is at his wit's end. His publishing house wants to issue advanced reader copies (ARC's is the lingo) in September. They've sent images of the covers, and they're a beautiful green with gold lettering. These are supposed to go to key librarians and booksellers, hopefully to start an early buzz. All John has to do is send back his response to the copy edits in a week. Usually they give the author two weeks, but because of the rush for the ARC's, they've asked him to return it this coming Friday.

This was last Thursday, the day his editor dropped the manuscript off with Fed Ex. She did the same with some other edits when we were in Edinburgh. We got the manuscript early the next day. But here in Italy, it's all, of course, more complicated. First, since the streets up here by the castle don't have names, and since there's no number on our house anyway, John gave them Anne Rinaldi's address, our landlady. What we didn't know was that because Anne's house is pretty far up the hill the Fed Ex guys complained about it a ton in the past, so they settled on a deal where any packages are dropped off at the gas station at the bottom of their hill (about 1/4 mile farther past the train station from where we are).

Friday evening we had dinner with Anne and were optimistic she would show up with the package. No luck. She told us there's no Fed Ex over the weekend in Italy, so our best hope was Monday. But the next week starts, nothing. The publishing house tracks the package. It got stuck in customs, but is now on its way. We're sure it will arrive Tuesday. No luck. John faithfully hikes out to the gas station every day hoping maybe they just forgot to call Anne. No package yesterday. The editor finally sent a PDF scan of the document so John can get started. He'll have to take notes to transfer to the actual manuscript when it arrives, but at least he can make some progress.

When we were in Como we laughed one day, while sitting in a cafe, at how long the DHL driver parked in front of us spent in his truck. It was so different from the frenetic, racing pace of UPS and FedEx drivers in the States. He stopped and had an espresso in the cafe after handing over their packages, and we wondered whether he stops and has an espresso at every bar delivery stop. Somehow I think we thought that was just an individual case.

Meanwhile, it's a week later here in Passignano, and there's still no sign of the manuscript. It would have been five times faster for John to just have gone to get the book from customs. It's going to be a loooong weekend for John. That's if it actually arrives.

The bell tower

When John and I first moved into this place, we were a bit concerned about the proximity of the bell tower. Yes, it was picturesque, but it rings out the time, loudly, every 15 minutes. How would we sleep? But your brain adjusts, the sound fades, and we figured it was nice to always know the time.

There are deep rings to signify the hour followed by tinnier rings that specify the quarter hour (one deep ring followed by three tinny equals 1:45). Unfortunately your brain adjusts so well to the noise that pretty soon you don't hear the bell at all. Often I'll realize I'm hearing tinny rings, but having missed the deep rings, it doesn't help me at all. So I'll tell myself to pay attention in 15 minutes so I can figure out the time, but of course then I get distracted, and the bells start ringing, and then I realize it, and it's too late.

So I bought a cheap watch, which is really a cool orange bracelet that happens to have a digital face, so that I could keep track of the time. So much for living near a bell tower!

Things Going Out On Me

Two awful things happened this weekend. First, I threw out my back. Not terribly, not collapse-to-the-floor-muscle-won't-relax misery like has recently happened to a few of my friends, but still pretty bad. That first night most movements caused a painful spasm. John had to lower me into bed. By the next morning the spasms were less and John set up dining room chairs with high backs in key spots so I could pull myself up. Ann, our landlady, used to be a nurse, so she came over and massaged in some tiger balm. Things started to look up. Needless to say, I spent most of the weekend reading in bed (luckily we recently stocked up on books during a trip to Perugia). Today I'm almost human.

The second thing is that we ran out of internet time for the month. We have this flash drive from a local phone company (Tim). You plug it into your computer and you get 3G. Yes, it's doing all of your internet over a cell phone connection, which is painfully slow and requires walking around with your computer trying to find a good spot, but it means we have internet at home. The only alternative is to pack up your computer and walk 10 minutes to the train-station bar which has wireless for 1 euro/hour. Their internet is much faster, but the bar draws a weird crowd from the surrounding apartment buildings. The music is always too loud inside the bar but there are too many smokers sitting outside the bar. Usually after 15 minutes we can't take it anymore and we head back home. Luckily, our month should restart tomorrow!