What the...?  Who the...??  The temps have shot back up into the 70's though it is still grey.  Flowers are starting to bloom again while the trees are finally losing their leaves, from sheer exhaustion I'm thinking.  Today is our first day of autumn vacation.  Grace is in the city with friends for a sushi lunch, then off to spend the night at one of the girls' places.  This friend's grandfather was the designer of the original Fiat 500!  How cool is that!  Big bucks but they seem to be very normal people, a rarity with the monied crowd at the school.   One of the girls with them is newly arrived from Zambia where her father, an Italian "businessman" and Zambian National, is under investigation for government corruption and fraud.  I guess he decided it was a good time to repatriate the family.  Curiouser and curiouser.  I'm home packing and cleaning before we leave early Wednesday morning for Dublin.  I'm so excited!  We're back on Sunday, so no news till then.  Happy Halloween!       xxoo me

I wish I could work up some enthusiasm for pro soccer.  If I could I'd be in heaven here.  I just passed Vidal, a young Chilean player for Juventus, (Torino's #1 pro team), who lives in a townhouse behind us.  The only reason I recognized him is because he wears a Mohawk, not very popular with Italian fashion conscious men.  Grace is having conniptions because a new player for Juventas, Tevez from Argentina, has just enrolled his kids at the school and I start teaching his daughter one on one after the vacation.  Grace is still angry that I didn't get an autograph from the team's goalie when he came into the library with his sons.  This time around I am expected to give Tevez her name for babysitting.  I think she's under the impression that some of their fame and fortune might rub off.  I actually enjoy soccer as a game but pro sports don't do a thing for me.  The amount of money thrown at these young athletes is ridiculous but for them it really is a dream come true.  So many of the pro players here in Europe are south Americans or Africans whose only hope of getting out of poverty was soccer.  Evidently this new guy Tevez pours huge money back into the ghetto outside of Buenos Aries where he's from.  Our neighbor Vidal, brought half of Chile with him when he came here and hosts huge family parties at his place.  We hear Latin music blasting and children squealing till the wee hours of the morning.  Living here has brought out a side of GP that I'd never seen.  That little "futbol" loving Italian boy has emerged.  I never imagined I'd see him sitting on the sofa yelling at tiny men in shorts on the T.V..  He and Grace follow the games together.  I can't say "watch" because Grace has decided that she brings bad luck to the team if she watches the game, so she sits in her bedroom and listens to it from there.  GP acts as a sports announcer and calls the plays for her which she then watches on her laptop.  The one occasion where having a tiny apartment comes in handy.  It's ridiculous.  I have to close myself in our room and read.  
It's Saturday so housework day, then off this afternoon to Le Langhe, the wine region, for some tasting and local food fairs and then dinner.  I should probably have a nap before leaving....xxoo me

Homesick!  It's grey, it's drizzly, it's foggy, but mostly it's just grey.  I feel like I'm hibernating.  This definitely isn't the place to be a claustrophobic.  The sky is lower, the houses smaller, the people are closer.  We leave home in the morning for school where I work non-stop surrounded by students and teachers and parents from 9 to 3:30 or 5, depending on the day, without ever stepping outside.  By the time we finish with after-school activities and errands, we're home between 5 and 6.  It's now getting dark early so we don't open the curtains and often don't even bother to open the metal shutters that keep the bad guys out.  Though it's the same darkening, turning to winter, in Maine it feels very different.  For one thing we have so many windows there that let light in and allow the eye to travel far and wide.  Even on a bright day it's shady in here with the overhang of the building, the other apartment buildings blocking the sun and the heavens.  Plus here in the land of the populated, you have to close everything up at night so the neighbors don't spy on you.  I also find that outside at home is so much more outside-y with it's clean air and those big open spaces and lots of sky.  Heavy sigh.  I need to get away for a while.  Fortunately next week is school autumn break so as mentioned we're off to Dublin.  It will still be city, it will still be grey and rainy no doubt, but it will be different.

GP and colleagues walking the Isathon

Friday night was the talent show and like all talent shows there were some great acts, lots a mediocre acts and some real cringers.  The worst for me was one of the moms, 50ish, who got up and sang an Italian rock song.  If it had been a kid you'd say "good effort" and "how cute".  This was just painful.  Then there were some mini piano players, violinists, singers, dancers and a rock band made up of teachers and the school councilor who is evidently a background singer for a well known Italian pop star.  Yesterday morning we all went to the Isathon which is a 5k run up in the hills behind the school.  In our case it was a 5k stroll.  But we weren't the last to cross the finish line.  I believe the Special Ed teacher who had hip surgery last year was behind us, but I may be mistaken.  She hobbles pretty quickly.  The Gala was last night.  Probably two hundred or so people attended and it was pretty well done.  The 11th graders worked as ushers, coat checkers and guides,  They all wore suits and looked very spiffy.  There were speeches that nobody listened to, and the they had a couple of entertainers who sang, (well), and there was dancing.  The event was held in the gymnasium at the school but the walls and ceilings were covered with huge white sails or sorts and there were hundreds of trees brought in and sparkling little lights.  It was lovely.  Of course there was food and lots of wine.  Everyone turned out in their heels and diamonds and it was something to see.  There were two men in formal kilts and lots of old white haired people who were either alumni or parents of or ex teachers.  I sat with a table of teachers and we had a lot of fun.  It was nice seeing them away from "work" and relaxing.  Gave them all a more human side!  Grace and a friend babysat for a family near the school and spent the night.  I'm waiting for a call to go get her then I'm going to crawl back in bed and recover from this weekend. 

The celebration for the school’s 50 years started yesterday with after school workshops, (which I skipped), and an opening ceremony at 7pm.  Of course there was a huge buffet and wines offered.  The school kitchen, (award winning), put on the spread and it was glorious!  The main speaker was a guy from Seattle who travels around the world talking up technology to International schools.  It was rather eye-opening for me as I tend to be backwards, old-fashioned, anti-technology, a dinosaur!  These are not MY words mind you, because of course I think I’m in the right.  But the speaker talked about this new generation of kids who know no life without all the tools and toys.  How we are always telling them to turn off and pay attention when for them, turning on IS paying attention.  Very scary for me as I feel I’m being left behind.

Today is a school-wide birthday party.  The classes have all been given a decade to dress up as and the teachers are hilarious with wigs and make-up and costumes from the 50’s, 60’s and 70’s.  I’m neutral up here hidden in the library.  There is a talent show tonight for the school community and some of the lower school performers gave a preview this morning.  There is a fourth grade boy, Emmanuele, who plays the harp “like an angle”.  He competes and is number 3 in the country.  The kid is 10!  He’s just been accepted to the conservatory in Torino.  His playing actually made the hair on my arms stand on end.  At the end of the student’s performances, all the teachers were called up front to dance to Gangnam Style.   I hid in the back and watched.  My eyes may never recover from watching Mrs. C., a 60 something, short and portly, English nursery school teacher dressed up like an ABBA member, flailing away on stage. 

There are a lot of parents wandering around on campus dressed in their autumn finest, (tweeds and brown leather), even though it’s been in the 70’s and sunny.  I imagine they are hot but that obviously isn’t as important as being stylish.  And Italians are so good at being stylish....  xxoo me

I've just come back from watching Grace play tennis.  Her lessons started up again today.  This morning began very autumn-like, with cold fog and low temps.  I left the house with a jacket and tights, all geared to fall mode.  When we left school at 3:30, the sun had come out and it was 72 degrees.  It was gorgeous at the courts and I think I got a little of my tan back!  Tennis is so graceful.  It's also one of those sports that I can actually feel while I'm watching it.  I feel like I should be able to make those swings and hold the racket just so.  Unfortunately when I actually play, I prove myself wrong.  Alas.  But I do love to watch.  Grace plays with 3 boys.  Nic is German and in her class at school.  He's adorable.  Grace says he looks like Teddy Roosevelt but that's just the glasses that are actually overly large as opposed to TR's that were overly small.  The other two boys are Italian; Frankie very tall and goofy, Edo, small and intense.  She loves being the only girl.  Says teenage girls irritate her.  Wait till she's my age.  I mentioned before that her lessons are at a club up in the hills with beautiful views out over the countryside. (They are on the backside of the hills where we live on the front facing the city.)  It's a great place to spend an hour once a week and I wish I too could take lessons, but unfortunately our fortunes only allow up 1 person's lessons at this time.

Oh, and listen to this.  I had to look it up on line because I found it so shocking.  When we went up Mont Blanc the other day I used the bathroom at the very top, (over 10,000 feet).  While washing my hands I glanced in the mirror, usually a mistake, and almost died on the spot.  My always saggy face was heading south big time.  I looked like an elderly Chinese man, there was so little eye showing.  My always jowly jowls were hanging somewhere around my waddle which was down near my knees.  Amazing!  I almost didn't recognize myself.  As I mentioned, I checked on line for the effects of altitude on sagging but got no valid explanations.  Must have just been me.  When I used the bathroom in the restaurant down at base camp, I was back to my regular sagginess.

I just read an article about a new tax here.  In one paragraph they mentioned six different taxes with six different acronyms.  I have no idea what it said.  One tax replaces another which in turn had replaced another.  Italians love their bureaucracy.  If they can complicate things, make it long winded and  paper filled, they feel realized.  Wow.  Gotta say I'd never make it here on my own.  xxoo me

Today Grace and GP finally cashed in on their Christmas present from me.  That present was a trip up Mt. Blanc in a cable car.  It was supposed to be a trip over Mt. Blanc but France and Italy have chosen this year, (and the next 10), to renovate the cable car system and the connecting chunk isn't connected.  So our up and over trip just ended up being up and back, but it was still pretty spectacular.  We left from Entreves, a tiny hamlet outside of Courmayeur, a really lovely town at the base of Mt. Blanc.  To get there you drive up into Val'Aosta, a wide valley that ends in a pass that goes through to France.  As the pass is practically impassable, there is a 7 mile long tunnel connecting the two countries.  It's pretty impressive.  Even though it's been in the 60's here in Torino, we drove into a winter wonderland up there.  As we got closer we saw that there was fresh snow on all the mountaintops and turning off the highway we realized it would have been a good idea to have put on our snow tires.  We slipped and sloshed our way up to the parking lot below the cable car base.  It was freezing!  Thank God we'd checked temperatures and had brought adequate clothing.  I've mentioned that I suffer from low blood pressure and bouts of fainting when I'm in the mountains, right?  As soon as I stepped out of the car my chest constricted and my head started spinning.  We hadn't even started the trip up and we were at 1370 meters or 4,500 feet.  There are two stops on the Italian side of the mountain and then a final walk up to the Rifugio Torino, the highest point you can reach at this time.  The first stop is at 2173 meters, (7130 feet), and the second at 3335 meters, (10,940 feet!!).  I had to hold onto the railing in the cable car so as not to flop over onto the floor.  The view from the first stop was spectacular but we were smack in the middle of a cloud at the second.  Once at this second stop the cable car goes no further and we had to walk up 240 steps.  They were so steep it was like walking up a ladder.  There are rest stops every 10 steps or so and I took full advantage of them.  After huffing and puffing my way up, clutching my chest and wheezing like an asthmatic, I met a lovely old couple and their French bulldog, (Anselmo), at the top, fresh as can be.  Damn.  There is a restaurant/bar at the top where we had hot chocolates and took in the limited, white fluffy view.  Thankfully going down was much easier.  After getting back to solid land we wandered around Courmayeur where the rich and famous have their ski homes, and ate a wonderful lunch in a little chalet type restaurant.  I had Chevre stuffed ravioli with a light butter, mint sauce followed mountain river trout and roast vegetables.  For dessert it was a wild berry tart and we had a nice bottle of local Pinot Noir.  I slept the entire drive home.  I've become such a wuss.....  xoo me

view of Courmayeur 1st stop

Damned stairs!  This is going down.

At the chilly top

The Giant's Teeth

GP had a little incident at the post office today.  There are two very distinct lines in our local office.  One is for postal mailing services, the other for bill paying and pension getting services.  It is clearly written above each window.  But for whatever reason my husband walked in and asked the people in line what services they were waiting for and for whatever reason they misinterpreted the question and he ended up waiting in the wrong line.  By the time I got in there after having checked my postal bank account outside at the ATM-like machine, he'd been waiting for a bit in the wrong line.  A new customer walked in and asked the same dumb question and got a different answer.  All hell broke loose and GP right in the middle of it.  God don't these Italians love to argue.  I was literally sitting on the sidelines, (in this case a bench), and I felt like I was watching a tennis match.  Oh the excitement.  GP was all worked up for the rest of the morning.
Now we're waiting for a friend to come by for a drink and a pat on the back.  He and the wife have split up, (hopefully it's only temporary), and he's in desperate need of GP's help.  When he walked out he left her in full custody of the house, dog, and technological know-how.  Yesterday GP took home laptop shopping and spend all last evening setting it up for him.  Today the lessons on how to use it begin.  Grace also has to teach him to use his i-pad which is all he left with but also doesn't know how to use.  As she is the in-house i-pad specialist,she gets the honor of instructing B.  The house looks like a geek squad lives here.  We have 4 laptops, 2 i-pads, 4 phones and an i-pad mini and an i-pod all spread out around the living room.  The very small living room.
Well, so much for temporary.  They, (GP and B), are ensconced in the other room working on tech stuff and I'm hiding in Grace's room.  We got the whole, (I think not), scoop over a bottle of wine.  Seems she's been cheating for the past 10 months and this isn't the first time.  Sad for B obviously but also for me as she is the only Italian wife who I enjoyed.  Probably because she's nuts and is so entertaining.  She tells the best stories as everything that happens to her is hilarious.  She's the gal whose mother threw a ham on some guy's head.  Really, where am I going to get that kind of story?  I wouldn't call her a friend as I'd never call her for a day out together, but at least I enjoyed her when we went out as couples.  Whatta drag.  I told GP the only men he had to worry about were either in my imagination or 4 years old. 
Did I mention that my classes include Pre-K and Nursery this year?  OH MY GOD.  These kids are so cute.  One little boy is half Korean and half Italian.  He is about 3 1/2 and has a bowl cut.  Yesterday I greeted his class with "Good morning everybody".  The English speakers answered with "Good morning", the non English with nothing and he said "everybody".  So I said, "Can you say Good morning?" to which he answered, "everybody".  I said, "Let's try it again.  Good morning everybody!". "Everybody", he said.  I think it's love.  xxoo me

Christian mingle and cat food coupons.  That's what I get for spam.  Really?  GP says most of his spam are advertizing "sloots".  Took me awhile to figure out what he was talking about.  Those damned sloots better keep their hands off my man!  I'm supposed to go out this evening for "apicena" which is Italian happy hour, but I'm not in the mood.  The weather has shifted and it's cold and rainy, thundering and lightening.  I'm warm and cozy at home and GP will stop and pick up pizza on his way home.  Tomorrow is errands then Sunday we're heading up to Mont Blanc to take a cable car up to the top.  There's a stop halfway so that people like me, who tend to faint with the change of pressure, can adjust.  Supposedly there is the world's highest botanical gardens at this halfway stop.  Considering it's above the treeline I can't imagine it will be terribly lush.  I'm thinking lichens and scrub brush....  xxoo me

I'm melting.  I'm meeellllting!  Or at least it looks like it.  As I was pulling on some tights this morning I noticed that the skin on my legs, and especially my knees, seems to be trying to separate from my body.  It's all loose and dimply and hanging!  Gad aging sucks.  At the teachers meeting today, just me and the old, come-out-of-retirement-to-travel-the-world, Canadian guy were over 50.  At lunch all the young ones talk about meeting at clubs or restaurants to listen to music.  About staying out til 2 a.m. to close the bars down.  All I can think about when I get home is crawling into bed with a good book.  Speaking of which, I've been reading up a storm.  That is a definite advantage to working in a library.  I just finished Distant Hours which is a sort of modern Gothic. (Long and atmospheric).   Then Peter Mayle's A Dog's Life, a funny, quick, on the back of the toilet book.  Now I'm reading the memoirs of playwright, Simon Gray (or Grey?) , the year he turned 66 and starting receiving senior citizen benefits.  It's hilarious and unfortunately I can relate to so much he's saying.  I think I'll go drown my sorrows in a glass of Dolcetto.  xxoo me

Two big burly Albanians, great fans of our local soccer team, delivered the bed in its’ 4 boxes, yesterday afternoon.  (They had just delivered a houseful of furniture to one of the players new home and were very excited.)  It took two hours to assemble the bed.  During that time I also managed to make a pot of chili, throw in some laundry, and do some cleaning.  This was due to the fact that there were many pauses when GP had to take something off that he’d just put on, ponder what the problem was, and remount the part again.  As there was much swearing and huffing during these periods I thought it best to busy myself elsewhere.  In the long run though, it didn't prove to be half as bad as the first time around.  Nothing broke, nobody was injured, and we slept on the bed last night.  Oh the luxury!  But this being IKEA, it couldn't go off without a hitch of course.  We had ordered the bed in the color “sand” and they delivered the color “dark grey”.  Evidently they failed to tell us at the time of purchase that they had discontinued that color.  We had three options.  1. We could call IKEA and they would send back the Albanians to pick up the boxes and we’d get our money back.  But then we’d be left without a bed, we’d have to go elsewhere to buy one and we still had the issue of the vouchers.   2.  We could send it back and hope that somewhere in their back stocks they’d find a “sand” cover for us.  This seemed unlikely.  3.  We stuck with “dark grey” and screw the color scheme.  This is what we decided would be the most sage decision though it does rub my aesthetic sensibilities the wrong way!  So let’s try this once more.  I’m never buying furniture from IKEA again!!  Maybe this time it’ll stick.  Xxoo me

I believe I've made it pretty clear that I hate IKEA.  Not only because the furniture is of lousy quality, assembling said furniture is unjustifiably complicated, and it isn't by any means cheap.  But also because IKEA is a giant, windowless warehouse that is always packed to the walls.  It's as though there were a worldwide shortage on plastic storage boxes and this store holds the final ones!  So you know how I swore I'd never set foot in IKEA again?  I did.  This morning.  There were circumstances well beyond my control that took me back there.  And this is what they were.  We need a new bed.  It is one of the expenses we've been putting off but my back is killing me on our current circa 1920 horsehair mattress so the time has come.  A percentage of GP's pay comes in the way of vouchers that expire at the end of the year.  If he doesn't use them he loses them.  The vouchers can be used at one supermarket chain, (nowhere near us), one gas station chain, (on the highway only), and guess where?  IKEA.  So there we are.  If I want my new bed, I have to go to IKEA.  The store opens at 10 a.m. on Sundays and so we were there bright and early, ready when the doors open.  Somehow when we got in the store was already full.  How is that possible?  We had already chosen the bed we wanted so all we needed to do was choose a mattress, order the bed, pay and go to the help desk to register for home delivery.  3 hours!  I left with a headache from the noise, dry eyes from the florescent lights, thirsty from the recycled air and drained.  They deliver the bed pieces, (3 boxes full), tomorrow, so after school we're going to tackle assembly.  God help us.  xxoo me

Seasons and the weather here changes soooooooo slowly and with so few extremes it's boring!  The past week was gray and damp and coolish every day.  This next week is going to be gray and damp and a teeny bit cooler.  It's not the change in temperature that bothers me, it's the gray damp. My reaction to this weather is to hibernate.  All week long I've worked, then returned home and burrowed down to read in bed.  I hate the gray!  Today, Saturday, was the best you can get out of this lousy in- between weather.  I slept late and got up to the smell of pancakes.  Grace had made us all a lovely breakfast!  After a lazy midday reading and puttering, GP and I went into the city to take a long walk.  The center was packed with shoppers and tourists.  We walked and window shopped for 3 hours without ever leaving the cover of the "portici", the covered walkways that Torino is famous for.  There are hundreds of specialty food shops, gelato places, bars and restaurants in the city.  Just peeking in the shop windows made us salivate.  By the time we got home we'd worked up a huge appetite.  GP popped open a lovely bottle of wine and we ate cheese and bread, salad and vegetable, orzo soup.  Not a bad way to spend a gray day.  Tonight we'll find a film on T.V.  Life here isn't so different from home sometimes.  xxoo me

The 50th anniversary of the school is coming up.  There's a lot of hoopla about it in the upper echelons of the school but the peons, (the teachers and aides), haven't been paying enough attention evidently because when we walked into the monthly all staff meeting yesterday, there were computers set up with an on-line registration that we all had to fill out before sitting.  There are various activities stretching from Thursday to Sunday, the last week of October.  Some of the activities are within school hours and so mandatory.  Others are in the evening or over the weekend so supposedly we don't have to attend but it is expected that we do.  On the Saturday evening there is a Gala dinner for which the invitations went out last June.  At the time, the invitations said 60 euro, (about $75.00), per person, so GP and I said forget it.  With $150.00 we could go out for a seriously good dinner where I wouldn't even be obligated to behave myself.  Obviously we were not the only "peons" who weren't willing to pay so much for a dinner held by our employees because nobody from the school signed up.  When we sat down to register for the various activities the administration had changed the invitation to say that employees were free of charge.   So now I am going to the Gala but without the husband who refuses to go out of principle, because we already hand over an arm and a leg for school and he's offended that they are making parents, (and before backpedalling, employees), pay for dinner.  (I'm out of braeth after that run on sentence).  Sooooooooo.  My date for the Gala is my American friend and co-worker, Catherine, who is in the same situation as I am.  Her husband has also nixed the dinner.  It's formal so I will get to whip out the wedding and funeral pearls and wobble around on my one pair of heels, so that should be fun.  We'll sit as far away from the head honchos as possible and make snarky comments about the over dressed, over made-up, over botoxed, wealthy Italian wives.  Can't wait!  xxoo me

I don't know what's going on with Ireland this year but it's hot, hot, hot!  First, the middle sister and I are planning at trip there in April.  Then, a friend of Grace's will be there for an exchange program in the spring and Grace would like to visit.  Also, the school is considering Ireland for the 10th grade trip and now GP has a business trip to Dublin in October that we may join him on.  Well, when it rains, it pours.  Especially in Ireland.  Must get me some wellies.

A few days a week we keep the library open until 5 so that folks can exchange their books or use the space for quiet study after school.  Bette, the new librarian and I take turns staying.  Today I was on duty when Buffon, Italy's greatest goalie in history, (according to my husband and daughter, amongst others), came in with his son to return some books.  He's tall and skinny with huge protruding ears but very pleasant.  It took me a while to register who he was and as I don't watch sports I don't really care.  But when I mentioned it to Grace she freaked and texted her dad who told everyone at work, who are most envious. I've been told I don't get it.  Next time I'll pay more attention.

Tonight we're off to see fireworks in Carignano, GP's home town.  The towns "Saint's Day Festival" is upon us once more.  I don't get this either.  Ah well.  I'm a lousy Italian.

Well it looks like Italy's government shutdown is contagious.  Look what happens when I leave! xxoo me