Did I mention we are being sued by our neighbor?  He's actually a very nice fellow, friendly and polite.  But this is one of the problems with living in shared property like condos.  He owns the garage that is directly below our terrace.  There is some sort of leakage that comes from somewhere and they assume it is us.  He's not just suing us but the entire property as well.  50 percent each.  I don't think it will be a monetary thing, just a fix it or else thing, which now that I think about it, means for us, monetary.  Shit.  On the up side, GP is finally picking up his replacement car WHICH I WILL NEVER DRIVE!  (my choice)  And our insurance has been decent.  Meanwhile, the agency that deals with accident victims, (and that refused to believe that we were not injured because no self-respecting Italian would not claim injuries and spend a paid month at home from work or school if the opportunity arose), gave me half a day's pay and Grace $300 bucks because she went to the emergency room.  GP tells me that if we'd taken her out of school for a week and visited the doctor a couple times we could have milked the system for a few thousand.  Yet another reason Italy is broke.
We have a long weekend coming up and hope to get up to the mountains hiking but only if the predicted rain holds off.  Fingers crossed.  xxoo me

Hell must have frozen over.  In the EU zone elections, with all the wacky far right and anti-EU parties voted into power all over Europe, Italy came out as looking like the moderate.  Renzi, a middle-of-the-road, unassuming, seemly sensible guy, was elected as the new PM.  The crazy ex-comedian protest vote came in second place with Berlusconi, (alias cradle robbing, whore mongering, voter buying, tax evading, should be in prison), a distant third.  Things are looking up!  xxoo me

Beautiful afternoon after overlooking the cherry orchards and celebrating my friend B's birthday.  There were five of us at the party but sadly 3 are leaving after this school year.  Grace is very blue that she is losing 3 friends too.  With only 30 kids to a class, they can't afford to have so many leave!  We will be traveling all over Europe visiting them all next year I hope.  One trip to Germany in October is already planned.  Beer and pretzels!  xxoo me

It's been a lovely, lazy Saturday.  GP and I were up and out for a riverside walk by 9 but this time we were adventurous and followed our side of the river where new paved trails have just been opened.  It's much greener and quieter as these trails sit down below the waterside sports centers and buildings that are up on the road.  We usually go to the city side of the river which passes through Valentino park, a very busy place on a sunny, spring day.  Something sweet and intense is blooming and I'm itchy and stuffy but the smell is so intoxicating I don't care.  It's some sort of Honeysuckle, but unlike our orange blooms, this one is yellow and white and grows like a vine all over.  We have one that spontaneously popped up in the middle of our high border hedges and I've been training it to wind through them, safe from the clippers of our enthusiastic neighbors.  I've spent the day hopping back and forth from the back terrace/garden where I've been cleaning and weeding and the front balcony where I've been sunning and reading.  Grace is tucked away in her room studying as our year is winding down and final papers and exams are coming up in the next two weeks.  I don't envy her that.  What I do envy is the life and choices she has ahead of her.  I'm already feeling the doubt and emptiness of her leaving though it won't be for two years.  I have no life here that isn't entirely intertwined with hers.  What will I do?  Was it the existentialists who posed the question, "How to live?".  I don't remember! (How to live nor who said it.)  For now I'll keep doing what I'm doing, hoping some fabulous opportunity or inspiration comes to me.  GP has just come home with skinny asparagus and beautiful cherries, (both in season now), and some fish to grill so at least I know what I'll be doing for the next few hours.  xxoo me

In the land of the absurd, the most absurd thing has happened.  Last evening we entertained our German friends for dinner.  Mom and kids arrived first with dad arriving from work an hour later.  When he came to the door he was carrying a license plate.  To be precise it was his wife's license plate from her German registered car parked in the lot in front of our condos.  He said he found it on the ground beside her car and he blamed her for having scraped it off or having hit something.  She denied it and thus ensued a "discussion" that led to the two of them and GP stomping outside to prove who was right.  What they discovered is that in the hour she had been here before hubby arrived someone had removed both of her plates and stolen the plastic rims from around them.  Whaaaaat?  The rims or frames are worth pennies, so it wasn't for money.  The perpetrators damaged nothing, (in fact they must have had a screwdriver), so it wasn't vandalism or anti-Germanism.  It happened in a quiet, out of the way, suburb where no one who doesn't live here passes.  Who the, what the, why the.....?  xxoo me

I really am a walking disaster.  Coming in just now from the garage with my arms full of bags and coffee cup and Grace's tennis racket, I snagged my belt loop on the door handle of the first of a set of double doors, which swung me around into the second door,  causing me to fall off shoes I shouldn't be wearing because they have over a 1/2 inch heel and that's about all I can handle.  Now my foot hurts, my hip hurts and my pride hurts because I'm such a klutz!  All's well!  xxoo me

I love, love, love working with the youngest children at the school.  The nursery kids are 3 years old. They come into the library like a line of multicolored little bobble heads; all tiny bodies, skinny necks trying to hold up too big heads with unblinking, too big eyes.  They are mute and staring, few speaking English and all still babies.  They only manage to sit still for 10 minutes before they start to roll around on the floor, climbing all over each other like puppies.  Pre-K are 4.  They can manage a little longer, maybe 15 minutes, and can actually answer a question or two.  They have grown into their heads and don’t look as though they’re about to topple over.  These little guys try to get as close as possible to me and fight for space at my feet.  One boy likes to tuck his head between my knees, just like a dog, while I’m reading.  I scratch him behind the ears.  The Kindergarteners are little mini students already.  They listen and answer questions and don’t just need to be herded and entertained.  The do need more disciplining though, so they’re beginning to lose their charm.  One extremely naughty but equally cute little fellow always asks me how he behaved at the end of each lesson.  I tell him truthfully that he could have behaved better.  Today he smiled and gave me a big hug as though I'd just complimented him.  I'm thinking his English is still a bit shaky.  As the children get older they get more demanding and by the time they reach 3rd grade, there are more kids that irritate than please me.  It will very soon be time to retire.  xxoo me

How many taxes did I say?  39?  I exaggerated.  There are only 29!  Oh and they dropped the occupying space tax but added a volcano tax.  No shit. 

This morning GP and I went for our weekly river walk along the Po.  There was a meet-up of Fiat 500 enthusiasts.  Absolutely the cutest car ever made.  A boy in Grace's class has the distinction of being the grandson of the original designer of the 500.  The family has a bundle of money, the kid's handsome as hell, in facts does some modelling, and he is starting his own clothing line.  I am getting royally sick of these over-achievers and silver-spooners. 

they look like M&Ms

this one matched my shirt

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bridge excitement

 On the way back home our footbridge was closed off as rescue teams were practicing river rescues with dogs pulling people ashore and guys repelling into boats from the bridge.  People were backed up on both sides of the bridge and after 15 minutes or so they started getting impatient.  Typically Italian there had been no notices put up warning anyone of the closing.  Also typical was the fact that the volunteer "police" let some people through on one side but not the other which caused much anger and confusion.  GP got excited and threw himself into the fray telling the volunteer on our side that he was being made an ass out of by the volunteers on the other end who let people through.  Our guy got all shame-faced and walked us up to the center of the action and insisted that "his" people be let through if the other guys people were let through.  For a while there was a stand off between the guards and then they each escorted a group through to the other side just like prisoners being exchanged at a border!  It was very exciting.  Italian men are very easy to instigate.  All you have to do is tell them that someone is making a "figura di merda" of them, (loosely translated as making them look like shit), and their pride takes over.  xxoo me

Oh my God we are hemorrhaging money!  With the "incident" with the car, (that of which I dare not speak), GP's newly broken tooth, Grace needing orthodontics again, and because we are in Italy, the most taxed nation on the planet, there are taxes on the condo, taxes on "space you occupy", (lest you escape by renting and not owning), taxes on this and that, (I think there are 39 different taxes due between May and July in Italy), and then to have to pay the accountants on both sides of the Atlantic to deal with all the taxes!  Holy Moly! (or is it moley?)  We've also started looking at colleges and seriously?  Does she really need an education?  She could go to college in Italy for very little as there is just a registration fee and a nominal yearly fee.  A degree would be less than 1 semester in the States.  But students live at home and go to classes just like continuing high school, (fine by me but for some strange reason this does not appeal to her).  There are no campuses and no real "college life".  Very probably I'm biased but I don't have the best opinion of university education here either.  It is hard to have faith in anything run by the government in this country.  There are always too many people on the take, too many people with "secured for life" jobs who do nothing, too little work ethic on both the part of the students and the professors.  So off to the States she goes and we're looking for scholarships baby!  Lordy.  Didn't Italy used to be considered a cheap alternative to life in the U.S.?  Not so much.  Gas is exorbitant, 4 times the cost at home.  Though fruit and veggies are cheap, meat and fish are very expensive.  I simply don't shop for any apparel here because clothing prices are so high and there are no TJMax!  I need to get back to Maine.  This is the longest stretch I've done away from home in over 25 years.  I'm feeling the strain of having been here too long....

But on a lighter note, today was International Day at the school and  I ate my way around the world starting at India and ending with dessert in Germany.  People from the school got together with their co-nationals and set up stands representing their countries.  It was fun and very yummy.  I offered to give one of the organizers a break and got stuck at the drinks table for over an hour with a Scottish man who talked non stop.  I believe he was very interesting but as I only understood half of what he said I'm not really sure.  He had a very heavy brogue and kept breaking into Italian in the middle of a sentence, (he's lived here for 30 years...I think), plus he seemed either inebriated or senile because he never finished one subject before starting another.  Finally I escaped in time to see the drawing of prizes for a lottery raising money for Burkina Faso, the school's charity.  You know how there are those people who are lucky and always win and then there are those who would lose if there were 9 winning tickets out of 10?  We are the latter.  Our Australian friends are the former.  They won five prizes.  We won nuthin'.  Well the payback is that they have to eat veggie-mite, (a more foul food has never been invented), and we get peanut butter!  Ha!  xxoo me

Happy Mother's Day!  It started out with fresh squeezed orange juice and pineapple on the terrace.  There was a trip to the Botanical Gardens in Torino with lunch out, then dinner at the grandparents.  All lovely.  Unfortunately my one and only child had nothing to do with it.  She had to be badgered into giving me a kiss and a "Happy Mother's Day".  Rotten kid.

The Botanical Gardens are very small, contained in an area between two buildings that make up the architectural department of the university.  They are small but beautiful and like the Italian population, packed in tight.  The gardens have resident rabbits and squirrels and a noisy goose, as well as hundreds of gorgeous plants.  I wish I could transmit the perfume emanating from all the roses that are in bloom now.  It was heady. 

There must be one hell of a storm going on in the mountains because it was very windy today.  Wind is rare in these parts.  All of the cottony pollen puffs have been flying every which way.  It looks like a snow storm.  There is absolutely no keeping up with the vacuuming.  And who's kidding.  Do I really try?

It's less than 6 weeks and we'll be heading home for the summer.  I can't wait.  Today's blue and blustery weather felt like Maine.  I need me some salty air!  xxoo me

GP just came back from a conference in Scotland where he and 149 other attendees were dressed in kilts and marched through the streets of Edinburgh.  Oh to have been there!  I miss all the fun...

This morning we left early to clean out all personal effects from the car as it's headed for demolition.  We then had a look for a new one.  I hate car shopping with GP because he loves to barter and it is painful to watch.  He will haggle with a salesman for hours till the poor guy breaks out in a sweat.  I hide in the waiting room or preferably in another state..... Fortunately we were not yet at the haggling point as we now need to wait for monies from the insurance agency to come through. 

It was actually a lovely morning to be out driving.  The dealership that we went to is in a town called Saluzzo, near the mountains and surrounded by fruit orchards, which is the principle enterprise in that area.  It's funny how close agricultural areas are to urban areas.  We live in the first periphery of Torino.  Around Boston we would be Roxbury or Brookline or Cambridge.  Moncalieri has the same population as Brookline, but with about 3 times the area.  However people live much more densely here so nearly all of the population is packed into the small area along the river nearest Torino.  Much of the rest of the city is farmland.  Close behind our condos are cultivated fields and there are vineyards across the road.  5 minutes away, down by a shopping mall, are the beginnings of huge tracts of land dedicated to corn and wheat.  What would be empty lots in the states are small plots of land, divided into gardens.  Any space not built upon is planted upon.  So what would take a good 45 minutes or more from Boston, to reach any area that would be considered "countryside", we can get to in 10.  But what is particularly funny are Northern Italian's attitudes about rural areas.  With few exceptions, towns more than 10 miles from an urban center is not considered a suburb but the middle of frickin' nowhere.  GP who was raised in a town about 12 miles south of Torino was teased terribly by friends in the city for being a country bumpkin.  Long distance commuting is generally not done and as traffic is so terrible around the city it's not very feasible.  It would take ages to get into the center.  People work and live packed tight, in close proximity to urban centers and have their country homes or seaside homes or mountain homes to get away to, (not more than an hour away as can't be too far from civilization).  I remember the first time GP's parents visited us in Maine.  We picked them up in Boston and drove the 3 hours north to Boothbay Harbor.  They were flabbergasted by how far away and remote it was.  I think they were even a little frightened by the miles and miles of driving, the highway bordered by forests.  They'd have had coronaries had we ever taken them up through the state to The County, (for that matter, I find that area a little chilling myself).

Off to do penance for my misdeeds by cleaning the bathrooms and making a nice dinner.  Screw the diet.  Barbequing steak and having wine tonight.  xxoo me

I am paying for my debauchery this weekend.  Diets are supposed to revitalize you, make you feel energized.  I have a headache and I'm tired.  I fell asleep while reading on the balcony with my tongue hanging out.  My loud snort woke me up when my head dropped to my shoulder.  Sad, sad.  To make this situation worse my wretched husband has decided he loves cooking shows.  Grounds for divorce?  I think maybe.  My allergies are going nuts too, so I'm just a mess.  Now the Acacia and all sorts of other trees are flowering.  Everyone is coughing and sneezing, red-eyed and itchy.  Spring is really intense this year.  It's been so warm and with such heavy rain that all the plants are exploding, spewing pollen all over.

I'm also paying for the accident.  I've been waiting with fingers and toes crossed for some news from the police and the insurance companies but it wasn't until yesterday that we heard from them.  They've judged me completely to blame, not surprising as I'm a foreigner and the other guy was a local, (plus it was rather my fault).  Even with insurance we'll be responsible for deductibles and this that and the other.  The 2 insurance companies refuse to communicate so GP has to be the middleman.  He's sooooo pleased.  We still have no idea if this means repairs or new car and either way nothing will be settled for months.  My big fear is a fine or God forbid my license revoked as I haven't even had it a year!  Not after what I went through last year to get it!!

The whole incident has left me extremely paranoid and I'm driving like an old lady.  This morning I had to take GP into the train station in the city and even with no traffic, (it was 6am), it took me twice as long as usual.  I have little electric motor bikes passing me for chrissakes!  I've lost my hutzpah....
xxoo me

Bananas are radioactive.  Who knew?  xxoo me

We've had crazy northeast-like weather for the past week.  The morning will be bright and warm then the black clouds come rolling and rumbling in and by evening there are terrific thunderstorms.  It's surprising here where the weather changes so slowly.  My diet took a nosedive Thursday dinner when we went to the Grandparents.  They are both having birthdays this weekend and we celebrated in the typical Italian way.  We made gluttons of ourselves.  Friday night a friend came to dinner packing three bottles of wine.  We felt obligated to drink them.  So this morning when I finally dragged myself out of bed I decided that the weekend was blown anyway so I went to a wine festival with two gals and snacked and sipped my way through the afternoon.  As I went without him and I felt a bit guilty, I bought GP a pass to the festival tomorrow, (where of course I will accompany him), and then we're having a BBQ here in the evening.  Diet recommences Monday.

Beautiful morning

friends

 The wine festival is to promote a regional grape, Freisa, grown all over the north.  Spring is bottling season so many producers have just begun to sell this year's wines.  They use these festivals as a form of advertising.  Along with wine producers, there were cheese makers and baked products, salami and hams, olive oils and all sorts of other goodies to try.  The festival was in Chieri, the town outside of which the school is located, so we ran into kids and parents and other teachers.  As I was driving, I was more observer than taster.  Tomorrow GP is driving!  xxoo me

Today is Labor Day.  It's a big national holiday as are all opportunities to not work.  Ironic.  There is a strong Communist Party in Italy and our crazy upstairs neighbors belong to the Cattocomunisti group who are both staunch Catholics and Communists.  They were up and out of the house at 7:30 this morning to go to a parade or rally or something calling for more workers rights.  This from a man who is paid full and good salary as a professor at an agricultural college behind our school and who works...wait for it...2 hours a day!  This of course is with full benefits of the state, as in health coverage, pension, disability, etc.  Mind you Italian Communists are fake Communists.  That "one for all and all for one" thing doesn't work here.  GP always says that the basis of Italian bureaucracy mutual distrust.   Nobody really trusts anybody outside their immediate family.  And that's a good thing seeing as most people are out to screw you or benefit from you in one sense or another.  All the bureaucracy is the government's way of having one prove that what they say is true because otherwise too many people would take advantage of the system.  Lying is expected.  In fact honesty is looked on with suspicion.   Example.  The accident I had last month happened so quickly and shook me up so much that I really can't remember what happened.  I don't know how it happened.  And much to everyone's chagrin, that's what I said to the police.  Silly me!  I was supposed to lie and point the finger at the other guy.  I was evidently also supposed to complain of pain and take a month paid off school and maybe sue somebody.  I'm hardly angelic but I couldn't do it.  GP and our Italian friends all shook their head at me and   talked   to   me   really   slowly  as though explaining something to a simple child.  That's the way you do it here.  Another example.  The cheating in school.  Everybody copies homework and cheats on exams which is why so much examination is done orally in front of the class.  When written exams are given they make up 2 or three variations so that no one is sitting beside someone with the same test.  Teachers never keep the same tests from semester to semester or even year to year because they know that someone out there has the old test ready to pass on or sell.  This goes for Secondary school right up through Doctorate degrees.  I have an Italian friend who got her Master's in Australia where her husband is from.  While preparing for their finals she discovered that one of her classmates had a brother who had taken the same class the year before and that the professor always used the same exam.  The guy had been studying day and night for this exam while he could have been memorizing his brother's test.  She was dumbfounded.  Why put all that time and effort into it when it wasn't necessary.  This why one always asks the price of the taxi lift before getting in, why you never buy an ice cream from a cart that doesn't have the prices listed, and why there is a law requiring shops to give receipts to the customers but also that customers demand a receipt from the shop and there are "fiscal police" checking that this happens.  Mutual mistrust. They said it would be sunny today and it's chilly and gray.  Liars!  xxoo me