The day after.  Yesterday was not as tragic as it could have been, considering it is the first Christmas without Aldo, and in fact was quite mellow and uneventful.  We had the traditional Christmas lunch with Nonna, her cousin Lena from across the hall, Lena's daughter and a friend of mine from school who found himself at loose ends for the holidays.  There was a lot of eating, a lot of translating and much groaning after each dish had been served.  We had a salad made of fruit, veggies, nuts and cheese, pastry filled with ham, cheese and herbs, small sausage cooked with lentils, cheese stuffed olives and anchovies with parsley sauce.  Those were the appetizers.  These were followed by a light broth with tiny stuffed pastas.  For the main dish Amalia made wild boar in wine sauce that she started two days ago, served with mashed potatoes.  Dessert was a hazelnut cake with a chocolate glaze and fruit.  There were four different wines, sparkling for appetizers, white for pasta dish, red with meat and sparkling rose' with dessert.  This is what Italy does best.  We got home in the early evening and spent the hours before bed lying around doing nothing.  Today we have to pack for our vacation.  We're off to the east, Gorizia, Udine, Trieste and then Slovenia for New Year's.   Happy Holidays to all and I'll be back in 2015!  xxoo me

Ah, Christmas Eve, and I spent the morning in the hospital visiting a specialist because I'm STILL SICK!  My first round of antibiotics got rid of the fever and the headaches but stopped short of curing the sore throat.  And then came on the pain and the THROMP, THROMP, in my right ear.  So I revisited my doctor yesterday and he called to set me up to see the Ears, Nose and Throat guy at the hospital.  (A little aside here.  The word for Otolaryngologist and the word for platypus are very similar in Italian.  This caused much laughter at my expense.)  So now I'm on another round of antibiotics, nose spray and some sort of anti-inflammatory for my sinuses.  The worst part is that I have no appetite and no desire to drink wine and tomorrow is Christmas in Italy!  Oh the waste, the waste.  It should be an interesting day though as we'll be joined by 2 rather odd relatives and a Canadian friend of mine from school who has found himself alone for the holidays.  More on that tomorrow.  Merry Christmas to all!  xxoo me

My darling husband really can be a shit.  He is pleased as punch because this morning there was a delivery for our neighbors, (yes the upstairs neighbors who scream, sing, vacuum, move furniture, play marbles and walk around in heels on tile all hours of the day and night), and they were not at home.  The postman buzzed us and GP said he'd never heard of the guy and wouldn't sign for the package.  He's been chuckling to himself all day.

The weather has finally improved and there have been a couple days of sun.  We're all walking around shielding our eyes saying "the light, the light!".  I drove Grace into the city today to see a friend and took a walk in the center.  There are stands up along the main streets, under the arcades and in the piazzas.  They're selling hand-made crafts and foods for the holidays.  The shops are open on Sundays now and there were thousands of people shopping and eating out in the cafes.  Lovely.  Unfortunately the atmosphere was marred by the howling gypsy.  That's the name I've given to a beggar who I seem to run into wherever I am in the center.  She wails at the top of her lungs and shuffles along with her hand out.  The noise dives me nuts.  It's the perfect storm of irritating sounds, whining and screaming.  You can hear her coming a mile away.  I'm surprised she hasn't been pushed in front of a passing tram.  She is that irritating. 

Back home and time to do some housework.  Ugh.  xxoo me

I'm on holiday!!!  And I'm alive to talk about it.  The horse pills did their magic and I am cured.  Last night GP and I went to the school's annual Christmas party/dinner.  It was in one of the sculling clubs that line the Po in Torino, Circolo Eridano.  This place, along with many of the other clubs, was built in the 1860's during some resurgence of river sports in the area.  They are basically little country clubs with tennis, pools, restaurants and bars where lots of elderly people with lots of money to spare sit around and play cards, smoke cigarettes and drink.  Our party was set up on the "enclosed for winter" terrace with fairy lights and beautifully set tables.  The food was great but as I have eaten so little over the past week I was full after appetizers.  I always choose a table where one of our science teachers, a hilarious Scot called McKenzie, sits.  He is one of the funniest, most inappropriate people I have ever met.  I know what you're thinking but stop right there!  He says things that not even I would dare say.  Strangely, he is always given the job of presenter at these things.  It makes for an entertaining evening.  Last night he introduced the two men leaving the school, one of which he can't stand.  They were to go up to accept gifts and make speeches.  He called up the operations director saying, in a much more colorful manner, that we were saying goodbye to a guy who he couldn't wait to see the back of and for whom he had no words to describe (but if you'd ask him later he'll tell you plenty).  Fortunately the OD is Italian and McKenzie's heavy Scottish accent combined with his use of puns and obscure words meant the victim missed most of it.  We native speakers, on the other hand, were roaring.  Fun, fun.  At 11:30 we came home with a bottle of Scotch Whiskey as a door prize.  xxoo me

I am never, never, never, never, never going to set foot in an Italian post office again!  I waited an hour today to send one envelope.  (The a fore mentioned a-h Christmas cards.)  Every task postal workers do, whether it's mailing a package, picking up a package, paying a bill, has loads of paperwork, all filled out by hand, and 3 documents have to be produced to insure you are who you say you are.  After which the clerks hand carry each customer's pile of papers out back somewhere, where they disappear for a few minutes, (coffee break?), all resulting in 10 to 20 minutes per person!  It's insane.  There were 3 screaming matches while I was there because people were so fed up.  So I ain't mailing nothin' to nobody ever again!  xxoo me

Read this!

http://money.cnn.com/2014/12/15/pf/accidental-american-expat-tax/index.html?iid=HP_LN&hpt=hp_t3


This article drives me nuts.  This is where all of our tax issues stem from.  We pay taxes in the US on monies here.  Why doesn't the IRS spend more time fighting billions of dollars in corporate evasion instead of harassing some guy in Israel who doesn't even want to be American?

Obviously I have too much time on my hands, stuck in bed as I am!  I think the horse pills the doctor gave me are finally starting to take effect.  After 5 days of dragging myself from bed to bath to kitchen and back again, I am a sight to behold.  If the sun would come out I'd bundle up like a babushka and open all the windows.  The air is cloudy with microbes.  MUST GET OUT.

xxoo me  

I'm still in bed!  Four days of headache, aches, pains and general crappy feeling.  Tonight I'll go to the doctor for my "excuse note" for work and something powerful to knock this out of me.  I need to find a book for my wait.  I've read everything in the house and watched endless hours of QI, my new fixation.  It's a wonderful quiz, comedy, panel show from Britain.  I really could watch it endlessly but I have so much to do.  I'm sending out the warning now.  I still have not sent out Christmas cards so you should be receiving them sometime in March.  I had one small pack from The States that I dutifully filled out around Thanksgiving and then I began my search for cards here.  In the past I've bought UNICEF cards that they sell at the post office.  There are none this year.  Of course they don't know why and can't tell me where I can get them.  I've tried every stationary, gift shop around but cards are only sold individually and cost 3 euro each.  Nope.  So it looks like A- H friends and family will get paper cards, the rest of you an e-card if I can get around to sending them.  I missed out on Mother-in-law's big lunch on Saturday because I was/am ill so the whole thing was called off with much melodrama, "Not without you!!", and my fear is I'll be made to pay.  I'm already feeling guilty....  Poor Nonna.  This will not be an easy Christmas.  xxoo me

Have I mentioned the lovely little sadistic Brazilian woman who is teaching Pilates at school?  Her name is Rosie, such a sweet name, and she's married to our new PE teacher.  She probably weighs 97 pounds soaking wet, wears her straight black hair in cute little bow barrettes, has big round glasses that make her already large eyes enormous.  She's adorable and the devil.  I've been going in to school an hour early twice a week since the end of September for her classes.  I thought that after a few weeks the muscles would adjust and the pain would go away,but no!  It's constant.  Every time I stand up or squat down, (oh how I've come to hate the word squat) I moan.  I had a class yesterday morning and it was a particularly tough one with lots of abs.  So last night when I noticed aches and pains I didn't think much of it.  We had friends over for dinner and as they were leaving I suddenly felt a fever come on.  It was so fast!  I'm home in bed today, all hot and cold and head achy.  So much for my vaccine. 
Speaking of vaccines, this weekend we are taking my mother-in-law out to lunch to celebrate her Saint's Day.   Saint's Day, Onomastico, is the celebrated day of the saint you are named after.  Every day of the year has a saint or two, and every name has some sort of derivative to connect it to one of these saints.  Saint's Days are much more celebrated than birthdays.  Tomorrow will not be a happy occasion.  It is her first celebration without Aldo and she has chosen to go to lunch in the same restaurant where last spring they celebrated their 60th anniversary.  The woman likes her pathos. 

xxoo me

It's wrong!  Wrong I tell you!  It is supposed to be Christmas season but it's hard to get in the mood when it's 50 degrees and pouring!  The leaves have finally fallen, I think from exhaustion, but the fields are still Irish green from all the water.  The most googled words in Italy these days are "bad weather".   Not joking.  2014 has had 4 times the normal annual rainfall and this November was the wettest on record.  All I want to do is cuddle up under covers and read.  The only time I feel like venturing forth is at night when grey skies matter little.  Last night we went out to dinner with colleagues of GP's for a nice fish dinner in an area that was once "no man's land."  Up until the Olympics this was a high crime, poverty stricken, immigrant populated area.  It has since become chic and there are tons of restaurants, bars and renovated apartment buildings.  It's a very cool area in the heart of the old center near the church where they house the "Shroud of Turin".  In fact the restaurant is called "Spirito Santo" or "Holy Ghost".  It's now high food intake season so I have to control myself.  It's way too easy to pack on the pounds and way too difficult to take them off again.  For vacation we have decided on the northeastern part of Italy, Gorizia and Trieste, and Slovenia, with New Year's Eve in Ljubljana.  I'm praying it will dry out!  The tree goes up today and I'll do some baking.  I'll close the curtains and pretend it's snowing.  xxoo me

Italy has very strict employment laws to protect workers and employers alike.  As once one is employed with a "permanent" contract it is almost impossible to be fired, employers are hesitant to hire.  Consequently there are a lot of temporary contract workers out there.  To prevent the workers from being taken advantage of, by law after 3 years the company has to let you go or offer a permanent contract.  In our school, assistant teacher contracts last 3 years.  (Teachers tend to be foreign and stay only 2 or 3 years anyway). After 3 years an assistant disappears and a new face appears.  This is my 3rd year and I have an assistant status.  I went to the big guy yesterday and said I'd like to stay on.  I was hoping for one more year while Grace finishes up with some sort of consultant or tutor contract.  Instead he offered me permanence.  I don't want permanence.  I have no intention of staying there once Grace is out of school.  Of course I said, "Oh, how wonderful!"  There is so much bull flying around that school that a little more won't hurt.  Today the head master brought a guest into the library while touring the school.  He went on and on about our collection of classics, (OLD yes, Classics, no), about our students doing most of their reading on tablets as we are aiming at being a paper-free school, (we have NO e-books and teachers photocopy textbooks as new ones aren't in the budget), and our expert media personnel, (our internet is down on a weekly basis).  I just smiled and waved.  Not gonna risk my contract until it's good and signed.

Grace leaves with the Model UN group for Paris in the morning.  Four days in the City of Lights arguing Human Rights and such.  I went to the Museum of Art in Boston once in school.....

xxoo me