I read an article in the local paper today about a tourist who was in line to see the Shroud of Turin.  Visitors have to pass through metal detectors and screenings in order to enter the church where the Shroud is on display.  This woman was stopped and searched because the guards saw a suspicious item in her bag.  It looked like a retractable club.  It was a large dildo.  If I were to go to see one of the most iconic religious artifacts in the world, I too would carry a dildo.  I'd love to know her nationality.  xxoo me

There is a black mood in our little household this weekend!  Grace is loaded down with school work, GP has been put on a diet by our doctor and I'm still recovering from my surgery.  I very much doubt my stitches will come out tomorrow, the leg still hurts, the diet isn't working and the school work gets more intense, and for Chrissakes the Italian weather service got it wrong AGAIN!  They said it would rain all weekend and we haven't had a drop.  Not one single drop.  In fact I've had to water the garden.  Honestly why don't they just give up?

I just read an article about Liberland, a tiny country that has just been established in an area of no-man's-land between Croatia  and Serbia. They are currently taking applications for citizenship and say they will accept 35,000.  No Nazi, Communists or extremists need apply.  It was founded just a week ago and already has a Wikipedia entry!  I want my own country!  xxoo me

I went back to the surgeon today for a check up and I had hoped my stitches out but no such luck.  For that I have to go back again on Monday.  He was surprised at the huge amount of bruising I have.  My thigh is black almost down to my knee.  He and the nurse were saying "wow" and "that's unusual" and I felt like saying, "Are you kidding me?  It's like you were wrestling a bear down there!"  He told me to spend the weekend resting and to wrap my thigh tightly in something.  That's easy.  It's the end of winter in Italy.  EVERYTHING is tight on my thigh.

Today was the last day of classes for the seniors.  Their IB exams start in a week and they graduate in a month.  The school holds an outside ceremony every year for the seniors that also celebrates Earth Day.  Two students from the Garden Club plant a tree in the graduating class's honor.  It's very nice as the entire population turns out with the Nursery children, the youngest in the school, unrolling a banner that they made with the names of all the upcoming graduates.  I can't believe that a year from now it will be Grace.  Where has the time gone?  Sniff.  I'm off to drown my sorrows.  xxoo me

Sunday we cashed in the gift certificates to a spa in the mountains near France that I gave GP and Grace for Christmas.  I was wonderful, relaxing, decadent.  We spent all day wandering around in our bathing suits and robes, from hot inside-outside pools to saunas, water massage rooms and scented "relax" rooms.  Marv.  xxoo me

Grace and GP relaxed and happy

The main building up against the mountain

The Spa at Pre Saint Didier

My chicken-fatty lump was removed today.  Let's analyze this shall we?

In the States, there are the lucky ones who are covered by health insurance through work and have few expenses and great treatment.  There are those who fall so low down on the income scale that they have some sort of free coverage, (at least I hope).  Then there are the millions of unlucky bastards who have to pay seriously hefty monthly bills to prevent losing the farm.  We have see it from all sides.  Our last few years in Maine I was covered by a good insurance through the school.  GP and Grace however were not.  As GP was working as a consultant at that time we had to pay $10,000 a year for coverage with a $15,000 deductible and lots of out of pocket expenses. (It may have cost $15,000 with $10,000 deductible?  I remember the total it would have cost us in case of serious illness or injury was over $25,000).  Basically I was working to pay for their health insurance.  That really sucks.

Here we pay zilch each month;  nothing for meds or gp doctor visits;  25 euro for a specialist and 35 for surgery.  Over 65 and under 18, unemployed and refugees pay 0.  Yes taxes are high but not that much higher than what we have been paying in the U.S..   All those poor wretches who come by the hundreds on boats to the coast of Italy every day?  My taxes are paying for them to be treated medically.  Italy is going broke.  But for humanitarian reasons.

Now for the actual experience and the difference between private and Italian socialized medicine. 

About 10 years ago I had this thing removed for the first time.  Sister D and Grace took me to Dr. Miller in his very nice BBH office across the road from the hospital.  I had first visited my gp who had set up the appointment for me, time and date assured.  I had no wait and was escorted into his examining room where he did his out patient "surgeries".  That is in quotation marks because it took less than 1/2 an hour, start to finish and I didn't feel a thing.  He was assisted by a nurse and we all chatted pleasantly while he very gently gave me locals for the pain, made a tiny incision, took out the mass and sewed me back up.  A completely benign experience in every sense of the word. 

But it came back which led me to today.  Just getting here was a trial.  There was a visit to my gp who sent me to a specialist.  The specialist, whose office is in the bowels of a city-sized hospital in the city, said he'd remove it but I couldn't schedule the date as I needed certain "documents".  I had to make an appointment to make an appointment.  I shit you not.  Unfortunately this was at the time I had my 2 month flu and the day of my first appointment I had a high fever and had to cancel.  That threw everything onto the back burner for the doctor and the hospital and it took GP 3 months of telephone calls to finally get me scheduled.  We cancelled everything else on the calendar to ensure I got this done and headed out 2 hours before my appointment.  I was scheduled for 11:00 and we got to the hospital at 9 after dropping Grace at school.  GP had to come with me because this hospital is like a warren.  We asked at the information desk near the entrance where we had to go and she sent us to the first floor where we wandered around a bit and finally asked a nurse for directions.  She sent us to the second floor where we found a secretary who took my info and handed me a paper to give to someone.  I didn't understand who.  Then she said to sit in the waiting room.  Fortunately I had a book.  A long one.  An hour and a half later GP went to see what was going on.  The squeaky wheel is very relevant in Italy.  A nurse came right in and sent us back to the first floor to day-surgery.  We found a secretary there who took the paper the woman upstairs had given me, made some derogatory comment and ripped it up.  Then she re-registered me and gave me a new paper to give to someone and sent us to another waiting room.  Another hour later GP stopped a nurse walking by and asked what the situation was.  Squeaky wheel.  They came for me soon after.  This time I was taken to a surgery prep room where they gave me a hospital robe, a cap and little paper booties.  And they had me take off all my jewelry.  I wasn't going in for brain surgery for God's sake, just a two inch bump on my leg!  As it was the outer room for the operating room the air was on and it was freezing so they wrapped me up and told me to wait.  Again.  And this time I didn't have my book.  Another 45 minutes or more passed with nurses coming in and out constantly.  Two of them completely ignored me.   I called them the bitch twins because they looked alike, scowled and purposely never even looked my way!  Two were quite nice and checked on me and smiled.  The rest, and there were many, were neither one way nor the other.  Finally I asked how much longer it would be because I had to pick my daughter up from school at 3:30.  Squeaky wheel again.  They had me in the operating room in 5 minutes.  Here is where thing really started getting unusual.  At any one time there were at least 7 people milling about in there.  3 of them, the doctor, his assistant and another helper nurse were there for me.  The others were sorting through paperwork, going in and out of a post-op room next door, holding the doctor's cell up to his ear, and generally being noisy and busy.  I was the last surgery of the day, being the least urgent, and they had all sorts of loose ends to tie up.  It was a complete madhouse.  It was also a real operating room with the big round lamp over the bed, a drip by my side, (just in case), a blood pressure cuff on my arm, (just in case), and everyone masked and capped.  I was in a sea of green.  Thankfully there was a lot to distract me because gentle this doctor was not!  He jabbed me with a needle about 20 times that felt as big as a turkey baster and then sliced and pulled and chopped for half an hour.  He complained about the scar tissue being difficult to cut through and asked twice for different scissors and I could hear him cutting!  Every few minutes I felt a jab that hurt like hell in some area where evidently the numbing medication hadn't reached.   He was pulling so hard at one point he almost had my leg off the table.  I'm terrified that when I get the bandages off I'll have some gruesome Frankenstein-like scar.  He never addressed me at all and when it was over I expected a slap on the butt and for him to yell out "NEXT!".  But one of my nice nurses got me through the crowd and back to my clothes and made sure I was alright.  Time in 9:00; time out, 2:30. 

I have to go back to see the surgeon on Friday to have the stitches out.  Wish me luck.  xxoo me

Today after school I played translator for a friend whose Italian is weak and needed to communicate with his doctor.  P was feeling very poorly yesterday so he went to the emergency room in his local hospital.  A nurse on duty scoured the hospital and found an English speaking doctor to examine him but unfortunately the guy was nuts.  P was in the examining room for an hour but left with nothing more than a prescription for antacids.  The doctor spent the entire time talking about his own bouts of depression and how 2 years of prayer had helped him get over his girlfriend who left him 10 years ago!  I'm thinking if you're still talking to complete strangers about it 10 years later, you're not over it.  Anyhow, no tests, no meds, no nothing except a suggestion to start praying?  Ergo the visit to his doctor with me today.  It was a little odd but pretty funny.  The doctor directed all of his conversation and questions to me and anytime P tried to talk he shushed him.  I felt like a mother with her young child except this child is 60 and bearded.  We broke into giggles when I had to tell him to provide a stool sample or ask him about his personal daily habits.  P leaned over and said that this had certainly brought our friendship to a new level.  I did mention that if the doctor was going to do a prostate exam I was leaving the room.  That was something I was not inclined to share.  We'll have a follow up next week when the results from P's tests have come back.

I seem to have spent an enormous amount of time on medical issues this past year.  Between various illnesses, my own and others, dental appointments, eye appointments, minor surgeries, and tests, tests and more tests, I am sincerely tired of it all.  After months of waiting I am going in to have the chicken-fat lump removed from my leg next Monday.  That'll be a treat.  That same afternoon we're back at the orthodontist.  Tuesday is an appointment with the eye doctor for Grace who now needs glasses from spending hours daily on those teeny tiny devices from Hell.  GP and I are just starting to fall apart and I'm still fixing Grace up for adulthood.  I'm going to bed.  xxoo me

Oh London, what an oxymoron of a city.  As Grace and I were strolling along a lovely street with those white Georgian townhouses, expensive little boutiques and cafes, well dressed "posh" people all about, a young guy stumbled past us and began loudly upchucking all over the steps of someone's house.  It was only about 5pm and he'd obviously already reached his limit.  Earlier we had been sitting in a Starbucks, always a first stop, when a man picked up another customer's iphone right off his table and walked out with it.  The phone's owner jumped up, ran after and confronted the thief who very humbly returned the phone.  The entire exchange was unobtrusive and polite.  So English.  In London you see the most conservative businessmen with their bowlers and umbrellas and the most outrageous cross-dressers and funky haired punks or hippies.  A meal will bankrupt you but museums are free and a theater ticket is under $20.  A one-way ride on the underground is an outrageous 5 bucks, the same as a good, cold pint at a pub.  Oxymoron.

Unfortunately my 2 days went way too quickly.  I could spend weeks just wandering in and out of the museums and parks.  What I love about the museums being free is that I don't feel I have to spend hours seeing every room in order to get my money's worth.  I went to the National Gallery and just looked at the Impressionists, The British Museum to see the Egyptian rooms and the Tate Modern to see Meredith Frampton, then I left.  In my most humble opinion, most "modern" art is crap.  If I see one more pile of rocks, or roll of string called a "masterpiece" I'll throw a tantrum.  Anywhoooo.  Grace and I also went to see a musical called Sunny Afternoon.  It's about the 60's group The Kinks and it was fabulous.  Their story and music are timeless.  By the end of the show everyone was on their feet singing and dancing, young and old.  Now me young one is there on her own with a friend and I'm back here washing curtains.  Haven't had enough of museums yet though, so going to the GAM to see Modigliani this afternoon.  xxoo me

Big Ben and the doubledeckers

Grace

Beautiful spring borders

The Eye on the Thames

Our long walk for today, in preparation for Easter lunch tomorrow, was in Parco Stupinigi.  Stupinigi Castle was one of the Royal Hunting Lodges of the Savoy Dynasty and was still in use up until sometime in the early 1900s.  It is now, and has been ever since I first came to Italy, under restoration and houses an art and antique furniture museum.  The place is frickin' enormous and restoration goes by starts and stops as money comes in.  By the time they have finished, they will probably have to start from the beginning again.  There are large walled in grounds that once had the gardens and woods for the inhabitants but this area has been closed to the public since time unknown because of the precarious state of parts of the castle.  Outside of the walls were the hunting grounds that cover almost 4,000 acres!  That's where we walked today.  No need to say that we didn't cover it all.  The land is dotted with farms that cultivate parts of the property.  There are also forested areas that are tree farms and areas that are left wild.  Everywhere is crisscrossed with paths and dirt roads where people bike and ride horses and take very happy dogs on walks.  The only problem is that it is so damned flat and unvaried.  We walked and walked and walked but didn't see anything more thrilling than a bunch of logged woods beside fields of tiny new trees.  Two days til London!  xxoo me

farm - fields

new trees

Our next school vacation starts at noon on Friday and I can't wait.  For Easter we are doing nothing more exciting than lunch out with Grandmother and Great Aunt and Uncle which means a lot of talk about deceased members of the family. Cheery.  As it's Easter you never know.  There might be some surprises!  On Monday Grace and I fly to London.  I LOVE LONDON!  Grace has decided that she would like to go to college in only two places, Boston or London.  So this next week she is visiting some schools in the latter.  I will only be there for two days as her good friend arrives from Germany on Wednesday and I have been told, in not too gentle terms, that I am not welcome to hang around the rest of the week with them.  Can you imagine?  So Monday we will do a museum and then the theater in the evening.  Tuesday we meet her friend and they go shopping while I check out another museum.  Then I'll have the privilege of dining with the girls, (and undoubtedly paying).  Wednesday I fly out late morning and Grace and friend are on their own in the big city til Friday.  Schools are tough to get into in the UK but if she should be accepted, housing will be an issue.  Tuition is a breeze compared to the US but London is so damned expensive in every other aspect.  In their first year a student can have school housing for the same price of a year's tuition.  But after that they are on their own to find a place to live.  Generally students pile up in 4 or more in a one bedroom, squalid apartment in a suspicious part of the city.  This is something to consider.  I have to say I wouldn't mind flying back and forth to the UK on a regular basis.  I do love it.  Apart from the food.  xxoo me