I need to make an amendment.  Their budget for a house was $2,400 not euro so cheaper than I had thought AND may I just say this woman bugs the crap outta me.  moi

Fall is trying to fall.  The past few days have been cool and grey.  Next week it's supposed to be warm again however and I'm happy as we have a 3 day weekend and GP and I are off to Le Marche.  More on that later.  The signs of autumn....farmers buzzing around cutting corn, tilling fields and spreading eye-watering liquid pig poop.  Farm stands are everywhere with their local products.  Peppers are big around here right now.  Our new teachers, from the US, UK, Africa, Finland, are settling in and trying to adjust to life in Italy.  Poor things.  It can be quite a shock.  The school gives out a welcome packet to all new employees each year with such useful information as museums, festivals and sights to see.  Well that's great for a tourist but little help if you plan on living here.  I'm thinking of writing up a "What you really need to know if you don't want to be robbed blind, sent into convulsions by red tape, or killed on the roads."  I would include such useful information such as, "NEVER leave anything visible or even not visible in your car."  It will be broken into.  "Pretend the post office doesn't exist."  As far as our perception of a "post office", it doesn't.  "Be constantly vigilant on the road!"  There's crazies out there!  In the last week, one new couple from West Virginia or some such place, had their school bags stolen from their vehicle.  A Canadian has spent endless hours trying to sort out his visa while a nice Brazilian couple have been dealing with local providers of internet, TV, water, gas, etc which is a full time job unto itself.  They ONLY come between the hours of 8 and 12 or 4 and 6 so you have to take off work to be home and often they don't show up. 

An interesting note.  One of our school families is featured in this week's House Hunters International.   Check out the link.  Little Sophia is one of my kiddies.  And note the budget they have, (2,400 Euro a month or close to $2,700).  They have their rent paid by the company that sent them here.  Alas we have no company paying our living expenses which explains why we live in our tiny apartment!

 Password: hgtv
 https://vimeo.com/140745721


xxoo me

Thank God.  I've just finished a book.  Reading it was like slogging through deep mud.  It took ages.  The writing was very good but it was soooo sloooooow and nothing ever really happened.  I kept expecting the story to pick up but by the time I realized it never would it was too late.  I was too far in and had too much invested.  I can't, with very few exceptions, not finish a book once I'm in it.  I can name the books I've never finished;  Michener's Poland, (I kept getting all the characters mixed up because they all had similar unpronounceable names), the Bible, (never got past Genesis), and a really, really badly written mystery novel by a local "writer", (who is I hope is a better a lawyer), that I was told I just had to read!  So I had to finish this one.  Even though the characters bugged the crap out of me and the dialogue was so vague I felt like I was reading in a second language.  I never felt as though I knew exactly what someone was saying.  So, if you're up for a challenge read Surface of the Earth by Reynolds Price  xxoo me

Well THAT was a bust.  We went to the World Expo in Milan for the second time today hoping to see the half we'd missed in spring.  Unfortunately 250,000 other people also thought today would be a good day!  Instead of slowing down, the crowds are getting bigger.  The lines into the stands and pavilions were hours long.  Japan, one of the most popular, had a sign saying it would be a five hour wait!  We didn't.  In fact we only got near the entrance to 1, Uruguay, only to be told, (after 30 minutes standing in line), that they were having technical difficulties and were turning people away til further notice.  After 3 hours of attempting to see something we turned around and came home.  This was to have been Grace's only chance to see it so it is disappointing.  Not to mention wasted tickets, gas, time better spent etc.  Ah well.  I came home and took a nap.  That'll teach 'em!  Tomorrow GP is off to scale a peak.  I refuse to leaving home.  xxoo me

I'm giving my hip pain, (since an accident 10 years ago), one last shot.  I've tried everything The States have to offer so I'm going to a physical therapist here.  This guy is an expert on the pelvic area?  Whatever.  Funnily, he used to rent an apartment from the in-laws back in the 90s.  He remembered me!  I am quite memorable though not necessarily in a good way....  Anywho, he maneuvered and manipulated the heck out of me yesterday and put his hands places few have dared to venture.  (The muscle injury is to the back of the pelvic area or upper backside which is arrived at by most awkward means.)  He tells me it will take ten consecutive sessions of an hour each, (weekends not included), so I'll be very busy the next few weeks.  If this doesn't work I'll just have to stock up on Advil.

GP's great uncle dies a couple days ago and today was the funeral.  Grace and I were excused but GP was responsible for getting his mother back and forth.  The man would have been 100 in June and had been living in a nursing home for almost 30 years!  He had been in a child-like, semi-vegetative state for the last 5 at least but his death was still an occasion to mourn and carry on.  These Italians like their pathos.

We are going to the Expo in Milan on Saturday as when we went in June we only saw half in a full day.  We're going back to eat our way around the other 50% of the world.  Off to bed.  xxoo me

Wow, I am still adjusting to life back here and feel like I haven't quite got a handle on it.  Between work, senior year/college prep, extra tutoring, (getting students for next year when I'm no longer at the school), doctor, dentist, ortho. appointments and catching up with friends I haven't caught my breath. 

Sunday GP and I went hiking in the mountains with two friends and made it to the trail we wanted just under the wire.  It closed for the winter the next day.  Because it was the last open hike day and because the weather was so beautiful, there were dozens of cars heading up to the parking areas at the head of the trail.   When we arrived at the lower parking area an official looking guy told us the higher lot was full and that we'd have to take a shuttle up to the trails.  We lined up behind a group of people waiting to get on the bus that was parked on the road.  The shuttle filled up and drove off leaving about 10 of us behind.  As soon as it had left, the parking official started letting the cars that were still arriving up to the higher lot!  Parking at the high lot costs 5 euro a day.  That is what they were charging each person for the round trip shuttle.  Of course each car had at least two people (we had 4) , so these parking guys were making money off the shuttle and pocketing it.  When the cars started driving past the rest of us who were waiting, there was an all out revolt.  One old guy screamed, (roughly translated), "It's too early in the day to be shit on!" and then stomped back to his car with his family in tow.  After that we all ran for our cars, people yelling obscenities and making very rude hand gestures at the parking guys and drove to the higher parking lot where we all found space.   Thieves and scoundrels!

As for the hike itself, that was also an adventure.  The trail is so high and so steep I thought my lungs were going to explode.  GP had climbed this route earlier in the summer and assured me it wasn't too bad.  Liar, liar, pants on fire!  He knows I don't like heights and am only comfortable on good trails.  When we got to an icy patch and had to scramble over rocks on our hands and knees I started to get a little uneasy.  When I saw the first rope hold we had to use, so as not to tumble off into the abyss, I started to get scared.  And when we got to the iron bolts that were our only footing up,  I got pissed. 

on the way up

rock slide

the gang at the hut

I made it to the top!  Monviso behind me.

 We all survived and made it down in one piece, exhausted and hungry.  It was worth it!  xxoo me

me and friend C.

heading down again.

glacial melt

farmer bringing in grapes to weigh station

 We went out for dinner in the wine region last night to celebrate our 23rd anniversary.  We stopped to buy some wine for the mother-in-law at a co'op and timed it with the arrival of tractors full of grapes.  First they weighed their loads and then dumped them in a masher like a giant underground meat processor.  The smell was amazing.

check out the ladies on the back wall

 Our restaurant, (pic above), was great but for the fact that the owner's son, a long haired, '70's dressing coke-head, was waiting on us and was a complete asshole.  First GP asked which of four bottles of wine was the least "oak barrel aged" and the guy answered snidely as though talking to an ignoramus, "They are very different wines!".  K.  But that doesn't answer the question does it?  Then when our pasta dishes arrived, mine with mushrooms, I made the mistake of asking for Parmigiano!  What was I thinking?  He stopped dead in his tracks and turned to me and said, "But that just isn't done!"  meaning Parmigiano on mushrooms, and may I just mention that in fact, it IS done.  The guy was higher than a kite.  Apart from that, the food was wonderful, the wine was wonderful and the place is charming.  We even had naked breasted ladies stomping grapes to look at.

Monforte

The restaurant is in Monforte, one of my favorite towns in the region.  It is becoming more and more popular with tourists however and that's both good and bad.  Good because it has brought a lot of money to the local folks and they have restored all sorts of gorgeous old buildings that were literally falling to pieces.  But bad because as is always the case' it is at risk of becoming more Disneyland than a real village.  It has loads of restaurants, bars, bed and breakfasts and wine shops now, and very few "real" shops for the locals.  Many of the old farms have been turned in to hotels and big moneyed people are buying up land and building mega homes.  I must admit I resist change.  GP says I am anti progress but sometimes progress is at a big cost.  Heavy sigh.  xxoo me

Good God, my new desk-mate, (filling in for colleague out on maternity leave), is a Christian!  That's CHRISTIAN.  He and his lovely wife, married just one year, (after having had a very chaste period of courting I imagine), are sweet as can be and set my teeth on edge.  She is uptight and he is just so damned sincere is the only word I can come up with.  He's a very nice young man.  But he's very nice and very young.  And I'm neither.  Heavy sigh.  If I have to behave myself all day it will be a long year indeed.  My other colleague, who was with me last year, has set up a chat for us so we can talk freely without his noticing.  Either of us could be his mother but we're acting in an extremely juvenile fashion, exchanging notes (via computer) and giggling.  Poor Michael.  He knows not what he's gotten himself into......

On another note, the refugee issue is all anyone is talking about these days.  It's a serious, serious issue.  The numbers of people flooding the countries along the coast are unbelievable.  There have been brutal crimes by some immigrants that of course categorize them all as criminals.  People are very worried.  This ain't your momma's Europe any more.

Still haven't ventured farther than school but Saturday is our anniversary so we are going out to dinner in Le Langhe, the wine region.  We have to go early because the mother-in-law needs to be restocked with the only wine she'll drink.  Tonight is a nice dry rose' from Cinzano in the hills northeast of Torino.  Yum.  I'm going to be a glutton in my next life.

xxoo me

Here we are again.  I'm back on the Apennine Peninsula.  GP is cooking dinner and I'm drinking a glass of cold Ribolla Gialla, a super yummy white wine we bought last January in Slovenia.  Maine seems very far away indeed.  Since we've been back, only 3 days, I've cleaned the garden, (which was mostly dead and brown from the extreme heat and drought this summer), dusted and vacuumed the apartment, (an accumulation you wouldn't believe after only 3 weeks of GP's absence - damn city life), and worked for two days reorganizing the library at school 'cause the headmaster is an idiot.  I'm already ready for the weekend.  There is nothing more to report at the moment.  I go to bed early with jet lag.  Wake up about 3 with jet lag.  Fall asleep again at 5 and get up at 7 for work.  I should be back to normal, no snickers, by Friday.  Then the adventures begin!  Miss you all already!  xxoo me