The excitement!  The excitement I tell you!  The Italian authorities have just conducted a huge raid on the mafia, arresting well over 300 people around Italy including ONE OF OUR NEIGHBORS!  They nabbed him at 4 am this morning evidently.  We don't know the guy as he doesn't live in our complex but in the townhouses across the road.  He is the assessor of the region of Piemonte who bought votes and took kick-backs for favors.  Naughty man.

In other news, GP and I have finally, after 35 years, gone to the Opera.  We saw Carmen and it was wonderful.  I haven't stopped tapping my little feeties since.  Now that I am not tied to the academic schedule, we could go to the matinee at a cost of 30 euro instead of the evening performance at 100!  Oh to be able to sing or dance....  Just not in the genetic mix.

Well another Christmas is almost here.  We are sticking close to home, forgoing our usual New Year's trip, as MIL is getting more anxious being alone nights.  Sooo for NYE, we are going with the hiking group on an evening snowshoe high up in the dreaded mountains.  Oh what a joyous way to bring in the new year... Fortunately there is food involved.  We'll come down from our trek to a late dinner and cheer at an alpine hut/restaurant.  Lots of wood and roaring fires kind of place.  And free flowing wine.  LOTS of free flowing wine.

So I wish you all a very Merry Christmas and a Wonderful start to 2020.  xxoo me

Greta Thunberg was in Torino this last week.  She was greeted by a group of Gretini (a play on the word "cretini" or cretins), young Italians who are her avid followers.  Poor kid came on a day of pouring rain and public transportation strikes.  They had her dressed in a much too big yellow rain jacket under a much too big umbrella addressing a minuscule crowd, as not even environmentalists wanted to brave the deluge on foot.  Oh well, she got to meet the mayor; a woman whose platform included turning Torino into Italy's first vegan city.  Ha.  This is the land of salami and prosciutto.  I think not.

Speaking of weather, we had 10 minutes of snow the other day, during which time I had the chance to take a photo of our little garden and send it out with Christmas greetings.  It's all gone now and we are back to grey and drizzle.  It has not been a pleasant fall. 

And speaking of vegans, the daughter has decided to go vegetarian which is fine, (we've been trying to cut back ourselves - cholesterol problems), except that we are coming up on the holidays in Piemonte, the most carnivorous of times.   Our traditional Christmas lunch starts with salami and plates of hams and other thinly sliced pieces of pig.  This is followed by salami cotto, a big fatty boiled sausage cooked with lentils.  The pasta dish is agnolotti, tiny ravioli stuffed with meat and cabbage topped with ragu, ie: meat sauce. All of this comes before the main dish, some sort of huge roast.  See the problem?  As I have taken over the role of hostess I have some flexibility so have spent the past few days devising a menu and reviewing it with all involved. I'm going for a lot of appetizers and two pasta dishes and skipping the roast all together.  Figure if I stuff MIL with enough cheese early on she won't miss the meat later.  Wish me luck.

AND speaking of meat...GP has been craving lamb recently and it's very difficult to find in these parts as it is not part of the traditional diet apart from at Easter.  Yesterday we were at the great market in the city and after searching high and low through the butcher's section, still couldn't find any.  Suddenly I spotted a woman in a head scarf (don't judge me) and we followed her.  She led us right to a Halal butcher with all sorts of lamb!  The huge numbers of immigrants to our parts have brought in all sorts of goodies not previously offered.  There are stands manned by Africans selling vegetables and fruits I can't even identify.  Enormous tuberous things, spiky things and some really smelly things.  There are women making and selling flat breads and mini stands piled up with mint and cilantro, the latter impossible to find here not many years ago.  Much to their chagrin, Italy is becoming multi-cultural.

I've settled into a lazy pattern with this semi-retirement thing.  I wake late-ish, drink coffee and check the news online.  I play housekeeper for a couple hours, sorta cleaning, cooking, or ironing.  I have private tutoring in the afternoon for an hour or two and go to yoga or exercise classes four times a week. Then I come home and sorta do things again until I can reasonably throw myself on the sofa with a glass of wine and watch my newest addiction:  Garden Rescue!  I am a slug.  I'm hoping to become motivated to do some of the many creative things I've been saying I'll do when I finally have time.  Maybe it will be my New Year's resolution.  xxoo me

I'm baaaaaaaaack!  Was unmotivated for a long time but have decided that semi-retirement is the time to get back to it.  So here I am, snuggled under my covers at 9:22 in the morning on a grey autumn day.  I'm liking this.  Unfortunately I'm not the only one home.  Loony lady upstairs was laid off, (Don't be sad for her. In Italy you get 2 year's salary when dismissed.) and she starts with the vacuuming as soon as the kid leaves for school.  She's happily going at it now over my head.  Moving furniture, clattering around in her heels.  Anyhow enough about her.  I left the US mid October and flew to London to spend some time with the child.  It rained of course but there were glimpses of sun and I took advantage of them, walking all around Regent's Park and Primrose Hill which are not far from her new place.

Regent's Park

Being October, we went to see The Woman in Black at the theater and were appropriately spooked.  We sat in the second row, (It was a very small theater) and could reach over and touch the stage.  At one big scare a gal behind us jumped and spilled wine all down G's back.  She spent the rest of the evening smelling like a souse.  I also took a 1 night side trip to visit friends who moved to Oxfordshire over the summer.  They live very close to the village where the village scenes of Downton Abbey were filmed.  We did the Downton walk and had tea and scones in a cafe and I felt very British.

The church used in wedding and funeral scenes

I've been back here a couple weeks now and am setting up my new life.  I'll be tutoring at the school 3 afternoons a week for a family of 4 kids who have just come from The States where they went to a Waldorf school.  Don't get me going on Waldorf schools.  Let's just say they all need some catching up.  I've also signed on to teach SAT prep courses with a friend who started a business for that purpose.  I'll be spending the next four Saturdays in Milan helping students navigate the Reading and Writing parts of the exam.  They pay a lot of money for this course so I hope I know what I'm doing.  We'll do this a few times a year in various locations.  I have no idea where I'm going.  It means getting up before dawn to catch a train to Milan, take the subway and find the damned school which is located right across the road from the church that has The Last Supper.   I'll find it.... 

I've also signed up for some exercise classes to work off the poundage I put on this summer.  Beer and ice cream are the culprits. 

All of this leaves me with a lot of free time in the mornings to deal with my aging body.  I've already had x-rays for a bone spur in my heel, a check-up for old ladies, blood tests are tomorrow, a hearing test next week, and eye test coming up somewhere.  But it all gets me out of the house which is a good thing because GP and I are not accustomed to spending too much time together.  It's unnatural. 

MIL is fine though is worrying us in the quantity of food she is buying.  It seems impossible that one person, rotund though she may be, can eat all she purchases.  She does squirrel away a lot, a generational thing left over from hungry war times, but the multiple, huge slabs of cheese she buys every week can't be stored for long.  Boredom has led her to chase after discounts she finds in the various supermarket fliers she gets in the mail and she has GP drive her all over town and back at least 3 times a week, surely wasting much more in gas money than she saves in coupons.  Her "cantina", (basement isn't the right word because it is a place people store food and wine), is brimming with boxes of bread sticks and cookies, canned and jarred and packaged stuff on every shelf.  Really if there IS another war, we are all set.  There's enough for everybody.  I'll send out the address, just bring your own cutlery. 

Ok.  I have to get out of bed.  It's 10:05!!!!  Ohhh, ain't retirement grand?

xxoo me

Happy Belated Easter!  We had a quiet day with Grace and MIL.  I do miss our larger family gatherings at home.  Sigh.  Last Friday I went to a spa for the day with a friend.  We got a deal on Groupon to try out it's 10 step plan.  Sauna, cold shower, hot rock, steam room, salt scrub, cold shower, shoulder massage, gongs, dry sauna and hot tub.  I'm assuming the cold showers were included in the 10.  Quite nice and relaxing but both the winner and loser was the location.  It's a fabulous castle, built for/by a bishop in 1011 and completed in 1080.  This thing is OLD!  It's gone thru many transformations over the years and is now run as a hotel, spa, events location.  Unfortunately the spa has a lot of competition as seems they are popping up all over the place and it need some serious renovations.  The furnishings, equipment and pools etc were outdated and not terribly clean.  It was like stepping back to the future.  Sort of 1970 futuristic.  Thus the Groupon offers. 

Castello Montaldo

On Thursday I'm returning to London with Grace to have it out with her landlord.  A jerk who gets his kicks by verbally abusing and threatening with eviction a bunch of young girls who don't know that the law is on their side.   He's angry because they are all moving on at the end of the lease and re realizes that he timed the dates badly and it will be difficult for him to get students in after August.  So he wants Grace and roomies out a month early.  It's gonna cost him.  GP has been combing their lease and British tenant law for the past week.  He is biting at the bit to go himself (loves this stuff, gets all righteous) but can't so sending me in his stead.  I have a script.  Must not be too nice.  No giggling and funny remarks.  Damn.

Oh.  And I have shingles!  AGAIN!  Had them 20 plus years ago when living in MA.  They're baaaaaack!  Uncomfortable but not as painful as first time around.  Haven't gone to the doctor yet as is Easter holiday and Italy is closed.  Last week the lines at his office were hours long as everyone knows that Italy is closed this week so they were getting their complaints out of the way beforehand.

Anywho...off to the market.  xxoo me

I'm Kevin Costner!  I'm going to be dancing with wolves!  I've been asked to chaperone the 4th grade classes on a two day field trip to a wolf sanctuary in the maritime Alps.  The trip isn't until May but I'm very excited.  Wolves were practically extinct in Italy until they were given protected status in the '70s.   Oh boy!!

On another note, GP and I had a lovely evening last Saturday.  We went with his hiking group to an area not too far away but WAY up high.  It's a semi-abandoned ski resort that was popular in the 70's but then, for whatever reason, fell out of fashion.  The village is called Montoso and still has a few inhabitants though most of the buildings are empty.  The resort itself is up past the tree line and the huge 60's style buildings that were once hotel and apartments, shops and restaurants, are now deserted.  The only tenants are the caretakers.  The area is also famous for stone and there are enormous quarries all along the road up and that can be looked down on from the top.  With no snow all you see is rock.  It's weird and a little creepy.  Very other worldly.  So we drove up for a sunset hike up to a ridge above the resort that has an incredible 365 degree view of the surrounding mountains.  Once at the top we were wined and dined by a catering team who does just that.  They drive a food and drink laden truck up to the ridge, build a fire, set out tables, and feed people.  It was great.  The meal was casual but yummy, the wine was excellent and the view couldn't be beat.  We hiked back down an hour or so after sunset and stopped at the bar these guy own at the base for an after dinner drinkie. 

the sun going down as we start out

looking back at the ski resort

setting up the tables

our torch

xxoo me

I've mentioned that behind our condo is an old villa surrounded by a small wooded park that was, until recently, a restaurant and events location.  The place was closed under mysterious circumstances last year (most things here are under mysterious circumstances) and has been closed ever since, its front gate padlocked and its park left to go wild.  If it were not for a year-long drought, that place would be a flipping jungle by now.  Well rumor has it, via our condo's whatsapp group, that it has been sold to a nonprofit that works with drug addicts.  Yep.  A rehab center is moving in behind us.  We are not fortunate with neighbors.  There are 18 units in our building.  Four have recently sold after spending less than a month on the market.  But our "friends" upstairs?  They who sing and scream, vacuum and launder at all hours of the day and night, does THEIR place sell?  NOOOOO.  Of course with our luck we'd get tap dancers with 3 kids under 5.

We have a group of kids visiting the school from an international school in southern India.   They are lovely and polite and sound like a Bollywood movie.  Today I accompanied them on a hike into the hills behind the school.  We took them by a wonderful old villa built in the 1600's and abandoned years ago that is said to be haunted.  It certainly would make a great location for a horror film.

the kids climbing on the front gate

The two chapels at the front

one of the many overgrown gates onto the property

We saw no ghosts.  Oh well.  Later!  xxoo me

My prayer for today.  "Dear God.  Kill me before I get that musty old person smell.  Thank you."  What IS it that happens??  Standing behind an 80 something at the supermarket or beside a old dude at the post office,  I find myself sniffing my underarms and clothing for that "left too long in the back of the fridge" smell.

That aside, it's been ages!  I have had a very quiet winter with a few hikes/snowshoeing days(ugh), a couple evenings out, and not much more.  Every other Thursday I do drive a car-less friend from work to buy a pintone of wine, (about 2 liters), that will get her through 2 weeks.  Then we drive back to her place and sit on her terrace looking out over the hills and drink and gossip about school.  The gossip is mostly about the Italian women who work in admin.  The admin offices are the font from which flows the myriad of minor disasters which is our school.  There's a reason that things don't go smoothly in this country and it's that people are "scazzati".  "Scazzati" translates into "pissed-off, listless, or down", (I looked it up), but none of those really fit.  It best translates into "don't give a shit".  And that is the general attitude about work in Italy.  Work ethic is not high on the list of important qualities in a person here.  Folks tend to do the minimum necessary knowing it's almost impossible to be fired. What that translates into is massive grumpiness when asked to DO something and a half-assed job of it when done.  But at least at school I will not have to deal with it much longer.  With a wee bit of remorse I am giving my notice on Monday.  That wee bit comes from not knowing what comes next.  Routine is comforting.  And I will miss the kids and many of my colleagues.  But the pros for leaving outweigh the cons.  

The daughter is here for a long weekend to celebrate GPs birthday.  We are going out to the country for dinner tomorrow night and having MIL over for dinner on Sunday.  She is getting on that MIL, so we now rarely eat at her place but have her here weekly.  Her once vast repertoire of dishes has been shrinking for some time and she needs to be warned way in advanced if she is expected to prepare something for others.  Her one constant is cake, either apple or hazelnut, which she loves making.  So Sundays request is nut cake.   I will force myself to eat it.... 

Other than that not much to report.  Ho hum.  xxoo me

I have reached the halfway point in my last year at the school!  I will be FREE!  Poor, but FREE!  I've noticed a couple things about myself recently that must be part of the aging process.  I'm mellowing!  Like fine wine!  Nothing at work bothers me.  I'm letting all the foolishness just roll off like water off a duck's back.  And for the first time in my well over 50 years of reading, I have put down a book without finishing it!  In the past this has always been impossible.  I've felt like a failure if I haven't read to that final page no matter how lousy a tome.  My God that's liberating!  Unfortunately with the freedom and wisdom comes aches and pains...  GP and I went snowshoeing with friends today and I am presently abed with leg up to relieve me poor bad knee.

very chilly and snowy

LOTS of snow

I made everyone else go first to pack down the snow for me.  Hee hee.

Last weekend I was with Grace.  My wonderful Christmas present from G and G was a trip to London to see Phantom of the Opera.  Oh it was wonderful!  It's been on stage there for 33 years and this is it's final season.  I was literally sitting on the edge of my seat, clutching my chest through most of the production.  Some poor sucker probably thought I was having a coronary.  The music just floors me.  I love you Andrew Lloyd Webber!  Is he dead?  Have to check into that...


Anywho, tomorrow MIL is coming for lunch and I don't plan on leaving home all day! 

Til later, xxoo me

Christmas was small and quiet, restful and fattening.  Me baby flew back to the UK the 29th.  GP and I drove southeast for a few days.  We had vague plans to end up in Termoli, a small coastal city above Italy's "heel".  We got there eventually and it was well worth it.  What a gorgeous little town, fine food and very nice people.  

Looking back at the old walled center of Termoli

It was wildly windy our first two days.  The colors are wonderful as the towns are either white and Greek isle-like or multi colored pastels.  The evening lighting was incredible for photos.

GP leaning into the wind

a house in the old center

evening

I don't know how this little shack stayed up

On day 3 we drove down to Gargano, the little outcrop above the heel that looks sort of like a dog's thumb.  That was getting a little too far south for GP though.  He started getting itchy and making comments about the lack of phone coverage and the quantity of fried food.  I found it charming but couldn't live there.  The guy that ran the cafe where we stopped for a coffee spent a half an hour telling us about the difference between his responsibilities AS A MAN (work) and his wife's AS A WOMAN (everything else).  The Cappuccino was great though!

The Gargano coastline

Rodi Garganico

We came back just in time as a huge storm hit the area the afternoon we left.  It is covered in snow and very cold.  As they have almost no way of coping with that weather, though it looks beautiful, it's a mess.  No plows, not great heating, and bad phone coverage!

I have spent my last few days of vacation cleaning up after Christmas and binge watching a show on Netflix called Tidying Up.  It's a reality show starring a tiny Japanese lady (with her translator as she speaks minimal English) who helps people tidy and organize their homes.  I LOVE IT!  Even though she has the voice of an irritating buzzing insect and is WAY too perky, she calms me.  Every time she does her house greeting ceremony I feel all warm and fuzzy inside.  She's got me reorganizing my underwear drawer and looking for stuff to throw away!  OK.  Off to do something useful.  I haven't gone through my sock drawer yet.  xxoo me