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