steps

It occurred to me this afternoon as I went to the cupboard for some peanuts…how is it that we can put a man on the moon, talk to each other through tiny rectangular objects not plugged into anything and even send each other photos with these little objects (ok, I admit even the plugged in, odd-shaped or wall-mounted versions perplex me), and well, do a whole lot of other amazing things that I don’t even know about because they haven’t made their way to Maberga yet….

…And still we can not produce a chip bag that stays closed just by rolling it. Geez, where are our priorities? I mean, come on, what affects your daily life more – Neil’s giant step for mankind or stale potato chips?

Yep, you guessed it…I’m still having trouble finding interesting topics for my blog posts.

I suppose I could tell you about the full-moon party we had last night. I could tell you about the 8 of us sitting around speaking 3 different languages sometimes in the same sentence, the oooos and ahhhhs when the big and heavy, full yellow ball began inching its way over the mountain. But then I might have to admit that Neil’s small step might have been more significant than, say, the number of clothes pins I have in the snack food cupboard.

I don't really have anything to say but I'm trying to get back into some kind of regular posting routine so here I am. I'll do what people we english speakers do when making small talk and there is nothing to say. The weather.


We need rain here in Maberga. Really badly we need rain. The no rain coupled with the intense heat has really fried things. And put the water level on our vasca in the red alert zone. Ok, there is water, not a lot but there is water. Our neighbor just decided that in the past week his fruit trees needed what water there is... more than David and I need regular washing. We've been doing what we can for our little garden but I'm afraid it hasn't been enough. Check out the tomatoes.





Speaking of tomotoes, does anyone know the english name for this variety of tomatoes? In Italian they are called cuore di bue (I think that's how it's spelled) and they are the best tomatoes that I have ever tasted. The best.























Oh, yeah, this is a knitting blog...let's talk knitting. In an effort to relax my mind and body from the insane schedule I have recently piled on myself, I decided to force myself to find time to knit. I really am a much nicer person when I am knitting regularly. I decided to knit this




It may look like a scarf but it is in fact a sweater. Yes, it is as narrow as it seems in that photo. I know that ribbing shrinks up knitted fabric, but I'm a little concerned at how much this has narrowed.


I even laid on top of it to see how much it's going to have to stretch.
















Hmmm?

Life

Hello? Is anyone still out there?



Let me start the list of excuses for my not writing (not necessarily in any kind of order) :

1. social life

2. work life

3. home life

With all these lives, I'm finding it difficult to find time for living. Actually that's not really true. There has been some BIG living since the last post. Brother and Sister-in-Law Paul and Cindy came for a visit. Pals Chiara and Luigi opened a new restaurant. There was the wine tasting at an awesome b&b under the stars and the opera performed in a little piazza in a hilltop village up the road. There was the DJ party at Robbi and Inna's in honor of the orphans from Russia who come every summer. And the water heater broke.

The truth is that I haven't been writing NOT because I can't squeeze out 15 minutes to write a post. The real reason is that when I sit down at the computer I don't really have anything to say. It seems that will all this living I've forgotten to take notice, to observe, to appreciate the Life.

two dog day in Venice

So, at 3.30 am on Friday morning (half an hour behind schedule) we packed the cooler, the dogs and our sleepy-ass selves into the car. The dogs don’t get off the mountain so much so they were a little excited (euphemism for “f#*#&ng hyper”) . Although it was the middle of the night, there was really no sleep to be had in that car.

Here was my view…for the 6 hours to get to Venice and the 5 hours getting home.

No, there was not a time warp, nor does one pass through any time zones between Maberga and Venice, nor does one benefit considerably from tailwind… just try to guess what happened on the way there that added an hour to the trip. I’ll give you a couple clues…it wasn’t the dogs’ fault, YES- we did have a map and it still happened anyway.

Upon arrival (an hour and a half behind schedule) we put Thing One and Thing Two on their leashes, another novelty for them (read between the lines “they were f$*&$ng nuts”), and made our way to the vaporetto to take us to Murano.

There were enormous waves that day, as there are every day in late June in Venice (metaphor for “bus load after bus load after tour bus load of teen-aged school groups and old Brits). The dogs loved all the people and wanted to individually greet every single one (ie: they lunged and barked and generally scared the shit out of everyone).

We got to the dock just in time to catch the hourly direct boat to Murano. I won’t go into all that transpired for the next hour, let’s just say that I learned a few things and we missed the first boat:

1. dogs need to have muzzles in Venice, particularly on the vaporetti.

2. Not just the big ones need a muzzle…all dogs need them.

3. the Chinese guys that run the tourist kiosks by the car park sell muzzles.

4. my normally easy-going, laid back husband becomes a somewhat grouchy travel companion (euphemism for f@($&ng unreasonable man that causes general questioning as to whether I can really spend the rest of my life with someone like this) when road tripping on too little sleep with two enthusiastic dogs breathing down his neck whilst being lost.

5. the muzzles you buy at the kiosks by the car park could fit a miniature poodle, if he was the runt of the litter, and it was still within the first two weeks of his life.

6. even though Venice is a world city it still, in the end, is geographically located in Italy making it, therefore full of Italians meaning, of course that owners carrying broken, plastic muzzles, fourteen sizes too small can exempt their dogs from the “no muzzle, no dog” law without even a discussion.

At noon we arrived on Murano (three hours behind schedule). We rushed to the big wholesale bead vendor shop, rang the bell, gave the secret password and were buzzed in. Workers in the shop were accommodating to the two puppy-like Americans and their four-legged friends (might have had something to do with the fact that we were the only people in the showroom….all the same this kindness has curtailed my cursing their names and the knitting of little voodoo dolls in their likeness since the stuff I ordered is 2 weeks late in arriving because they forgot to send it).


Given that we were a little behind schedule (…..) my browsing time was limited to an hour because of the impending lunch hour (knitters, just imagine that you walk into a special, individual showing at Webs and you only have an hour…doesn’t it make you want to cry just thinking about it?).

After a drinkable lunch …seen here improving moods 10 fold… we headed to Maria Rosa’s place for the signature beads. She makes some great stuff and some even greater stuff just for me (given this and that she was kind enough to let our hot, excited dogs into her 5 x 15 glass studio with us, gave them water which they promptly and politely spilled on the electric air conditioner and she didn’t even get mad, makes me not curse her for having not sent my beads yet either).

At 5.00pm (4 hours and 2 bead shops behind schedule)we carried our muzzles and exhausted hot selves and dogs on the vaporetti heading back to the car park.

Just to avoid the impending traffic jams that happen between 6pm and 9pm on Friday evening between Milan and Liguria we made a pit stop in Vicensa at the military base. After a long, exhausting day a girl just needs some Miller Lite, A&W, and Doritos.

1.00am (6 hours behind schedule...but several spared lifes ahead of schedule) the car pulled into the Casa Cornwell car park, running completely on fumes…like all the passengers.

Hello???? Yes, we did survive the Venice trip. No swimming in the Grand Canal or anything. I will give all the very dirty details just as soon as possible.