Commissioni

Errands. 

I love running errands....now.  I used to hate it.  

An errand, by Webster's definition, is " a short trip taken to attend to some business often for another".  An errand, by my definition, is "driving around to odious places, where people work who are completely miserable for the purpose of giving them money for things you need but don't really want".  Yeah, no fun in that.  

So the other day I had to run some errands.  The main one being to pay the car insurance.  Yes, I physically take my body to the insurance office to do this.  And yes, there do exist online insurance companies here in Italy, which are actually cheaper than ours but as I said, I like running errands.  

Pressed and dressed I headed out to San Remo.







Nothing odious in that.  I went to see Maria Pia

That is a photo of her off duty at this festa a few years back.  But I can tell you she, her two sons and her husband all have that same smile when I walk into their office. Maybe she's smiling because I remain loyal to their family company when I could get my policy cheaper elsewhere.  I like to think she's just happy to see me.  Either way, that's really not the smile of a miserable person.  

After that errand is run, I took advantage of being in San Remo.

That last photo is just one stall, my favorite, in the big food market.  I like this stall because a)they sell cilantro, and b) the owner always gives me recipes for the veg I buy.  This time he told me how to cook some cima di rapa (aka: calabrian broccoli)

He said that the way he prepares it is so good that  his pregnant daughter ate 3 bowls of it last time he made it.  Hmmm...did the daughter eat so much because it was so good or because pregnant women tend to eat a lot?

Off to the gommista to get some new tires.

"Torno subito"- "be back soon".  That's not a good sign to see when running errands in Italy.  "Soon" is a relative word, it could mean 5 minutes, after lunch, or tomorrow.  Instead of sitting in my car waiting to find out the gommista's definition of soon, I went to the yarn store (duh, what else would one do if they have some time to kill?).

Awesome.  Her sign said "open".....only, she wasn't really.

Back to the gommista, who actually had returned subito for the new tires that make my Fiat 500 drive like it's a Ferrari.  Ok, maybe not a Ferrari, but it does seem that new tires give power steering to a car that didn't previously have it.

Errands done.  Home again.  The cima di rapa was delicious, even if you're not pregnant.