a question...

Look at my peppers.





Are they supposed to be turning black like that? Like, are they on their way to becoming red? In my spectrum black doesn't come between green and red but perhaps it does in the pepper world?

Or is this more like when a tooth goes black - really NOT good news?

comings and goings and some staying

I'm sitting alone in my newly rearranged, freshly cleaned kitchen with a new hair cut.

And a new fridge.

Yeah, David left again today.

That has nothing to do with the fridge but it can explain the sparkling and newly ordered kitchen and my new pixie-do. It's always the same on day he leaves... a big row in the morning as our tensions are running high in anticipation of separation, a kiss to make up, another to say good bye, then my home alone routine. It goes like this:

1. nap
2. rearrange furniture
3. clean the house
4. give myself a hair cut

I can't explain why have the need to do all these things...ok, the nap and the cleaning are obvious...but giving the house and my hair a new look? Whatever. Let's not examine it too closely.

His was a short visit but not an uneventful one.

Just to make him REALLY feel at home, the fridge broke down the first day. I couldn't have planned that so well. There are minor inconveniences and then there is your fridge on the fritz in mid-July in the northern hemisphere. Particularly so if you've grown very fond of your old fridge which was a lovely shade of blue and you live in a small, coastal town in Italy.



Ya know how hard it is to find a blue refrigerator that can be delivered the same day? Or month? Yeah, YOU CAN'T.

So we spent a lovely and rather smelly week with the old fridge and whatever of its contents we thought we could still possible consume scattered around the counters amidst piles of David's laundry in various stages of washed-ness. Truth be told, the fridge could have gone out a day or so before David came home and I didn't notice which did a lot for the fresh smell hovering in our cave like kitchen. Again, let's not examine too closely my in-ability to notice that I was drinking warm milk.

So about 5 minutes after the pre-departure row and 5 minutes before the post-row kiss, the new (white) fridge was delivered and the (beautiful blue) old one was taken away.



This week, in addition to the great excitement of a new fridge, we celebrated an anniversary of sorts. On July 14, 1999 David and I started what was then our year long sabbatical that now marks the start of our new life.

A decade of comings and goings and staying...

Dog Days of Summer

David's home so we've all been pretending we're on holiday on the Italian Riviera.

Today we went swimming in the river.

The mystery continues...

Look.





They've been returned.

Or maybe they've never actually gone missing.

This is possible. I'm not known for being the most observant human on the planet.

Actually, I surprised myself a bit by noticing the gates were gone in the first place.

So, let's ponder what's happened here.

FACT: On Thursday July 2, Lynn notices that Cornwell gates are no longer attached to Cornwell posts where they'd been standing on Cornwell land for 6 years.

FACT: On Sunday July 5, Lynn has lunch with neighbors Augusto and Lina and mentions the "missing gates".

FACT: On same Sunday, at same lunch, Lynn asks Augusto if she should try to retrieve her gates by "asking around" the other neighbors. Augusto replies, "No. That shit's gone." (that, of course being my translation of what he said.)

FACT: Augusto and I were in agreement that there's only one suspect (and NO, it wasn't the neighbor I argued with about the water and the tubes, we both had a different gentleman in mind)

FACT: On Thursday July 9, Lynn notices that the gates are propped up against the walls on Cornwell land. Actually, only the bottom half.

FACT: On same Thursday, Lynn walks the Cornwell land looking for clues but can not get far because of 4 foot tall grass and brambles.

Now...what could have happened?

There are two possibilities as I see it:
A. They were stolen and returned.
B. They were never stolen, just taken off their posts and set aside.

Ok, so, if they were (A.) stolen and returned I can only see three explanations for this:
1. Word got around that I was blabbing my mouth about my gates being stolen to Augusto (who is respected by more neighbors than just myself) and the thief didn't want to have "brutta figura" (lose face) with Augusto so he returned them. Possible, not probable but possible.

2. The thief was not a thief at all, merely a borrower. In this scenario, he just had a little project for which he needed a couple of gates for a few days, noticed that we had just the right gates AND that we weren't using them. So he borrowed them and brought them back when he finished. Possible, not freakin' likely but possible.

3. The thief had had his eye on our lovely gates for years, after watching and waiting and being ever so patient for (as I said) years and finally convinced that we were never going to use them - he nicked them. He had them in his shed on his land for a week, spending hours every day cleaning them and admiring them and loving them. And spending hours every night awake in bed, in a cold sweat, completely remorseful that he'd taken those beautiful gates from his really kind American neighbors. After 7 nights of this, he couldn't take it any more and brought them back. Possible...no, this is not possible at all.

Since these explanations all failed, it's very possible the gates were never stolen. So let's look at (B.) in which the gates have been there the whole time, just not in the place where I left them.

There's only one explanation I can think of for this:

Since the gates were attached here,



like this,



and only the top half went up and down (which are still missing - piss me off), one actually had to go OVER the gate to get on our land.

Soooo...

Someone wanted to get something (or someone) on my land that can't lift a leg over the gate.
hmmmmmm....

Now we're getting somewhere...the mystery continues.

While my brain ponders this, my hands will ponder this:

I can't believe he's gone...

Ok, truth be told, Michael never really did that much for me. I've always loved watching him dance but his music...well, I was in high school in the mid-80's, what choice did I have.

I've just been having a bit of a back and forth with my folks about Robert McNamara via email. I was asking for their thoughts about him...they were telling me their thoughts about him.

I found that, in the last email, I had ended by asking them if they thought that Robert McNamara would be buried in a $25,000 gold casket and be celebrated at the Staple Center stadium. Obviously with a little attitude.

Then, feeling a little damned by dissing the dead by being so disrespectful, I went to YouTube to have a quiet moment alone with Michael.

I went here. (Feel free to go there now and watch it, then come back. Those of you in the States might be sick of seeing this, I imagine it's been played a bit in the past week. It's not "Thriller", by the way.).

Ok, I admit it. I was laughing hysterically, crying a little and absolutely singing A LOT. That dude was a genius bringing all those people together like that. Come on. Who would put Dionne with Willie? Or Kenny with Paul?

And not just that, he included Steve Perry. Even gave him a solo line. That Michael must have had a big, generous heart.

Yeah, ok, he might have had a little help from Quincy, Lionel and Bruce on this song. But maybe this was his genius. There's no doubt the man had some kind of genius - people will debate what it was forever...well, or for a long time... or at least for the next couple of weeks.

A little note here to Michael (you guys can read it too if you want):

Michael,
you were a great dancer. I loved that song "Beat it". You make me feel really old by dying just now. All the same, that was really nice of you to include Steve in "We are the World".
See you later,
Lynn

It had a lot of the same elements of an American 4th of July celebrations, but also a few extras...

Just like folks all over the USA did on Saturday, pals Christine and Valerio opened their home to, well, a lot of people to celebrate Independence Day. Here are those hosts...



Small difference is that their home is in a country that is neither the country that was seeking independence nor the poor country that lost that revolution.

There were some Americans...



Unlike other parties celebrating the 4th, those were the only five Americans at the party of about 50 people. And one of those 5 is actually an Italian who is an honorary American having lived in New York for 35 years.

New York was almost as well represented as, well, the USA...



Like gatherings for the 4th EVERY WHERE there were grilled burgers and rain.



But Christine and Valerio's party also had ...



a Brit and a Hungarian husband and wife team patting the patties.



a 73 year old retired English farmer eating the first burger of his life.

And ...



A full, double rainbow with an Italian in a funny hat enjoying it.

Like many a good party, we had some kareoke...





And a retired British opera singer.

Also like all good parties, there was a guy from the Philippines who pulled up behind the wheel of a Honda Civic with New Jersey plates...



And of course, dancing and decorations...



(sorry about that photo. the decorations went way beyond those cool red, white and blue paper chains you see there...for example Christine spray painted stars all over the the patio - way cool).

Thanks Christine and Valerio.

hunting and gathering

So, this morning I did the usual going out and about with the doggies. Each time we go for a walk we go in a different direction. Well, there are only three choices - up, down, or over. Down takes us down the road which is safe to do only when a) it's not high traffic time in Maberga and b) when I'm feeling up to the physical challenge of coming back UP the road. Over takes us across the road to a large, flat terrace that's good for chasing lemons. Up takes us to our own terraces. We only go up there if I'm feeling ok with the inevitability of the dogs swimming in the pool (aka: our water vasca).

This morning we went up. To get to our terraces you have to cross through some other people's terraces. You know you're at ours when you see the little metal gates at the end of two of the terraces. These gates were put there by our pals (some times I've referred to them lovingly as "the hippies"). They lived in our house for a few months before we moved in. During that time they diligently worked the land, planting insane amounts of veggies. Robert put up the little gates to keep the wild boar from digging up the insane amount of veg from the earth.

When I crossed the neighbors' land this morning, approaching our land I noticed something was amiss. The little gates were gone. Just gone. Just like the opposite of my melanzana...one day no melanzana, next day a melanzana. One day two little gates, next day no gates.

So, this leaves a girl with kind of a bad taste in her mouth. When you're walking down the street and someone snatches your purse, well, that's a bummer for sure. But when that happens, it's not really personal. I mean, that snatcher doesn't know you from Adam, he just wants your purse. When someone takes the time to dismantle your little gates from off your land in Maberga to take them, that person knows you. That person knows those little gates are yours and they took them anyway.

Granted, we don't really need those little gates any more. There are no veggies on our land any more. But that's not really the point, is it? They still belonged to us. I mean, come on. We're not using all our olive trees right now but they still belong to us and are not open for the taking.

The only upside to this episode in Maberga life was that I was having a good time with Das Needle ladies when it must have occurred.

While someone was hunting and gathering from my land, Natalie finished her first pair of socks.



Those are some nice socks!

She also finished this great sweater by sewing on a button that she made herself.



And Mette made a helicopter!



And while someone was hunting and gathering goods from my land, Mette's husband Teddy was doing some hunting and gathering of his own.





I don't know exactly how I'm going to deal with the little gate theft in Maberga. One thing for sure though, whoever took them did so because they needed them for something. Given that they weren't the kind of gates one puts in their home to, say, give privacy to a bathroom or to stop small children from tumbling down stairs, means that they will be used on some one's land.

I'm watching to see if this bold, neighbor, gate-thief has the balls to put up my gates on his land. I'm watching...