nice pants

I think I need a pair of these








I'm not joking.

It's happened

Do any of you remember the moment that you started reading?  Like, really reading, when you figured out the code?   That time you opened up your favorite book, The Carrot Seed for example, for the 100th time and you actually read the words instead of just reciting the story from memory?  One minute you can't read, then next you can.  Like magic, you were just changed. You could never not read again. Do you remember that? Suddenly the whole world looked different.  You could read.
Or maybe you remember that moment when you finally got the hang of riding your bike?   You know, that evening when you were in the street in front of your house on Pearson Dr on your brand-new-to-you hand-me-down-from-the-big-sister blue Schwinn with your dad* giving you the 100th run-and-push of the night, and you just did it.  One run-and-push you fell over, the next you took off!  Just like that.   You are transformed.  You'll never not ride a bike again! It happened in an instant and you became a different person.  You were then a bike rider.  You were free. Do you remember that?
Or maybe you were there when a child of your own (or someone else's) started to read, or ride a bike, or walk or talk.  Do you know the kind of moment to which I'm referring?
So, I had one of those moments today.  It's so very cool.  One second I'm cursing the weeding in my orto and the orto in general, then next second....I loved it.  Yes, even the weeding.  Particularly the weeding.It happened in an instnat.  I will never be a non-weeder again in my life.  Oh my god, a new world has opened to me.  I feel liberated and free. I am transformed.

weeded basil

And you should see my beans!  I might need to have a bigger orto next year just so I have more weeding to do.  I rationed out how much I did today so that I have some to do tomorrow.  Corn, baby, here I come.

So now I'm a weeder.  I don't feel quite comfortable yet calling myself a gardener but I think this was an important step.  Maybe I will call myself a gardener when shit like this doesn't surprise me any more...

Is that what corn on the cob looks like when it's growing? 
 Um, I can forgive myself for being 43 and not yet a real gardener but, for fuck's sake I grew up in Wisconsin, the granddaughter of farmers.  How is it possible that I don't know what corn looks like in its infancy?
I've got to run now.  A package is being delivered to me on the 8.40 train...better go retrieve it, um, him.


*might have been you, mom.  sorry I don't remember...I was looking forward.

Just 'cause I didn't have anything else to do...

you know, like:
    plan a wedding,
    or weed the orto,
    or run a jewelry business,
    or teach 20 of my closest friends' kids english,
    or clean the house,
    or clean the cars,
    or tick off anything on this list,
    or swim in the Mediterranean-frickin-Sea-because-it's-summer-and-that's-what-I-should-be-doing,
    or write a blog,
    or maybe have a shower every now and again.

You know, 'cause I didn't have anything else to do it seemed like a really good idea to:

    make a quilted/pad/blanket thing for the new pallet on wheels,

    and have 4 twenty year olds up to the house for a sleepover weekend

    (I'm still recovering from that),

    and make a boy and girl at the beach with wire

   ....and a self portrait

Dang, i'm really tired.  And, dang, I've got to get some shit done...I mean, other shit.

So, in the past week or so when I haven't been blogging, I've written the wittiest and most enjoyable posts. Really, you should have read them, they were awesome.  Of course they were just in my head.

Like there was that one about when Franco came to town to pick me up because my car was at the mechanic and I happened to be standing on the street next to his dance teacher who is also the garbage man.  Friends, that was a funny frickin' post, that one.  Oh, I didn't mention that I was carrying a crate of pepper plants.  Funny frickin post....in my head.

And then there was the post about Augusto and Franco talking and laughing about their dental dilemmas while they were laying tiles on my patio... all the while I was dreaming of the corn on the cob dinner I'm going to have with them.  That post was hi-frickin-lariuos, too... in my head. 

And now that I sit here to write an actual post...yep, nothing.  Just some random photos and that's that.  Nothing witty, no dancing garbage collectors nor sweet corn eating toothless friends.

All I've got is this photo of my first coffee breakfast on the new patio.

Absolutely luxurious.

And this one of Ruffino showing the clean-ability of said new patio tiles

Just gotta hose those puppies down.  I mean the tiles. 'Course I hose the dogs down too but they don't clean up as well.

And then there is this photo of my super cool need to add wheels to things that don't already have them.

That's a pallet-o-multi-use now!  Slight design flaw, however, in that I didn't buy wheels with brakes.  There's a bit more of a decline to the new patio than the naked eye notices.

And this one of my new tattoo, which came in the box of Popsicles

It's a penguin in a pink polka-dot bikini tossing a ball, in case you can't tell.

good night, everyone.

some good news, some bad news, but more good news!

So let's start with a bit of good news.  Augusto stopped by today.  Unless it rains tonight he's going to lay some patio tile tomorrow.  He asked me if I know how to pray.

"pray for no rain tonight"

Augusto is a serious atheist but he was born in a Catholic country.  It's hard to ignore that inertia.

Bad news...there's been a slight set back in the wedding planning.  The music duet for the ceremony backed out.

Ok, that "music duet" was my viola teacher and her flute playing boyfriend.  Fortunately for them, but unfortunately for us, the San Remo symphony has found funding for another year.  Soooo, they will be previously engaged on the day of the wedding.

This brings us back to the other good news.  Remember when I took those viola lessons last year?  Yeah, me neither. Anyway, through the course of those lessons I happened to have bought one of these!  (don't ask...it was my maestra's attempt to get me to sing and play in tune....I guess she thought if I wasn't using a viola or my voice, I might find the right note) .

Well, that didn't really happen. HOWEVER, now in this music pinch for the wedding, I can step up to the plate.  I have the instrument and even the music.  A book came with the keyboard with a bunch of musical choices.

So, Bump and Doug...here are your choices.



I'm kind of leaning toward Il Brindisi,  which of course means "the toast".

I think with me on my mini keyboard and Uncle Mike among others singing, it'll be awesome.  Look how cool this is...



So, pretty much, it's all good news.

Let's celebrate!

It's summer! 

Despite the fact that I'm currently wearing a sweat shirt and wool socks because it is so wet and cold here, I know it's summer.  Know how I know?  Look

 My tomatoes have a trellis.  Must be summer.


And I've got sweet corn growing

Knee high by the 4th of July...not likely but sweet corn MEANS summer!  Except of course for that shrink-wrapped already cooked crap in the shape and color of corn on the cob that they sell in the Italian grocery store all year round.  That doesn't mean summer.

I also know that it's summer because I danced around a fire on the summer solstice with a shaman and a bunch of other people.

Like this Greek guy who gave praise to the gods by chanting something in Greek...or at least, that's what he told us he was doing

Wait, let me back up a second.  See this beautiful woman?

Christine turned 50 the day before the summer solstice, so we had a little party to celebrate both.  She made herb head wreathes.

And a guy that looked like Gandhi played the drum.

And we ate marshmallows over the fire

Doesn't that look beautiful and romantic?  That's what it looked like to us who were there.  Here's what it really looked like

Note to self: best to keep the flash off when photographing a party in the dark.

We held chickens

And played the flute

And planted a tree

Yep, pretty good time had by all celebrating summer that night.

I also know it's summer because I've done this

 Here

And then there were big celebrations because these guys came to visit and nothing broke

You might remember them from older posts like this one.  They are "the fun couple" from the comments.  They are also the people for whom every system in our house completely stops working when they are here. This is the first time they've come in summer, and the first time everything's worked.  Celebrations.

Happy Summer, it's off to a good start for me.

I was warned

A couple months back the plumber was here hooking up the big gas tank and installing the new water heater.  It was a nice day so I was outside papier macheing.  The plumber was kind of an old guy, the father of the plumber I actually hired.  He was Ligurian -- Ligurian born, raised, and eventually dead.  Ligurians are very proud of being a frugal group.  All other Italians call them tight, cheap, short-armed.  This old plumber was frugal even with his speech.  He didn't say two words to me all day.  Well, not until I got out the papier mache.

"Is that flour and water glue you're using there?"

My surprise at his knowing what it was must have clouded my thinking a little.  I said, "Yeah!  Do you papier mache?!"

"Um. No.  But when I was a kid we didn't have real glue.  Our moms made us that stuff for sticking things together."

"Really?  How smart of them."

"Be careful.  The mice eat it."

Damn if that old plumber didn't know what he was talking about.

 Yep, that is the base of a sculpture called War and Peace with a big mouse hole in it. 

I found a copy of the epic book and am going to recycle it into an epic sized papier mache sculpture (that's my way of wording it so it sounds like I'm doing something noble when in fact I am ripping apart a great work of literature so I can use the pages for a sculpture).  A while back, when I put on the first layer and it was still wet Ruffino ate a piece out of it (apparently not only mice get the hankerin for a good piece of papier mache).  When I told my friend Christine about that she suggested that I change the name of the sculpture to War and A Piece Missing, which I thought was most clever.  Now, just as the plumber had warned me, I've got War and a Bunch of Pieces Missing.

I really like that I'm able to get helpful tips about my artwork from the plumber.

Going with this papier mache theme...I'd like to introduce Dorthea (aka: Do Si Do Dot)

The other girls and I had a little coming out party for her.

This party was a suggestion by always-thinking cousin, Whitney.  I thought it was such a good idea that as soon as we got done skyping I set it up.  And it was a great idea until I sat down with them and my beer, then it became a creepy idea.  Have you ever sat on your front patio drinking a beer with 4 papier mache girls who have no faces and a papier mache bird/fish?  It's weird, and not all that comfortable.
At the party, before I broke it up because I got weirded out, we gave a good luck toast to Jalieia and Spot who are now on display at a funky little studio/shop/museum place in San Remo where Christine and I have some of our Liguria Dog goods.

They've been sealed with real glue, and shellacked....I think they're safe from any mice.