(a little background music for today's post)




"L'alba, fa bene al cuore, fa male agli occhi" --Franca, la barista. September 16, 2010



"Sunrise, good for the heart, bad for the eyes."




My writing isn't good enough to explain the sensations of the day I spent saying hello to my 41st year. Let's just look at the photos from the top of the world, which is where I spent the day.










When I reflect on a year finished, I like to think of the things I've learned. Looking back on my 40th year, I can proudly say it was this...



Interpret that as you wish.

It started like this...

I'll let you know how it finishes when it's finished.

Thanks everyone for all the birthday wishes.

Let the games commence... and recommence...

So I'm thinking that beans weren't such a wise choice for the Orto.



Yep. That's the crop. Did I mention that the bean plants took up approximately one-third of the total garden space?

Are you wondering why my beans are not green? Or rather, are you wondering why I let them dry on the vine? Yeah, well, about a month ago all the plants were heavy with fruit and David was home. I said, "do you think we should pick those?" He said, "I think we should just leave them and pick them when we can have dried beans."
Seemed like a good plan at the time.

Now, I'm not so convinced.



Here's why:

1. fresh beans are nice. I didn't eat any fresh beans from my garden.
2. picking beans sucks. picking beans off of dried out and brittle plants sucks more.
3. fresh beans can be eaten without removing their pod. Shucking dried beans might suck more than picking dried beans.
4. I planted, watered, weeded, watered, weeded, waited, waited, waited, picked, and shucked my crop of beans to get this



and I can buy this



for about 43 cents at the store.

House project number ...um...damn....is it only 11? No wait, it's 12! There was an 11, I just didn't write about it. I reorganized my studio, which used to look like this



and now looks like this



Yeah, ok. You can't really tell the difference in those photos. Trust me, there is one, a BIG one.

Anyway, number 12: get a grip on the orto...might even plant some new stuff.

Knitting project 12? Well, my birthday happens to fall this week. This of course means that I head to the top of a mountain, or the bank of a river, or the beach (or all three - but not at the same time) and I cast on my birthday sweater!

As you long time readers know, I like to spend the day of my birthday alone (casting on a new sweater in some beautiful spot!). This tradition was born out of necessity. Several years ago I realized that, because of work, I AM always alone on my birthday so it's a good idea to celebrate myself. This year David helped me kick of the festivities before he left town...



with a picnic by the sea followed by a trip to the river with the dogs and mexican feast at home. A great start to my week.

So, where were we...

Oh yeah, I was getting myself a life. Here it is...

This guy had a birthday last week,



And seeing as how Ruff and Q's



favorite sitter



was shacking up with me, I thought it a good opportunity to get on this



And go here



to surprise that birthday boy



Luckily for all of us, that birthday boy's lovely sister was visiting to celebrate her birthday (which is just a few weeks after her big brother...one year apart, poor mamma Cornwell - she must have been cursing life 50 years ago, 'specially given that her two infant children had been proceeded by 4 other siblings, all one year apart...but I digress)



They had been cycling around Tuscany when I met them in Siena



And crashed their party



They didn't seem to mind, though



Then little sis came back to Liguria with me



where we did some of this



And a lot of this



And danced a few times to this

Life ain't so bad when you get one.

a little life

So I just got out of the tub, pulled my night shirt over my head and a scorpion fell to the floor...from the t-shirt I'd just put on. That's nice.

Apart from that excitement, there really hasn't been any - excitement, I mean. I know I've been neglecting my blog, friends. Sorry about that. But, well, you have to have a life in order to write about it.

Along those lines, tomorrow I'm gettin me a little life. Those of you who know about this plan- keep the traps shut, per favore. You never know who is listening, or reading, as it were. I'll have the camera and will be sure to report back. I promis. Maybe.

Did that scorpion climb into my shirt while it was folded in my armadio or did he just find a soft, white bed while I was in the bath? Either way, it's a little disconcerting. I might have a tough time falling asleep tonight. You?

a presto

so much going on

So, I just got one of those gentle nudge emails from Wayne (of the comments). I guess I've been a little lax in my blogging, huh?

Sorry about that. You see, I've picked up my knitting needles after months of non-use and I've been working night and day, day and night with no time to sleep, or work, or clean, or make jewelry, or blog, or anything at all. I've been working on this



A masterpiece, no?

As you can see, it's almost done so I should be able to resume normal life soon.

wet gold

David and I spent the morning getting water to come to our house. What did you do?

What? Water from the city, you ask?

Oh no no no, don't be silly. Just because we have some tubes and a water meter doesn't mean we have the city water. No. Let's remember that it took 3 years to get those installed, so actually getting the city water to run through them and into the house...well, who can say how long that will take.

No no, David and I spent the morning in active guerrilla style combat finding who's taking the water and how we can get in on the action. Maybe we were more like 007 and Q - doing some serious espionage. Actually, it felt more like we were Laurel and Hardy or Lucy and Ricky.

Here's what happened...

About a week ago a neighbor, let's just call him Pier Paolo, accused us of disconnecting his tubes and taking his water. Water, which Pier Paolo also claims we don't have the right to. (Do you sometimes, while reading my blog, experience a certain "Groundhog's Day" effect?) Let's not dwell on the lies of disillusional neighbors. I'm sure he means well...um, well probably not but anyway...

One thing led to another and my husband was shouting vaffanculo at Pier Paolo.

For those of you whose italian isn't so good, vaffanculo literally means go make yourself a butt...or something really intelligent like that. It's obviously an expression that is reserved for those rare (or not so rare) times when, by pure reflex, your left arm whacks your right arm right at the inside elbow causing the right forearm and hand to gesticulate aggression to another person or party. If you are having a tough time imagining it, go here.

Now THAT'S integrating yourself in the local culture! Well done, Honey.

So when the situation calmed down, and Pier Paolo stopped shouting "David, you can't send me in the butt!", we all apologize to each other and decide to play nice. Pier Paolo left the mountain with his tube reconnected.

A few days later we notice that there is only a trickle of water entering our vasca and that my bath water has a greenish-yellow tinge and smelled of sulfur. Lovely. Now, I'm not accusing Pier Paolo here, but we think Pier Paolo did it.

Actually, we don't think he did it on purpose but rather he was trying to clean the tube of built-up crud that was causing none of us to have water, which promptly sent said crud into our vasca. So this morning we emptied the vasca.



And David washed it with some bleach. (I suppose my next load of laundry should be whites)



Then we decided it was a good idea to find more than a trickle to fill it back up. We tried to go at the usual spring only to find, that, alas, that font is dry (or should I say, nothing more than a trickle).

This is where the espionage comes in, or the guerrilla tactics, I should say...

I won't go into all the ugly and wet details of how and where we found water (because you just don't know who is reading this and then I'd have to kill you all) but we did. We also connected Pier Paolo...you know, just to be neighborly.

Wet gold. We got it. Do you?