Carnival 2013: Venice and Rome

love, love, love this family confetti battle

to pant or not to pant. that is the question.

                                                                                                                                   So on the way to the market, I saw these:

The obvious thought was, Hey, those are nice pants. I wonder if they are my size? But alas, they were not.

Considering that they were crumpled to perfection, was it  a photo shoot( perhaps for an up-and-coming brand with the tag-line: the quality of our pants stands on its own?) in the making and all concerned parties had left for lunch? I should have checked if it was between 1-4. Hmm.

 Was it a political statement?

Did the pants blow from someone's line of hanging laundry?

Did someone simply hate said pants and change on the way to school -ha ha mom i 'll show you!

Was it a gang sign?

Did the person who was wearing these pants simply vaporize? 

And then, as I made my way home, the pants were gone as suddenly as they had arrived. Like Mary Poppins or Frosty the Snowman, they had materialized when needed, taught us all a valuable lesson, and left us with the hope that they would someday return. 

cane at the carni

Damp, cloudy, cold—clearly it is chili weather. At home chili is a staple throughout the winter, but the lone time I tried to whip up a batch in Rome  was …how you say…schifoso. If you think subbing cream of tomato soup for condensed tomato soup will work, you are incorrect. 

Having brought three suitcases worth of kitchen supplies with me on my return from the States, I am ready to once again attempt American chili in my Italian kitchen. Except that I need ground turkey. Which involves going to the butcher. And translating “I need a pound of ground turkey” into Italian.

Even better, I had to take Stella with me to the butcher as on this outing we also needed to hit the vet.

Although Stella’s new rabbit, omega-3 and vitamin E  diet has allowed her emergence from the cone of shame, she now suffers from “itchy belly” aka she has two more vet bills before we encase her body in plaster and be done with it.

And off we went to the Super Carni. I had looked up how many grams made up one pound and I had looked up the word for turkey. I did not look up the phrase “please put it through the grinder” so we all got to play charades with that one. Thank the Lord the Italians I have met are patient and kind, because in their shoes I would so just tell me to get out and not return. Have you ever played charades and tried to adequately gesture the word “grind’? Serenity now!

Stella was meanwhile tied up outside the butcher on the dog hitching post . I knew she was still there ( as flop sweat rolled down my face and I tried to make meatball motions with my hands to the perplexed butcher ) because I could hear people crooning to her outside and the customers who entered the store were clucking over the poor cold dog . It’s 56 degrees. She is not cold. She can smell raw meat but has no way to get to it and it gives her the shakes.

Ground turkey successfully shoved into my purse, we went to the vet. Incidentally, our vet is a full-on knock-out with a nose ring. Plus she is super nice AND she is obviously pretty darn smart seeing as how she is a vet and all. And she calls Stella potato chip. What’s not to love?

The vet diagnosed Stella’a latest round of skin issues as needing to continue with her Front line treatment.  She fixed up our little potato chip and I tried to pay. Except my code fiscale did not match with my ID. The vet kept telling me to just come back and pay her tomorrow which somehow made me feel even jerkier.

And so this is a typical example of a day in my life. It takes a long time to accomplish small tasks and then an even longer time to recover from the embarrassing blunders made while trying to accomplish said tasks.

home sweet home

We are toying with a potentially big decision: moving to a new flat(new to us, not new to Romulus and Remus) or staying where we are. It's the devil you know verses the devil you don't. In the devil we know, the hot water cuts out and it's cold in the winter and hot in the summer, and the doorknobs fall off, and you can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear.

But it is in an excellent location, within walking distance to all the bells and whistles for which Rome is known, plus we have a park across the street and floor-to-ceiling windows in every room. So it's very bright and sunny and surrounded by beauty.

However, it is horrifyingly expensive and I just killed an ant on the kitchen counter. I still have to light the stove with a match and one of our landlord's couches is still in our dining room. And there are still a lot of people ahead of us on the waiting list to rent a parking spot. Rumor has it that King Umberto II was on the list for a parking space in Rome but alas, he died before a spot became available.

We have looked extensively at other places in the city, but there is always something wrong with them as well: no kitchen appliances; no access to public transportation; no place to take the dogs; having to agree to allow the landlord's 30 year-old-son to bunk with us...

And so when I see ads for flats that cost the same but have modern kitchens or built-in closets, plus a parking space and a terrace and a community swimming pool, I can't help but be seduced.

The problem? Because you know there is one...they are not in Rome proper. The address might be Rome, but they are not in downtown center-city Rome. They are not in walk-the-dogs-to-the-Coliseum Rome. They are not in go-for-a-run-by-the-Circus-Maximus Rome.

And like a horrified Elaine on Seinfeld with her "new" Manhattan area code, or a rather-die-than-move-to-Brooklyn Miranda on Sex and the City, I just don't know if I can do it. I'm already a Rome convert. I don't know if I want to go outside the ring road.

But I'll bet they have dishwashers there.

Truth in television

I was watching Scooby Doo (I know, I know, bear with me; I have a sick child at home) and the Scooby gang was in Pompeii. 

They tried to visit one of the sights that was never closed to tourists ( I can't fathom which site that would be because hello!? Lunchtime?!?). As they approached, a guard appeared and told them (in an Italian accent that was so bad we could barely hear the dialogue over our laughter)  that they couldn't enter. "The exhibit-ah ees-ah closed-ah."

"But the guidebook says the exhibit never closes!" protested Fred, waving said guidebook for emphasis.

"That may be true," acknowledged the guard, "but it is closed."

Fred pointed to a sign, "But that says Tours Always Available."

The guard pointed to another sign, "And that one says Tours may not be available at all times."

My son and I looked at each other and burst into fresh peals of laughter. Obviously one of the writers for the show had taken a trip to Italy.

And, as always, the episode ended with the triumph of the Scooby gang: "And I would have gotten away with it too, if it wasn't for you meddling bambinos!" said the Italian criminal.

"He didn't even say it right!" my son shook his head sorrowfully, "it should be bambini!"

Scooby Dooby Arrivederci!

A New Reason to Visit Rome

Recently two of my best friends visited me in Rome. During our time together we were loopy and weak from too much laughter and  too much walking. While staggering past yet another souvenir shop, my pal spotted this gem.

It is titled simply: Calendario Romano, which anyone with a passing knowledge of Italian can tell you translates to The Hot Priest Calendar.

Immediately my friend grabbed all three available copies. " Don't you want anything else?" asked the dubious Italian man behind the counter, "you don't want to look around?" he gestured to the shelves of I heart Roma t-shirts, David boxer shorts, gladiator shot glasses and Coliseum magnets. I thought he was concerned that as Americans we would demand our money back when we opened the calendar to discover it was not a calendar so much as a full page photo with the numbers 1-30 0r 1-31 crammed against the bottom of the page. However,when we returned home and did a bit of research, it was discovered that the true reason the man behind the counter had been leery of our purchase was because only one of the calendar models was new to this edition.The calendar was unfortunately a "best-of" from previous years. I guess the priest/model market just isn't what it used to be.

Quite frankly, I find it difficult to believe that these are all men of the cloth, but I am certainly no expert on what a priest should look like.  After all,the priest in my parish at home was 107 years old, smoked cigars and drove a baby blue Cadillac.

Additionally, just as I am not a connoisseur of priests, I am also not a connoisseur of attractive-people calendars, like those that feature The Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders (am I showing my age?) or the boys from One Direction(I don't know who they are exactly, but I know one is 2 seconds away from a Taylor Swift song). Are the set-ups in these calendars always so silly? Can't the subject just stand there and be pretty?  Although I suppose I should just be grateful none of these "priests" were wearing cut-off shorts and have --oopsy--gotten soaking wet while he washed a car.

Poor October. Who do you think he ticked off in that he had to wear the hat? Is it a special ode-to-Children-of-the-Corn Halloween shoot?

And there is Mr. Decemeber, caught unaware by the camera as he strolled the streets of Rome... reading about the streets of Rome.

And November , oh that 'ol November was just minding his own business reading the morning paper, daydreaming of four-wheeling, sipping a lovely glass of Gran Duque Dale (total product placement) and surprise! Picture snapped!

March is a bit of a polarizing month.My friends thought March was styled to re-enact the cover of a harlequin novel exploring the agony of forbidden love between priest and parishioner( don't worry, it's a happy ending for everyone: he decides to remain committed and faithful to God and she marries his twin brother). I think, however, that the female hand belongs not to a starry-eyed church goer, but rather it belongs to his mom, making sure Jimmy gets a little something in his stomach before Mass.

Should you like to  order a hot priest calendar for yourself, this is the website: http://www.calendarioromano.org
You can find additional information on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/calendarioromano?fref=ts

And for those of you who aren't into the whole "hot priest" thing, no worries! Check out the ad for ROMAntics CATS: a calendar for those with duel loves of Victorian Era women and cats.

nella bocca del lupo a tutti!

AngloInfo Rome is my lifeline! I read it ever morning to discover what's what and make sure I'm not heading off to use public transportaion during a metro strike.

and now I will be blogging for them:

http://blogs.angloinfo.com/in-the-mouth-of-the-wolf/