Touch me! It's so easy to leave me...all alone with the memory of my day in the sun.....

I don't think I've mentioned my new purpose in life.  I can hardly believe it myself.

There are too many feral cats here.  And they are all adorable in one way or another.

Well, someone had kittens several months ago..about the time my daughter was here in late March and early April.  Three little kittens.  Two gray and one all black.  Sweet babies.  The neighbor across the street pointed them out to me...and she would drop...literally drop...some kind of food into the street from her window two stories up, for them to eat.

With that, I started noticing them more...and identifying them.  It became apparent that one had a badly injured eye...just a wee baby....it was very upsetting. I was not even sure an eye was still there.

Gradually, somehow, the idea ...the grain of compassion grew....and we decided to get some cat food and start feeding them, too.

Once that started....well...names followed...because you get to identify who is who.  There was the injured one with a bad eye...so he/she was "Pirate."  The little gray who looked sort of unkempt all the time..he was "Scruff."  The black one who was freaking fierce about protecting food...like a nightmare...became "Incubo"  which means "nightmare" in Italian...but now she..(Yes, I think she is a she) is just "Ink."

After those babies became accustomed to being fed at a regular time every day, Mamma and Sib came along.  I remember Mamma.  No, not the TV series...I remember this cat....running around last winter with her baby...who is Sib...short for Sibling...maybe half sibling, maybe full...who knows?  But, they are all family and they know it and now, so do I.

As the summer wore on, we found a wonderful veterinarian...he speaks a bit of English...just enough so we can communicate with our broken Italian....because Harry had a mole on his arm decide to grow and it had to be removed.   I asked the doctor if he would cooperate with me to neuter these feral cats, not matter what their sex.  He said he would. (Machismo runs deep here and most MALE dogs are not neutered.)

So, at this point...my mission was to make sure the kittens became strong enough to undergo minor surgery.  First, naturally, would have to be Pirate, with the awful eye.  Awful, awful eye...bulging out of its head...looking bloody..whatever beast did this should have just finished the job.  This little kitty needed help.

I scooped her up in the middle of eating (sorry, baby) and we marched her to the vet. Yes, she was a she....I was able to check.  Little Pirate was very weak and the vet was not hopeful.  "The eye is lost" and also..."Malato"..."sick."  Yeah, I kind of knew that....but what I didn't count on was that her little life was lost.  We brought her back...she had had a shot....and I had been given a prescription for two kinds of eye drops....

That evening she ate a little and sat on our mat in our courtyard and just gazed out at the piazza.  I sat with her.  I never got a chance to use the eyedrops on her...I never saw her again.  I believe that was her last night...most likely.  Little Pirate.

I still had eyedrops for Scruff, whose eyes were sometimes glued shut from the goo they oozed.  I scooped him up and wrapped him in a towel and brought him into the courtyard where we have a bench.  He panicked and was fiercely fighting to escape but I managed to get drops in both eyes and to clean them both off...before I put him down and let him go like a bat out of hell.  He forgave me rather quickly, though.  His eyes looked one hell of a lot better.

His eyes looked better for days.  Then..not so great.  The next time I just lifted up his little head while he was eating and got some drops in.  He wasn't happy but he put up with me.

Each time I got drops in, his eyes got exponentially better.  It was amazing.  Then the right eye was totally normal...so I just had one eye to concentrate on...now he looks all bright and wide eyed, like a regular cat.

Scruff and Ink are the only two I can handle very much.  Mamma and Sib are still wary, although I have managed to lightly pet each of them from time to time.  They don't like it!  Scruff, however, leans into pets and wiggles his butt and is beginning to look forward to and love his pets.

Tonight, I was warrior woman.  After a thunderstorm, I went to feed the usual gang and there was an interloper....an orange boy with a collar.....who causes trouble whenever he comes around.  Mamma is clearly afraid of this one.. Sib is too but Sib becomes protective and screeches to the high heavens.  It can be blood curdling.  So..I put the food down and then went about discouraging the interloper.

BTW, I think this guy is the one who delivered the mortal blow my little Pirate...I have little compassion for this particular cat and it would give me great pleasure to capture and neuter this bastard.

There was a supermarket flyer in someone's mailbox so I took it and started brandishing it like a weapon at this cat...he was sneaky and trying to find other ways to get at the food but I was there to stop him.  His next tactic was to pretend that he was retreating....going down this alley...bye, I'm gone.....yeah...only to reappear down the road, having come up the next alley.  I'm no fool, cat.  I got your number.

I managed to protect "the family"...they watched, too...and Scruff, I swear, had "the look of love" in his eyes....they ate and I took the tin in when they were done.  Bastard cat came back to nothing.  Not feeding you...bud.  If you were nice, I would, but you cause problems wherever you go.

So...this is my new purpose in life..to try and control the feral population of cats in this little hill town in nowhere, Italy.  Wish me luck.  I need it.

May each day in the year be a good day...

It is an awful little room.  Painted in a garish, too bright and too saturated yellow.  The lower half of the walls is scuffed and dirty.  The floor is a houndstooth  placement of nondescript gray ceramic tiles.  Two terrible fluorescent lights adorn the ceiling.  Behind the half wall and glass at the far end are two computer stations with a small counter.  On the sides are two matching black metal mesh "benches" each with an attached table on the end. The benches seat three apiece, so people also use the end tables as a place to sit.  This is the immigration office at the Questura, the province, or county police station.

Today we had our appointment to renew our Permesso di Soggiorno.  We obtained the kits by ourselves and I filled them out.  All I did was follow along the copies we had from last year, for which we paid an attorney an exhorbitant fee to complete.

My husband, in his deep anxiety, went to work on the "documents."  Even though this is a renewal, there were no clear guidelines as to what to provide, so he did what he did the first time: three entire months worth of bank activity, all the letters from Social Security and our pensions proving what we get, copies of our passports, our Permesso, our citizen of Penne cards and our National health cards.

Then we sent it all in to the Questura.  At that time, the post office arranges an appointment, which was surprisingly just two weeks away.

Sometimes his anxiety rubs off on me.  What if you made a mistake on the forms?  Are you sure you got the phone number right?  Should we have included this?  Or that?  Will they take our fingerprints again?  It never ended.  So, I became concerned that if there were questions perhaps my Italian is not sufficient yet to handle not only the questions but the answers.  As a result, I asked our Italian teacher, Marisa, to accompany us.  (Yes, of course, we would pay her for her time.)

Right away she offered to drive us, so that was a plus.  Getting up at the crack of dawn to catch a crowded bus filled with school kids is not so much fun.

My day started at 5am with a flash of lightning so bright it woke me.  A huge thunderstorm was moving in.  Then the deluge.  I felt sick and nervous.  I was thinking about having to drive down the hillside in torrential rain. Maybe she will cancel. Then we will have to scramble for a bus to get there on time. Luckily, the rain eased up and Marisa showed up right on the button. Her son was in the car, bumming a ride to a friend's house along the way.

She dropped us off by the Questura and went to find a parking space.  I was surprised not to see people milling around and piled up out in the street outside the Immigration office.

Walking into the ugly, tiny room, one seat was actually available.  An officer I recognized made an announcement that today was by appointment only.  So when a man came in and was right next to me looking to "take a number" like you do at a deli counter in the supermarket, I said "Oggi, appuntamenti"..Today, appointments.  He walked out rather glumly.

The officer I recognized was the same man who had issued our Permesso last year and I recalled that he spoke some English.  Lo and behold, when he was done with the person already at his counter, he called our name.  Marisa was not there yet and my stomach was in a knot.

He smiled.  He said, "You are from New York?"  I said "Si."  He said, again in English, "I remember you. I looked at your files yesterday."  I said, in Italian, that I remembered him from last year.  He pulled out our kits and said, "You have many, many, many documents."  Errrrrrrrrr.   I knew my husband had overdone, overthought and overprinted.  I laughed a bit and said, "Mio marito e nervoso,"  My  husband is nervous.

He separated all the bank statements and said, "These are not in Italian."  Yeah, well, they are American banks.  I thought, but did not say that they are numbers, which are neither English or Italian but I held my tongue.  Then he called someone else over to look at the documents.  That guy didn't say much, just leafed through.  Then he says, where is proof of where you live?  Well, we did bring a copy of our deed for the house.  "This is in English, too."   Aggghhhh!!!  I thought he was going to send us away, and besides our address is on every card we have, the Penne card, the health card, the previous Permesso.  With that Marisa came in and I told her, "It appears we have a problem."  The officer looks up and says, "No, there is not a problem."  I'm confused.

After a bit he gathers up the majority of our documents and hands them back to us.  He does, however, take our "official" cards...and then he starts to check our fingerprints.  As he is doing this, he tells me he was in New York twenty years ago.  Did I live in...something unintelligible?  "Excuse me?"  He says it again and I am still baffled.  Marisa says, "Manhattan."  Ahhhhhh....Yes!  I did live there for a while and I worked in Manhattan for years.

He checks my husband's fingerprints first.  They have a little electronic doodad that holds one fingertip at a time.  He checked only his index fingers.  Then it was my turn.  Without a word he asks me to do it again.  (In the States I could not pass the ink fingerprint 7 points of identity.  Only electronic ones work on me.  Haha, I have no fingerprints!)  Well, I don't know if he was finally able to match it, but then he had me also do my middle fingers.  All the while, he was, in effect, giving ME the finger....showing me by demonstrating when to put it down on the doodad and when to lift it up.  I began to stifle a laugh.  Is he playing with us?

Finally, he is satisfied that I am me, and says, "You will get a text when they are ready."  Really?  That's it?  We don't have to go inside the police station?  You don't need anything else?  No, buonagiornata!  Wow!

Afterwards, I said to Marisa, what were the odds we would get the officer who has a bit of English and remembers us?  We stopped for cappuccino.  My husband was in shock.  I was relieved.  THAT was easy.  Marisa noticed the "finger" too and we both decided the officer was having a little fun with us.  In a slightly intimidating but good humored way.

It appears they are going to let us stay another year.  Now can we go home?

I said do you speak-a my language?

Agggghhhh...….I have studied via Duolingo.com for what?  Three years now?  Not sure...I think three years.  I added Babbel in February because they give out "certificates" which are supposed to prove you have proficiency...but I hate Babbel...I hate it.  I sit there sometimes wondering what the hell they want from me.  And this after two years of Duolingo?

And it turns out those "certificates" are  most likely useless...they are meaningless.  You have to pass a test in the country you have moved to.  Period.  Stuff your certificates.

Yes, I have learned....because we also have a woman who, in person, now gives us lessons...and she said "You are well on the way."....oooooooookaaaaaaaay.

Sooooo….what I am leading up to is that there are many regionalisms.  This is something that Americans should understand...we have MANY of them...the Old New England...Ayah!  The Southern drawl.  The Midwest...Yah!..not to mention the California "valley speak."  So..you get it.

Well, try to get it in another country and another language....holy wow.  It's difficult.

This is what I just found out this week...we learn via the computer sites how someone asks you something...and it is usually in the "formal you"...hopefully people remember their old language lessons since English really does not have the "formal you."  In any case...when asking someone to try something....in Italian..it would be "Provate?"..."Do you want to try?"   Do you want help would be "Volete aiutare"..the formal "you" being the "want" part....sorry, I know I am putting you to sleep....but here's the thing.....they don't do that here...……..

They use the whole infinitive....the other day in the supermarcato...my husband swore up and down that the manager lady asked him 'Aiutare?"....I asked..."Are you sure?  Are you sure that's what you heard?"  He swore that was all she said.  I was perplexed....since aiutare is the "infinitive" and literally translated means "to help."

But today...in Con Amore...the gelato store...there was a flavor I had never seen or tried...it said "Vaniglia/cioccolato"  but it didn't look like vanilla and chocolate...ish...and the girl behind the counter asked "Provare?"...which literally means "To try",,.the infinitive...instead of "Provate?"....Wow....so...my husband was right...he heard "Aiutare"....it must be a regionalism peculiar to here.....

My whole point is...you can learn a lot from the online programs.....and you will most likely be understood for the most part....but there are always regionalisms....anywhere you go.


By the way...the vaniglia/cioccolato was vanilla with small gobs of chocolate fudge in it and it was Fantastico!

The days of wine and....breadsticks...

It is hard to believe that nearly ten months have gone by.   It's beginning to feel like "home" in the deepest sense of the word.  Such a different feeling than even after four years in Monroe and a year in Delaware.

The lady upstairs, Lucia, thinks we saved her life (we didn't, we just tried to help when she had fallen down the stairs).  Walking anywhere results in a constant parade of "Buongiorno!" and "Ciao!"  from all the people we now know.  Luciano, the photographer on the corner.  Giovanni, my husband's barber.  Raffaela, the lady who owns the little housewares store.  Donato, the man who also has housewares and where we get Harry's kibble and most of our wine.  Emidio and Gabriela from the insurance office.

Then there are the piazzetta neighbors.  Margherita and Tony, across the street.  They have brought us figs, cucumbers, tomatoes from a friend of theirs with a small farm.  And Domenico, who does woodworking and has insisted we take two candelabra as a gift, just yesterday gave us three bottles of strong red wine vinted by a friend of his with a local vineyard.  Have you ever had wine from an unmarked bottle?

Also there is Hugo, with his dog, Hugo (yes, it's true) who was Harry's first friend here.  And Luca, owner of our favorite restaurant.  And Aldo, who lived in Queens for 28 years, and Francesco, who lived in New Jersey for 20 years.

Even the pharmacist likes me now and slips into using English a bit, although I prefer to speak Italian.  Beyond all those, there are the people whose establishments we frequent for various reasons (coffee here, a glass of wine there, the shoe store, the gift shop, the manager of the supermarket) whose names we don't know but it is imperative to give a greeting.

The rhythm of the town is seeping into our lives.  I get up in the morning now and I stay up, whereas I used to feed Harry and go back to bed.  Then, in the afternoon, when the town is sleeping, so do I...if not sleep, rest.

There was a bread store I used to love when I first arrived.  Just a tiny little room, really, with shelves all around, run by an old man.  Besides the wonderful smell of the place, it barely looked like a "real" place - beautiful loaves, pizzelle, cookies, little individual size pizza rounds, red checked cloths on the shelves...and a sign saying "Pane e vita".."Bread is life."  He always had a little radio going on what I suppose would be called an old-fashioned station because the music was reminiscent of what you used to hear in 50s and 60s foreign movies.  Just after Christmas he retired and I was really sad about that, but glad for him.

I just discovered another bread store and it is across the street from the supermarket.  Their bread is authentic and wonderful.  They also have cookies and tarts.  A new favorite place to add to our list.

We have picked up our applications for permission to stay for the next year.  Really hoping the process is a bit easier this second time around.

I don't know how to thank everyone for their welcome and their generosity.  Perhaps a simple buffet "open house" around the holidays?

Here are the bottles of red wine from Domenico.  They are all for my husband as I am allergic to red wine, but I understand this stuff is quite strong.  The breadsticks are hand made and infused with rosemary, insanely good.

Take these sunken eyes and learn to see.....

I failed her.  I did. I fully accept that, as painful and as hard as that is.  But I failed her.  I did not step in soon enough.  And when I did, I did not do enough.

So now, little Pirate (Pirata) has died.  She spent her last time on earth in our courtyard...she had had a bit to drink and a tiny bit to eat...but she was breathing laboriously.  Painfully thin.  We tried...but we failed her.  And NO MATTER WHAT ANYONE SAYS..so….please don't say it...that is the way it will be.  I don't want platitudes.  I failed this little life...that came to me for help.

Now we have a veterinarian.  He is, in the modern parlance..."woke."...My husaband went down to pay him for his services tonight, since he refused at the time....and they wound up talking for over an hour.  The vet is a good guy.  He advised us not to say a word about "the plan" to anyone....because the regular Italian people don't have the money to neuter their pets.....so we would wind up with a dozen cats at our door.

Also....he understands about fascism....climate change....he is concerned about "the children"....we will work together to stop the unwanted baby kittens.  Shhhhhhhh!!!!

As sad as I am about my baby Pirate....I was able to grab Scruff and get drops into his/her eyes....he was not happy.....not happy....not.   Took off like a bat out of hell when I let him go.....I cleaned out a whole bunch of gunk and got two good doses of drops in each eye.   He disappeared for about five minutes and then came back to eat some more....and I made sure I pet him again.

I'm so sorry, little Pirata……..you were dealt a mortal blow soon after your birth....and I did not help you soon enough.....I am so sorry.

And the eyes in his head see the world spinning round...

There is a man in town.  An old geezer (who am I to talk?)...he must be in his seventies, perhaps close to eighty.  However, he rides his bicycle all through this hill town.  That, in and of itself, is quite a feat, more especially at his age.  He's thin as a rail but a tough old bird.

I first encountered him on Valentine's Day.  We were walking up the street, my husband ahead of me because I am slow.  He had rounded the corner and as I approached, this old man on his bike started talking to me.  Oh dear....my Italian was not so good but I managed to get the gist of what he was saying.  He had some papers in a small satchel.  They were all copies of the same thing...something he had written by hand and he drew a heart at the top.  He was giving them out to le donne  (the women) on Valentine's Day.  It translated, roughly, as "All you need is love"....that was the basic message.

I wondered then about this man.  How does he survive?  Is he all alone?  Did he once have the love of his life and lose her?  Does he have any family?  Friends?

Another time he chatted us up, happy to discover we are Americans.  Heaven knows why at this point, but that is still the usual response.  He liked Harry and gave him some pets and asked a few questions.  How old is he?  What kind of dog is he?  He said he could tell he was a sweet boy.

In the supermarket one day he was congratulating a bike champion - it's a big thing here.  He was a bit too loud...but the biker was happy.

I've noticed that he seems to be considered the village nut case.  People shake their heads, or look down with little smirks.  And he may, indeed, have some mental and/or emotional issues, but he is not out of touch with reality.

He was ranting one day in the main piazza, yelling at someone...I am not sure if it was someone "official" from the Municipale or not....yelling and gesturing.  And spectators shook their heads or looked away.  But I have figured out what made him angry.  There are large pots of flowers in the piazza and they don't get cared for enough.  Plus, it has been 90 degrees or more every day.  The next day I saw him taking a soda bottle and filling it up over and over again to water the flowers.  It stands to reason, really.  If the town went through the trouble of planting the flowers to beautify the piazza, someone should be taking care of them.  There are multiple cisterns nearby, it isn't that hard.

We have our very own "fool on the hill"...but he isn't a fool at all. He wears his heart on his sleeve and he doesn't care who knows it.  I think my "Valentine" has stolen a piece of my heart.

We're gonna get married....

Since we have been here there have been five funerals.  Not surprising...there are lots of older people here.....at the same time..there are lots of kids, too.  But, the funerals are a big deal.  You see people gathering in the piazza, and the cars....the police show up to direct traffic....and close off the one street.  There are flowers strewn on the "hearse"....and then a slow procession through the main street to wherever the cemetary is.  One went by as we were ordering pizza several nights ago...a bit disarming.

This town, and probably many others, puts up "death notices" on boards around the town.  They are poster size.  People in cars stop to read them.  People on foot stop to read them.  Death is an accepted part of life here.

However...today....there was a wedding!  Five funerals and a wedding - was that a film? Something like that.... yes, today there was a wedding.  An evening wedding at about 6 or 6:30 PM.  Lucky couple.  They could not have chosen a more perfect day.  We have had several weeks of over 90 degree days...a bit hot...oppressive.  Especially for these parts.  But, we had rain yesterday and everything cleared and the temperatures plummeted.  Today the skies were blue with fluffy clouds and the temperatures were in the 70s.  It was an absolutely perfect day.

We happened to be walking up to the piazza just before the big event.  I got to see a Bentley drive up.  Women in long gowns.  RED!  Backless, skin tight...but with bodies to handle it.  Young men in suits with bow ties and patent leather loafers, sans socks.  Skinny pants.  Sunglasses.  The Italian studs.

I would have liked to stick around and see the bride (sposa) arrive, but we are getting old...and it had been a long day...so rather than stand around for who knows how long...we opted to get a Prosecco at the café close to home and then proceed a casa.  The bride did not arrive for several more minutes after we got home....but we could hear the cheers of the crowd.

There were no bridesmaids.  There was no other "circumstance"....the wedding in the ancient church lasted all of ten minutes and then the bells were rung.  Here we are in the land of Catholicism...and there was no endless mass, no 3 or 5 or more bridesmaids...none of that nonsense....and off they went to wherever they were going for the big party afterwards.

We were sitting on the balcony, glass of wine, enjoying the light breeze of the perfect day...the gorgeous view....I hope this couple's luck follows them....buona fortunata.