More

This is the first weekend Jen and I have spent in the house by ourselves. I had to escape to Sara's yesterday afternoon because she was driving me nuts, and then thankfully her friend Kristin was here when I returned. My sister has always grated on my nerves, even under the best of circumstances.

I hate bills. Just gathering up all the utilities that have to be paid, including cell phone, lights, heat, water, and insurance, totalled over $600. Sigh. I'm in charge of paying all of these, which I'm glad for because if you've ever seen my sister's organizational capacity you would fear for us. Fear for us greatly. Her system consists of pulling absolutely everything from every drawer, shelf, and compartment, and piling it in the middle of the floor. This pile can be expected to remain for several days before being shifted into smaller piles which may or may not disappear. Last night, she took everything from my mom's room and piled it in the kitchen. This morning, every one of her perfume bottles is still in front of the (unplugged) toaster.

I saw one of the grief counseling services people the other day, more because I knew I should than because I felt I should. With two parents down, I've got to need some kind of therapy. After listening to me talk for an hour, she said that it sounded like I was one of the kind of people who just need to tell stories about the person who died. I do like telling stories about her, because she was a character, just like my dad.

Among my mom's things we found a tape labelled "Michelle and Jenny, 1984-1986". I'm only 1 year old on this tape, and my dad is patiently encouraging me to say "Papa" except I'm just making these gurgling sounds that my sister commented sound like they caught me hacking up a furball. The strange thing was, when we turned the tape on, neither of us recognized our dad's voice, and barely our mom's. Maybe it's that this tape was made 20 years ago when they were younger and stress-free, maybe it's that my mom didn't have it in a case and it deteriorated and changed the voices slightly, but suddenly I had the fear that I'll forget her voice like I've forgotten his. On a happier note, I watched the video I had made of my grandfather last winter (when I worried that he might die, what a laugh! The man will outlive us all), and aside from "Joan, you think you're homely", there's my mom, laughing and hiding her face behind a Coke bottle. I never thought that video would be a record of her.

Night

Last night I had my first dream about my mom. I was surprised it took this long; somehow, the nights after her death I slept very soundly and dreamlessly. Unlike so many dreams about my father where he never really died, just went away for a long time and then showed up again, my mother had already died in my dream. Somehow, time jumped backwards a few days and my whole family was there partying it up at a place that was half our house, and half the weird, creepy mansion where I had been having a horror-movie style dream right before this one (the ghost of a little girl was murdering people, don't ask).

Suddenly I realized it was Thursday, the day she would die again, and this time we wouldn't be able to go back. I started crying, and she hugged me. She knew, in the dream. Then we're in my kitchen and she's slyly asking me if she should have another bag of popcorn. At first I say yes, because it's her last day and she should have whatever she wants, but then I see the box and it says each back has 130% cholesterol, and I try to stop her from eating it with a sudden hopefulness that maybe I can stop her from having a heart attack if she avoids it. But she takes the popcorn and leaves, and I'm left there with Carla, crying and complaining that it was the nightly bag of popcorn that was her undoing.

Then we're in a room with a table, and I'm there with Carla and my dad, who is yet again having a cameo as not dead. My sister is not in this dream at all. I'm watching the clock which is hitting 1pm, and I realize that I don't know exactly when she died; the death certificate called it at 2:13 PM, but that's probably only when they got her to the hospital, she was probably dead in the car before they found her. Then she comes in and hugs Carla and says something to her, I think asking her if she understands, and Carla nods. I'm crying and she puts her arms around me. My dad doesn't seem perturbed by this at all and he smiles. Then I woke up, just as she was going to have to go.

When I got up I went and looked at a box of her popcorn in the pantry. The cholesterol level was 0%. I'm not sure why I had this dream; maybe as a chance to say goodbye, except I never did say that.

Going On

The sheer mountain of tasks to be accomplished after a death is daunting. I didn't understand that when my dad died because I was only 14 and had no responsibilities. Looking back I can't even imagine how terrifying it must have been to her, trying to figure out how to pay bills and manage everything after my dad's income was gone, planning his funeral and all that with only my aunts to support her, not really any close friends like Jen and I have the benefit of, and the whole time just grieving for her husband being gone. My heart just hurt for her, thinking of how burdened she was, and how she had to hold up under such pressure for our sake. And she did, so very well.

The difference now is that we have no experience in managing bills and assets, but we've got to learn. Just obtaining her will was a trial because we had to get a court order to open her deposit box, and then we had to get it started in probate court, which can take up to 1 year. My sister is insistent that we do all things together, even though so many things would be much more easily managed if one of us (meaning me) took care of them. I mean when it comes to selling the house I'm deferring to her wishes, we're waiting till January to even list it because she "needs time". If I had my choice it'd be on the market tomorrow, because the housing market is only going to get worse, and it could take forever to sell. It's true we grew up in that house and, as my sister has weepily proclaimed several times, our father died there, but there's no way I'd want to live for any length of tiem in that place with my parents' ghosts. In a perfect world I would have been able to keep my childhood home for years, decades even, but that's just not how the cookie has crumbled.

Further

My sister and I are very different people; always have been, always will be. My sister's reaction to calamity is extremely emotional, and she prefers everything to move slowly while she grieves. I'm not a public crier in general, and when something bad happens I need to be on the go, keeping my hands busy. I didn't really want Jen's friends to help clean for that reason, because they kept trying to do dishes and run loads of laundry when really, I wanted to be doing those things. When my dad died we came home from the hospital and went into my parents' room and started cleaning out his things. We had all his clothes bagged up and donated by the next day. I must have inherited that kind of tendency from my mother, because Thursday night I was already bagging up her novels and her shoes, since Jen got hysterical when I went near her clothes.

My sister loves crap, and she quickly made it clear that she intended to save as much of my mom's crap as possible, including her clothes. When she had finally sorted through it all, she had covered an entire couch with the items she planned to keep and possibly wear. I saved one of my mom's tshirts and her work sweater. Her uniforms we bagged up to bring to the convent, along with some things she had stored up in our garage to bring it--a walker, adult diapers, two birdcages for her friend Lissette.

We brought these on Saturday night, when we had a meeting with Sr. St Henry, Sr. Sally and a few other sisters to discuss the funeral mass. They had called and told us that they would be honored to have her mass in the chapel at the convent, and we knew that would have meant far more to her than St. Gabriel's in Windsor. I brought Sean and Heather to the meeting, leaving Cody, Sara and Rae at my house (along with Jen's retinue of oh, about ten people). The nuns were wonderful. As we said later, it really reminds you of the goodness of people that exist in the world, even if you're Protestant like heather haha. After we decided the songs and readings, we sat there sharing stories about my mother and laughing, really laughing. Especially the bat stories! Oh man, nuns go wild when there's a bat in the house. They turn murderous. Of course my mom was the one to do catch-and-release rather than beating it with a tea tray.

We had met with the folks at Carmon Funeral Home on Friday to discuss my mom's burial arrangements. I was all for cremation, which is what she wanted, but due to some difficulties with getting the permits on a weekend, it wasn't feasible, and then my sister went into hysterics and started moaning "Don't burn her!" which really is just a little much, and then my poor grandfather who still thinks you won't be resurrrected if you get cremated is mouthing to me "No cremation". So we decided to bury her instead. I'm a practical person, as was my mother, and the physical arrangements of a burial don't matter much to me. The body in the casket isn't them any longer; it's a shell, and shells don't need to be interned in a $12,000 casket (which is possible, P.S.). Nor do they need a choice between silk and velvet lining, or an extra pillow. We picked a nice casket, a simple one. I liked the finish.

Update

I abandoned this thing for about a month, either because I had nothing to say or I was too lazy to come write it down. But boy, do I have updates now...

Thursday, September 28th circa 240 PM, a knock comes at our front door while I'm getting ready to go meet Sean for lunch. It's security and they ask if Michelle is home. I look past him to my car and immediately wonder if somehow, some way, I parked illegally. I ask if there's a problem and he says yes. He comes in and asks me to sit, I ask if it's my mom, knowing it has to be her or my sister, but not really expecting him to answer "yeah, it's your mom". Then I ask him if she's dead, and he he nods, and says she didn't make it. And just like that, I had no parents anymore.

The hours from there are a sort of a muddle. The school grief counselor and one of the priests came over, and when Sean called, answering my repeated dials, I couldn't tell him. I had to hand the phone over to the counselor to tell him she was dead. Sean came and we talked with the counselor for a while. I was crying with the big hiccuping sobs that prevent you from really getting out more than two words at a time. Then the phone calls began, endless calls to my sister, my aunts, the social worker at the hospital, the cop who found her. My sister was with a Brooklyn cop who said she was too hysterical to come to the phone. She'd gotten the news from our next door neighbor, Mrs. Long, who'd had two cops come to her front door looking for info on how to reach us. My aunts had been told by the social worker. The social worker told me that she had called my mom's work looking for information on us and that Sr. St. Henry, my mom's boss, and Sr. Sally the provincial were on their way to the hospital to be with my mom's body, even though she told them they weren't allowed to come. The cop told me they'd found her pulled over on Palisado Ave, in park with the engine running, unconscious and not breathing. He said they tried to revive her but they couldn't. They didn't know what it was at the time, but they said probably a heart attack.

It was decided that Sean would take me home that evening. Waiting around with my friends I alternated between absolute terror and normal laughter. I was worrying about so many things--what happens to the Tahoe which is in her name...do I have health insurance anymore...what are we going to do with our house...a million freaking-me-out-worries. Then I had to call my other friends. Sara and Rae got voicemails telling them she died (sorry guys) but I reached Heather, and she cried like only Heather can. I had to laugh when I remembered my father's wake--Heather had never met him and she cried more than I did. I didn't call my grandpa; my aunts said they were going to go over and tell him that his daughter-in-law was dead.

The ride home was pretty bad, I just kept thinking of thing after thing that reduced me to tears. Then the phone rings and it's the organ donation people, wanting to know if they can use some of my mom's tissue. I said yes, because she was a registered organ donor. Because she didn't die in the hospital, they couldn't use actual organs, but they took her bones, her skin, her eyes, just like my dad. We got a letter from them once about a woman in CT who couldn't see until they transplanted one of my father's corneas into her eye. The process of OKing the organ harvest took 45 minutes, answering every question from 'did she ever take money or drugs for sex' to 'had she been exposed to SARS'. Then we're home.

Going into that house was terrible for me. You wonder sometimes if the dead know it's coming, and seeing that house and the shambles she had left it in made me sure she had no idea. Everything looked as though she had briefly left--her checks on the table, her craft project by the chair in the living room. Her makeup left in my bathroom, her bed rumpled. Her teacups, her sneakers on the floor. And poor Rocky, so happy to see us and unaware that she's not coming back. My sister called, on her way with her boyfriend, and told us two of her friends were already outside the house. We let them in, which was kind of awkward because I'd never met them (one was Camilla, her old roomie, I forget the other) and the house was a mess, as my mom was prone to leaving it when we weren't around. They helped us clean up, and I tried to remove every sign that made it look like she had just been there; I didn't think my sister could handle it.

I don't remember my sister's arrival much besides meeting Bill, her paramedic boyfriend from NYC. For the next five days Bill and Sean were our lifesavers.

September

The school year is now in swing. It's nice to be back; I really like our house this year and Carla and I are in our biggest room to date. The campus is beatiful, the weather has been excellent, and even Sodexho seemed welcome. I'm trying hard not to be one of "those" people who come back from study abroad and think everything on this campus and in the country in generally is inferior to what they had before. There are perks on both sides. I do miss Italy. Sitting in my classes today, though, I remembered what it feels like to be academically challenged. And, better yet, to actually understand all the words coming out of the professor's mouth.

Tomorrow I start my internship at Greenwood. My boss told me I could wear jeans on Fridays, which means I only have to dress up once a week (this feels me with indescribable joy), and they're taking me out to lunch my first day as per their tradition. I'm excited to try it. Next week I start the graduate school process--I've put it off from this week so I can just enjoy settling in. I also started my job for Jesus as his research assistant--so far, I spent a couple of hours trying to track down biographical information on a Spanish bureaucrat who wrote an obscure book about Baroque Art in Madrid 1918. It felt like detective work--I found out he was the secretary of the Spanish Alpine Club in 1912, and wrote articles decribing the Los Gredos mountain range, but aside from that he's pretty much a cipher.

Rejoicings

Today is my last day at the Stub--originally I was going to work for another week, but as I quickly realized I was becoming depressed and going stir-crazy while my summer was whittled away, I decided to beg off and leave today. Oh, the joy!! To make things better, Sean came up yesterday and dropped by for lunch, and then took me out to dinner after I got off work. I love just being able to talk to him. We always have great conversations but yesterday was just so much fun. We talked about all the places in the world we'd like to see, and whether going to Italy or Egypt would be a better idea for an entirely hypothetical honeymoon (I'm divided; on the one hand, Egypt would be amazing and it's best to go while you're young and can take the heat, but that would also be much more of an on-the-go honeymoon, while Italy, since I've been there already, would be more relaxing). Sean wants to see Venice and Naples and the Cinque Terre. I wouldn't mind getting a chance to visit the Capitoline Museum in Rome, or the Doria Pamphili gallery...and yes, the Cornaro chapel, my greatest regret.

After dinner we went home and Sean made his bastardized version of my mom's blueberry muffin recipe: he ignores the blueberries and makes just the batter, which we have officially dubbed as delicious as crack, and then makes it as cookies...so they're just basically sugar cookies but with a muffiny texture. We watched tv together like an old married couple and Sean battled the Pod, my mom's futuristic vaccuum cleaner which is, as I predicted, too much for a mere man to handle. He couldn't figure out how to get the cord out of the body and was hitting the "retract cord" button over and over. Then Sean made valiant use of the Pod to vanquish a spider so he could sleep in safety. My hero.

Links

It stills feels too soon to let them go. They're all clustered there, taking up space, and my fingers go right to the delete key and then hesitate. Packing lists, at least three of them. The hostel association. Ryanair, in all its banana-lemony cheapness. Oh, and Via della Mattonaia, Sara's Italian blog. All remnants of my eager preparations for something that is, all too swiftly, becoming one of those "did I really do that?" memories. The blandness of office life is wiping away the reality of those brilliant, shimmering months of Italy. I knew it would happen--just not this quickly.

I'll let them linger a bit longer.

Diversion

Last night I had my friends plus Sean and Cody over for dinner. I used the dining room, which I will never live down in Sean's eyes as I had long argued that it's obsolete. This was only the second time I've ever had dinner in there. However, this morning we semi-compromised and he said as long as there was a dining room I could paint it whatever crazy color I wanted, included RED which is exactly what I would paint it. I still dispute the necessity of a hutch filled with useless show pieces and "good china". Ugh. Why show off crap that you're afraid to touch?

Reading "The Age of Innocence" and Sinclair Lewis novels has transported me somewhat back to the days when people really 'entertained'. It would be so much fun--if one only had servants. Stupid labor laws. Speaking of, I hereby revoke my condemnation of Edith Wharton, given after being forced to read "Ethan Frome" in high school and discovering that though I spent the book wishing for the main characters to die, they DON'T despite their romeo and juliet suicde attempt at the end ("gee darling, we can never be together because you're a servant and my wife's a bitch--let's ride this sled right into that big tree and die in each other's arms!"). That book still blows bigtime, but "Age of Innocence" is an entertaining read, and I love her language. Perhaps I just hate books about the bleakness of New England. New York society life circa 1870 is much more diverting.

Upshot

As an addendum to that previous entry, I don't really feel as sorry for myself as I may sound. I've got it pretty good, a fact of which I'm well aware. I'm proud of the job I have, perhaps not out of fondness for the service we provide, but simply that I got myself this job and have done so well at it. Perhaps the onset of PMS made me more emotional last night, but I was saddened almost to tears at the thoughts of summers past and how carefree things always seemed to be then. Now I'm hemmed in by schedules and responsibilities and it's hard to get used to the idea that I'll never be that free again. However, never in a million years would I trade StubHub for Sofia's, no matter how unfettered I was in those days.

Of course, the mother-voice in me wins, and I'll be working overtime tonight. Haha.

Moving Forward

Last night I felt so old. Sean was telling me about his day lounging at Pinto's pool, and then mentioned he was going out again, and my first actual thought was, "Now? But it's ten o'clock..." and then I realized how OLD that sounded. I go to bed at 11 because I get up at 6:50 every morning. I guess I'm getting a real taste of what adult life is like--soon you don't even want to stay out late, and you're surprised by people who do, and then before you know it you're like countless parents falling asleep by ten o'clock! This was my day yesterday: I woke up, worked 8-4:30, went to the gym, came home and swept the garage, ate dinner with my mom, washed the kitchen and bathroom floors, showered, read for a while, talked to Sean for a few minutes, went to bed.

This is how I've spent my summer, and unlike most people I'm working up till the Friday before school. Yes, this seemed like a good idea when I signed the contract in June. I'm sure my mom would be on me if I didn't, though--last night she was harassing me as to why I'm not working overtime on every day it's offered. I answered, honestly, because it's boring and makes me miserable to work 8-5:30 for a measly $18 bucks extra, and she scoffed at me.

This morning I got paid, which supposedly reminds me why I do this, except my paycheck had to be halved because our lovely accounting department had been failing to take out federal taxes from my paychecks previously. Now I have to deduct lots so that I don't wind up owing the government come April. I get most of it back anyway, I don't know what the big deal is. Sigh.

I guess if I had tons of free time I wouldn't really know what to do with it anyway, besides perhaps prep for the GREs, which I find it very difficult to focus on after a long day of work...I've been working on my merit project pretty steadily, and I have about seven poems that are OK to turn in...I've lined up my internship schedule for the fall, working 12-5 on Wednesdays and 9-3 on Fridays, which is a good deal less than I thought I'd have to work...I've been in touch with Jesus about working on his book, which is about Spanish architecture under Phillip IV...I haven't blown money on a single thing this summer--my most extravagant non-gas, non-food, non-entertainment purchase was the Ligabue cd. Overall I'd say I've been very responsible and adult--and it's extraordinarily defeating.

Stuffed

Friday night Sean I went to the carnival at St. Bernadette's, just down the street from his house. It's so pleasant to actually be able to walk to a place from your home, whether it's to the sea wall or Krauser's or a carnival with all its shiny things. I met more people who had only glowing words to speak of Sean, and we chatted for a bit with his uncle Donnie and his roommate Gary, who is like a hilarious alter ago of Donnie except that he's black and Donnie's white. He made dirty jokes and said I was pretty--he's a winner in my book.

Saturday morning we woke up sort of early, after a night filled with some difficulties--sheet entanglements, Sean's rage towards a malfunctioning ceiling fan, me accidentally popping him in the nose in the middle of the night--to go hike up to Gillette Castle. I finally saw the lily-pad filled pond which Heather had told me about years ago, and the castle, which boasts a stunning prospect over the river but is itself rather unattractive, I thought. I didn't like the roughness of it, it looked purposely unfinished. That evening the fun continued--we had had such amazing weather all day, and it was a favorable evening for watching a play in Edgerton Park. The play was "Robin Hood" by Alfred Noyes, author of "The Highwayman", and the performance was excellent. The set was really cool, and it had a three-story tower from which Robin actually rappelled down at one point. They used real arrows and metal swords, and the fight coordination was really good, in comparison with the crap featured in Macbeth at Fairfield last summer. The main way in which the play differed from a Shakespeare play was the lack of bawdy humor and farce, which I rather missed. It was light-hearted at points but never truly funny.

Funny was this afternoon, actually, when Sean and I took in "Little Miss Sunshine" at the Criterion in New Haven. I highly recommend it as a movie actually worth paying 9.75 to see. The number of laughs in it are surprising considering the number of sad things that happen in the film--hopes being crushed, death, etc. For once the critics were right in all the glowing things they said of this movie. Afterwards we walked around New Haven for a while, such a gorgeous day it was, and then went for an early dinner on Wooster Street. I'm still stuffed two hours later. All in all, this has been one of the most fun weekends I've had all summer. Could I have asked for a more wonderful person to spend it with? I think not.

Times

Recently I had the opportunity to keep working for StubHub while I'ma at school. I got called into Todd's office, nervously of course, and he pitched me the idea--remote access to email from school, and my regular pay of $12 an hour. It was a tempting offer, mostly because it'd be so much easier than the job I already agreed to do, which is work as Dr. Escobar's research assistant. I tried briefly to convince myself I could do both, but with spending two days a week at Greenwood Press, and this being senior year and me being lazy, that would never work.

However, I was on the brink of weaseling out with Jesus so I could make more money at StubHub, when a fortuitous conversation with Sean made me realize how much better for myself and my nebulous future plans working for Jesus would be. So yesterday I turned Todd down, and heard back from Jesus about the work he'll be working on-- "Spanish Architecture under Phillip IV". I don't know anything about Mr. IV, but I was a big fan of Mr. II. I know I saw IV's coffin at El Escorial but that's beside the point. Anyway, I think I made the better choice, and StubHub will be awaiting my return in December anyway.

This has been a particularly lengthy week. My schedule shifted from 9-530 to 8-430, which in itself is no problem; however, a recent tripling in call and email volume has prompted them to request we work an hour or two overtime every day. I did it three days, and it dragged. I said NO for today, because it's Friday and I'm going to be free, and see Heather and go down to Sean's and sleep with my boyfriend in a queen bed...ahhhh. Tomorrow morning we're going to hike up to Gillette Castle, and tomorrow night we're going to see a play on the green in New Haven. Summer is ending but there's so much fun left to be had--Carla's coming down in a couple of weeks, too, and we're going to help out at Sara's craft fair and hawk scarves in the heat.

My reading list has taken a turn for the classical lately. I re-read Babbitt and finally read Madame Bovary, which was excellent. For my lit class in the fall I read "the Professor's House" and just finished Fitzgerald's "Beautiful and Damned" last night, which was a shoot-me-in-the-face experience because it's set in the Jazz age, bring on the flappers, and the characters are just semi-rich, utterly useless people who drink and bore themselves to death and mental instability. Whoo. Now I've moved on to another Sinclar Lewis, Main Street, and I'm dreaming of finding Lolita actually in the library for me to borrow. A bunch of books I wanted last night were 'there' according to the computer but missing--The Bridge Over San Luis Rey, Sister Carrie, some others.

I've been reading all summer, naturally, but of late I've felt a tangible thirst for literature, and a realization of how small the fraction of what I have consumed is in relationship to what's on offer in libraries and bookstores. If I had a week of real summer vacation I would find a sunny spot and just read and feed myself grapes. Sean likes to point out I had four months of vacation in Italy, but you know what, I was severely lacking in books over there! I can't count the number of times I re-read Pride and Prejudice, Jane Eyre, and Lamb, or the number of times I stepped hopefully into the Paperback exchange in search of a good read, only to be turned off by the crazy high prices on even used books. I did find a couple books worth buying there, Hibbert's Medici book and my oft-mocked Tacitus, but I lacked the freedom that public libraries here provide. I love libraries. Wherever I settle one day, a well-appointed library will be an absolute prerequisite of the town itself.

Update

Have I really not posted since July 19th? I guess it's due to having rather annoying internet at home, coupled with the fact that I spend my day in front of a computer equipped with superfast internet doing sneaky things. As of today, my work shift is 8-430pm, which is nicer in a way because the first hour is quiet and goes by quickly, but sucks because it's darker when I wake up. Last night I had one of the dreaded "you're pregnant" dreams and woke up, if not in a cold sweat, then very disturbed, at 6am. Shudder.

The past two weekends have been road trippy--first to Wellesley to see Rae, just as I promised I would do prior to graduation, go me. Their campus is ridiculous. There's a lake! Dolan Pond just can't quite compare, although watching guys wade in there looking for a ball or something else they've lost while gingerly trying to avoid duck poop is a diverting sight. Anyway, it was cool to get a picture of what Rae's life is at school. We even saw the lab where she is slaving away her summer, which was a less than pleasant reminder of chem lab in high school. A trip into Boston included the Garment District, thrift store mecca extraordinaire, and the Isabella Stuart Gardner museum, which made me miss Italy a great deal. This past weekend we went to Philadelphia to welcome TJ home from seven months of exile in Freiburg, Germany. We didn't really do the historic tour of Philly as much as play mimigolf on a course that featured historic landmarks on each hole. Plus we watched National Treasure, which was largely based in the city. Sara came along for the promise of a trip to the Philadelphia Art Museum, but we were cheated when no one else wanted to go. Sigh. I was kind of expecting that. However, I did get to see Anna, whom I had dearly missed, and we had good times in the car with Sean at the helm, the four of us girls packed in and Sara snoozing in the back seat as always. The trip home was extremely long--first to Yonkers to drop off Anna and see the Stabile nest, then to White Plains for Meredith, then to New Haven, from which I drove Sara home and then joyfully arrived at my own demesne a mere seven hours after leaving TJ's house. That wasn't all driving, of course, as we did have a couple of stops, including dinner at Sean's, but I'm still feeling quite tired this morning. It was worth it, entirely.

Now we're in the home stretch before school starts. My textbooks, purchased mostly off Amazon, have started to arrive. Yesterday I was incensed to discover that my history of astronomy book was previously owned by a smoker, which of all things is the thing I hate about used books that I can't give the sniff-test to. I have four weeks left to accomplish a great deal, and in addition to decide whether I will work for Jesus as his assistant as previously agreed upon, or keep on working for StubHub remotely from school, with easier work and much higher pay. I was flattered that they offered, and am very tempted. I can't decide. Speaking of which I should get started on those 1200 emails which piled up over the weekend. Alas.

Lil' Bit

I give this post my nickname here at StubHub, or at least my nickname according to Sheena, as I'm furtively typing this in the morning before I clock in and am technically owned by the company...I bought Ligabue's Nome e Cognome CD on ebay last week and am now eagerly anticipating its arrival...ahhhhhhhhh love that music!

Summer's rolling on, and we've passed the halfway mark. Last weekend Sean got the inimitable experience of joining my mother and me on a visit to my grandfather in Massachusetts, crazy old bird that he is. I was happy to see that Sean simply found most of his antics amusing, and my grandfather loved him--he invited him to return anytime, with or without me.

Other updates: TJ returns to the States in a couple of weeks, poor Carla has the mono, Anna destroyed yet another of my copies of Lamb, and Sara has a sort-of-Italian "friend" named Antonio. The adventures continue.

Carnival, Pirates, Oh My

Sean was here again this weekend, teasing my cats with his presence since he's unable to pet them. Sapphire he originally re-named "Fatty Lumpkin", due to her constant begging and piteous claims of near-starvation, plus the fact that she rarely stirs from the food bowl, outside or in. This weekend, however, Fatty's title was shortened to a command: "Feed Me!" uttered in this horrible voice that puts one in mind of a very large butch lesbian. Heehee. Makes me smile just thinking about it. Fatty herself seems to be taking the insults quite well, since Sean has also been careful to ply her with milk.

We went to a carnival Friday, and I had the exciting idea of buying these $15 bracelets that let you ride the rides all night. However, I hadn't banked on the weakness of my own stomach, which Sean claims is due to a lack of extensive carnival rides as a child (it's true, we were much more of a games family than a rides family). So I wind up terribly nauseous after our second ride, the appropriately named Flying Bob. Bah. The upshot was the fireworks later in the evening, which we watched from the trunk of the Tahoe.

We also saw Pirates 2 on Saturday with Melissa and Heather, their boyfriends, and Charles. I didn't really like it. It was nowhere near as funny and original as the first one, it was much more of a basic action/adventure with a couple of funny lines and mannerisms thrown in. However, we lacked a consensus on the issue, as Heather considered it as good or better than the original, and Melissa liked it a lot too. The nature of the ending was such as to force you to pay an ever-higher price of admission next summer to watch the finale. I tell myself that I'll resist, that I'll wait for it to go to video, or at least for someone to get an illegal copy, but I'll probably just fork over the cash next summer too. Hollywood.

Ah, but did I mention that I cooked this weekend? Twice? I made my spaghetti pie, sinfully delicious, along with hushweii, the remains of which I'm still feasting on after sending Sean home with his own tupperware container. Suzy homemaker, that's me.

I must not forget to mention that Friday was our 1.5 year anniversary. Beyond all jokes about how it seems to have been forever, it's been a wonderful time with the best of men. Meow.

1.5 Years

Today marks one-and-a-half years since Sean and I started dating! Tonight to celebrate we're going to go eat fried dough and watch shiny lights explode in the sky. Heehee.

It Was Vacation While It Lasted

Four glorious days of doing next to nothing, which is just about as close as I've come to a vacation this summer. This year I didn't see any real fireworks, beyond what the Richardson clan was setting off in their driveway, nor did I eat any barbequed food items, but it was still a great four days--time with Sean, the family, and even the girls plus Cody last night. I feel relaxed--or rather I would feel relaxed if I weren't so tired my eyes keep closing at my desk. Not even ten AM and I've already downed a Diet Coke, eep!

Oh, and we saw Superman Returns this weekend, which was good by my standards, even though I knew nothing about the Superman mythology besides what I saw in an A&E special on its history. The actor who played him--delicious. However, move aside Brandon Routh because this upcoming weekend will witness my reunion with the true on-screen love of my life, Johnny Depp, as we triumphantly return to theaters to see Pirates 2! I'll be the first to admit that my interest in Johnny Depp is completely shallow. I don't even like to hear him speak in interviews--he's simply not that interesting. Men that beautiful should be seen and not heard, lest they ruin my rose-colored vision of them by realistic flaws.

The final bit of movie excitement is that tomorrow evening, Sara and I will indulge a years-old passion for a certain spiky-haired video game character by renting Final Fantasy: Advent Children, which stars none other than Squall and Sephiroth, those old dears. Be still my beating heart.

After this weekend, my summer is alarmingly planned out. Sean, my mother and I will make the pilgrimage to Massachusetts in a couple of weeks to initiate him into the mysterious insanity that is my grandfather. The weekend after that we're trying to plan a Fairfield gathering in New Haven, and the last weekend is both Our Lady of Pompeii carnival and our putative trip to Lovely Lollipop Lesbian Land, aka Wellesley (lol sorry Rae but alliteration, so tempting!) The first weekend in August is of course TJ's triumphant return-to-the-States party in Pennsylvania, and then the next couple of weekends feature Shakespeare performances and craft fairs. I suppose the good news is that I'm still free the 26th, the last weekend in August, haha. It's quite the change from last summer, when it felt ike there was too much time and too little to do in it. Now the reverse is true, and I find myself wondering how I'll fit in everything I had planned for this summer. But I'm having fun, and that's what counts.

Also, can I just note what a freakishly accurate memory Sean has? Last night he told me what we both ate on our first date, which was January 7th 2005. Hey, I'm excited when I can remember the name of the restaurant we were at (Geppi's). He's just unnatural. Coincidentally, this Friday will mark a year and a half of being together. Meow!

Music Makes My Mind Dance

At work lately I've been using a website called live365.com, which has gazillions of little radio stations with everything a heart could desire. The two I listen to most frequently are, believe it or not, stations that play "Sean's music"--big band and swing. I used to complain that it's too perky, but amid the dullness of an office it's entirely welcome. Today I found a station from France that plays gypsy music, and a Spanish station that plays flamenco--they're such vibrant rhythms, so different from the hollowness that permeates a lot of pop music here.

And I've been monitoring an Italian station, waiting for it to play Ligabue...Zero Assoluto...Negramaro? Anyone? Sigh. I kind of wish I'd paid the 20 euro for Ligabue's new CD before I left. I miss listening to "Le donne ha sanno" as I walked down Borgo San Lorenzo to wander yet again through the warren of back streets around the Duomo.

On my lunch breaks I'm rereading "Rise and Fall of the House of Medici", wishing I were one of them. To go back, to see the Palazzo Medici Riccardi when it was just Lorenzo's house, when Savonarola was at San Marco just down the block, when Italy was full of counts and condottiere! What a dramatic world to be a part of, even as a peasant; how much more amazing to be a Medici. When I was younger, the name Medici had an echo faintly like that of Borgia--sinister, surrounded by poison and intrigue, not a good thing to be compared to. Unholy. How different I found them to be!

Vacation Day

Yesterday, after being mysteriously sick at 5am and blearily sending Sheena a text message saying I wasn't coming in, I found myself magically gifted with a vacation day, not to mention the only day in the week when it did't rain. I felt perfectly fine when I woke up again, and my mom wasn't working, so we spent the day together--gasp! It wasn't the kind of day that plays in montage while sappy mother-daughter music fills the background, but it was still a really good day...we went shopping together, something almost unheard of. She even bought me a new bra at the Vicky's semi-annual sale, and that after agreeing to get a Vicky's credit card because she "felt bad" for the shopgirl who was hawking them. The $15 bra I appreciated but the card I thought was a bit much; after all, I only shop there when there's a sale on, and she's never consented to actually pay for anything there before, but she claims she enjoys the fragrance section. *shrug*

However, the fun didn't stop there--she had to go to her nail salon to get a nail repaired (yes, my mom is one of those who hates having her fake nails break, although at least hers are very short and natural looking) and I half-jokingly suggested she buy me a pedicure. And she did. If you know my mom you know that such magnanimity might almost seem suspicious, but apparently she was simply in a friendly mood that day. She didn't seem to think anything of it, almost as if she lavished such treatment on me every week, which is far from the case. Perhaps it's best enjoyed in such small sips.

Rainy Day

The world is marvelously wet today, and there's nothing to do except maybe work on the Italy scrapbook which is thus far only in my mind--but it's a wonderful day, too, because Sean is here with me, eating the muffins I made, working on his German, scrupulously avoiding the cats to which he is allergic and generally being the love of my life. Rainy days aren't so bad when you have a Sean to share them with.

Today

A funny thing happened at work today--not humorous but in the sense that for the first time at StubHub I felt uncomfortable about something someone wanted me to do. I was working on emails all day since about 600 had piled up over the weekend, and a ticket broker emailed in to say that because of the incredibly rude treatment he had experienced at the hands of one of our representatives, Brent, he was removing all his hundreds of listings from our site and putting them up on Ebay. This is of course bad--bad enough to lose one of the guys who basically makes all our money for us, doubly so if we lost him because one rep was rude. This guy Brent is our age, recent college grad, the brash and kind of obnoxious guy who loves sports and heavy metal bands and has a picture of Slash as his computer background. I've seen complaints about his brusque manner before. So I of course send this guy back a very apologetic email trying to keep his business, and inviting him to call in to discuss this with management.

As I usually do in sticky situations where you want to know exactly what each party said, I copied and pasted the text of his email into the notes on his user account and forwarded all of this to Sheena, my manager. The text of the email of course had Brent's name in it--a mistake, apparently, as Sheena immediately IMed me "bad, bad, bad!" She told me I should have paraphrased the seller's email rather than putting Brent's name in. I was immediately suspicious of this, because I ALWAYS copy/paste on something like this, and so does Sharlene, who oversees the emails. Did I mention that Brent is one of Sheena's favorites in the office? I went to Sheena's office a little while later and asked her about it, why I shouldn't have had the name of the rep who was specifically mentioned in a complaint. She said it was because the next person who looked at the account would 'connect' the name too much to the email and be prejudiced against that rep, and I, annoyed, replied, "That's pretty much just covering someone's ass for them, isn't it." And she nodded. Sigh. I like Sheena, but I seriously lost a little respect for her in that moment. I did tell her that I wouldn't do that, and that I would always copy/paste. That's not to say I "took a stand" against my boss or anything; I just said it, and she shrugged, and I walked away.

Even if it does make someone annoyed to put a name in there, I'm not too concerned. I'm one of the best reps they have, and they know it--even the new HR lady told me she'd heard how excited the management got when they heard I was coming back. Daily stats for the past couple of weeks, I average about 94 "contacts", or calls and emails, per day, while the rest of my dear team is struggling and failing to meet the required average of 60. So I'm not worried about getting in trouble, really, it's just sad to think that a person I like would compromise themselves, even in so minor a way, to save someone else from being censured for their error.

Father's Day

In honor of the holiday, this is something I found while cleaning out a file cabinet that contained all of the cards and letters we received after my father's death. I don't know the man who wrote it, although his name rings familiarly in my ears; I do believe he sent it to my father's email address after he died, as I remember printing a number of condolence letters from friends of his who lived at a distance. This is what it says:

Although I worked closely with Joe only a relatively short period of time, maybe three years or so, I quickly began to admire his dedication, honesty and core values. After working 23 years in the industry, I have only met a handful of people with standards approaching what Joe demonstrated day in and day out. His efforts made all my efforts worthwhile as we shared a common bond to do things right, in spite of all the artificial management and subordinates around us claiming to do likewise. Joe always "told it the way it was" regardless of its content. What a refreshing and inspiring trait! Although Joe was sometimes a bit rough on the edges, he wasa role model to me in many ways, and to many others--that I am sure. I am glad we crossed paths but saddened to hear of his passing. Feel comforted that part of him lives on in the many others he has affected.

Sincerely,
Al Cizek"

I think that's the best thing I could do on Father's Day--to read that and remember my dad the way others remember him, as a good man.

StubHub Half Day....Almost

The power died almost as soon as I got into work this morning, phones and all, meaning for a couple of hours everyone in the call center was outside lounging and playing softball. I opened up the back doors of the Tahoe and curled up to read the book Sara lent me last night, "The Secret of Staying in Love", which we once read for HILL class. Written by a Jesuit--go figure!

Unfortunately, the power resumed right before they were going to send us all home, so now we have 15 calls in queue and a whole lot of angry people who think "sorry, the power was out" is NOT an acceptable excuse for having to wait on hold for twenty minutes. Why am I blogging, you ask? Because it seems like every other person is putting me on hold for some reason or another. What's wrong with these people? You don't put Customer Service on hold, they put YOU on hold! I have to say I greatly enjoy doing that, especially to angry people. Let them stew in it for a few minutes and maybe they'll be less rude.

June presses on, and it hasn't even been terribly hot and humid yet--knock on wood. I've already accomplished one of my "summer goals", climb Sleeping Giant, and will now move on to other tasks, like creating my Italy scrapbook. GRE studying has taken up a good deal of my time, as just reading through the word lists alone is lengthy. Per Sara's request I will insert the word "contumacious" here. It means disobedient, did you know that? I didn't. As much as I love words, sometimes there's just so much redundancy, little words we don't use or care about and that have no particular aesthetic value. Emendment, for example, means correction, but who would bother using it?

I'm glad I have a job that occupies me forty hours a week, even though it can be terribly dull at some times and depressingly cruel at others. I do prefer to have something to do rather than a lot of free time during the week. Luckily, I also manage to incorporate a lot of non-work into work, such as reading, studying for the GREs, email correspondence etc etc.

In terms of reading I've been glutting myself on all the joys of the recently refurbished Windor Public library. I re-read the massive "Duchess of Milan" in two consecutive evenings, both because it's a familiar read and also because for once, I had an extremely lucid understanding of all the Italian courts involved, which as you may guess made me really excited--like when they mentioned in passing the giant equestrian statue Leonardo was going to make for the Duke--not only did we write an essay on the final on that horse and its political significance, the Leonardo exhibition at the Uffizi made a cast of the legs and chest of this thing, and it was monstrously huge. Sadly, the Florentines only made a passing appearance, in the ignominious surrender of Piero the Gouty to the French King's forces when he was passing through Italy, effectively turning the city into an unwilling barracks for the entire French army for several weeks. Could you tell Piero was none too popular with Florence after that little debacle?

Now I'm reading a book on the mystery of the two princes in the Tower, and whether Richard III was really responsible for their deaths as later historians made him out to be. It's written by a lawyer and very interesting. The new library is absolutely delicious but I do have pangs of nostalgia for the library I grew up with, which is now almost completely renovated. Ah, well.

June 6th

At work today everyone was talking about today being 666 and the re-release of "The Omen". No one mentioned that today is D-Day, too. Maybe I was just thinking about it because I'd watched "The Longest Day" for Memorial Day. As with every time I watch it, I was amused by the near-melodramatic pathos imparted to the German officers-- especially the way their characters repeat certain key lines that the real men probably wouldn't have, like the field marshal who comments about his wife's birthday being "tomorrow, the sixth of june. the sixth of june" as he leaves Paris and the command of the army in someone else's hands. So it's easy for me to remember which day D-Day took place. There won't be a D-Day in the war we're fighting now. No one in the future will ever look back on this and feel the surge of pride that Americans felt, and still feel (I certainly do) when thinking of the vast array of forces that assaulted the Normandy beaches six decades ago. Instead we will look back on episodes like Haditha and feel shame that other Americans perpetrated such acts of violence.

The other day Sara told me that the twin brother of a girl we were friends with in high school, Sandy, died in Iraq recently. I looked it up on Yahoo, and he was a Marine, enlisted right out of high school. I never met him, but in his photo he looked so much like her. The article quoted their father on his pride in his son's actions, and for his sake I'm glad he's proud of his child, but I could only think how enormously betrayed and bereft I would feel, not only to lose my son but to lose him fighting a war with seemingly no end and, two years into it, no more good cause. The death of someone close by, even someone removed a couple degrees of separation as he was, made all this a million times more real to me. He made his choice, of course; at least he wasn't drafted. No one who thinks of those who died in Normandy can say that they died in vain. I wish I could think of the same of him, but I can't.

Update

Right now I'm stuffed full of chocolate cake and Sailor Moon love. Sara and I just spent probably six hours watching some of the 30-plus hours of SM delicious she recently purchased, including two full seasons and all three movies *drool* We intended to make a Luna-version of my mom's famous Halloween catcake but this plan floundered when the cake stuck to the pan and fell apart. Whatevs, it was still a joyous time which we've only been dreaming of since, oh, 8th grade or so. So glad I had another dork to share it with!

Things have been pretty hectic since I got back. Work has begun, and I'm glad to be able to say that Stubhub is even more fun now than it was before. The atmosphere is still really chill, and most of the new hires are younger people in their mid to late 20s, so there's so much of the time spent cracking jokes and having a good time, which the powers that be don't seem to mind since everything gets done. My former supervisor Sheena is now a manager and my boss (no more Maritza for me, who was much more formal), and her friend Jen, who was in my training class way back when, is my supervisor. It's fun to have a boss who you can argue with and poke fun at on AIM! I do miss Rob as a manager, but he's probably happier back in SF. Oh, and the hammock remains, and I returned to it lovingly. I was even lucky enough to get a cube right next to my old one, so it doesn't have the high walls that the newer ones do. I personally like to be able to see and chat with the people around me over the walls. In addition to the requisite picture of Sean in his sexy black suit, I added a postcard of the Cinque Terra to brighten up my little work spot.

I can't wait to get paid! Gas is so expensive, bleh. However, I don't have many other expenses, so I really shouldn't complain. If I had to tack a mortgage and some younguns onto this car's wallet-draining capabilities, I think I'd be sunk.

Rae is gone once again for the summer, back in the labs at Wellesley. This summer I'm determined we're going up to visit her. I WILL see Wellesley before we all graduate! Speaking of, turns out our graduation day, May 20th, is the same as my sister's from law school. My mom therefore has the joy of seeing two kids graduate from higher education on the same day, and the issue of deciding which one to attend! Luckily my sister told her outright to go to mine, since she would just probably be grumpy about going into New York anyway. Jen did say, however, that she expects us to come into the city after my graduation to celebrate. She can't come home, because her bar review class begins the very next day. I'm not excited about the idea of leaving everyone right after we graduate to run into New York, but we'll have to work it out. I do feel bad that she got screwed out of her college graduation due to rain and Simmons College being so stupid as to not have a backup plan, and now we can't attend her second one.

Missing Italy is somewhat of a given, I suppose. Food prices are really frustrating, when even a lemon costs double what it did there, and tastes worse! Sara and I had some fresh mozz today and it was terrible, absolutely flavorless, where in Italy even cheapie Conad mozzarella was so delicious I could almost eat an entire ball before dinner. Today at celebrate West Hartford, there was a craft fair, and booth after booth was offering matted photographs of exotic European locales, mainly Tuscany and Provence, and Sara and I just flipped through them sighing. But we were comforted by other photos showing the beauty of New England in the fall and winter. Every region has its charm, and I do so love the fall when the leaves are changing, when they skip and skitter through the streets like lost kites. Everything is radiant and full of promise, everywhere I look.

I'm trying to retain some of the lessons I think I learned abroad, especially when it comes to not wanting so many things. Going to Sara's I thought about the mall, where I haven't been in a long time, and I realized there's really no point in going there unless I specifically need something. The mall is entirely designed to make you covet things and to make you certain you'll never be a happy person until you have them. I don't want to be like that. Conspicuous consumerism invades every aspect of daily life, and I don't like it.

Home Again

I'm back now, and have been for a few days, despite already having contrived to spend two nights at Sean's house. It feels good to be back, although at first it was crazy, especially since in Italy I had huge open spaces and 20 foot ceilings with very little stuff to occupy it, and here I have much smaller rooms, especially mine, with so much stuff in them. I already started throwing out as many things as I can bear to part with.

Yesterday I had an internship interview at Greenwood Publishing Group in Westport, CT, and I got the job as an intern for the fall semester! I'm really excited. The women I met were very friendly, not even fake friendly, actually nice, and they gave me a ton of stuff, including bobblehead dolls of Jane Austen and Chaucer which they use as marketing promos. Last night was our pot roast/sailor moon extravaganza, even if we only watched three hours of the five Sara had brought with her. It was still deliciously wonderful to be back with the girls again. Everything just seems so complete, and yet still so hysterically funny, when we're together.

But the best thing about being back, besides seeing my mom, blah de blah, is being with Sean again, and having him be REAL and not just a voice over the telephone. It's like I didn't really understand how much I missed him until I was with him again.

Almost There

Oh god, just got the latest cell phone bill and it's 170 bucks. Dear god, my mom is not going to be pleased. Although technically she's just sapping my account for the money anyway. Well, I've spent 460 dollars this semester on the phone...HOLY CRAP.

So here I am just about two days from home! All packed, ready to go. The weather has gotten even warmer, you don't need a jacket even in the shady areas anymore. The Americans have begun to hit the city full force, and the summer classes are already here, we passed several of them in groups today. Tomorrow's going to be long, so long, since I'm not planning on getting any actual sleep, though I am going to try to nap in the evening. In the morning I'm getting up early to go take photos, we have to clean the apartment and the other girls need to finish packing, and then at night we're going to eat at ZaZas one last time around 10 or so. At midnight we already have a showering schedule worked out--I got dibs on first, muahaha--and then we're going to read our favorite sections of Lamb aloud to each other until the bus picks us up circa 445 am. And, by 1230 pm on Sunday, I will be in JFK, 14 hours of travel after I leave the apartment. Crazy. BUT I CAN'T WAIT!!!!!

Italy, I love you, and Florence you will always be my favorite city-that's-barely-a-city, but it's time we went our separate ways. So this is my last post from Florence, from the four months that have been one of the experiences I will always cherish. I'll be back someday, but never to live here, so in a way this is truly goodbye to a way of life that I feel very lucky to have had a chance to live. Let me never forget it, any of it.

Ciao, arrivederci, buonasera, goodbye!

Countdown

Just six days and I'm going crazy. I can't wait to be back in America now, especially since I'm starting finals tomorrow and I don't really care about the dates of stupid Baroque artists, I just want to get on that plane and be HOME already. I've already packed the largest of my suitcases, I could leave tonight, if only...

Ironically, Europe has been really good to me. I haven't been robbed or harassed, never gotten sick or lost anything valuable. Knock on wood, of course. I've really loved it here, I have, and once I'm back in America I know I'll long for parts of Italy, like the ease and cheapness of the grocery stores, having fresh mozz with every meal, and the deliciousness of even brand name ricotta...etc etc, I could make a list a mile long. But now I'm ready for home. Bah. Or, as Italians say, boh.

Leaving Party

Tonight is our final program dinner, which I suppose should be filling me with feelings of sadness and despair, but it's not...really, I'm saddest that Sara and Heather aren't here! Heather is back in gay Paris and Sara is currently pilgrimaging her way through Spain and Portugal towards Santiago de Compostela.

Yesterday I took the bus up to Settingnano, a tiny village perched above Florence with a great view of the valley. It had been raining in the morning but by afternoon was gorgeous; still, when I got to the "punto panoramico" so kindly indicated by street signs, I could see the black clouds settling over Florence from the mountains, so I made the visit a short one and caught the next bus. Naturally, we're five minutes down the hill and the sky just lets loose with a flood of water.

Last night Anna and I were at the internet place while briefly toying with the idea of going to the 3-euro porn shop on Guelfa and picking up some entertainment for the evening, but it started to pour AGAIN, so we thought better of it. Plus we were having Teresa over for one of Carla's fabulous meals, and that's really the kind of thing you need to share with those you know and love. Surprisingly enough, dinner began at 730 and she didn't leave till almost 10--she's hilarious, I had no idea! Then we sat around bullshitting for a while and wound up in one of our serious debates, once again on abortion and the death penalty, and finally we called it a night in favor of some Milka and Ever After. This movie, ps, is awesome and I had forgotten entirely how sexy Dougray Scott is. Ironically enough he's actually scottish, too.

Now I'm going to Piazzale Michelangelo for one last visit, although I'm cheating and taking the bus up there because I don't feel like sweating the whole way. I'll walk down because the famous rose garden should be open today. It's weird that I have to make time to "say goodbye" to all my favorite things in Florence, but so it goes.

Cinque Terra

Yesterday Sara, Meredith and I embarked on our final excursion from Florence, to the famous Cinque Terra along the Mediterranean coast. Some people hike all five towns, but we decided to do the less difficult ones. We took the train to the furthest village, Monterosso, and then a smaller train down to a lower village, Corniglia. From there we hiked about an hour and a half along the most gorgeous coastline I have ever beheld until we reached Manarola, and then it was only a half hour walk along the Via dell'Amore to get to the final town. The towns themselves aren't anything special, it's the views that people come to see--sweeping panoramas of sea and sky, water so clear and green you can see the rocks at the bottom ten feet out in the water, flora and fauna quite different from the rest of the countryside (Cinque Terra is a UNESCO site and a protected maritime wildlife area because it has so many species). I enjoyed it so much, it was so beautiful and I felt rather accomplished for having hiked a bit in my time in Italy, even if it wasn't the hardest of the trails. Click on the title for my webshots page, the new one.

We ate lunch in Corniglia, grabbing amazing pizza from this place, La Gatta Flora, which turned out to be in the guidebooks as the best pizza place in town (it was actually my best pizza experience in Italy, no lie) and then chowing down sitting on this staircase overlooking a massive valley. On the way between Corniglia and Manarola, there was a staircase going down hundreds of feet to the water, and we climbed down; at the bottom was a four foot drop and a thick rope to rappel down with! I stayed on the steps since I'm rather afraid of heights, and the girls climbed down onto the rocks. It was still beautiful to be that close to the water, and we met a nice couple from Victoria Island, Canada who were traveling in Europe for a month.

The only minor snafu in the whole day was while we were waiting for the train in the last town. We wanted to catch a train that went to Florence direct instead of having to switch in Pisa, but we noticed that suddenly every train was showing half hour and hour delays, to the abject terror of many American tourists who were crowding around and had no idea how to function without the train system. Also, there were no public buses and not really any room for taxis in this place, so their concern is somewhat understandable. Anyway, we managed to circumvent disaster (I could not imagine being trapped there all night, but we didn't have our real passports, just copies, so we couldnt even have stayed in a hostel) by hopping on the first train going towards Pisa, and we managed, despite delays, to make it home just ten minutes after our original ETA. We were pleased, except for Sara, who abhors Trenitalia for the number of times it has screwed her over. My days on Trenitalia are now officially over, which is sad in a way because it's so inexpensive compared to US trains. Besides Sardegna, pretty much everywhere I've been i nItaly has been on a train.

However, when my mom asked me two nights ago if I regret leaving Italy or if I'm excited to return, I could honestly say that I'm excited. My time in Italy has been amazing and I will never forget it, but I'm ready to come back. Carla is very upset because leaving, for her, means something so different than what it means for me and Heather; we're going back to the men we've been missing, and she has to leave her boyfriend behind. She has a determination to live in Italy again, however, which I can't claim to share. I could never really move here permanently for so many reasons--I couldn't leave my family behind, Sean would never want to live here, and my friends would be so far away. Not to mention that as much as I love Florence and consider it another home, Windsor will always really be home. It saddens me to think that I'll only probably ever come back as just another tourist, but I know very well how little reason I have to complain. I'm so grateful for the time I had here. None of us have or ever had a right to any of this. I try to keep that in mind.

Cemetery

Carla and I went to Sta. Maria del Carmine this morning to see the Brancacci Chapel, which was rather impressive. I especially enjoyed the fresco of St Peter Healing with His Shadow, which is from the Golden Legend so probably not really true, but still cool. Then we hit up La Specola, which is the natural history museum with specimens of thousands of animals, which was so amazing--as Carla put it, you forget half of these animals exist until you see them in a case! All my favorites were present, including tiger, meerkat, raccoon, penguin, and assorted furry animals. The walrus was frightening, it looked bigger than most cars.

After lunch, having nothing much to do and despairing of writing my paper because it's simply too beautiful out today to be talking about Bernini's statues, I went to find the English Cemetery of Florence, which is also called the Island of the Dead due to its location, perched on what has basically become a giant traffic island with large avenues that completely surround it (click on the title of this post for the Wikipedia article). Getting across the street was an adventure in itself, let me tell you. There was a nun at the gate who asked me to sign a guest book--most of the visitors seemed to have been Americans, and there had been only a handful over the last couple of days--and advised me not to leave the paths, as the graves are dangerous to walk around.

Everything you imagine of the mystery and poignancy of the Romantic era is manifested in this cemetery, right down to the cypress trees, broken tombs and shattered columns covered in moss. Elizabeth Barrett Browning is buried there, and I had ostensibly come to see her tomb which was designed by her husband and doesn't even say her same, simply E.B.B. (although it does have lyres engraved on it, which I considered a nice touch). Her tomb didn't interest me half as much as some of the others I saw there; though she is the most famous of the island's inhabitants, there are countesses and barons buried there, as well as English generals and officers, an English ambassador to the court of Italy, and many artists, sculptors, writers etc.

Although there are many nationalities represented in the cemetery, and while every cemetery has its sad stories to tell, I felt a strange sense of connection when seeing the tombs of people who had come from Kentucky, Philadelphia, Boston, who had died thousands of miles away from the world they grew up in, surrounded perhaps by family, or perhaps by strangers. Then I wondered if these people, many of whom never even saw the outcome of the civil war and for whom black rights or women's rights would simply be a contradiction in terms, would have been able to feel any more connection to me than they might be able to feel towards, say, a Russian of their own period.

At the center of the cemetery is a huge column dedicated to one of the kings of Prussia, Frederick William. There was some morbid amusement to see carved there the same Bible verse I read for my dad's funeral, just in French: "Je suis la resurrection e la vie..." Very popular words, those.

There was another, smaller column dedicated thus:

To the Sacred Memory of Ann Murray
Spinster
Died May 6 1815

Tomorrow will be Ann Murray's anniversary, but who will there be to remember her? I'm sure it wasn't meant cruelly, but just putting "spinster" on the tombstone, not sister, not daughter, not friend...perhaps no one liked her, or perhaps she was alone here, and no one knew who she was friend or sister or daughter of. If it's true that we only die when memories of us have faded, then most of the people in this cemetery have been condemned to die another death.

Farewell, Flan

What a hectic day this has been. Heather and I dragged ourselves up early, aka 830, to have some final adventures before my class at 1130 and her departure, namely, going to the Ponte Vecchio to take photos of the padlocks we sneakily attached to the side of the bridge last night before running from the carabinieri! Some backstory: the Ponte Vecchio is home to a statue of Benvenuto Cellini, master Renaissance goldsmith. There's some legend, which I'm not clear on, which says that if you put a gold lock with you and your lover's names on it on his statue, or near it, you'll stay together forever. So naturally Heather and I picked up some padlocks yesterday and took part in this ancient ritual, which is technically illegal and they used to have this big wire fence around Cellini because he'd been covered with locks, except then the fence got covered in locks too so they took it down. Heather and I chose to put our locks on the side of the bridge where there was also one huge lock so we clipped ours onto that one.

This morning we get there and some young boys are actually poking our locks and laughing or whatever, so we wait for the junior douchebags to depart before taking stalkerish photos with our individual locks. Then we go over to the over side of the bridge for some more photo ops, and while taking a photo of Heather I look up and see this man with a blowtorch cutting our locks off the side of the bridge!! The horror!! So apparently the adjacent shop does not look kindly on youthful lovers, hence why there were so few locks there but a million on the other side. Grrr. Argh. But how amusing the timing of this event--if we'd been ten minutes later our locks would have been gone already! Naturally I'm going to get another lock before I leave and do it again. I demand permanence! Heather, since she had limited time in Florence, simply decided she didn't need a lock to ensure domestic felicity with the Codest, and that is that.

When next I saw the Flan, post class, she was bent double under the weight of a backpack that must have weighed 25 pounds and was full to bursting, as well as 10 pounds of extra baggage, and very hot and bothered. I hauled this gigantic load of crqp to the Oil Shoppe, deciding along the way that she needed to get a piece of luggage cause no way could she survive London with this monstrosity. On our way to the station we bought a 20 euro suitcase and then were frantically repacking in the foyer of my school building, being observed by this nice girl from my Romanesque class from Sweden. Heather's shady Croat liquor had broken open so her backpack was gross anyway, so we threw it out--not before finding a freshman year, 1st semester lunch pass inside from Mrs Williamson, lol. Then we go to the station and buy a ticket for a train leaving in three minutes so we ran to the train and flung her onboard and then she was gone. She said this week was the best week of her semester, and honestly, I think it was my favorite as well besides the week with Sean. I'm so glad I got to share Florence with her and Sara.

May

It's May now and my program is less than three weeks from its completion. With every day I get more excited to be home and be with Sean, so I haven't had any real moments of despair at leaving the city--yet. Heather and Sara's presence I think help to obscure the passage of time, especially when I think that Heather has actually been with us since Thursday and it's Tuesday, how did that happen? Tomorrow Sara flies to London, then Heather leaves Thursday. This weekend we're visiting the Cinque Terra on what will probably be my last excursion from Florence. That's ok with me, though, because as much as part of me wishes I had traveled all of Europe to see the great museums while I was here, another part of me is very happy that I explored Italy, that I feel like I really know it and belong to it, and not like I'm still living out of a suitcase every weekend.

I will come back someday, I know I will. We've talked about how amazing it would be for us girls to rent an house in Tuscany, which is possible through what they call agriturismo, aka, people living in farmhouses in Tuscany fix up an apartment and rent it out. I would love to be back here basking in Tuscany with friends. Sean, too, if I could manage it, but he didn't seem as keen on the idea. We're very different in our ideas of relaxation, I know: he likes a lot of actual relaxing and sitting on beaches, etc, while I like to be seeing things and doing things. Most places I go my first thoughts are about what museums there will be, not where I can park myself for the longest amount of time. When Sara and I talked about Greece the same thing came up--I would just have wanted to see the Acropolis, the museums, and go home, but she wanted to spend some time on the islands. It's not that I don't like relaxing, I do, but I get really bored really fast with just sitting around, especially if I'm in a place I've never been. I mean, I can sit on the beach in Connecticut if I want to, why would I want to do it in Europe?

Carla and I have joked that Sean and I will simply have to take separate vacations, and that every other year one of us will get stuck with the kids and one of us gets to jet off with their friends. It's an amusing thought, but in the end I think most people like to vacation with their spouse, if only for the "sex in new and strange places" thing, hahaha. I certainly look forward to taking a vacation with Sara and Heather and Rae when we're older, though!

Attack of the Heather

So Heather's been here for a few days, and it's just been the best and most cracked out adventure, because now not only am I in Italy, I'm here with yet ANOTHER of my best friends, and if I could only have gotten Rae in on this picture, we totally could have wormed our way into taking over the apartment in a blitzkreig attack of wonderousness, Northwest Catholic style, but alas!

Our apartment made for four is currently holding six, so it's a little hectic but no one has yet died, and great things have happened, like us watching porn together last night (Italian channels show weird short softcore vignettes after 1am) and Heather and Anna bonding and me buying a burgundy leather jacket at the thrift store, joy of joys, except now I have three coats to get home somehow. Yesterday me, Sara and Heather just sat in the News Cafe talking like forever. Our friendships are so amazing, that they--and we--have come so far and changed so much, yet they're still strong. I heart friends!! God, I sound like I'm fifteen again, but it's ok because on one level I feel like I AM fifteen again since I'm with my old friends, but we're so much more grown up...example, today we sat down in the Titian room in the Uffizi and Heather was telling us about her class about image and media and its effects on the perceptions of beauty...ie from heavier people looking good on cavas to the skinniness that translates better to film, which was interesting.
After the Uffizi we went to the Ciompi antique market, which always drives me mad with avaricious glee because there is so much amazing old crap that I just WANT like nobody's business, and thank god I only ever wind up there with like 10 euro in my pocket because otherwise I'd be broke...love Italy...

Paris and Florence Combine At Last

A couple of days ago I went to Sara's school to see the acting class put on a Shakespeare performance--they did Taming of the Shrew, and it was hysterical, despite all its inherent misogyny. I met her other friend Sarah, who's really cool, along with a bunch of other pals. That same night we sort of crashed the Syracuse going away reception, wherein I met Josh, the guy Sara's been talking about all semester. The very next day, went with Sara to this giant arts and crafts expo where we ran into her friends once more and everyone ended up wearing one or more pieces of clothing and accessories that they had purchased, AND i ate the best piece of mozzarella in my life at the food fair in one of the buildings.

Yesterday I got my hair cut in an Italian salon and it was amazing, gorgeous and beautful, the best hair of my life...until I noticed later that day that I appeared to have mild hives. Yes, hives, apparently from the shampoo and or conditioner. Needless to say, "salon hair" quickly went bye bye in the shower...if the bumps don't go away by tomorrow, though, I'll have to go to the doctor for an antihistamine prescription, whoo.

Now for the wonderful news....namely, that Heather is at this very moment en route to Italy, and will be in Florence by nightfall to begin a scandalously wonderful week of pirate adventures! I'm so excited I'm even skipping Italian so I can clean the house up a little...

Oh, and realized randomly last night that it was four years to the day since I started dating Greg in high school. It seems like such a lifetime ago that I actually sat there thinking that I must be insane, and it must have been longer ago, but no, it's really only been that amount of time. As Heather said on the phone the other night, who could believe how far we've all come? And as Sean would add, how lucky I have been to move up from the McDonald's burgers of the world to my dear filet mignon, haha.

I've actually never eaten filet mignon. Hm. Perhaps the Filet Mignon should take me out for some, eh?

Rome the Third

I had such a great time in Rome this weekend! Friday we arrived and went to Ostia, this ancient port city situated on the mouth of the Tiber. When the harbor silted up after centuries of use, the city was abandoned, leaving it to become an archaeological paradise in our own day. Pompeii is to Fairfield as Ostia is to New Haven--less affluent and more commercial, but also more of a slice of how real people lived. The greatest thing is that you could climb in, out and around of these houses and buildings, for the most part--they wouldnt let you into the baths, for example, because of the fabulous mosaics which are best viewed from above. In one building we found the equivalent of a secret garden, as ivy and leaves had made a complete roof for the structure. In another, we climbed underneath a three foot high arch and found ourselves in something resembling a bunker, I'm not sure what it was, and then we hopped over that wall and continued the exploration. The city has a perfectly preserved theater with wonderful acoustics, as Sara demonstrated for us, as well as a commercial marketplace with mosaics tellig what each stall was for.

On Saturday we went to the Borghese at the crack of dawn, which was amazing--so amazing I think I will describe it later because I have to meet Meredith to catch the bus to the soccer game in half an hour. After this we tried to go see the Ara Pacis, which had JUST OPENED THAT DAY, but th line was long, and Carla was sick and wanted to go home, so we had lunch and then split up. I went back to St Peter's to see it one last time, but since the line there stretched all around the enormous piazza, I decided to enjoy its external pleasures only. Then I went back to the Colosseum and the Forum, bid farewell to my Augustus statue, and visited St Pietro in Vincoli where the original Moses statue is. On buying a ticket in the Termini, I mistakenly bought one for 430, not 630, which eliminated the possbibility of going to the Cornaro chapel, but by then I was pretty exhausted so I decided to take it as a sign. One of the best parts of travelining to and from Rome is the route the express train takes--green fields and rivers and beautiful sights. Never again will I suffer those 3.5 hr train rides on bumpy piece of crap train cars!

Now I'm off to watch Viola (our soccer team, which wears purple, Italy's unluckiest color) lose again, yay!

A Few Tired Hours Later

...I saw the David at long last. The presentation of the statue is as stunning as everyone has said, positioned right under the window so his body gleams like a saint's. The details of the veins and muscles was stunning and the most compelling aspect of the work, for me. The eyes, though, his eyes are creepy. Statues rarely have good eyes, they're either blank orbs or, as in this case, drilled holes that just can't come close to looking like real eyes. Perhaps it's a good thing that David doesn't meet your eyes. Anna predicted I wouldn't like him, which isn't true, I appreciate the magnitude and perfection of the work--but I'm pretty certain that Bernini's David will be my favorite of all. And I'm seeing him on Saturday morning!

So after the Galleria, which also had some other interesting art in it, I couldn't bring myself to be shackled to the computer to write papers. Instead, I walked across the river to get some lunch and admire the views along the way. I wandered around until I found Santo Spirito, which has a flat plaster facade that reminded me of the adobe mission churches in the Southwest. I walked back across a different bridge so I could see the Ponte Vecchio, and then I just wandered around the streets. I stopped into Dante's church, which dates from the XI century and looks it inside, and Orsanmichele, which is full of copied works and faded frescoes. I also helped an old man from Virginia who was on Via Dante Alighieri looking for Via Faenza, which happens to be the road my school is on and also happens to be like fifteen minutes away from where he was standing. He told me the city was beautiful and it is. I would have told him that it's a city I love getting lost in, but I didn't want to jinx him.

Among the great things I saw today...outdoor grocery vendors offering fresh cut lilacs, which I would have loved to have bought, but I won't be going home for hours; lots of accordion players, my favorite sidewalk entertainers, including one oldr man who was playing with his eight year old son; the triumphal column outside Sta Felicita which was almost destroyed by retreating German troops but was restored; and the column of justice outside Sta Trinita, made from Oriental marble from the baths of my darling Caracalla.

When I stood on the bridge looking out at Ponte Vecchio, the radio was playing Aerosmith's "I Dont Want to Miss a Thing", and despite the song being about his girlfriend I still smiled because it's true.

Laurentian Library

I woke up early today to sneak into Sara's class' tour of the Laurentian library, which was closed when I tried to go earlier in the semester but which is now open for an exhibition. It was impressive, more so since we had Sara's helpful TA giving us all the background on the design, construction, and its mannerist tendencies. The more I learn about Michelangelo the more I am fascinated by his genius and general weirdness. He didn't have any place for the library complex so he plopped it as a third story onto the existing monastery, and then built a staircase so massive that a similar one had never been constructed indoors. With a leftover space at the back, he was planning to create a triangular rare book room that was never completed. He also proposed to his papal patron the first ever skylights to illuminate the vestibule, but the pope nixed it on the grounds that it would take two monks working full time just to keep the windows clean.

The staircase was as elegant and different as I had ever seen in a book, but only standing there really brought across how compact the space is, compared to the impression given by this flow of oval steps. The reading room was also impressive, although with typical artistic disregard for practical use in favor of disegno, Michelangelo gave the poor monks practically no leg room in the desks. I could easily imagine Sean hunched over one of those desks with an old greek text in front of him, scribbling things furiously...what a monk he would have made back then!

I'm thrilled that I got the chance to see the library, one of those big things that is tucked away in a tiny Florentine corner. I feel like I've seen most of my favorite Michelangelo work now--the staircase, the Pieta, the Moses (albeit a copy), the Sistene ceiling--except for the David. How have I still not seen it, I know, I know...

Today is a beautiful day in Florence. Yesterday was pretty gross, and I'm grossly sick and sniffly, but Carla and I wandered in the rain, got gelato from Perche No? and wound up at Sara's studio, where she sized us for rings! Mine has a star, Carla's a moon, and both will say "primavera" because we were here in the spring.

Art is life is beautiful.

Other Things

Ah yes, and Saturday was the 6th anniversary of my father's death as well. Although I had a few "moments" in the days leading up to it, on Saturday I was having a complete blast in Siena with the girls. The thought struck me that of all the things that I could do to honor my dad's memory, what's better than living a wonderful, full, happy life? I'm in Italy doing something that no one in my family has ever done. I'm experiencing a culture that he might have known something of, growing up in an Italian family, but that I've never really had, and I know he would have been so thrilled that I'm here, living the dream.

I'm proud of myself, and I'm proud of the last six years and what I've made of them. My only source of constant sadness is my mom's loneliness without him. My sister came home for his anniversary and for Easter, which was really good of her. She told me they visited his grave, which I'll admit, I'm kind of glad they did without me, because I feel that they attach a greater importance to the grave site than I do. I never feel any closer to him there than I do anywhere else. Probably just farther away, in fact, because there's nothing there to remind me of him. He's more alive in every funny story and tale of his insanity and paranoia, the stories we tell of our families' idiosyncracies as we sit around the table here, stuffing ourselves with pasta.

I can't deny that I wish, wish, wish that he would be there at the airport when I come home, to tell my stories to, to bring him gifts. But I've wished the same thing so many times over the years, and it's always been OK, even though he's not there. Sean will be there, and that's such a blessing to look forward to.

Every day that I'm alive is the best day of my life.

Siena and Easter

On Saturday Anna, Carla and I went to Siena, which is a city preserved in most of its medieval glory, the Black Plague having removed it from its former place of prominent antagonism with Florence. We walked by the Campo, a trapezoidal square where the famous Palio race is held twice a year--horses and riders representing each of Siena's 17 neighborhoods take part in a two minute frantic race around the perimeter of the Campo...the turns are so sharp the corners are padded with mattresses, and horses can still win even if their riders have fallen off. On the day of the Palio, the horses are taken into the churches in their neighborhoods and blessed by the priest, who tells them "Go and win"--and it's considered a good luck symbol if the horse leaves droppings in the church!

The duomo of Siena was large and impressive, with amazing mosaics on the floor depicting mythological and then religious scenes. Of particular interest to me was the Bernini chapel in all its Baroque glory, with two wonderful statues of St Jerome and Mary Magdalene. Outside, where there was a wall of votive offerings, there were two rows of motorcycle helmets, left in thanks by people who had survived accidents. Also cool was seeing the huge pulpit, which I saw last week in Gothic class and was very excited to see in person.

After this we visited the Duomo museum to see Duccio's Maesta, and climbed a tower with even more ridiculously small steps than those at the top of the Florence Campanile, except for the gift of a railing, to see a beautiful panorama of the city.

On Easter Sunday we woke up early--and I was not pleased to be awake--and dragged ourselves over to Piazza della Repubblica where we had told Sara we would meet her. Lo and behold, just as we walk into the mostly-empty sqaure, we hear drumming, and then witness an awesome parade (with many of the same players we saw outside the Uffizi with the guys, on the occasion of Florence's 800th birthday) and then the flag throwers performed which was amazing, even better than the last time because no one dropped their flags when they tossed them to each other. Then down the street we saw the cart (which they explode in front of the Duomo), which was a monstrously huge creation that was vaguely ominous, looming there in the distance. We were really excited to have seen the performance, but then we hoofed it over to the Piazza del Duomo to try to get a good vantage point. Anna and Meredith eventually fought their way onto a stone bench, but Carla, Sara and I had to make do as best we could. Imagine--we got there at 915, the cart didn't blow till 11, and we still were a lot farther from the front than we would have liked. And the square and the surrounding streets were packed, absolutely packed, with people watching from windows and rooftops and anywhere they could see.

As Sara put it, the Florentines definitely know how to stall. The flag throwers performed a few tricks here and there, and there were endless processions of banners, flags and people in armor and costume. Towards the end the Archbishop of Florence appeared, made his rounds and blessed the crowd, then went into the Duomo---the main doors of which were opened, which they never do. All this while, there were firemen rigging the cart with even more explosives, and putting this weird thing on the top that looked like three brooms. Ok, the cart itself does not blow up, it's centuries old. There's even a man inside at the very bottom--this thing is like thirty feet high--who controls the timing of the explosions, or so I'm told.

The whole spectacle depends on the correct flight, at 11am, of a mechanical dove launched from inside the Duomo. It flies and hits the cart, triggering the fireworks. This year the dove supposedly didn't have a straight flight, which is bad luck, but since I thought the dove was going to drop from the top of the Duomo, I wasn't even looking for it, so I only saw it hit the cart. The fireworks were amazing, no surprise since Florence has had centuries to practice! I couldn't keep a grin off my face...the whole square filled with smoke and booming noise, and the cart shot off sparks and let off Catherine Wheels and all sorts of explosions. The finale was naturally deafening, and then the weird three brooms began to spin..I thought it was going to take off, but instead with a final BOOM, all three "brooms" unfolded the flags that were inside them--the flag of Florence, the banner of the Church, and the Paschal flag. It was stunning.

In short, really glad I was in Florence for Easter, unlike most people in the program who took off for parts unknown. The more I participate in in this city, the more I feel like I belong here, like I know the people who live here, and understand why they love this place so much. Watching the pageantry in Repubblica, I could feel how civic pride could have inspired the Florentines of ages gone by to march into battle behind the crimson fleur-de-lis. If I had lived there then I would have gone too. It's a city worth fighting for.

I went and bought a flag the next day. It's so much more beautiful than regular nationality flags. Few people fly the Italian flag in Florence, which is fine because it's ugly anyway. Whatever happened to heraldry, to your flag being a symbol that meant something? Florence was built on a field of flowers, or so the legend goes, and hence everthing in the city is adorned by the giglio, the lily.

Buona Pasqua!

Tomorrow the school is sponsoring a trip to a local vineyard to learn how wine is made, so we're all going, even I who loathes the vino. Saturday Carla, Anna and I are going to Siena, and then Sunday is Easter! I'm excited for the fireworks in front of the Duomo, but my Italian teacher warned us that it attracts thousands of people, especially tourists, and that the piazza will be absolutely packed. I doubt it will compare to the crushing mob we were in the middle of in Venice on Carnevale, but I also would like to be able to see something, so we'll have to go early. Then they're all going to Mass, Im not, and then Carla is cooking us an Easter feast. Tess will be here, and Malta Man might be joining us as well.

I got my last exam back in Baroque class yesterday, so it's now official...for the first time ever, I got a perfect score on five out of five exams. They are somewhat easier graders here, I suspect. Well, not Lucia, the professor who thought the first quiz was oh-so-easy and then gave much of the class failing grades, but the others possibly.

Sean told me yesterday that he sent a bouquet of flowers to my house for Easter, and also to thank my mom for her constant supply of muffins. What a brown noser, this kid, he knows exactly how to schmooze the ladies. Oh, but I love him despite or perhaps because of this.

Viva la Sinistra...

This is a link to a picture of my latest acquisition: http://www.comunisti-italiani.it/modules/My_eGallery/gallery/01/VotaCom2005.jpg , stolen from a wall near Sara's house. It will soon go to decorate townhouse 31. My mom thinks I'm crazy and that I'm lucky the communists didn't spot me stealing their propaganda. Heehee.

Cortona

Yesterday's adventure was Cortona, a picturesque hilltop town about an hour from Florence that is most famous for having starred in Under the Tuscan Sun. Carla and I ventured forth with our dearest buddy Trenitalia, and found ourselves at the train station in Camucia, which is the sprawling town on the plain below Cortona's mountain. No sooner did we get off the train, however, then I see this guy Mark from my Italian class standing there waving at me. I've never really talked to him, but he seemed nice, so we stopped to say hi, and he had this Italian man with him who didn't speak any English. This guy, as it turned out, was a dear family friend of Mark's parents, who rent a villa in Cortona a couple of weeks out of every summer. Yes, rich, and from CA, too, the lucky bastard. Mark and his roommate had come to stay and be force-fed for the weekend, and this man, known only to Mark as "Dad", offered us a ride up the ginormous mountain.

So we hop in this guy's VW and he proceeds to propel us up the freakishly windy roads of this mountain at an insane speed, all the while chattering to Mark in Italian, who--being in beginner class with me--was trying valiantly to understand and communicate back. We did catch the part where he told Mark, after Mark said he had to go back to school and study that night, that yeah, if he had such gorgeous women at his school he'd be right there studying too. Mark was kind enough to agree heartily with him, which is good, because Mark is good looking, by both me and Carla's standards (meanwhile his roommate, who was Asian, also appealed to both of us, which is surprising because we almost never agree). So while we're hurtling along he starts asking Mark if we want to go to this place, and mentioning San Francesco, and Mark agreed without even really knowing what he meant. Off we zoom down even more horrifying steep, curving roads with a cliff on one side, roads that you would never want to believe are two way, but yes they are, and--did I mention I hadnt even put on my seatbelt, assuming this to be a gentle five minute ride, and then I didnt want to seem like an American wimp because no one else in the car was wearing one, yes, foolish, I know, so the thoughts running through my mind were "ahhhh im going to die....but im going to die in italy, whee!"--then we arrive at this amazing monastery, tucked into a niche between two mountains, with a panoramic view of a lush fir forest and a river and a mini waterfall to boot! Turns out this was where St Francis lived before he went back to Assisi and started his ministry there, so we got to go and check out the incredibly cramped cell that he called home. It was sweet.

After this, "Dad" safely deposited us in the center of Cortona, and even offered to pick us us later, which I declined because I felt bad for imposing--Mark had told the guy we were friends from school, but I really don't know him at all! So we explore Cortona, which is preserved in its medieval glory, and where a woman walking by saw my (Carla's) sweatshirt and said "Fairfield University! Why, my husband went there!". We stopped in a couple of museums and enjoyed the view before commencing what Let's Go called a "thigh-burning 15 minute walk" to the Medici fortress on the top (Cortona was bought by Florence during the Renaissance, muahaha). So we're walking, huffing and puffing slightly because this is one mother of a hill, and we pass where the U of Georgia has its campus up there, and then we see some girls sitting with their laptops on a rock wall that is actually a cliff, and we're walking, and then all of a sudden there's screaming, and the girls are running away, and what is there right behind me and Carla but a gigantic SWARM OF BEES. I'm talking thousands of bees here, a swarm over ten feet wide, with that horrible buzzing noise...AHHHH. Ahead of us is the steepest part of the climb and the bees look like they're moving, so we turn around and I run frantically down this hill, yes screaming, because there are bees all around me, I don't know of what variety, and hey, I don't know if I'm allergic or not and I didn't think this was the day to find out. Carla, meanwhile, walked rather calmly down the hill behind me. Protestants. They live to suffer.

So then we talked to the Georgia girls, one of whom was annoyed becase she had abandoned her laptop on the cliff wall, and they had never seen anything like it before. The bees had just swarmed up from underneath them. Needless to say, we and the several other people making the climb to the fortress decided that the view from there was quite sufficient. After this we bought some bus tickets, thinking that a bus would be coming some time, but no, it was Sunday, no such luck. Since a taxi would have cost an arm and a leg, we decided to Lutheranism it up and walk our butts the four miles or so down the mountain and through the town to the train station. Again, ahhhhh. My legs hurt this morning, and for good frickin reason. However, it certainly was an adventure, we had a great time, and Cortona was deliciously beautiful, everything Americans think of when they think of Tuscan hill towns.