Il Contadino Nudo ( The Naked Farmer)

I used to swim in a cow trough.  Is that what you call the metal thing that farmers fill with food or water for the animals?  I think so.  Anyway, I had one in my backyard.  At the time it really seemed like a pool.  Now I can't imagine that I ever swam in circles with my little friend to make whirlpools so we could float around the edge of the trough for hours.  But, I was little and it was big (enough) and it seemed like a pool.

So, does the fact that I swam in a cow trough make it easier to understand why I've fallen in love with this Italian country lifestyle?  Not that I've seen anyone swimming in a cow trough.  Well, not a real metal one like mine.  But, I did see a guy floating in what might be today's version of a trough that seems to be inflatable (maybe?) and blue and square.  Not so good for making whirlpools!

I was running (of course) and getting braver everyday.  I'd seen a little trail I'd wanted to take, but was still a little hesitant.  Three days ago, I took it.  What I didn't know was that the trail had a little turn and before I knew it I came upon a car and a farmer.  I said, "Buongiorno," and kept running.  He was on a little patch of land enclosed by a fence.  Inside the fence was a tiny garden and a brick shed, if sheds can be brick.  It
definitely wasn't a house. That was that.  I didn't seem to be bothering him and I was happy to have found a new place to run without worrying about this shed and fence.

Day two.  Same place and more or less the same time.  I turned the corner on my trail and saw two feet sticking up over the edge of what I first thought was a kiddie pool. I was shocked and didn't really want to look, but there was a guy floating in this little modern blue trough.  I really do think that's what it is.  It's too industrial to be a kiddie pool and not finished enough to be a pool-pool.  I'd found an Italian with his own trough and I ran right by.

Day three. Same place and unfortunately more or less the same time.  I didn't see the bare feet sticking up over the edge of the pool, even though I accidently had my glasses on.  And I'm sorry to say, they weren't my sunglasses.  Instead, I was greeted by a naked farmer.  He said, "Buongiorno!"  and a lot of other stuff I didn't understand.  So, I responded with the usual, "I'm sorry.  I don't speak Italian very well," and we kept
talking.  Where are you from?  How far do you run everyday?  Is your family Italian?  The usual first time stuff.  (Okay.  Just kidding.  Did you really think I'd have this casual conversation with a naked man in a field?!)  But the rest is real!  He seemed to have timed it perfectly to be exiting the little shed right when I ran by.  Was it planned?  My Italian friends would say naturalmente, of course!  What?!  Yes, they said.  He just thought he'd give it a try.  And who knows?  You might be in the mood and stop.

Day four.  Same place.  I wasn't about to give up one of my fields just becasue there was some naked guy in it.  I had to go back.  All I wanted to do was run by with the hope that he wouldn't be there and I could take a picture to show you all.  (Sorry girls.  I didn't have my camera yesterday.)  Anyway, I got lucky and he wasn't there and I took a picture of the little shed and the little pool and now the picture is in my iPod and I don't know how to get it out to attach it to my blog! Oh well.  You'll just have to imagine it all.  

So, that's the story of the only other person I know who swims in a cow trough.  I liked him better when the only thing bare was his feet.

Update:  January 31, 2012. 
I just figured out how to get pictures from my iPod to the blog, so I've added this one.    

Get out of your rut (if you're in one)

Sometimes I get in a rut when I run.  There is something nice about being in a rut, I think.  You don't have to make decisions, you see the same things day after day, it's fun to see them change throughout the seasons and you get to know the other people in the same

rut as you.  It's kind of nice.

There are other times when I go off the beaten path.  Those times usually end up better in the end, but it's hard to make the decision to get out of my rut.  Fortunately, yesterday I made the decision.  Sometimes I run on designated paths (intended for tractors, bikes, motorcycles and horses.  I'm not sure why they spelled out horses cavalli on the sign.  Maybe they didn't have the clip art?).  Other times I run through fields, along creeks, up hills, down hills and over little bridges.  Yesterday I decided to run to Liedolo.  I'd driven through it the night before and I liked how it felt, so I thought I might like it even more in my running shoes. I knew how to get there, but it meant running on the big roads.  By big, I guess I mean 'bigger'.  A little more traffic (tractor traffic), a few more houses and the possibility of some dogs that I hadn't yet met.  But, I did it.

 
The town ended up being 3.25 miles from where I was staying.  Perfect.  As I turned around to run back I noticed a little gravel road.  I knew it wouldn't get me home, but I had to check it out.  A little further down the road there was an electric box or something like that in a chain link fence.  But on the fence there was a little arrow with trincee 13-15.  The arrow pointed up a tiny dirt trail (it seemed like the kind of trail bad kids
would have made, instead of a manicured path) up a REALLY steep hill and into a really thick forest. I had no idea what trincee meant and kind of thought it might lead to more of these little electric boxes in chain link fences, but something made me want to go up this big hill.  These days, I seem to have enough courage that if there's no sign that says proprieta privata, I go!!  So, up I went.  And up and up and up.
 
The forest was dark and kind of cold and a little spooky, I'd say.  Then I saw a little cave.  It didn't say proprieta privata, but this time I wasn't quite as courageous and I didn't go in.  Then I noticed a sign that said  la prima guerra mondiale (WWI) and some other stuff I didn't understand right away. I kept running up the path and thinking about this sign and trying to figure out what it meant (I don't take my dictionary running.  In fact, I seldom take it anywhere anymore!)  There were more caves and little trails that seemed like trenches three-feet deep that went on and on. Aha!  Trenches....trincee.....that's how I'm learning
Italian.  It takes me awhile, but eventually I make a connection.  I was pretty sure now that these were leftover trenches from WWI.  The best part? There was no entrance fee and no gate and I didn't see anyone the whole time I was there.  It was just me and some cool caves and some amazing trenches that were dug a long, long time ago.  And the only reason I discovered these trenches (REALLY deep ruts, let's say) is because I got out of my own. And instead of taking the well-worn paths that I take everyday, I went in a different direction.  And when I reached the top I was excited to run back down and see it all again.  And somewhere on my way down, I'd found enough courage to go inside the same cave I was afraid of on my way up.  And it was worth it.

"Do not go where the path may lead.  Go instead where there is no path and leave a trail." 
Ralph Waldo Emerson    

I suppose some things are better left undone

It's May in Italy and that has something to do with the month of the Madonna.  For all I know it's the month of the Madonna in Chicago, too.  But I know I've never seen these little gatherings in the middle of nowhere every evening in May in Chicago.

The first time I saw it I was confused.  There's a little wooden hut on the side of the little country road next to a little bridge and a little stream.  Inside there's a statue and some flowers and some candles and it's been sitting there every day every time I've been to Italy.  There's never been any action around it.  In fact, now that I think about it, I can remember running in the country here 7 years ago and seeing these little "things" and wondering what they were.  My Catholic friends are about to kill me.   It's not a hut.  Is it a tiny little church?  A tiny little chapel?  I'm sure it has a name, but if I waited to ask a friend for help every time I was writing  I'd never publish anything.  So, I just go with it and say it like I see it, a wooden (and sometimes concrete) hut.  (I wanted to say shrine, but I'm sure that's not right either.)

So, we were driving past and there was a small group of people gathered around it.  There's a small bench that I think is always there, and some people brought their own lawn chairs.  It looked like a little garden party on the side of the road.  It actually reminded me of what I call the Sunset Club in Michigan when all the neighbors walk down to the edge of the beach and sit on the benches at the top of the stairs to watch the sunset.  I've often thought of joining the Sunset Club and making up some story of who I am.  I'd make myself really interesting and go there every night and pretend that's who I was.  I still haven't done it and I'm pretty sure I never will.

Anyway, I asked what was going on.  (Don't worry, I asked my friend in the car.  I didn't get out and ask the little group.)  He said it was a group of people that got together every evening at 20:10 in the month of May to pray to the Madonna.  Sorry, I don't know if you pray TO a Madonna or FOR a Madonna or what you do with a Madonna.  But I like the fact that Madonna brings this little group of neighbors together every evening in May.  I find the whole thing charming and a bit sad.  These little gatherings are finished in May.  Why not do something else together a few evenings in the summer?  Sometimes at 20:10 I have the urge to go join them and tell them that they could get together every now and then in June, too, without Madonna, but I'm pretty sure I'll never do that either.

Pianoforte a quattro mani

At first glance, my new home away from home seems like my childhood home.  Fields, farmers, gardens, little sheds, gravel roads...all the stuff that makes the countryside the countryside.  What I don't remember about Ada, Michigan was art and music and theater.  Maybe I was too young.  Or maybe there was really nothing more than fields, farmers, and gardens.

Anyway, dotted throughout the fields in Veneto are lovely little towns.  And dotted
throughout the towns are galleries, performances and cafes. I went to a concert in Asolo
last week.  It was two pianists playing on one piano.  But that's not how you say it.  It's
pianoforte a quattro mani.  That's a piano with four hands.  I've never seen it before
(or should I say heard it?) but it was great! 

First we had pizza, of course.  And then we went for coffee (and I had tea, of course). And
then, the concert.  It was in the il museo civico.  You walk under a few arches and through
a few columns to the entrance.  Then it's up some well-worn stone stairs and into the
concert hall (one would think).  But, instead of an auditorium it was just a big, dusty,
beautiful room. On a little platform made from sheets of plywood sat a shiny, black grand
piano. Two ladies in sequined tops came out to play.  They're the same two ladies with no
sequins that sat at the table next to us in the cafe.  At the cafe they were just two
normal ladies.  Here they were shining stars.

All around the room the top of the walls were painted with shields and names and dates. Giant, dusty chandeliers missing some arms and crystals hung from the ceiling.  There were enough uncomfortable straight-backed chairs for about 60 people, but I think I only counted about 32.  I had a front row seat so I could see the four hands perfectly. One lady operated the pedal and the other turned the pages. 

In the front corner of the room, next to the plywood stage there were two big tables.  Big,
old, beat up wooden tables that would sell for thousands in an antique shop in Michigan. 
Here, they were just shoved in the corner covered with dust.  On one of them there was an
unplugged flat screen tv.  It's cord and other random cords were strewn across the stage
and every time the ladies got up to bow I was afraid they might trip.

Nothing about the place was in order.  And I'm sure nothing about it was beautiful to the
Italians.  They wouldn't notice the tables or painted walls or chandeliers.  But, did it
really matter?  These 32 people were only there to hear Brahms and Satie and Bach. Were
they the same people that spent the day in the fields?  I like to think they were.  And now
when I'm running through the fields in the morning, I like to think that they're the same
people that were at the concert.     

Any way you slice it.......France wins

Let's get back to the bread.  Why don't they have good bread in Italy?  I've finally found an Italian to discuss this with.  He's had bread in France and he wonders why there are no Italians running over to France, learning how to make good bread and coming back to Italy to open the best "panificio" in Italia.  Unfortunately, all he does is wonder.  So, there is still no good bread in Italy.  I went to one place that had four different kinds of little roll-looking things behind the counter.  I asked what the difference was, hoping that somehow maybe one was better than another.  She said, "Really, the only difference is the shape."  I'll keep trying.

In the meantime, I've actually decided I prefer what is basically Wonder Bread.  And to top it off, at dinner the other night I was served AMERICAN BREAD.  I know you can't read it all in this little picture, so I'll give you the details.  The first line says "mordibidissimo pane bianco."  Morbidissimo?  My first thought was death.  Dead white bread?  I mean REALLY dead white bread?  That's the "issimo" part.  You can think of it as REALLY.  But, I checked my dictionary and "morbido" means soft, not dead.  So, here we have our REALLY soft white bread.

The next line says, "Ricetta Americana."  That means American Recipe.  For bread?!  Is there an American recipe for bread?  Well, thanks to this great marketing, the Italians think there is.

And the expiration date?  It's now May 12.  This bread, which I have no idea when it was purchased, is good until June 13. Is bread ever good for a month and a day?  I don't think so.  

Here's the best part of all.  In fine print it says, "Prodotto in Francia."  Do I have to translate that?  Produced in France.  What do you know?!  No matter what, my favorite bread in Italy is French bread.

Better than Disneyland

It seems like a long time ago that I was going to Wednesday night concerts at the Petrillo (Perillo?) Bandshell in Grant Park to hear the Grant Park Symphony Orchestra.  You could ride your bike and keep it right there with you on the grass.  There was no such thing as "bike valet."  There was a lot of space between you and your neighbors and you could talk about whatever you wanted to or play frisbee or smoke or fall asleep and drool because no one was close enough to see it.
 

That all changed when Millenium Park came along.  I still go to the concerts, but they're nothing like they used to be.  I miss the old view, too.  You were further south and it all just looked different.  The buildings were a little bit further away and you were a little bit more connected to the sky with no metal canopy overhead.  One time I brought a friend from Grand Rapids to a concert with her kids.  I don't know how old Hannah was when she looked at the skyline and said, "It looks real!  It's like you could touch it."  I guess I never REALLY knew what she meant.  I think I thought that she thought it was fake--like a stage set or something.  Even if that isn't what she meant I liked the idea and I never forgot what she said.  I was happy to tell her that it WAS real and you COULD touch it.

I used Hannah's line last night.  I was driving through the Italian hilltowns and every now and then we'd get to a big clearing with fields (and yes, bales of hay).  And there, on the top of the next hill, sitting all by itself, was La Chiesetta Rossa.  It's a little pinkish-salmonish colored church surrounded by cypress trees (maybe) and it's lit up at night, by more than just the moon. It doesn't seem real sitting up there in the sky.  I said, "It looks real!  It's like you could touch it."  So, up we went, so I could touch it. We got out and walked around and you can see all the other hills in every direction dotted with little lights.  I'd have to say, I'd take this over Mont St. Michel anyday.  And just to tease me a little as I was about to make my Mont St. Michel/Disneyland comparison to my friends, God (or someone) set off fireworks in the distance at 23:15 on a random Monday night.  We watched from atop this little hill, beside this little church and they seemed real, like you could touch them. 

  

It's no surprise that I'm a little cuckoo

I'm in Italy now.  It's completely different in these little towns in Italy than it was in Paris.  In Paris I heard sirens, traffic, sirens, traffic, sirens, traffic and that's about it.  In Italy I hear tractors, bees, crickets, palm leaves clicking in the wind, roosters, church bells, and real live cuckoo birds.

Tractors.  They're everywhere.  It's time to bale hay.  And it seems like everyone has a little piece of land with grass long enough to cut, rake into stripes, let dry out and bale it.  Yesterday I was on my bike for a 35-minute uphill ride when I passed a tractor that had pulled over on the side of the road to talk to a lady outside her house.  Kind of like a golf cart in Grand Beach.

 
Bees.  Crickets.  If you think you're in a place that is silent, listen carefully.  It doesn't seem like any place is really without noise.
 
Palm leaves?  This is a favorite.  First of all, I never thought I would find a palm tree in what seems to be Northern Italy, but they're here.  I'm still not used to the idea of an old Italian farmhouse with a palm tree outside, but they're everywhere and quite nice.  Even nicer when the wind blows and the spiky leaves click together.
 

Roosters. I love them.  Why did I think they only went off in the morning?  I really thought they only cockadoodledooed in the early morning to get us out of bed.  Here they go all day.  And they seem to just be wandering the streets.  Maybe they're like cats and they don't go far from home, but if they do, they find their way back.  And every time I pass one on the road on my bike I say to myself, "Why did the chicken cross the road?"  I really do.  Do you think I'm spending too much time alone?

Church bells.  I'll never get tired of church bells.  For an atheist, I seem to spend a lot of time enjoying Italian churchyards and church bells. And in one town there are so many churches that they have scattered the bells a bit so they don't all compete.  You never really know what time it is there.  It's Italian time....it doesn't really matter. And if my phone rings at noon, I know it is someone calling to put their phone up to the bells so I can hear them in case I'm someplace where I can't.  Which is actually somewhat impossible since there are churches and bells almost everywhere. 

 

And finally, there really is a bird that says "cuckoo".  If you tell me that they also live and sing in Chicago, I'll officially call myself cuckoo for not having heard one in 46 years.  (I got a reponse to the blog about the camouflage trees that we have them in Chicago, so I'm kind of expecting the same thing about the bird.)  But how could I have missed this?  If they are in Chicago, they definitely don't tell time as well as the Italian birds because it seems like they go off every fifteen minutes here.  It's just like clockwork.  And they sound EXACTLY the same as the clock.  Exactly.  I'm in a bit of disbelief every time I hear one.  And when I try to tell whomever I'm with when I hear one about my latest discovery, it never goes so well.  I describe the clock and make the sound and they know what I'm talking about, but they don't have them anymore (we do, don't we?). When they did have cuckoo clocks they were called "orologio a cuckoo", perhaps one of the first things I can think of that sounds better in English than Italian.    

The Perfect Ending

When I see posters and bulletins hanging in grocery stores and banks I don't think I ever really wonder about the person that hung them.  But today it was the opposite.  I saw a guy hanging one and it made me wonder about the poster a guy like him would be hanging.  So, I nonchalantly changed the direction I was walking to pass by him as he taped it to the 400-year old stone column in Piazza Liberta.  Fortunately, I didn't get too close before I probably not-so-nonchalantly changed direction again due to the embarassment of my nosiness.  He was hanging a picture of his dead mother (or aunt or grandmother or friend, or hopefully client of his funeral home).
In small towns in Italy when someone dies they hang an announcement about it in a few designated places around town. Every town has a place where lots of them are hanging, but you can also occasionally find one hanging alone in a different zone.  Maybe close to their favorite cafe.  They all have a picture and fortunately, the people are usually old.  Unfortunately, sometimes they're not.  I don't read those.

I don't know if we do this at home or if people still even read the obituaries in the newspaper. I guess we barely have newspapers anymore.  Which I suppose is why yesterday when the bus driver asked me how to say edicola in English, I said that I didn't know.  How did he know I spoke English?  I rode the same bus one time last month and he remembered me.  He'd barely stopped to pick me up, but when he did and I got on he told me that I couldn't just stand there but that I had to flag him down or he wouldn't stop.  Seemed strange.  I was at a bus stop.  Imagine if you had to flag a bus down while standing at a bus stop in Chicago.  Don't they just stop?  Anyway, this time the discussion of the edicola was because I didn't have a bus ticket.  The place to buy them in town is the bar and it's closed on Tuesdays.  It's the only place in town to buy a bus ticket.  So on Tuesdays, you get on, you ride to the other end and you buy your ticket at the edicola when you get off.  That's Italy.  A little backwards sometimes, but it works.  And by the time I got off I'd remembered that the word the bus driver wanted to know was newsstand.  Do we have newsstands anymore?  A couple, I guess.  But here they are still a way of life.  Which reminds me, this started out as a blog about death.
   
Back to the poster distributor.  What a strange thing to do.  If it were me, I think I'd sneak out in the middle of the night to spread the news.  I wouldn't want anyone to see me doing it.  Then again, like I said in the beginning, maybe it's the job of the funeral home.  And since the funeral home probably has a lot to do when someone dies, I've decided to leave some instructions to make things a little easier on everyone when it's my turn. Make a copy of this and keep it somewhere.  I really mean it.  What a cool way to say goodbye.
 

THE PERFECT ENDING FOR A NUT LIKE ME
If you come to my funeral
please bring one flower 
and put it in the giant vase at the front of the room.
It will be the best arrangement ever.

Wear bright colors. 
Stripes. Plaid. Polka dots.  Mix them altogether, if you want.
If I've interrupted your day at the beach, wear your flipflops.
Bow ties, optional.

Ride your bike, if you can.
Maybe even decorate it like the 4th of July.
You'll get a special parking place.
Imagine a funeral home with lots of bikes out front.

Run, if you want.
It's okay if you stink. 
The giant bouquet of flowers will help.

If you have a convertible, come with the top down.
Even if I die in January. 
Wear your winter coat and hat and put the heat in the red.
Just this once.

If you have kids, they're welcome.
If they cry, let them.
If they laugh, don't shush them.

There will be a big bowl of cool paper scraps to make a paper chain.
Write down one thing that you liked about me,
and one thing that you didn't (or two or three or four).

Come hungry.
They'll have cheese, ice cream, pasta, bread, french fries
and chocolate chip cookies, of course.

If you come to my funeral
learn to say goodbye in a different language
and say it out loud as you leave
my last party. 


   

Mr. Ed reruns never made it to Italy

I've seen a lot of different food in the past 7 months and believe it or not, I've even tasted a lot of different food.  Dare I say the new items that have made it on the list of Tenley likes?  I don't think so.  Who knows how I'll feel about them in the next couple of months.
 
I will offer a small list of the things I've tried.  Olives (I ate them with Matteo, of course I liked them), white asparagus (with the warning that it would smell when I went to the bathroom), fried zucchini (with the little black stripes that actually make it look more appetizing), grapefruit (I was tricked into this one.  They don't eat it the way we do and I didn't think it was a grapefruit.  FYI:  it's just as gross the way they eat it), "uovo in camicia" (a raw egg dropped into boiling water.  Magically the white part wraps itself around the yellow and encloses it and cooks it.  It looks like a little ball of mozzarella, which made me want to try it.  But, it was still an egg...ugh!), and horse pizza. Just kidding.  Did you really think I would try horse pizza?  Did you really think horse pizza existed?

Ummmm....it does.  I went out for pizza tonight and that's what my friend ordered.  Okay.  I'm sure you don't exactly order horse pizza like cheese pizza or pepperoni pizza or hawaiian pizza.  But that's what it was.  It was a cheese pizza with horse meat. It's actually called "pizza agli sfilacci di cavallo".  The only word you need to know is cavallo and that means horse. And if I had to give it a vote, I'd give it a neigh.

They'll know you're not Italian

Italian piazzas.  I'm not sure what to compare them to in the States.  They're the center of activity in an Italian town.   Sometimes they're big.  Sometimes they're small.  Sometimes they have a few trees.  Sometimes they don't.  Sometimes they're beautiful--an open square with a fountain in the middle enclosed by a massive stone church on one side, a cafe with umbrellas on another, an arcaded sidewalk on another and il museo civico on the other.  Usually all with peely paint on the colored shutters (that actually open and close instead of the metal ones firmly attached to the houses in the States that function only as bad decoration.) Sadly, some piazzas actually serve as parking lots.  On market day, they're where the vendors come to set up shop.  Every other day, they're where the locals gather to say hello.  Especially on Sunday afternoons.  And in one town in particular, it seems that Sunday afternoons are for the men.  They get dressed up and come stand in a circle and talk.  About what?  I don't know and I probably never will.  But it's nice to look at them in their elegant clothes with their hands crossed behind their backs talking about something.

There's one time of day when an Italian piazza goes dead.  It's at 12:30.  I don't like to be there then.  Well, actually it's kind of growing on me.  I used to not like to be there.  Now that I understand it a little better and I live it a little more, it's kind of nice.  "When in Rome, do as the Romans do."  12:30 is closing time for every small town in Italy. If you're there at exactly 12:30 you can see the shopkeepers locking their doors and pulling down the shades of their shops.  It's time to go home for lunch. They all say "ciao" and quickly head off in their own direction.  Within five minutes the place is a ghost town. And it doesn't wake up again for three hours.

I DO like to be there at 15:25.  All of the same shopkeepers return, say "ciao" again, unlock their doors and pull up their shades.  You can actually hear the town come back to life.  In addition to the shopkeepers coming back to work, the shoppers come back to shop.  It all happens in five or ten minutes and it's as though the place was never empty at all.  Sometimes I'm there for both ends of the process and it's hard to believe it's the same place. If you don't have a watch and you're lost in the side streets of a small Italian town, you can tell the time by the hum of the piazza. You know when it's 15:30.  For sure.

In my opinion, Italian piazzas are only missing one thing. Benches.  In a super small town where the piazza is only about the size of four of my Paris apartments, there are usually benches.  Maybe because the only people left in those small towns are the old people and they won't come out to the piazza if there's no place to sit.  Well, this old lady kind of feels the same.  But, I've decided to break the rules.  And where there are no benches (which is almost everywhere) I sit on the steps.  I'm the only one sitting on the steps. Everyone else is walking by or standing in the middle.  I asked a friend if it was okay to sit there and he said, "As long as you don't mind that everyone will know you're not Italian."  Believe it or not, he sat there with me (as you can see by the photo, he lost his head for a moment) and we listened to some street performers play classical music.  He agreed that it was a nice place to sit, but I'm sure he'll never do it again.  I will.  I guess it's just more proof that I'm growing up.  I used to hide in the corner in a small African village to read my map so the people wouldn't know I was a tourist.  Did I think I could actually hide in an African village?

 

Now, I sit on the steps in Italian piazzas knowing I don't belong there and knowing that everyone else knows I don't belong there either.  I've stepped outside the box.  Why have I always tried so hard to live inside the box when I travel when I'm so happy living outside the box at home?  Maybe this means I finally feel at home in Italy and my friends will have to get used to the fact that when in Rome, Tenley usually doesn't do as the Romans do.