Treat Yourself

I'm going to use the guest towels this week. I want to feel like I'm on vacation. They're not the ones that say HIS and HERS, they're the ones that still feel fluffy like the ones you've already had (you, my American friends) for 10 years; the ones that you whirl in your Whirlpool. We dryerless folks in Italy (most don't have dryers, and those that do use them sparingly because of the cost) are used to towels that can almost stand. We seldom feel that fluffy towel feeling. I usually save my guest towels for guests, but this week I'm going to indulge.

And while I'm at it, I think I'll put that carafe I bought at Crate and Barrel on my nightstand; the one with the little glass that fits upsidedown on the top. It's not terribly convenient for a quick sip at 3am but it's a lot more romantic than my half liter plastic bottle.

This week I'm going to take the extra 10 minutes required to make the homemade tomato sauce I usually only make for visitors; fry a little onion, add a chopped carrot and mash up some fresh tomatoes. And for dessert I think I'll finally find the courage to use the Nestle's chocolate chips my friend sent for my birthday. I've been saving them for the right person, but I've just decided there's no one righter than me.

Sometimes I offer my guests a little downtime and they accept without feeling guilty. This week I'll treat myself to the same. I'll eat my breakfast cookies from a pretty dish instead of the cookie bag inside a plastic bag closed with a clothespin. That's the extra effort it takes to keep them fresh in case I don't get back to that house for a few weeks. And those two ice cream cones a day I promise all of my young visitors sounds like a pretty good idea, too.

Fortunately, some of the things that seem 'guesty' are already part of my daily routine; like driving on the scenic roads even when they aren't the most direct route. I use my china for frozen pizza, not for fancy feasts. And my fancy tea cups? For hot, green milk (that's what I call latte e menta). I drink my CocaZero from a crystal wine glass and eat cheesecake with a silver fork. I don't watch TV (I don't have one) because that's not something to do with guests unless you're suffering from Sundaynitis (my name for that feeling I get on Sunday night) and they're your best friends.

At the end of the week I might just decide to treat myself like a guest for the rest of my life. If I keep my future visitors happy with parmegiano, gelato and la bella vita maybe they won't even notice the crunchy towels. 

Use Your Imagination

It's not every day you're chosen as the most beautiful skier on the mountain. In fact, it's safe to say I've never won that title. But a little imagination can turn an ordinary day (if you call driving your convertible up 1600 meters every Friday morning and skiing in the Dolomites ordinary) into a day where the slopes sparkle with diamonds even when it's cloudy.

Upon arrival I search for the perfect parking place for my peanut-butter-and- jelly-and-potato-chip-break at noon. While the rest of the SUVs pull in and face the lodge (where they'll be lunching on a piece of pizza) I back in to face the mountains covered with fresh snow and pine trees, instead of chairlifts and skiers. If anyone's watching, they see me dance around (because I always have to go the bathroom) while I pull out my skis, pull on my boots and pull up the ragtop.

It took me half the season to decide which pockets suit the essentials for a day on the slopes. Money goes in the pocket on the back of the inside pants. The car key's in the left front pocket of the outside pants. It has a zipper and can't be unzipped until I get back to the car. I tuck a couple of Kleenex in my sleeve (thanks Grandma) and lip stuff in the left coat pocket because my cell phone goes in and out of the right one at least 23 times a day. Once my dance is over, I make my way to the bathroom and then to the hill.  

Every chairlift has one little hut at the bottom and another at the top. And every little hut has a man to man the lift (there are still no women to woman the lift). This year at the beginning of the season my day was made when a lift operator came out of his booth to give me a piece of candy. I can't remember what he said; maybe nothing at all. And with the arrival of the next chair behind me, I only had time enough for a quick grazie. Fortunately, the inside coat pocket on the top left with the granola bar had room for an individually wrapped caramel so they shared the space for a few runs while I contemplated my treat. 

To myself I'd always called this chairlift guy the one with a long ponytail and a super long beard. And I suppose he'd gotten used to me as the girl (or lady) with green, pink and orange coats but always the same grey hair, grey helmet and goggles. So why the caramel? I imagined that around Halloween the designated lift guy bought bags of individually wrapped candy so they could divide it in their huts at the beginning of the season and give it to their favorite females of the day. (For more information on a similar game I invented in 1984 click here and read Go ahead. Make my day.)

https://10leaves.blogspot.com/search?q=go+ahead+make+my+day

Self-help gurus call my take on the explanation for the candy 'a positive perspective.' But have you ever heard a parent tell a child to find the positive perspective when they complained about being bored? We tell kids to use their imaginations, and unless you think you're too grown up, you should try it.

For me, if a beautiful morning drive up the mountain, a day of skiing and a sunset drive back down isn't enough to completely fill my soul, imagining that I'd been selected as one of the sparkling diamonds in the snow makes my annual ski pass worth every centesimo.
 

Travel Blues

Vacations are a good topic for English lessons. Before their departure, students have to tell me about the upcoming adventure using the future tense. The real teacher's pets send me a couple of messages from the road in present tense. Then when they get home it's all in the past. And seeing that I've already been most of the places they're going, I can round out the lessons correcting their nouns (people, places and things) and adjectives.

I'm often sad to hear how much countries have changed, but thankful to have seen them when I did. I know others have been to these places long before me, just like I was there long before today's Instagram travelers. I appreciate my older, adventurous audiences silently satisfying me when I spoke of sleeping on the roof of a mud hut in Mali to the sounds of the village kids playing in the midnight moonlight; as much as I felt like the first, I now know I wasn't. I try to give my students the same silent satisfaction, but it's not easy for a know-it-all like me.

Recently I've been thinking a lot about packing up (not packing) my backpack and leaving the world's people, places and things unbothered by tourism. The thought came after a 50-year old student told me about his itinerary on an upcoming trip to Morocco. I patiently listened to his list of overly organized activities and retained my remarks. But when the scheduled event for Day 5 was to taste Moroccon food, my trip advisor comments couldn't be contained.

If you've figured me out at all, you know I'm not adventurous when it comes to food; but even I wouldn't wait five days for an expensive tasting tour to find falafel in Fez. If countries that were once on the U.S. Department of State Travel Advisory list are now filled with tourists searching for the comforts of home, it's probably time for me to start looking for the comforts of home at home.  

Let There Be Emotion

The last time someone told me that people either love me or hate me I saw the bright side. I wasn't bothered by the statement in the past, but I've finally realized I should take it as a compliment.

Being loved or hated means having a strong enough effect on someone to evoke at least some kind of emotion; be it good or bad, at least they feel my presence. If you hate me it means I have a personality. I might rub you the wrong way, but a bad rub to one is a massage to another. And knowing there are people out there that I rub the right way makes the haters fade away.

It's not to say I find joy in being hated. But is there joy in feeling that your place in someone's life is met with the same indifference as the __________?

I had to leave that blank because the only people I feel indifferent about are the one's I don't know. I could have written the guy at the gas station, but when I go for gas we talk about skiing. Then I thought about the mailman, but when he shows up on his scooter I teach him new phrases in English. The lady on the running path smiles, the guy at the dump saves me broken ceramics and the old people in the mountains and at the sea wave and say hello; I find indifference difficult.

So go ahead and make my day. Tell me you love me or hate me. But please don't say I'm just ok, because I take that as a real insult.

Alternative English

Last year, in search of exciting extracurricular activities, I announced to my night class that I prostitute my English. Luckily my students don't have a great grasp of the language because the use of exciting extracurricular activities and prostitution in the same sentence wasn't really the best choice. The right word would have been barter, but had I chosen that I might not have had their full attention. I explained that I would offer my services (speaking English) in return for something they could offer me.

At the end of the class a guy asked if I could ski. Then he asked if I could REALLY ski. I think it's safe to say I can't REALLY play the ukelele or the piano and I can't REALLY paint or write. But I convinced him that I could REALLY ski. So, he bought the lift ticket and lunch and I spoke English for 11 hours.  Luckily, a year later he still needs help with English, so last week we had another beautiful day in the mountains.

I've also been treated to rock climbing (not the wall at the gym) and backcountry skiing (not just going off the slopes at the ski resort). Those days the guy learned a lot of scary new words the  teacher had never used in the classroom. 

Camping in Slovenia with a mountain guide was probably my best gig so far. He put up the tents, cooked and found the hikes. All I had to do was speak English and laugh at his mistakes.

Sadly, it takes two to tango and I'm having a hard time finding a ballerino (dancer, not a male ballerina). I thought someone might like sweet nothings whispered in their ear while waltzing, but I have no takers. It's possible that it's impossible. The men that know how to ballroom dance probably wouldn't be able to hear my whispered words over the music. And those that could, would prefer a much younger ballerina.

Last week I may have met my match in a new student that owns a pizzeria. At the end of the first lesson he proposed that I stop for dinner, we speak English and he pick up the tab (prostituting pizza?). For most folks it wouldn't be a bad deal. A pizza with porcini, prosciutto and parmegiano and a nice glass of wine is definitely more expensive than the hourly rate of the neighborhood English teacher. However, with my unalterable cheese pizza and CocaZero, I'd only be gaining weight and losing money. But now that I think about it, maybe I have another trick (no pun intended) up my sleeve. I can propose paying for the pizza in return for a little cha-cha-cha.
 

Time for Tombola

Just like most years in Italy, I was once again invited to play Tombola (Bingo) on New Year's Eve. I'm not a lover of group games. Put me in front of a puzzle if you want me to stay up really late. But puzzles aren't made for ten people, so I said yes to Tombola.

Each player had two cards to control. In case you haven't played for awhile (like lucky me, until I moved to Italy) you no longer place chips on a little cardboard card with numbers. Now the card lives in a plastic case and has tiny plastic windows that you slide down when your number is called. If you ask me, it takes a bit of the fun out of it. Trying to keep the bingo chips or pennies (or in Italy, beans) from sliding onto the neighboring squares used to be the most exciting part of the game.   

But this year's most exciting part was Cristina, the girl who called the numbers. She drew each one with enthusiasm, asking for silence then waiting for shrieks. She seemed sincerely hopeful that every one of us would win every time.

There were big baskets filled with different-sized prizes wrapped in newspaper. Three, four and five numbers in the same line were all prize-worthy, but it wasn't until all of your windows were shut that you could yell TOMBOLA. As winners opened travel tissues and scented soaps wrapped in newspaper like they were opening a tiny blue box from Tiffany's, I mused about the magic of playing this silly game on the last day of the year; it's nothing more than connecting (or reconnecting).

I've already decided I'm spending next New Year's Eve at my friend's nursing home calling numbers for Tombola. (See December 31, 2025 post.) If I can breathe the same energy into that sterile room of walkers and wheelchairs as our hostess breathed into me, they're going to have to add a new wing to the building because Maria and her other almost 100-year old friends are going to be around for awhile.

Thanks to Cristina's enthusiasm I was reminded that what you give is what you get. Therefore, I have no fear that trading my glittery gold nail polish for a package of plastic clothespins will leave me hanging out to dry. It can only mean that 2026 is sure to sparkle and shine....BINGO!     
 

It's Time for BINGO

Is THERE a party with a game that BINGO is its name-o? (It sounds better if you sing it.) I ask because in Italy that party is a New Year's Eve party. I really don't think I found room for it in Michigan between my 9pm dinner and the beach fire, but I've been away so long maybe I've just forgotten.

In any case, while my fellow Americans are joining Dick Clark's replacement in Times Square my fellow Italians (young, old, cool, dorky, educated and uneducated) will be emotionally putting little chips on little cards to win little prizes.

The only year I really liked the game was in 2021 when I taught a 91-year old lady in the mountains how to play her first game. In the beginning she was about as interested as I was. She was grumpy and groaned and found it senseless.  She'd only gone to school until the second grade and I wasn't sure she knew her numbers past 20, so I sat by her and played two cards, saying one was hers.

After her daughter got Bingo and took the first prize, Maria's mood lightened a little. I decided to deliberately miss a number on what we called 'her' card and was happy when a wrinkled finger silently showed up with a light tap. I understood no one was to know she was playing and I kept her secret safe. She didn't win a game that night, but if she had I wonder which of we two'd have yelled BINGO.

Now Maria lives in a nursing home. I went to see her yesterday for her 95th birthday. She's as sharp as ever and fortunately her fingers don't seem any more wrinkled. I imagine they'll play Bingo tonight; what better place than a nursing home to put little chips on little cards to win little prizes. I'm sure Maria's looking forward to it as much as I am. From one grumpy friend who finds it senseless to another, good luck Maria and Happy New Year.