Cinderelly, Cinderelly...

I'm sure you're on the edge of your seats out there in blogville waiting for me to regale you with stories of Holy Week. Indeed, I do have tales to tell about both the Good-Friday-to-Play-Hooky and what the Coniglio di Pascua brought me on Sunday morning.

But tonight, I'm finishing up the last of cleaning before the guest-visiting season begins tomorrow ... if by "cleaning" you mean "using the long arm of the vacuum to suck the last two days' growth of cobwebs from the eaves" and by "tonight" you mean "nigh-towards-one-AM* when I finally finish work at ye ole' day job."

And ironing the pillowcases. Who IRONS pillowcases?!!? Please believe me: in America, I was not this type of girl. Here, it's not an option, if you have an Italian dryer, which must be loosely translated into tyer-of-things-into-crinkly-little-balls. (I know. I'm bitching about the much-coveted clothes dryer. I'm sorry! Yes, hanging them out in the sun is a slightly less crinkly solution, but it's weather-permitting.) Subject for pensive thought another day is that I honestly cannot fathom how Italian women actually get it all done - laundry, cooking 2 FULL meals a day, gardening, childcare, cleaning for large families - on a regular basis with such s-l-o-o-o-w methods for doing things.

(Okay, and they probably didn't spend 5 hours this weekend finishing the first season of LOST on DVD, either. Fair. But hey, it was a holiday!)

Okay, my aching back from the almost-full weekend of weed pulling and cleaning coupled with a full day in an ergonomically disastrous desk chair is slightly overstating the drama here. Except The Mom is among the impending guests and I'd like to continue to allow her the illusion that she raised a girl who knew how to clean house. Or rather, that she raised a girl who is smart enough to use a small percentange of monthly income to choose the services of a cleaning lady instead of a manicurist: which, she did, except aforementioned cleaning saint is suffering from a broken arm this month. Hence, I'm playing Cinderella substitute this weekend (and a poor one at that.)

Next time you're here to visit, just before you rest your weary head on a halfheartedly pressed pillowcase, you'll marvel at how lovely everything looks in its candle and fire-lit glow after your third or fourth glass of wine in the crisp Tuscan air. Just don't look too closely at the eaves, I'm sure I missed a cobweb somewhere.



(*footnote: for reasons unbeknownst to me, I really just wanted to use the word 'nigh' in a sentence. Must be all the ancient influence this past week! And did I just say 'unbeknownst'?! It's definitely time for bed!)

Beware the False Cognates!

Señora Smith, my high-school spanish teacher, taught me the concept of "false cognates," and it's one of the few things that actually stuck.

Cognate, meaning 'seeming similar, generically alike'. False: um; not true.
I guess was she was saying is that when you're learning a foreign language, it's easy to get sucked in by words that sound like words you already know in English.

True cognates are easy to find: Azzuro and blu (azure and blue). Puntuale (punctual). Offrire (to offer). Onesta' (honesty).

False cognates (while not quite as serious as having false gods) can be tricky. Here are a few that can trip you up ... and I welcome other Italophiles to add to the list! (the Italian words are in bold to try to keep it all clear.)

I've already mentioned here one of the most conversationally dangerous false cognates - but it bears repeating. Preservativo is NOT a preservative, it's a condom. Preservative: conservante.

Magazzino: you might think this is magazine, but no, actually 'Warehouse' - often used to describe a collection of stores together. My neighbor just yesterday referred jokingly to his house as a 'magazzino pazzo' (crazy warehouse.) Equally confusing... To ask for a magazine, in Italian, you would say rivista, which it would be easy to falsely-cognate into meaning "revisit". But no. To revisit something is actually rivedere, literally "re-see" in Italian.

(Hey... you still with me here? I know dorky language gymnastics doesn't blow everyone's skirt up. But really, this is good stuff!)

Fabricca: the Danny Devito in all of us wants to think that this is the Italian word for "fabric." Nope. Fabric is actually tessuto, and fabbrica really means factory (like'fabricate' - which makes sense if you can wrap your head around it.) Though it's easy to think that factory would be fattoria -- which, nope, is NOT a factory, but rather a farm. Or, as I like to think of it to keep it all straight in my head, a factory where the workers are animals.

Linguistic mastery: it's all in the little tricks.

Zap!

It's a 220V/50Hz electric world here, versus the 110V/60Hz that we have in the US. Higher voltage, lower frequency. (That can actually describe LOTS of things!) We also have THREE, count 'em, different kinds of plugs. Thin prongs, three prongs, fat prongs. My life is a panoply of adaptors.

But some things are universal: as if by conspiratorial agreement, all the lightbulbs still choose the same week to burn out.

Dinner by candlelight and soft-glow-of-the-computer is so romantic.

"And they call it Puppy love..."

If I seem distracted lately, it's because I've fallen in love.

And, well -- we've been spending all sorts of time getting to know each other; hours staring at each other... me learning how to push his buttons.

His name is Blu. He's my new MacBook Pro (yes, with the Intel Core Duo Processor, she winks and says knowingly ...) As if I had any idea what that meant two weeks ago!

In keeping with my anthropomorphic tendencies, of COURSE it has a name. He is named in honor of the hair color of the "Genius" (that seriously was his job title!) who spent two-plus hours with me in the store getting Blu up and running, transferring files from 'that other machine.' For my personal Genius, the guy who held my hand through the early stages of the awkward transition from being a PC person, never once uttering a condescending word; my very first tourguide to the fantasyland that is MacWorld. His name, blue-haired-Genius-boy, was actually Scott, and Apple corporate is going to get a gushy letter praising him and, honestly, the entire 'switching' experience.

But it was his hair that was so striking. It was a visible symbol of everything that I switched to Mac to be: one of the cool kids. Someone on the cutting edge. Totally comfortable in uniqueness. Defying the masses. In on a secret. Confident and sexy in a catch-you-off-guard-quirky kind of way.

They DO say, you know, 'once you go Mac, you never go back.' I totally drank the koolaid, and I can't get enough. Oh, Blu, if loving you is wrong, I don't want to be right.

My Mac Blu. Yes, it's spring, and love is indeed in the air.

Buzzkill!

Aaaaaaah, Spring. It's impossible not to love it: Tender buds creep forth from the soil to greet the sun. The grass is preternaturally, electrically green and you can literally watch it grow. Love is in the air, the birds speak excitedly to each other as they flit from branch to branch, and your skin drinks in the sun's rays like a dehydrated man stumbling on an oasis in the desert.

And the hatching of the annual annoyance: a gazillion flies. The very definition of 'buzzkill' in an otherwise beautiful season.

I had nearly forgotten the familiar constant buzz of being divebombed by flies that appear from nowhere. And enormous ones, at that. They must feed on the pasta.

Only a few days into the hatch, and I'm almost desperate enough to try THIS. (Isn't the internet an amazing thing?!?!)

Garden Gossip: the death toll

Today, a crisp clear Sunday, has been spent pruning and weeding and taking stock of the damage that a colder-than-normal winter has done to the garden.

I love weeding and pruning, it's a great workout and stress reliever all in one. Especially the giant prickly weeds, I must confess a slightly sadistic pleasure in yanking them out. I probably should see a shrink about that.

At the end of the day, I have rosy cheeks and that good-honest-day's-work-in-the-sun ache in my bones. In the shower (that feels better than any shower I remember taking in a long time), I reflect on the death toll:

Two small boxwoods
Two young cardoons
One jade plant
Nearly all of one rose bush
Half of one unidentifiable shrub that I accidentally backed over in the snowstorm.

About 1/6 of all my lawn - lost not to the cold, but to the incredibly powerful noses and feet of the cinghiale as they 'rooted' looking for food.

The lemons and oranges will come out next week, according to my neighbor. They're tired of being stuck inside the limonaia and I don't blame them! One is throwing off his fruit in anguish. The fresh air will do them good.

I spent about an hour hacking away the dead majority of of one entire giant sage (salvia?) bush in the front yard. There was a breath of new growth in a few places near the base. Its smaller sisters on either side of it seemed fine... perhaps this one was a less hearty variety?

Shockingly, the fruit trees that made it through last summer have all come back, even the tender baby pomegranete. The espalliered pears are beautiful and blooming.

I won't know about the grapevines for a while yet; they wake up late, apparently.

Lost all or most of about six rosemary plants, some young and others very established.

Plants are ultimately a lot like people, I guess - it's hard to say what makes some stronger than others when times get difficult. Occasionally the ones who look so fragile surprise you, and sometimes the ones you think will be tough crack under pressure.

Quintet of Quality Quotations

Do not ask what the world needs. Instead, ask what makes you come alive. Because what the world needs is more people who have come alive.
--Thurmond Whitman

Follow your bliss. Find where it is and don't be afraid to follow it.
-- Joseph Campbell

You are the maker of yourself. By virtue of the thoughts that you encourage: mind is the master weaver, both of the inner garment of character and the outer garment of circumstance. As you may before have woven in ignorance and pain, you may now weave in enlightenment and happiness.
-- (taken from) James Allen, As Man Thinketh

Do or Do Not, There is no Try.
--Yoda

Take time, darling, also to smell the roses and to make friends, it is so important.
-- My grandfather, Spence, as written in his memoirs.

Thanks to "Josh Baskin" - he who has finally earned himself the right nickname, whose conversation and outreach reminded me of these very real truths today, and continually. I am a better person for knowing him, and I know my grandfather would be proud.

I had a hankering,

And I was feeling lazy. It's the end of a long week of reconnection.

So instead of doing something more complicated, I made myself a big bowl of popcorn for dinner.

In a house sans-microwave, that requires actually putting kernels in the bottom of a large kettle and adding olive oil, turning on the gas, donning protective goggles and oven mitts, and carefully wielding wooden spoon and kettle lid.

Less than ten minutes later, eccola!: perhaps the most perfect batch of olive-oil laden crunchy corn goodness I have ever tasted. A dash of french sea salt (could I BE more of a snob?!) and I'm in warm, crunchy, greasy-fingered heaven.

I laugh as I remember talking to my neighbor about this subject about six months ago. I'm not sure how it came up, but suddenly I wanted to know the word for 'popcorn'. I went through the full explanation in Italian, using the words I KNOW to "talk around" the word I wanted to learn:

"what's the word for ... it's a type of food, you make it from many small pieces of dry, raw corn, when you put them in oil and heat them up, they sort of explode. In America, we eat it when we watch movies... "

She followed my every word (she's a very good teacher). Thought carefully, then said, "oh! You must mean Pop-corn".

Oh, geez. I just spent all that energy to learn a word that's the same in Italian and English?!?! It's always the easy ones that sneak up and surprise you.

The best things in life are free...

"You wasted $150,000 on an education you coulda got for a buck fifty in late charges at the public library" (Matt Damon playing Will Hunting in the eponymous movie)

"Education is hanging around until you've caught on" (R. Frost)

"You cannot teach a man anyhing; you can only help him find it in himself" (Galileo Galilei)

I have made frequent mention of my struggling Italian. Well, here's the thing about that: I am fairly confident that I could speak much better Italian than I currently do, using any of the following techniques:

1) Watch only Italian television *(which I do, save for the occasional DVD'd episode of Grey's Anatomy or Lost. Check!)

2) Refuse to speak in English to anyone (Except, hmmm. I have this pesky 40hour a week full time job, headquarted in America. They'd get a little peeved. Plus, I do have friends here from other countries - UK, Germany, etc, and often we are all just lazy - it's easier to converse in the common language that we're all a bit more proficient in than to struggle through in Italian).

3) Stop traveling out of Italy for long periods of time. (ref. 'pesky job,' above)

4) Be disciplined enough to spend three hours a day memorizing verb tables. Even one hour. Anything. If I could learn just through the osmosis of having books on my shelf, I'd be a genius on so many topics!

5) PERHAPS, have taken any sort of a class, ever. Guilty on this one. No, I have never taken an Italian class (here or in the US). For a while, my excuse was my unpredictable schedule. Now, I think I may just be generally opposed to the idea (ref. the gospel according to Will Hunting, above).

See, in a chat with a new friend, he mentioned that he's spending 42Euros per session for a 2 hour class, twice a week. Not-independently-wealthy-me does a quick calculation: That's $50 a class, $100 a week, $400 a month. (plus, for me, the minimum $10 per session for gas and parking fees to drive back and forth from class). I'm relatively confident that my approach is nearly as effective:

Allocate that SAME amount of money (or less!) to do things like buy new friends a cup of coffee, glass of wine, lunch, dinner... and ask them to only speak to me in Italian, and correct me when I say something stupid, and answer the nagging questions about when I really use the conditional tense of the verb, or whatever. Spend time talking to the bartender at the coffee bar. Especially in a small town, I'm amazed at people's willingness to teach. The beauty of this is the making of friends at the same time, classic two birds with one stone. And we can talk about real life useful things, like how to prune the salvia in my yard and what to expect during holy week... not 'where is the library' (which they teach you in every foreign language class and phrase book but I have yet to use). And I can go at my pace, not that of the slowest student in the class.

Oh, don't get me wrong: I'm not saying it's necessarily the most efficient or structured method, but in a world of limited time and money, I do suggest it is an effective one. It just requires a little less shyness and a little more tenacity.
What do I have to lose?

Yes, Frost and Galileo would be proud: I'm hanging around until I find my inner Italian, one interaction at a time.

Why I worship the sunsets

(Every now and again, no smartass commentary is required.)

Calling all Catholics...

Okay, we're officially on countdown to Holy Week here, which - despite my aforementioned skepticism about organized religion, I'm quite looking forward to. The home of the Catholic Church is bound to do it up in style. (Plus, I need a new hat.)

My dear, sweet, wonderful, closest-thing-I've-got-to-a-real-friend in the 'hood next door neighbor (mother of my 2 and 4 year old boyfriends) called today to chat. At some point towards the end of the call, she described something having to do with a ritual of holy week (settimana santa), or the leadup thereof ...

The gist of that part of the conversation was: Something about a tradition, a group coming to visit to the house, bringing holy water, offering the benediction, accepting an 'offering' (not required, she made a point of that...) That it was good to make an appointment? Maybe later this week, when the weather is nicer?

Now, she speaks ZERO english. And she KNOWS my Italian, ahem, isn't aces. And she knows I'm not Catholic. And she stopped twice to ask if I understood, and I said 'sort of': The words, yes. The concept, no. I told her I was around all week. For the cultural experience of it, if nothing else, I'm totally in. Plus, if it makes her happy, it makes me happy. But anyone got any idea what I'm in for? I had no idea the Catholic Church made house calls. If they can do windows, too, I might convert.

(JillyBean? DaisyBoy? Tearjerker/PoetLaureate? Old Soul? N.Winkust, Timmo-san, AngelLady? Where are my staunch catholics out there to shed some light??)

By the way, I mentioned to a different neighbor who has rabbits as pets that they are universally considered the 'symbol of easter' in America. Easter Bunny, all that. That the 'bunny' brings chocolates to children the way the Befana brings gifts to kids on the Epiphany here (like Santa, but later.) She was simply befuddled.

Aaaah, cultural outreach. One wacky American tradition at a time.

3 to 24

The smell of fresh cut grass still lingers from yesterday, the first 'hacking' of the season. And it SERIOUSLY needed it after the burst of sunshine we've had these past few days.

And now, my handy new computer 'widget' that tells me the weather forecast for the week is giving me heart palpitations.

Tomorrow night's low is 3. Monday's high is 24. (That's 3C=37F and 24C=75F)

I'm sure Shakespeare or someone equally eloquent has a relevant famous quote that captures my thoughts here. In the absence of that, there's an old German proverb, "Women are as Fickle as April Weather". Damn! It's rare I agree with my German friends on a whole lot, but there it is! (So far the list of agreement includes this, and beer, and sausage.)

Not putting away the wool socks or winter jacket just yet.

Oh, what a beautiful morning!

Since I was up anyway (!!), it was a gorgeous chilly morning for a hike, an attempt to burn off some of the strange nervous energy. It's still cold and winter-y enough to create magical fog on some mornings, like living in the midst of - or above! - the clouds.

I am not, for clarity, tempted to give up my sunset and stargazing addictions in favor of mornings. But a little occasional variety (even forced) isn't bad for the soul.

Confounded

Anyone who has known me for very long can tell you I'm not a morning person. Many would tell you that left to my own devices, a deep, snuggly, wonderful sleep - one where there is that rare commodity of nowhere to be the next morning, no alarm to wake you - is among my very favorite of all pastimes.

I can count on one hand the number of sunrises I have VOLUNTARILY (and without the requirement of work) witnessed.

Slightly higher, perhaps requiring two hands, the number of all-nighters I have ever pulled. Once or twice when the rigors of college demanded it. An all-night final packing before a big move. Occasionally in my adult life when there were ... well, better things to do than sleep. Perhaps once or twice when desperately sick? I'm searching my memory, but NEVER do I recall simply not being able to sleep.

I'm not enjoying this 'first time' experience.

Here - between 6 and 9 hours ahead of the US - I am accustomed to working 'til midnight or so, going to bed late, waking at the leisurely hour of 9ish. It's a routine that suits me, actually.

Last night, no dice. In bed around twoish, I tossed for about 45 minutes, then turned the light back on to read, generally a sure-fire sleep aid. 357 pages later, the Broker was finished, and I was still ... confused. And the sky lightened, and the sun came up, and I... still... can't ... sleep!

No particularly weighty issues on my mind outside of the norm. No spooky noises. Nothing at all, really; it's the oddest feeling. Searching my brain, I actually had no caffeine yesterday. I haven't had any alcohol in 4 days (random luck, not a specifically orchestrated detox). No stimulants or depressants in my body that could account for the strange behavior. (There's at least one smartass out there who will likely suggest it is EXACTLY that - no stimulants or depressants at ALL in my system, for the first time in HOW many years?!?!)

Doctors say that you can't "make up" for lost sleep, but I've got to guess that my body has revolted and is reclaiming the awake hours it was cheated out of during the legendary trip-lag sleep of last week. I have to believe that, because if I'm developing adult-onset insomnia, it's going to make me really cranky.

Making me even more irascible is the reality that this has totally shot my last five days of time-acclimatization all to hell. In order to follow my own well-tested body-clock-resetting prescription (usually after an overseas international flight), I now should force myself, at all costs, to stay awake until 'normal bedtime' again in the local time zone.

I hate it when my own advice comes back to haunt me.

Anyone want in on the pool for how long I actually last?

Bedside PhD in Philosophy, one world view at a time

I just read an interview with a guy named Sam Harris. Referred to as a 'contemporary Lucretius', he has authored a book called: The End of Faith: Religion, Terror and the Future of Reason.

I have said in more than one cocktail party conversation that it's my feeling that organized religion is the root of many of the world's problems. Not SPIRITUALITY or the belief in a higher being, but organized religion. Terrorism, intolerance - so much of the horror that I see in the world has direct ties to organized religions.

I will leave final judgement until I have actually READ the book, but the topics outlined in the interview do seem to be fodder to continue to inform my views on this point - which, in the right audience, can result in fascinating social discourse.

The interview itself makes reference to a number of figures, presumably the intelligentsia in philosophy / faith and spirituality -- many of whom I am mortified not to recognize. One of my major regrets is that I never pursued a degree in philosophy; I so would have enjoyed the debate of it all. Perhaps it's my wishful inner world religions student that has me reading weighty 'history and future of the world' kind of stuff here in the quiet of the farmhouse because it's only in the quiet that I can really get my mind around it. Then again, perhaps its only from a distance that I can see society clearly. (As if Italy is not itself a society?!?!)

It is worthy of ironic laughter that I'm reimmersing myself in the study of philosophies suitable for engaging social discourse at the moment when my current environmental language skills are suitable to hold aforementioned discourse with four year olds. But I'm sure they'll be able to teach me all about Pokemon in return.

But I will not be daunted. Sam Harris, you have earned yourself a date with my bedside reading table.

Regardless of your political or religious persuasion, the money quote, which prompted me to laugh out loud at its pointed obviousness:

"When people make outlandish claims, without evidence, we stop listening to them--except on matters of faith. I am arguing that we can no longer afford to give faith a pass in this way. Bad beliefs should be criticized wherever they appear in our discourse--in physics, in medicine, and on matters of ethics and spirituality as well. The President of the United States has claimed, on more than one occasion, to be in dialogue with God. Now, if he said that he was talking to God through his hairdryer, this would precipitate a national emergency. I fail to see how the addition of a hairdryer makes the claim more ludicrous or more offensive."

You make an interesting point, Sam Harris. Amazon.com one-click ordering, here I come. Anyone wanting to offer an alternate view, there's still space on the bedside table. Viaggiatore's one-room-farmhouse philosophy PhD is now in session.

If French's is America's Favorite ...

Then what is Italian mustard?

The answer? NOT EERILY FLUORESCENT YELLOW.

Although at first glance, something didn't seem right, I seem to be surviving just fine.

Senape: apparently Italian for 'just plain ground up little mustard seeds with no fake dyes added to catch your attention. We get it, we're not as popular as our American cousin, French's, or our French cousin, Grey Poupon, but we do just fine, thanks for asking. Senape: mustard, like nature might have intended, if nature was in the condiment making business.'


(The previous commentary brought to you by my sandwich, which I made at 10 pm when I abruptly realized I hadn't eaten dinner. Living in one time zone and working in another - six hours earlier! - has some interesting hazards!)

Why ask for bad dreams?

I'm not easily spooked, but it crossed my mind tonight that maybe ... just maybe ... Truman Capote's "In Cold Blood" shouldn't be on my bedside table here in the farmhouse in the midst of nowhere.

Strange Bedfellows

Politics here in Italy are perhaps MORE hotly and passionately debated than they are in the US - indeed, it's one thing that quickly evokes familiar memories of my Washington, DC home. (Though here, blissfully, I have neither a vote nor enough working knowledge of the issues to truly form an opinion, which allows me to step back and more easily see the humor in it all). Here, the election for Prime Minister takes place in a week's time: televised debates occuring, among friends emailed jokes are rampant. Berlusconi is hardly well-loved, but there doesn't seem to be a coherent and compelling alternative who can ultimately muster popular support (is this sounding familiar?!?!). People will vote on the lesser of the evils, and it is a tight race at this moment. Judging from my neighbors' commentary, it may be an issue of the devil they know. (There *is* an interesting law, that I would love to see the US adopt, that no further results of 'opinion polling' can be released starting 15 days before the election.) Like many things here, their political system is a fragmented and unsustainable situation with not much hope for long-term improvement.

Italy is home to more than 15 political parties, each with a pet issue. The two candidates for prime minister are actually put forward by 'alliances' made between these parties. The two alliances are called La Casa delle Liberta' (House of Freedoms) and formerly the Olive Tree Coalition, now known more obliquely as L'Unione (The Union). Some of the sub-parties have almost comical names (translated, of course): Rose in the Fist, Italy of Values, Movement for Autonomy, and Tricolor Flame.

What I *do* like about the system is that the alliances between smaller parties allows for possible, indeed probable and frequent, shifts in the balance of power. I have long thought that the US two-party system is overly simplistic and concentrates too much power on the fringes of both (case-in-point, witness the far-conservative-right in the immigration debate).

I am barely conversant in the Italian socio-political dynamic, but I do feel that it is my obligation to try to be a student of it while I am here. I appreciate the opportunity to see another system from the inside, to attempt to learn its complicated structure, and to realize the rhetoric from both sides so rarely reaches the lives of real people. We have more in common than we think. Humor becomes the only common ground, I recall thinking as a slideshow poking fun at ALL the candidates was shown at a dinner last night. When intelligent people truly feel they can do nothing to do but laugh at the options, it is indeed a frightening reality.

Speaking of humor, today's post was inspired by a debate with my friend Timmo-san a few weeks ago. We have since been trading good-natured email jabs on 'why he's not a democrat' and 'why I am neither Democrat nor Republican - but less a Republican'. I stumbled across this (attribution to Rep. Linda Sanchez), and simply couldn't resist:

Why don't I date Republicans? Because they make love like they make war: they lie to get in and don't have a plan for what to do once they get there.

Hyperbole? Sure. Sometimes laughter is the best medicine.

*(speaking of laughter, I moved from a city that can't get convicted criminal (former Mayor) Marion Berry out if its political system to a country where one of the players in the elections is Alessandra Mussolini, you guessed it, granddaughter of Benito. Indeed, we who cannot learn from the past are doomed to repeat it...!)

Prima Primavera

Taking nature's cue, one of my first priorities upon returning is for the interior of the house to also change seasons. It's my first full spring here, and I'm eager to watch the transition outside, but impatient for the inside of the house to feel less cold and stark. Though I had thankfully dispensed with Christmas before I left (in the annual 'burning of the greens' ceremony, after which The Mom and I were lucky still to have eyebrows), I did have some dried silver/purple/white winter floral arrangements that looked positively ridiculous now that crocuses and daffodils are peeking their heads up and the sun is spurring the grass into growth mode. Today's 'spring cleaning' (read: eliminating the layer of dust and bug carcasses that miraculously appeared during my absence - gotta love old houses!) gave way to little spring decorating... and just with a few arrangements: it's amazing how much sunnier I feel with fresh flowers in the house, even though it's still fireplace-chilly at night.

Every now and again, you roll a two or a twelve...

I'm one of those people who never wins ANYTHING.

Really. Perhaps we all feel this way... I don't know quite why it is, but I simply am never the winner of raffles, drawings, giveaways. I wait, holding my breath (and of course sucking in my stomach) while the drawing happens, practicing my cool and sophisticated yet surprised smile, but ... it's never my name they call.
"Hazel Edwards from Bay City, come on down!" Sigh.

Oh, I'm not a TOTAL loser of things; I've won the occasional 'merit' award (the seventh grade spelling bee, the town fair cherry pie baking contest when I was 10, craziest hat at the Gold Cup race, for example), but never random drawings.

Apparently that rule applies only in America.

I arrived back home tonight to find that my name had been selected at random (I honestly didn't even realize there was an incentive/drawing) in the "Aquisita e Vinci" (buy and win) game that the official Italian olympics website was holding.

Just before I left to go back to the US, I ordered a ballcap as a souvenir/belated Christmas present for the major sportsfan guy in my office whose name I had drawn in the 'secret santa' ceremony. I had sent him a note telling him I would bring him back some Olympic trinket from Italy, thinking for sure I would find all sorts of stores sprinkled with tchotchke in the major Italian cities I was in during Dec/Jan. But, No.

Nothing. Nothing with the rings. No Torino-emblazoned anything. Nothing with Team Italia. Nada, zip, zero, zilch. So finally, I broke down, went online to the official website, and spent the extortion-worthy amount of twelve *extra* euros for shipping of a twelve euro cap.

And in a box waiting for me when I arrived back to Italia was a note from the olympic website telling me I had won the enclosed Samsung D600 quadband cellphone, brand-spankin' new. Huh!!! That last-minute desperation order was magically enough to win me a free cellphone, in a drawing that I didn't even know EXISTED?!?! (I don't know beans about technology, but it seems to be a pretty swank phone.)

OKAY, all you out there who have been bamboozled and then solicited by those crazy timeshare people, I know what you're all thinking. The communications are all in Italian, but they're clear enough that it doesn't seem to be a scam. They mailed the phone to me, no questions asked, no apparent strings attached. It seems that Samsung must have been an Olympic sponsor of some sort. Then again, maybe noone really ordered, so it was between me (with an Italian address) and some enterprising guy in Bangalore with a giant Ebay account, a 50-50 shot.

Up next on my Italian lesson plan: finding the expression for 'don't look the gift horse in the mouth.' and 'I'd like to buy a lottery ticket, please.'