Things I’ve Learned in Italy this Week

• Cellulite is an illness. And the pharmacy’s got the cure (or, at the very least, an awful lot of euros from peddling that particular idea).

• Feragosto is really just the Italian Marathon of Eating holiday, despite evidence that it’s all about the Assumption of Mary. Tho there may be something to this stuff about it having ties to the pre-Roman Catholic celebration of the goddess, Diana, as I was instructed between courses to go home and make babies.

• Adding Bicarbonato di sodio  to your laundry is truly a great way to make your whites whiter. Really.

• A handful of peanuts and dark chocolate Perugina mini chocolate chips make a very poor substitute for a Reese’s peanut butter cup.

Holy Water

We were sitting in the pub in Acquasanta having a half-assed half-Italian-half-English conversation with one of the girls who works there when a man with a bald head and a long white beard shuffled in wearing jeans, a sweater and sandals without socks.

I thought I’d seen him around town during Christmas-time wearing a monk’s tunic and maybe I had.  He was in the pub now to ask if he could bless the place.  Turns out, he’s a hermit, maybe a Franciscan friar, who lives in a house up in the surrounding hills. Going around blessing businesses and homes is something  he does before Easter.

The owner obliged. She and the girl behind the bar moved over to him, explaining as he looked over at us not moving from our barstools that we were Americans. That seemed to be all the explanation needed. They bowed their heads and he began the prayer. We heathens, I mean Americans, stayed where we were.

Near the end of his spiel, he took a little silver wand-type thing, which added quite a bit to his modern wizardly appearance and shook holy water about the girls, the restaurant and even us Heath-americans as he stated, “In nome del padre, e del figlio e dello…”

I watched as he aimed the shaker in our vicinity and with the words “Spirito Santo” got a direct hit of holy water in my left eye. Alessandra’s shoulders shook as she peered up from her bowed head and stifled laughter, droplets hitting the top her head.

An hour later, standing outside the bar, a burning ember from a cigarette landed in the exact same eye. Seems someone somewhere in the spirit world took exception to my newly blessed eyeball. That eye hurt for hours.

Two days later, our doorbell buzzed, then our neighbors’. V opened the door to the vestibule the apartment doors share and found the same hermit, asking if he could bless our houses for pasqua.

Since both doors were open, V tried to suggest that the man stand in the vestibule and bless us all at once. The neighbors giggled.

“No, no. It is for each house, for each family,” they explained.

“No due per uno, insieme?”  I ventured, getting only more giggles from next door and a strange look from the hermit in return.

We let him inside.

Just within the doorway, he handed me a card featuring Jesus and some apostles and began the prayer, container of holy water in his hand.

Not taking any chances this time, I bowed my head. 

The Vigilia (and Why You Should Pray for This Heathen)

Christmas Eve, or Vigilia in Italian, is widely known for the copious amounts of fish consumed.  Our American friend, L., wanted to make the dinner at her house this year.  Her plan was to get oysters for V. to shuck and some vongole, cozze, and gamberi for paella.  She ordered ahead of time from one of the fish markets in San Benedetto, fearing the Italian mammas would buy it all up within a 50km radius and she'd be left fish-less.  She then realized she’d never be able to make the half hour drive with her two small boys before closing time, emphatically stated by the woman on the phone as 10am.  We offered to go for her.

“You’re sure you’ll get there before 10a?  She was adamant.  They are closing at 10. In the morning.”

“Non ti preoccupare!  Don’t worry!   No problem.   V. gets up early.   I’ll call you once we’ve got them and are heading to you.”

Nothing's Stirring Here...

The holidays are always weird for me.  Maybe it was always having to choose which parent to spend it with and which parent to be mad it wasn’t them (granted, that was probably more in my head than theirs).  Maybe it was that my Jewish grandmother was making Christmas cookies.  Or maybe, it was that the standard, portrayed in books and movies, was impossible to achieve in real life.  If there wasn’t a house full of friends and family, a roaring fireplace, a beautiful tree under which everyone’s wishes could be found beautifully wrapped, we’d all failed.  

Today's Run, in Pictures

Today’s my nephew’s twelfth birthday.  He’s running a Thanksgiving 5k today in Tampa.  The same 5k his mom and I ran four years ago (during which, I'm pretty sure he was sleeping).  

Wish I could’ve been there with them today.  For one thing, Florida's flat.  But really, I just thought about them the whole time I did my own run around the same time as theirs. 

out and back, 6k

For him, here’s my run today, in pictures:

Giving Thanks? He Don't Wanna

We were at the hotel for dinner.  L. had just flown in from a business trip in Denmark.  She had gotten on the wrong bus from Rome’s Termini Station and Instead of passing right thru our town, where she could’ve hopped off, it took her down thru L’Aquila and more of Abruzzo over to the coast and up to San Benedetto, where she found a cab to take her here, adding approximately an hour and a half to her all ready lengthy day of travel.  We thought some handmade taglietelle with truffles might help.

Halloween-ish

I was never a huge fan of Halloween. I think it may have started when we lived in Queens and the kids there "celebrated" by spraying each other with Nair.  Then, we moved to the suburbs, where shaving cream, eggs and the old, striped tube sock filled with flour and wielded like a medieval flail were the weapons of choice.  This made Halloween scary in a different way than originally intended, I think. 

Plus, the whole costume thing.  What to be? For some people, i understand dressing up is liberating. For me, terrifying.  What to "be"? Ugghhhh.

When I was little, maybe five or six years old, and we lived in the ex-urbs of Long Island (pre-Queens), my mom made matching bird costumes for my sister and me.  I distinctly remember the scratchy paper-mache of the heads.  I think the idea was that my sister would be Big Bird and, well, I was littler, so I was a little version of Big Bird.  I liked that. I didn’t have to choose.