#72: Umbria, Sicily and Locarno, January–June 2011
House, Hives and Post Office

January

Poor Aika is having trouble adjusting to living away from the family of dogs and humans with whom she spent many years of her life. She repeatedly digs up the garden and barks off and on all night, every night. The vet prescribed a natural tranquilizer made from a female dog’s milk, but that didn’t do the trick. Then she developed a lesion on her tail which didn’t respond to various treatments. Diagnosis was finally a fungus infection, and we’re all three fighting the good fight with dousing the affected area every three days. If you’ve ever had athlete’s foot, you know how hard it is to beat a fungus. But we’re doing our best.

On a happier note, I looked out the bedroom window one morning and saw thousands and thousands of birds flying right outside the glass. By the time Russell responded to my call, the best part of the migration had passed, but it was still a majestic sight. Best news of all, it was a Friday, a non-hunting day, so they were safe from exploding shotguns! 

February

I’m not one of the world’s great mathematicians, despite getting good grades in school. I hated the subject so much that I promptly forgot the methodology as soon as the test was over. I’m not sure I could do even simple math now. Thank God for calculators. But even I can easily understand the math involved in a recent transaction with the post office. When I first arrived here (while Russell was still in Laos for 3 months), I had to get a post box in town, because they wouldn’t deliver mail to an isolated farm house down a long country lane. So I got the biggest one, paying a yearly fee of 50 euros ($65 at the current exchange rate, but far less in the early days) and glad to do it. But they recently raised the box rental to 200 euros ($260) per half year(!) AND reduced service to five days, omitting Saturday deliveries. Once I got over the shock, I recalled that, from time to time, substitute mail carriers had mistakenly brought our mail to the gate and left it on the ground. Had the rural-delivery policy changed? Time to find out. First, I moseyed over to the hardware store and found we could buy a box to install on our gate for 25 euros ($31.50). The next day, R&I went to talk with the P.O. supervisor, discovered that mail could now be delivered if we had an official box. So we filled out the forms right then and there. Hours later, our shiny new box was up on the gate, and we got our first mail the following day. It’s such a pleasure to walk out to the gate and get our mail instead of driving into town, parking and hiking into the historical center to pick it up. Plus that’s 375 euros ($487.50) saved per year. [Yes, I did do all that math on the calculator…]

As you may recall, we have good friends who own the local furniture store. Last fall, the wife, Giuseppina, opened a shop in the historical center offering unusual items for the home, both decorative and useful. Giusy told me a couple weeks ago that she was going to Arezzo for a trade fair, and I asked if I could tag along, because I’d never been to this historical town. One thing led to another, and we ended up being five — Giusy and husband Alberto, shop assistant Daniela, RB Sunshine and me. What a lovely time we had, not only attending the fair (Giusy snuck us in, so we were able to see all sorts of things available “only to the trade”), but also walking through the town and having coffee in the bar which featured in the Academy Award-winning “La Vita e Bella.”

March

I celebrated my 67th birthday, a truly meaningful milestone in that my mother passed away at 66 after a long and painful bout with cancer. For 30 years, I’ve wondered if that would be my fate, so I really felt like celebrating when March 5th rolled around. We invited some special friends and had a nice dinner party featuring a cake with the heartfelt message, “Many Happy Returns.” I really felt like the 5th was the first day of the rest of my life.

March is a slow month for house-hunters, so we decided not to sit around feeling sorry for ourselves but to head south for a short holiday and escape this year’s long-lasting winter. We booked a ferry to Sicily, planning to visit the western side of the island, as yet unseen, taking off on the 7th. Woh! A stormy night on the high seas. That boat was really rockin’ and rollin’ all night long. Luckily, we’d taken some Dramamine, so we managed to get through it without tossing our cookies. 

By morning, the sea had calmed, and we drove off the ferry at Palermo and on to Erice (“eh-ree-chey”), an ancient town high on a rocky mountain overlooking the sea 2000+ feet below. This has been a holy site for some 3000 years. The Phoenicians built a temple to Astarte on the highest pinnacle. This was superseded by a Greek temple to Aphrodite, then a Roman temple to Venus. All goddesses of fertility and love. In fact, in classical Roman times, the temple was twinned with one in north Africa, and priestesses released doves every fall to fly to the sister temple and then welcomed the doves back when they returned in the spring. The final house of worship built on that site was a church dedicated to the Madonna of the Snows. Even today, many people feel a sense of the sacred when visiting Erice.

We really liked our B&B, lodged in three renovated medieval houses. We had a top-floor room with terrace and amazing view down the coast. We were having breakfast one day when the news of first the Japanese earthquake and then the tsunami came over CNN. The scenes of rushing water destroying everything in its path were eerily familiar after our experiences in Sri Lanka. Luckily the B&B had email facilities for guests, and we were able to send messages to friends not only in Japan, but also in Hawaii, receiving word in short order that all were safe. 

We took road trips to two archeological sites. Segesta (“say-ges-tah”) features a Doric temple perched over a river gorge with a nearby amphitheater seating 5000 with acoustics so refined I could hear Russell’s every word spoken in a normal voice far below. Both were built in the 5th century BC by a mysterious people called the Olympians, who also founded Erice. 

Selenunte (say-lay-noon-tay”) was a Greek and Carthaginian port on Sicily’s south coast. Today, it’s mostly a series of rolling cliffs cluttered with broken marble columns and capitals. In its 7th-5th century BC heyday, it must have been a marvel to behold. Ten massive temples were raised on the site, with 30-meter columns constructed from vertical stacks of marble drums, each 5 meters in diameter and weighing 100 tons. The entire metropolis lay deserted and forgotten for hundreds of years until a 16th century monk-archeologist stumbled across the earthquake-tumbled ruins, thus starting centuries of restoration. 

Our month ended with quite a bit of excitement. Thursday night, the 24th, Russell came down with a high fever and typical symptoms of a urinary-tract infection. By morning, his temp was over 102, so I drove him to Amelia’s Pronto Soccorso (ER), where they did blood and urinary tests, as well as a sonogram. Sure enough, they diagnosed what we’d suspected, gave him an antibiotic, told him to drink lots of water and sent him home. His temp continued to climb, and by that night, it was over 104. He was weak and slightly out of it. I was getting worried and started thinking of alternatives: 1) Call Valentina, now in her last year of med school, for advice; 2) Call Dutch friend Jacques to come from the other side of Montecampano and help me get R in the car for a return to the ER; 3) Take R to the regional hospital in Terni and skip going to the Amelia hospital. In the end, I decided to give him one more pill, wait a couple hours and see if I needed to put a hospital plan into effect. Happily, his temp started to come down, and by morning, he was back to 102, high but not so serious.

It took the better part of a week for him to start feeling like his old-self. In the meantime, he visited his regular doctor in Rome, who suggested he see a urologist and have more tests in advance of that visit. So Friday, we drove down to Terni for more lab tests. Next Tuesday, we’ll return to Rome, to the American Hospital, where R will see the specialist and hope to rule out all sorts of nasty things that older men can suffer. 

April

Easter weekend found us full to the brim with things to do. Because we had to prepare for house-hunters on short notice, we didn’t celebrate Russell’s birthday on the 15th. We finally found time to celebrate on Good Friday. His choice: walk through the national park atop Monte Cimino (“mon-tay chee-me-no”) (the dormant volcano we can see from our house), then have lunch at the rustic restaurant near the park entrance. A happy time all around, even if we ended up with chartreuse-pollinated shoes from strolling under the ancient beeches. On Saturday, we had dinner with our Viennese friends who built a modern house with traditional materials across the valley. The dinner went on despite the fact that the wife had just been released from hospital after a freak accident in Vienna broke a vertebra. A lesson to us all: Claudia was encased in a plastic brace from shoulder to hip but pleased to be with friends and family in their Italian home. Sunday found us at Lake Bolseno for a lunch of freshwater fish. Finally, on Easter Monday, we drove around the hill to Jacques and Oslem’s house for tea with her parents who were visiting from Turkey. We fell in love with them both and could immediately understand why Oslem is such a wonderful woman.

Russell’s scary urinary-tract infection was defeated by antibiotics, and his PSA readings have returned to normal. The Rome urologist recommended a small intervention and biopsy but said there’s no rush. R prefers to wait for a second opinion when he’s at Baltimore’s Johns Hopkins in June.

May

Last Wednesday evening, I developed some spots on neck and back that we thought must be insect bites, so Russell gave me a couple blasts of Gelospray, which seemed to do the trick. But throughout the night, I had increasing irritation, and by 5:30 a.m., we realized something fairly serious was wrong. My upper torso and arms were covered in hives that had started to move down my legs. Perhaps worst of all was the back of my head, which had turned a very bright, dark rose and felt like 1000 fire ants were having a go. Off to the Emergency Room, and because we were fairly early, we didn’t have to wait long before being ushered in to see the doctor. Long story short, they put a shunt into an arm and shot a dose of cortisone directly into the vein. Then they gave me an antihistamine pill and started a saline IV because my blood pressure had dropped to 90/60. A couple hours later, I was feeling well enough to go home, but I was worn out for the rest of Thursday and spent the afternoon sleeping on the couch. Woke up feeling pretty much myself, except for some residual fatigue. Diagnosis: maybe something I ate, maybe afternoon cashew-snack or cherries for dessert. I’m to stay off both for a week, then slowly reintroduce each and see if one is the culprit.

May is confirmation month, and we were invited by our farmer-neighbors, Paolo and Ornella, to celebrate with their family. A full afternoon of multiple courses for what must have been 50 guests or more — four kinds of antipasti, ear-shaped pasta with sausage and wild asparagus in a cream sauce, cannelloni with ground meat and tomato sauce, roast pork, chicken and lamb, chicory sautéed with garlic and olive oil, green salad, fruit salad, a flakey pastry torte, coffee, spumante (“spoo-mahn-tay” — the Italian version of champagne) and liqueurs. We were barely able to walk out under our own steam.

A few days later, we spotted a giant bird on our lawn, beating powerful wings to lift off and clear the perimeter fence. A rush to the bird book revealed it was a Golden Eagle, at least 100 kilometers west of its normal range in the Appenines, perhaps driven here by fierce windstorms. Over a yard long from head to tail, the breed boasts a wingspan of 4-7+ feet. Truly inspirational in its power and grace, its appearance feeling like a good luck omen.

June

Thankfully, R’s extensive consultations at Johns Hopkins produced almost unqualified good news. His overall physical exam showed him healthier, in terms of weight, blood pressure, heart, cholesterol, etc. than at any time in the past several years. To top it off, he got reassuring results from colonoscopy, endoscopy and prostate/urinary review. Only bad news was his left knee, injured some years ago and cartilage-trimmed last year in Rome. X-rays showed osteoarthritis, which may require knee-replacement a few years down the road. But all-in-all, a good medical report, and we’ll happily take it.

My hives-recuperation went on for weeks. The hives started to come back, so I contacted my dermatologist in Rome by email, and he recommended that I take decreasing doses of oral cortisone for two weeks, then another two weeks of antihistamine. He wanted to stop the hives but wean me off the cortisone slowly, so as not to give the body a big shock. So far, so good…

The high point of the month was our spur-of-the-moment trip to Switzerland. The computer system for the entire Italian Postal Service went on the fritz for weeks. We would go to the PO to mail our IRS returns, wait in line for two hours and still not be able to send the envelope. As you may remember, Americans living overseas have an IRS deadline of June 15 to ensure that we get all the relevant documents through the international mail. We got ’em and kept getting closer and closer to the deadline and still couldn’t put the returns in the mail. One day, after yet another failure, I said to Russell, only half-joking, “Let’s just go up to Switzerland and mail it.” “Why not?” he replied. And so we did, traveling by high-speed train to Milan, then taking a regular train to Locarno, a pretty town on Lake Maggiore, which straddles the Italian-Swiss border. We stayed in a small hotel above Locarno, on the slopes of the mountain, our room’s terrace giving a wonderful view of lake, town and mountains all around. AND the post office was just down the street! Got the IRS returns in the mail and had some fun too.

Among the sites were the partial remains of a castle said to have been designed by Leonardo da Vinci, a villa and botanical gardens on an island in the lake, and best of all: riding around the Swiss part of the lake on a ferry, pulling into small towns here and there, gazing at the wonderful scenery. We also had delicious food, although this part of Switzerland is Italian, so the menu, per se, wasn’t much of a change. 

A final word on the house sale. We had two offers this past spring. One was ridiculously low, and we rejected it out of hand. The other was low, but not ridiculous. But at that time, we had lots of potential buyers coming, and we decided, in conjunction with the agent who’d received the bid and our lawyer, to reject it also. Now, all three of our agents and our friends who are selling houses report the same thing. No one is coming to look at houses anymore. It looks like, because of new concerns about the faltering world economy, it could take as long as another 2-5 years for this house to sell. If we’d known then what we know now, we’d have accepted that higher offer in the spring. But it seemed like the right decision at the time, so we’re not beating ourselves up over it. We’re actively contemplating what we’ve learned for now and the future. More on that, as our thoughts crystallize. 

In the meantime, as we’ve so often contemplated and said, we live in one of the world’s great locations, with good health, excellent quality of life, opportunity to travel and lots of other blessings. We’re surely not suffering, so let’s enjoy