#55: Italy, U.S. and U.K., May – August 2004
Grapevines, Wasp Wars and the Dolomites

May #1

Writing early in May with April’s news: a month full of rain, and that’s mostly good. The renovated cistern is almost full, and we’re seeing flowers bloom that we haven’t seen in years. The grass grew so fast and was frequently so wet that it literally took weeks of trying to get it all cut. A significant section of the paved road from our local village, Montecampano, to the cemetery above us collapsed, and the rest of that segment looks like it could fall too. There’s even snow up in the Apennines, quite a sight with our fruit trees in bloom down here.

A couple weeks ago, I picked up our new car, not without the usual Italian bureaucratic run-around. I devoted more than a week to get all the paperwork done, running back and forth among Amelia, Terni (car dealer) and Narni (insurance). I’m not sure what cars are like in America these days, but this one doesn’t have a key! Instead, there’s an electronic card that’s inserted into the dash, then the driver pushes a button to start the car, and it automatically turns on the headlights. The parking brake is also automatic when the car is stopped, and one disengages it by lightly stepping on the gas. All this takes some getting used to, but I was amused to see that we’ve gone back to pushing a button on the dash, 50 years after I watched my parents do it.

You may recall our early days here when local folk had never seen a bedroom closet, preferred armoires and argued against this odd concept. They got built, but I couldn’t find bars, shelves, etc. that really filled the bill. Now, after eight years, I found a system at Ikea. Bought the whole shebang and did most of the installation myself. Hangers here, shoes there, etc. etc. Wow!

Lots of local events giving me joy — the Amelia chorale and orchestra performing Handel, First Communion of a good friend’s daughter with enormous family lunch afterwards, more concerts throughout the month.

May #2

We’re sending a second letter in May, because we’re four days away from leaving for the States. By the time we get back to our respective homes (Amelia and Colombo), it’ll be over a week into June, so now seemed like the best time to do a missive.

 A cold, wet, rainy month, the heat back on, the bed with flannel sheets and a hot water bottle, the mountains covered in snow. All this about a month later than usual. The road between the cemetery and Montecampano completely collapsed, causing all of us who live on Via del Cimitero to detour up through the narrow medieval streets of the hamlet. Met some nice folks that way and stopped at the old D’Annibale estate’s olive mill, now for sale and needing tons of renovation to convert it into a livable house. The view is literally almost to Rome. Via del Cimitero has been repaired, although they still haven’t paved it, just filled in the void and put some warning cones along the edge.

After two hot summers, I decided to install ceiling fans upstairs, but the factory failed to ship in April, as promised, and again in May. I needed to get everything done before we left for the States. Compromise suggested by the electricians: they’d come do all the wiring, then the painters would paint, and the fans would be installed as a last measure whenever they arrived. So that’s what we did. The painters also re-varnished the wooden ceiling and beams on the north terrace, as well as the rustic iron-and-wood, fold-out dining table we have out there. Once I return from the States, Graziano and I will move the rattan furniture from the sun room, and summer will (hopefully) be here.

Other May challenges involved hearing from neighbor Ornella that her son Giosue (Joe-sue-ay — “Joshua” in Italian) had lost our front door key and the “telecommando” for the property’s entry gate. AND they decided not to tell me for two weeks, hoping the items would turn up. She gave Giosue the key and telecommando so he could come over and mow the lawn. While he was at it, he ringed the bark off two apple trees — an excellent way to kill them. Anyway, I was living for two weeks in an isolated farmhouse with the gate and front door virtually open. So I got both locks changed and decided to do without Giosue’s help for a while. By the way, replacing one of these old-fashioned farmhouse locking systems that move bars into wall sockets costs a bundle!

Something rather promising fell out of the sky this month. I discovered there’s an annual writers’ conference in Winchester, England. A lot of workshops, panels and presentations are on marketing to agents and publishers (not my strong suit), as well as programs on the craft of writing. I’ve signed up for the four-day event, held in late June, and sent in required excerpts of my writing for feedback and critique. Hopefully, this will be a good way to make contacts, learn what works when marketing in UK, get my name and work in circulation, etc. 

June

This has been a month so full the it feels like more than one. Let me try to cast my mind back to the beginning…

First, the sunswing quarterly get-together: I left Italy at the end of May and met Russell in the LA airport, he flying via Singapore and Tokyo, me via Copenhagen and Newark. We managed to find each other at the car rental, and we got a free upgrade to a minivan, making loading/unloading luggage easy. An hour’s drive up into the Hollywood Hills, and we were at best friend Bettina’s house, where we stayed for the duration.

Highlights of LA visit: lunch with the whole Sunshine clan at [Russell’s elder brother] Bob’s house, followed by my first experience trying to do tricks on a trampoline; Memorial Day BBQ at Bettina’s with old friends from TV days; accomplishing voter reg, new driver’s licenses, documents for international driving permits. I’m sending a trampoline photo — sorry it doesn’t show me soaring on high, toes pointed and clothes un-bunched, but you’ll get the idea.

On to New Haven for Russell’s 40th reunion, sharing fond memories with old friends; attending super lectures, panels and performances; getting a bit weepy over the Wiffenpoofs’ “We’re poor little lambs…”

Then together to Rome, realizing we were flying over our house but too late to identify it below. Overnight in the airport hotel, Russell on the next day’s flight to Colombo and me taking the train back to Umbria.

I was only home about ten days before leaving again, but what full days they were: grapevine cuttings sprouting; mature oleander trimmed to the ground last winter in order to get the backhoe in now pushing leaves above ground; totally stopped email restarted by our computer whiz, ditto the TV; and a to-the death struggle between a toad and a viper right beside the drying yard while I was hanging up clothes.

I managed to get everything washed and a new suitcase purchased in time to take off for Winchester. Thoroughly enjoyed the trip through the Alps, whipping along at 180 mph on the Eurostar. I slept in Paris, then caught the “Chunnel” to Waterloo. There was a train leaving almost immediately for Winchester, and an hour later, I’d arrived at King Alfred’s College. 

I achieved virtually all the goals I’d set for attending the 24th Annual Writers’ Conference: 

• Learning techniques for approaching UK agents;
• Receiving (thankfully) positive feedback from four published mystery writers plus ideas on how to improve structure and pace;
• Meeting first-time writers like myself who were interested in forming an international writers group, exchanging chapters and feedback; 
• Acquiring resource titles on structuring and pacing mystery stories (my two weaknesses, but fairly mechanical and so easier to fix than poor writing).

Back home, summer has come with temps in the 80s, the ceiling fans to be installed next week, and Mama Cat getting that long Persian fur trimmed so she won’t suffer so much.

July

A month of unexpected changes, two of which were serious. First, I learned a dear friend had been forced out of his job by the new director of the non-governmental organization they’d co-founded in Rome with the original director 25 years ago. (And for whom R and I had both worked many times as consultants.) I invited our friend and his family up for a Sunday so they could get away from the pressure and talk about how to adjust and build a new future after he’d thought he’d be staying there for the rest of his professional life. They have four kids in school from primary through university, plus their retirement looming not so far away. The peaceful setting and our long talks into the dusk seemed to help.

My own change was fairly dramatic too. About five years ago, the dermatologist at Johns Hopkins identified a lesion on my left cheek as pre-cancerous and suggested removing it in a few years. It started to exhibit changes this spring, so my Rome dermatologist recommended we eliminate it now. So last week, I had outpatient surgery in Rome. I lay very still on a table under local anesthetic for about an hour and listened to them cut open my skin and remove the lesion. My doctor was very careful to put the incision in an incipient wrinkle, asking me to make all kinds of faces, so he’d know where that wrinkle would be. The result was an incision 1.5 inches long with ten stitches. I had the sutures out this week, learning that the lesion wasn’t yet serious. I have to wear a special tape on the incision for three months to minimize stretching the scar, but they tell me that by this time next year, it’ll hardly show. Meanwhile, the good news is:

1. I can now dress up as a pirate for Halloween without benefit of makeup;
2. German males of a certain age will gnash their teeth with envy over my dueling scar;
3. The surgery gave me a bit of a facelift;
4. All of the above.