July 30

A friend dropped in this morning to tell us a tale that made me howl. A woman was visiting a few weeks back and bought a pair of red shoes from a local shoe store. It is July and all the shops are having sales to clear the stock. This woman bought her shoes, finished her visit and went back to her home in Cairo. Once there, she realized that the shopkeeper had given her two left shoes. She contacted her friend here and asked if she could drop into the shop, straighten it all out and get the other shoe for her. No problem... easy. She drops into the shop and explains the situation to the shopkeeper. He listens intently and nods,

"I see the problem. And yes, I do have two right shoes here. How about is sell them to your friend for $18."

Well, my friend was taken aback, "But she doesn't want two pairs of the same shoe."

"Just call her and see. The price is right. You could keep the other pair. Use my phone."

"You don't want me to call Cairo from here. It will cost more than the shoes."

He saw her hesitate, and so dropped his price to $9 for the pair of right shoes. My friend looked at him and said, "Look, we really just want the one right shoe. If they were my size, maybe we'd need two, but these shoes aren't my size. And to boot (pardon the pun) one of these shoes has been in the window on display and has faded to a different shade of red."

"Ah true", says the shoe man, "but your friend in Cairo has one that was also probably in the window and so is faded slightly."

She countered, "How about this, why don't you just give me those two left shoes since they are no use to anyone at this point."

Ginda left with two left shoes in slightly different shades of red.

Festa of the Tiber Water Nymphs, or The Little House on the Tiber

What a party! We did all the right things... invited great people, made good food and set the stage with flowers, candles and music. The guests did the rest. There were probably 40 to 50 people wandering between the floors. I caught snippets of great conversations. People made new acquaintances, reunited with folks they had not seen in awhile... the atmosphere was very lively. We played Latin and jazz CDs til Melchiorre got out his accordion and played while people sang.

We had been preparing food all day... everything was set out as finger food. There were two kinds of skewers. One skewer represented the Italian flag -- a green olive, small mozzarella ball, cherry tomato and basil leaf. The other skewer was pink shrimp and a cucumber ribbon in Vietnamese dipping sauce. (I suppose that was for my Bay Area Asian cravings.) We roasted eggplant, zucchini, caramelized onions, and red peppers. I made a white bean spread with toasted cumin. We set out an assortment of cheeses with dried and fresh fruit, nuts and bread; bowls of olives and pickles, roasted nuts and bread sticks. Our big adventure -- sushi. Plates and plates of maki rolls with salmon, cukes, ginger and two kinds of white fish. It was not perfect... it wasn't even terribly authentic... but it tasted great. Melchiorre did the rolling, while Jan and I directed. She and I have more "sushi experience" while he tends to make everything in his Sardinian style. Earlier in the day when we weren't paying attention, he marinated all the fish as if we were making Sardinian anchovies. Its wasn't quite Japanese, but people liked it.

Our guests roamed between the flats, up to Jan's terrace (which was planted with hibiscus, daises, geraniums and portulaca) and down to my grotto, where people oohed and ahhed about the burbling waterfalls. I loved seeing people in conversational huddles, the candles glinting off the red wine and the sound of trickling water filling the room. We've been getting calls all day from people testifying that they had a smashing time. A successful launch into Umbertidese society!

July 27

Tonight was dinner with Gianni and Marisa Berna out under the stars. It was a summer dinner at a long table under a pergola with kittens gamboling under foot and large dogs laying their large heads in your lap looking for food. The meal was lovely. Marisa had a houseguest from Israel, Tamra, who loves to cook. They made a mix of southern Italian/Mediterranean foods like stuffed grape leaves and roasted vegetables. Also, a very interesting pasta dish I'd never heard of twisty pasta with a sauce of creamy avocado. Unique. We sat long into the night, talking about the beginnings of cultivated rice, the bribery and intimidation of the financial police, and cooking. It was a beautiful evening.

July 21 - Festa dei Nonni e Festa dell' Unita

Stefano invited me to a marvelous event in nearby Niccone. He has been involved with a high school project that has local teens interviewing their grandparents, and the town's elderly, for their memories and stories. Most of the participants, the nonni, (grandparents) are over 80. All the interviews were videotaped and compiled into a grand presentation that was unveiled at a Sunday festa after church. It began with a mass, and then moved outside to the churchyard, where there was a local band (including one of the nonni playing accordion) and a table spread with desserts made by the nonni. There were fabulous cakes, pies, donuts, cookies ...all made by someone's grandmother. There was homemade wine and panini of freshly grilled sausages. The band was a wild amalgamation -- a local rock band led by a man who usually does weddings, joined by the grandfather accordionist, and a young boy (Leo) learning to play sax accompanied by his dad, also on accordion. Quite a group. The keyboard player in the rock band (a Johnny Thunder look-alike) paced and tossed his mane, looking like he was going to explode from frustration at having to bottle up his talents to accordion speed. The videotape played on a large TV outside. It was difficult to see because of the light and there were technical difficulties with the sound. However, I did get a transcript of the interviews. Some of the nonni speak in old dialect, which even the younger locals have trouble understanding.

After the festa dei Nonni, Jan, Melchiorre and I toddled back to Umbertide for dinner and dancing under the stars at the Festa dell'Unita the Communist Party Festival. More like a county fair than a communist party rally, only the signs about "the workers" and "the people" gave it away. Otherwise, this could have been any rural 4H event with tractors on display. I got a huge kick out of the fact that the system for taking orders and serving was completely screwed up. It was truly luck if you were served what you ordered in any decent interval. Melchiorre kept making jokes about the workers not working. And, the communists were selling tie-dyed dresses and shirts. An odd thing. Capitalist souvenirs next to the "Workers Unite" signs.

July 18

I am becoming Italian. Today in the market, I bought thong underwear and bras with clear silicone straps. I will have truly metamorphosed when I wear black thong underwear with white or sheer clothing. Watch for it!

July 16

Had an impromptu family dinner last night with Jan, Melchiorre, Katherine and myself . We ate strangozzi (a local pasta like short, fat spaghetti) with creamy pesto, whole fish baked on spinach, green salad, with fresh figs and plums from Melchiorre's garden for dessert. Katherine and I split a good bottle of Brunello. I told a few short tales in Italian... muddled Italian, to be sure, but everyone understood! That is a breakthrough... speaking in paragraphs, instead of one and two words sentences. These lessons are paying off.

July 9, 2002 Film Festival

July is the season for the annual Montone Film Festival. It's a small film festival that seems to revolve around Terry Gilliam and those he knows. Traditionally, he is the special guest and any other featured "big names" seem to be English. It's a weeklong festival that focuses on European films. This year, it was heavy on the Brits... Mike Figgis and Mike Leigh.

Last night was the opening. Typically Italian, it got a late start. The movie was slated to begin at 9:15 (odd time, yes?). The films are shown in Montone's main piazza on a large screen hung from one of the towers, so we arrived at about 8:45 ish to get a table. The piazza is home to 2 or 3 bar/gelaterias. There were no seats other than the tables and chairs the bars had out for the regular customers. We settled in, ordered gelato and chatted with people as they arrived to stake out territory. Many friends had opted for the opening night dinner (w/ Gilliam) but we sussed out that if you went to the dinner, you would never get a seat. The dinner was organized for film festival members and special guests, so it was a fait accompli that the film would not start until they arrived. They arrived about 45 minutes late... not that it mattered, since the projectionist was having a hell of a time synchronizing the film and the sound. Once the synch was accomplished, there were opening remarks, the presentation of the guests, the thank yous from the guests, and the chatter about the films from the guests... I estimate that we started about 1 ½ hours late. Still, va bene. It's a warm, breezy evening in the piazza of a medieval walled town... with gelato. Who could be discontent?

They opened with a rather clever claymation short and... hey, short. Next was an unfortunately long and grainy, often out of focus clip of Orson Welles' unfinished Man of La Mancha which segued into the opening feature, a documentary called Lost in La Mancha. Lost in La Mancha is a "not making of" documentary of Terry Gilliam's unfinished Man of La Mancha which was supposed to debut here at the film festival. Evidently, Gilliam has been dreaming of making his own Man of La Mancha for the last 10 years. Gilliam's projects are notoriously complicated and often difficult to finance. Finally, he gets a producer, money and insurance, and jets off to Spain to begin his dream. And nothing goes right. Time (which means money) is lost waiting for their Don Quixote to recover from a prostate infection. The costumes and sets are not quite right, so time and money are lost in the back and forth with those (not unusual for a Gilliam film. Think Munchhausen, Brazil and 12 Monkeys). The capper, the crowning moment -- they begin filming in an arid, stark section of Spain only to be washed out by a freak storm. What looks like a summer rain shower becomes a torrent of mud and water that carries equipment and materials away. What begins as a "making of" documentary becomes a chronicle of the death of a film when the insurance company weighs in and pulls the plug after the storm. Gilliam is remarkably upbeat about it...

I admit that I left about ¾ of the way through, mainly because my ride was bored and wanted out. However, I did not put up much fuss. The film was interesting but not gripping or particularly cohesive, at least up to the ¾ mark. I know how it turns out... with the death of a project. The festa continues through the week with Figgis, Leigh and a number of lesser-known directors.

Italian Class

This week was my fourth Italian class with Paola, my tutor. We meet at her house once a week for an hour, and the hour flies by. She is an excellent teacher... full of praise but always giving you ideas about what to work on. Paola understands the cardinal rule; offer strengths as well as weaknesses. We've been reviewing the passato prossimo tense. I have no idea what that is in English -- it's the "I have bought, I have gone" tense. Ho comprato molte scarpe e borse della mia amica Luciana. (Translation: I have bought many scarves and purses from my friend Luciana.) My homework this week is to continue reviewing verbs and to make a list of as many nouns that have to do with materials you build with (iron, copper, stone, granite, wood, etc.) as I can think of. Last week was clothing. Soon, small talk at parties! I'm thinking about having a small dinner party with close friends and the stipulation that we only speak Italian. Big challenge for me. My head might explode.

July 8 - Birthday Festa

Sarah, an English acquaintance, had a birthday this week and her friends outdid themselves putting together a beautiful party. One friend lent his house, a gorgeous old 3-story stone place overlooking Lago Trasimeno. Another friend arranged for a Moroccan caterer and dancer. Still others came to eat, drink and make merry. (That would be me.) The house was wide open, filled with flowers, candles, platters of couscous, baked fish, and Moroccan hors d'oeuvres. The caterer (who also gives belly dancing lessons) was a short, round woman with a marvelous smile. Belly dancers are supposed to be zaftig... soft and curvy. In short, there must be a belly to dance. She had one and another to spare and it was favoloso to see her move. She was lithe and very graceful -- coquettish and sweet all at the same time. She made 3 costume changes and innumerable shimmies and rolls. One dance was performed with a tray of lit candles balanced on her head. Her delight in the dance and interpreting the music for us just radiated from her. It made me want to take bellydance lessons.

July 5 - Cinema al fuori

Umbertide has an outdoor cinema series every summer in the piazza of the old fortress tower. All the films are dubbed in Italian, but I've been trying to go as a way to practice the language. I prefer films I've already seen in English, or films that are very easy to follow (action). Its part Cinema Paradiso and part Jersey drive-in. Last week I went to see Lord of the Rings (Il Signore degli Anelli). It's a 3 hour film and they don't begin until its dark 9:30... if you are lucky and they are on time. There were 2 intermissions and at each one, groups of people were slipping away. By the end, about half the people had gone home. But it was magical to watch a film like that with the big dipper hanging over the screen and moths fluttering around the projector.

July 4 - Yoga at the Castle

I've begun a yoga class, something I've been threatening for 3 or more years. This one is once a week at 9am in the walled garden of a local castle. We get our mats and settle in behind the ivy covered walls to stretch, bend, balance and ooohm for about an hour. An added bonus is that we get to swim in the pool after... and the pool is lovely. A simple round cement pool -- a cee-ment pond! With the weather as hot as its been, the water has been refreshing but very comfortable. We're surrounded by flowers and peaceful people... a lovely way to begin a day.

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