Good Things in All Kinds of Packages

At the beginning of the year, Child Two announced she was going to look for something good that happened to her every day. I thought of this conversation last night when I was watching the very last episode of "How I Met Your Mother", which had a funny bit about the character Marshall only saying positive things about work despite the fact that he had a horrible boss. When Child Two mentioned this in January, we talked about the kinds of things she meant.

She could point out things like "Got a great grade on a test", or "Friend brought me an extra cookie", or "My hair looked fantastic". I asked her what she would resort to on days when things didn't go so well, and we had a really funny time coming up with ideas, the penultimate of which was "I didn't catch malaria today." That would be reserved for extreme occasions, when something like "At least my underwear weren't inside out" wasn't good enough as a positive point.

Things have been more than the usual crazy in our house these days. The BHE is in the midst of shipping out hundreds of copies of a book he's produced that has buyers all over the world -- the printer has made every mistake possible along the way and he's still, after nearly four months, waiting for the third form of the finished book to arrive. My work schedule has been so busy that my own writing is done in odd little spurts that leave me bleary-eyed and leaving notes everywhere. There's a second puppy, and he's like a toddler on Red Bull. We got him to keep the first puppy company, thinking if she saw him getting along with my son, she might get along with my son, which she has not for oh... six months now. She is, instead, on what I think of as Doggie Pot, which isn't helping. So we have one sort of stoned dog and one dog who acts as if he's been sneaking shots of espresso from the Keurig (Note to self: Move the Keurig machine away from the puppy's crate...).

So I've decided this blog is to remind myself of all the good things that have happened so far this year, to maybe help to cope with the bits of chaos:

1. I discovered two new wines. A friend brought over Badger Mountain Reisling in January, which was crisp and clear and made me happy. Then we had dinner at the Red Fish Grill in New Orleans in February, where I had a wine with a kick-ass name: Kung Fu Girl Reisling. Also fresh and simple and awesome.

2. I got an assignment to read a book by an author I hadn't heard of before and it was AMAZING. The story was "Wolf" by Mo Hayder, and it was complex and scary and I couldn't tell how it was solved by chapter three. It's not out until May but when it is and if you like mystery, run. Run like heck to the bookstore and plan on not sleeping.

3. There was a trip to New Orleans, during which my daughter's culinary leanings turned into a personal tour of the kitchen with the executive chef at Emeril's. Then there was... well, New Orleans. We walked (a lot), we ate, we listened to street music, we bought hats, we went to ComicCon. My husband's neighbor at the show was Vera Baby, and you have no idea how much a man loves you until he is seated near Vera Baby and is not gaping at her and her very (ahem) interesting costumes. She and her assistant were really nice, too.

4. We had a ghost hunting weekend. Not so sure about finding ghosts, because we were ghost hunting with about 80 other people, but I was on a road trip with one of my best buddies and there were Twizzlers. Who wouldn't have a good time?

5. I reconnected with a LOT of old friends in March. I was reminded that the best friends of all are the ones you might not see all the time but that when you do, you pick up right where you left off because it's always been that natural, that close, that good. I've been friends with the Nancys (yes, that's how you plural Nancy; don't give me grief because I get paid to know stuff like that) for 37 years and I love them both more now than ever. And the Laura, of which there is only one, which is really all I need.

6. I was cleaning out the linen closet (to avoid dusting, actually) and found a whole bunch of old letters and cards from friends, old boyfriends, and family members, and they reminded me why it was good to be alive, good to laugh, and good to love. If you ever want perspective on your troubles, find letters from when you were 17 or 25 or even newly married, and realize that troubles come and go, and change, and sometimes you can laugh about them after, even if you might cry a little bit first.

So tell me: What do you count as something that makes a day good? What have you discovered -- new or old -- that makes you happy? Surely there's something you can think of, right?

Or if you can't, if you're really just having a bad day, just go with: "At least I didn't get Malaria."

***

OH! DAMN IT! I almost forgot! Best thing of all -- I have finaled, inexplicably, in the New England Romance Writers' First Kiss Contest. That quirky scene in the closet made it past the first round. So there you go. Another thing to be happy about.

The Most Wonderful Time of the Year

 INSTANT DISCLAIMER: This entry is not about Christmas. 

It's about the recent trip the BHE* and I took to Italy. It's about the wonderful people who hosted us, the beautiful region we visited, the memories we made. I think I've left a little bit of my heart there, and I want to go back. Now. 

My husband is an illustrator. Several years ago he was one of the original artists who created imagery for a then-fledgling card game called Magic: The Gathering. The people who played this game created a worldwide phenomenon and collected cards not just for what they could do for them in terms of winning the game, but also for the unique and fantastic qualities of the artwork. The cards were produced in many languages and fans collected them into the thousands, and even now some of these cards can fetch amazing amounts of money in re-sale value. It is no exaggeration to claim that the lives of these early artists were irrevocably changed, in terms of fame, financial gain, and even in the directions their art later developed.

Fast forward two decades. The BHE was invited to go to a tournament in a place called Viareggio, a coastal resort town in Tuscany. I visited Italy years ago, and it was on my bucket list to get him to Florence -- a place I remembered fondly for its beautiful light and history and artwork. He would have to sit at a table for three days in Viareggio and sign autographs and create art alterations on cards for several hours a day. I might have begged, without him even finishing his explanation, to stow away in his luggage if necessary. Viareggio, according to Google maps, was twenty minutes north of Pisa and about an hour from Florence. When he mentioned to his host that I wanted to come along, the reception was incredibly gracious.

We took Italian lessons. I made lists of things for our children to do (or NOT do, depending upon the situation) while we were gone, including such statements -- in red -- along the lines of "Do not let the tortoise die. Remember to feed him".  I packed less than I might need to leave room for returning with Tuscan wine and olive oil, and picked clothing that would be comfortable on me and great cushioning for bottles that would be tossed around in my suitcase by airport handlers on the ride back. I tried to figure out train schedules and how to buy tickets online for the Uffizi museum. We listened to Pimsleur recordings for more Italian. I learned how to say, "I am an American and I don't speak much Italian" and finally, at the last minute, literally minutes before the car came to get us for the airport, the most important question for a 52-year-old traveling woman: "Where's the bathroom, please?"

What follows are some of the pictures I took of the places we went. Because he had to work sometimes until early evening, we saw some things at night -- very romantic and a very unique experience. We saw, for instance, the Tower of Pisa in the dark, all lit up in its majesty. We and our new friend Roberto were almost the only ones there. If not for the roving police, we might have touched it. We saw the walled village of Lucca and walked in the fog atop the parks there under streetlight, and roamed past ruins and cathedrals and ancient doorways, on stones laid by workmen hundreds of years before. We ate amongst the celebratory students in a piazza at Pisa, at a trattoria in Lucca full of boisterous friendly people. We talked with Roberto about the schools there, and employment problems and food and history. Roberto was a graduate in Physics from the University of Pisa, but he is working in England to earn a living, since there were no teaching jobs for him in Italy. We ate wild boar and chick peas and drank wine.

On the third day, Roberto's family invited us to lunch. I found myself speaking remnants of French, which I hadn't needed since college some 30 years ago, with one of his cousins, who was fluent in Italian and French. She translated between me and Roberto's mother, who was very sweet and welcoming and gentle but did not speak English. There were at least five courses of many kinds of fish, and despite the language barriers it was wonderful. Our Italian lessons (okay, our comprehension of our Italian lessons) left us only understanding a few words here and there, but listening, just listening, to the ebb and flow and emotion and joy in the conversation sometimes was enough. I remember at one point one of the women, in a flurry of Italian, stopped and looked at me and said, without any accent at all, "New York Cheesecake" and made a face of ecstasy. Who needed a translator with something like that between us? My husband is still missing the smoked swordfish. 

Throughout our time there, we were treated so beautifully by Michele, our initial contact, and some of the other organizers, Stefano, Megghi, and Simone, as well as a wonderfully warm receptionist at the Hotel Marchionni. Every day they did all they could to make sure we were happy, and their English was far better than our Italian, yet they never made us feel uncomfortable about not being able to speak in their language. I spent a lot of time looking up words in my phrase book, but I couldn't learn quickly enough. Even after the tournament had ended, they went out of their way to guide us and take us around. 

Michele took us up to Cinque Terre, to a little town near the lower point of five towns called Riomaggiore, which was his home. It was the most breathtaking day of all. We, along with another American artist Rob, and Stefano and Megghi and their puppy Muttley, ate lunch and took pictures and climbed all around the walkways in the cliffs and over the rocky inlet ("No, honey, you can't go into the caves"). We watched the moon rise and the sun set. We listened to the clock tower bell and talked with the old fishermen. We thought about moving there.

They took us to dinner at Simone's wine bar, where Megghi's mother had made a perfect lasagna. Now I know what I've got to do better with my own. The artists worked at heavy wooden tables to finish up cards for Michele and we drank local wine. Simone picked out some for me to bring back, since who better to trust with a decision like that than an expert? His place was called, of all things, Nebraska, and if you are ever in a little town called Camaiore you must go.  Sit near the fireplace, or in the room full of bottles, and be happy. 

On the last day we went to Florence. I have to say that by that point I had come down with a terrible cold. My husband suggested I stay in the hotel, but I had come all this way. Our discussion over whether or not I should rest rather than attempt the trip was ended by the opera-singing workman on the scaffolding outside our window and his ever-present drilling and hammering. 

Florence was. Here I got to use my (desperate, by that point) necessary phrase -- "Dove il bagno, per favore?" We walked through the Uffizi and through Medici history, saw works by Fra' Filippo Lippi and Da Vinci and Michelangelo and Caravaggio, then went out into the streets and met Michele and Rob and Stefano once more. After lunch Rob and my husband went up to climb around and photograph an ancient fort ("let's just keep going until someone stops us") and I walked through the street market with Michele and Stefano. They bought me dessert and Michele and I both went through our translation lists (he on his phone, me in my book) for the word "almond", which wasn't, in the end, in either place, and didn't ultimately matter since the flavor I'd meant was mascarpone. Stefano found out that this particular bistro served over 3,000 espressos a day during Christmas. We walked through the diamond vendors on the Ponte Vecchio and along the Arno River to the car.  We ate dinner at a little restaurant along the boardwalk of Viareggio, a sleepy little place where no one rushed us out even though it was late. We talked about our homes (Rob is from Portland, but originally Toronto), our work (Michele is an architect), and our families. Countries, and cultures, are not so different as people might often think.  We went back to our hotel for the last time, walking along the street that edged the sea, through chilly December air. 

The fact of the matter is that you can meet some people in your lifetime that come and go, and some that you feel are old friends even in a small space of time. There was a moment at the airport when we said good-bye to Michele where none of us seemed to know what to say -- you realize you have made this connection and you wish it could go on -- and you hope to god it will. If any of them were to ever come to the States, we would urge them to come to us, as our friends, as a new part of our family -- just the way they treated us. 

Like I said at the beginning, a little part of my heart remains there--in Riomaggiore, in Viareggio--with the places and with the people who made it the most wonderful time of the year. 

Merry Christmas With Love, everyone.




*BHE, in case you've forgotten: Best Husband Ever, (c) 2012, Various Milliner, Ltd. What else could you call the man who takes you along on an Italian holiday?