Basta Italia

Our Italian adventure is almost done. Brian had Friday off, due to the festiva and Ferreagosto – a celebration that used to last the whole month as decreed by Augustus, but now the Italians only celebrate for one day (which typically is then used as an excuse to make a 3 day weekend, thereby shutting everything down *again*) Colin and I drove around on Friday afternoon (during the riposo) to see if per chance the grocery store (known to be open at odd times) was open. No luck. In fact, EVERYTHING was closed. Creepily so. The town was a ghost town – and more so than usual during the riposo. Surprisingly the local McDonald’s was open (but really, are we so surprised with the far reaching prevalence of American capitalism?) Lucky for us too, as we depleted almost all our food for lunch. If not for McDonalds, we were each eating one hard-boiled egg with a teaspoon of cooked spinach “on the side” for dinner. One thing to say about ferreagosto: driving in the twilight zone of an empty Italian town is a piece of cake.
So it was off to Mickey D’s for dinner – the kids were ecstatic. And I didn’t really mind the chicken sandwich – since I never got into cooking chicken in Italy: couldn’t get past the packaged whole chicken, neck, head, feet and all thing.
Saturday morning – our last morning to sleep in, and my last morning cappuccino at the bar. I was more than a little sad about this. I did manage to see the couple that I had met a few weeks earlier. They wished me goodbye and best wishes – with the double cheek kiss thing. Very sweet actually. I said goodbye to the barrista, after communicating that we were leaving for good, and not just going on vacation again. “Italia fini” I said to her. “Basta Italia?” she replies, which I think translates into “enough of Italy”

Sadly, not enough. Can anyone really get enough of Italia? I thought I had enough at the beginning of our stay… when the parade of true Italian characters (not even conceivable to the most colorful author’s imagination) came traipsing through the apartment to help the poor American family with no hot water. Or when the heat outside was truly skin-melting. Or even when my ever sociable- self craved conversation with the over 5, 8, 12 and 14 set.
Due to the ferreagosto continuation, my internet café proprietor friends took the weekend off, as did the people from Paldo’s pizzeria. Our landlords and my friend Cindy were also all gone – so I didn’t get to exchange goodbyes and thanks for all their help over the past 2 months. I feel slightly unfinished about not saying goodbye. I like to have closure. I’m sure we’ll try and contact some of them over the next few weeks. Reimbursement for the apartment costs is resting on our landlords ability to produce a receipt for Uncle Baxter to approve: I imagine a few more calls to them using my “Engliano” will be in my future.

Brian did not get the green light to come back immediately to Rieti. [The good news to this is that we get to have him home for more than the originally planned 5 days] Which meant packing everything up. And cleaning out the apartment. A small Heculean task. [Hmm, what exactly might that be? Hercules fighting like an old blind lion? Or just a 2 headed monster instead of a 3 headed one?]
It felt like living life in rewind mode. Everything that was taken out, had to be put back. But we did most of it before trying to find a place to eat lunch on Saturday. Again: Nothing. Open. At least this time, the store was open, as was the pizzeria connected with it (Jackie and Brenda: no pictures…very disappointed in myself) so we had our final pizza.

At 5:00 we went over to one of Brian’s co-worker’s houses for some dinner. He and his family hosted us for some snacks and a game of American football (we brought the football) We had been joined by another co-worker (who used to play American football in Italy – see the book “Playing for Pizza” by John Grisham for a description of American football in Italy) who was anxious to play with Brian and the boys. They were joined by the host – who needed instructions on the game- and a variety of children. Our four were joined by 5 other girls (all under age 8) and 2 little cousins. Our host lives on a lovely piece of land in Rieti. A multi-familied building – but all the families are related. I was treated to a little tour of the gardens. They grow grapes and make their own wine [1000 liters a year] – we sampled some wine too. We saw their chickens, their rabbits, their cats and Argo the dog: clearly the ruler of the land. He enjoyed the football too – even trying to get it and take it away with him. We were informed that Argo eats everything.
E-v-e-r-y-t-h-i-n-g. Raw eggs. Grapes. Stems. Leaves. Pigeons. No small children yet though – so Ed was safe.

During the game, one of the brother-in-laws came home with his family (probably from the beach since that’s where everyone else in Italy went this weekend) and he turned out to be the property manager for our apartment who we met the first week in Italy when we signed the papers. Crazy, crazy small world.
We were also treated to meeting our hosts’ parents - who live there too and work the farm/gardens in their retirement(a family affair.) Warm and beautiful people. Very kind and very interested in how we liked living in Rieti – their family has been there for generations. When I shared how much I really liked Rieti, I earned the respect of Mama, who was quite generous in her assessment of the crazy American family with all the kids. Mama and Papa were busy putting tomatoes up for (I’m sure a fantastic) batch of sauces later. Just before they left for the evening, they tried to give us bountiful box of home-grown tomatoes, but since we were leaving in less than 12 hours, we couldn’t take any with us. We were all disappointed.

We thought we were going to get pizza and eat it outside on the porch with all the mosquitos, but it turned out that we were all to go down the road to a local restaurant. The history of the restaurant is quite scandelous: it was opened by the (rumored, but probably true) illegitimate son of Mussolini who then passed on the management to his son. *He* we met when our huge party of 16 showed up for dinner. We ate outdoors under the canopy of a huge tree. There was a park within the lawn of the place, so the little kids took off to play – all more comfortable with each other after a few hours of playing with Argo and blowing bubbles together. Julia and the other 8 year old girl became fast friends. I only wish we could have gotten them together earlier in the trip. Dinner was another Italian feast. Delicious antipasti and then pasta dishes for most of us. The Italian’s did the ordering for us (so much easier this way!!!) And since Brian’s coworkers speak English fluently, we were able to have some really good conversation with our food and wine. The other wives were not as fluent, so some translating was done, (when they weren’t checking on their girls on the playground.) The term “Baxter widow” was not lost on one of the other wives: she shares some of my own displeasure at the amount of time we spend alone with our kids – especially during shut-down. Although, I must add, this summer has been fantastic. We got to have Brian during shut-down and home every night at an early hour. AND we got to see him in the morning before we drove him to work… well, except Aidan, who slept in every day.

We ended the evening (too soon for all the kids) watching part of the lunar eclipse. Aidan tried to convince us that he wanted to stay up and watch the whole thing – until 2 am. We quickly shot that down, reminding him that we had to leave the house at 6 am to make our plane.
Goodbyes, Ciaos and more cheek kissing closed a most pleasant evening and also our stay in Italia.

And now we’re on a plane. Colin and I are in business class. It’s his birthday today. He wasn’t too pleased with the day at first, but he’s been fed hamburgers and chocolate, and can watch a variety of movies on demand – so he’s better now. I agree that it’s a bummer of a way to spend a birthday (which I have experienced on an angst-filled flight back from Chicago…but that’s a whole ‘nother chapter.) On the plus side, he gets an extra 9 hours to celebrate.

There is a song on Italian radio (RTL…Cento-due-cinque) right now named, “Ciao… Arrivederci” It’s been humming through my head for a few days. Of course just the title of it has been humming through – because I don’t do the words to songs thing (because I’m too busy listening to the music. The accordian is really an under-appreciated instrument. You think I’m joking. I’m not. ) But the title alone will do as an ending. Yep. That’ll do.
Ciao.
Arrivederci.

Ready or not, here we come…..
home.