Saturday night special

Dear Readers,

A hearty hello from yours, truly! Had a lovely, decidedly omnivorous time in the stunning Pacific Northwest. It struck me that the more time I spent away from Florence, the more the city and my odd little life here seemed to melt into the muggy, turgid horizon, leaving me blissfully unaware of--for example--the fact that my in-laws exist. Various other annoying Italian metaphysical mosquitos also left me unmolested in the face of so many majestic Douglas firs and giant Sequoias; and cool breezes smelling of pines and roses and stuffed enchiladas lulled me into a slumber of forgetfulness....

Well, it took only a couple of days after arriving from Shangri-La for Florence to slap me silly with her merciless insistence that I look at the oft-warped reality show that is my life in the Bel Paese. To wit, this green towel:

The sacred relic, left to dry

  Every Saturday evening around 6 p.m., this towel appears on the chair in front of my in-laws' lair--you could set a Swiss cuckoo clock by it. It's the sign that my flea-brained (and quite possibly flea-ridden) father-in-law has taken his weekly shower. No matter that it's summer and the temps tend to hover around 90-100 degrees--with humidity levels that would give Satan pause--and that my FIL spends all day in his vast garden doing things like vigorously chopping wood for winter, hitching himself to a plow and playing giddyup among his rows of beloved dirt, and building illegal shacks out of urban detritus. The man sweats and stinks so evilly he merits a Canto in Dante's Inferno.

Notwithstanding all this, he manages to go six days a week without bathing. And to aim a vicious arrow at the truth and shoot, I'd say he'd eschew bathing completely if it weren't for the fact that he's a God-fearing soul who goes to Mass every Sunday*--come hell or after-shave--and feels he must present a scrubbed body (if not a clean conscience) to the Lord.

So, yes, the towel (which, by the way, he's been using since 1978 and is obscenely transparent in parts--I suspect it's being held together by God's will) appeared yesterday evening as usual and I sighed heavily, knowing that vacation had unequivocally ended and I was home. Home sweat sweet home.

Oh, and while I was gone my mother-in-law saw fit to offload some of her ancient victuals on us, so I came home to a rambunctious group of larvaceous food moths having a proper rave in my pantry.


Yours as usual,

Campobello

*I've written more on this delectable theme here, should you be interested in the horror genre.