Italian school supplies, or, if you prefer: Italy in a nutshell

Dear Readers,

I realize this post about back-to-school supplies is about five months late, but that tells you how things are rolling here at Letters from Florence headquarters right now. We ask that you bear with us.

As I've noted previously, Italians have the uncanny knack of taking something simple and making it ridiculously complicated. It is their Achilles' heel as a nation. (Or, if the goal is to keep everyone in a perpetual state of stress and humiliated servitude, perhaps it is their Trojan Horse). At times I think there must be some sort of secret society at work in Italy, some diabolical clandestine group of ass-backward Masons whose sole purpose is to plot new ways of bureaucratic torture. I imagine that their secret meetings, held in dank old high-ceilinged halls and wreathed in stale cigar smoke, go something like this:

Il Presidente: "It has come to my attention that it is far too easy to do X; it only takes three simple steps. We cannot, in good conscience, possibly allow this situation to continue or the sniveling masses--with all that extra time on their hands--might realize that us power mongers are feeding this country to the dogs, like so many scraps of rotten manzo. Any ideas?"

Signore Sticuppaculo: "If I may, sir... Permit me to suggest that we add at least three dozen more hoops for the poor vermin to squiggle through. Thus, in order to do X, one must first do A, B, C, D, E, F and G, then jump to QRS and do H, I, J, and K. Pending the approval of W, and accompanied by the appropriately expensive marche da bollo (only to be obtained after having  performed 2(3x - 7) + 4 (3 x + 2) = 6 (5 x + 9 ) + 3, naturally), the pitiful rube need only complete L-M-N-O-P before being sent to the YZ office--which is of course only open between 9:55-10:06 every other third Thursday in a leap year--where he will receive an official printout (but only if the printer is working and/or an ink cartridge can be found, which it isn't/won't) detailing the applicant's paltry particulars which he can then present to the TUV bureau (which stands for Troppo Ubriaco per dirti Vaffanculo), thus, finally, achieving X--or insanity, whichever comes first."

Il Presidente [rubbing hands together with glee]: "Excellent plan! Keep them as busy as rats in a maze; after all, as we know, bureaucracy is the opiate of the people. Are we all agreed, then? Raise your withered talons. Good, agreed. I move that we break for two-hour lunch, subito." [much scraping of chairs and maniacal laughs all around]

School supplies are a case in point. As a non-native-born citizen, the whole Italian school supply thing has been uncharted territory for me: no trusty, straightforward Mead here to fall back on. Of course, it doesn't help that my kids' teachers never provide a detailed list at the beginning of the academic year as to what's needed, particularly in the area of notebooks (quaderni), of which a fiendishly bewildering array exists. Will someone please tell me why there's only, like, two kinds of deodorant to choose from in all of Italy but when it comes to notebooks--specifically the choice of line-rulings and squares available--there are more options than there are iPhone apps? When, like any self-sufficient American worth her spurs, I take the Italian bull by the horns and go forth on a quest for said notebooks, this is what I come up against...

Lines ruled for 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th or 5th grade with and without margins. Lines ruled for middle school and high school. Squares, or quadretti, of 10 mm for 1st grade, 5mm for 2nd and 3rd grade (with or without margins), and 4mm for 4th grade and above (again, with or without margins). And I won't even get into the myriad Hello freakin' Kitty, slutty Winx or weirdly anthropomorphic Pokémon covers with which these notebooks are adorned.

Gack.

It doesn't help matters in the slightest that while I contemplate the dizzying selection of quaderni at the supermarket on the day before school begins (okay spare me your eye-rolls), the usual seething mass of humanity roils around me like frantic tsunami-driven waves, crashing relentlessly against the half-plundered, decimated shelves and spurting glue sticks, colored pencils, and ring binders like angry foam. Parents shout and grab wildly at the stacks of notebooks and kids squeal and paw at pencil cases and markers, as if some bizarre scholastic apocalypse were about to befall the earth and there just might be a multiple-choice quiz afterwards.

But mwahaha! just because my kid is in 1st grade (or 2nd or 3rd or 4th grade) doesn't mean that that is the notebook I should buy. How could you ever think there would be such an internal logic to the enterprise, you hopeless fool? Sometimes the 2nd grade teacher wants the kids to use the 1st grade quadretti and the 2nd grade ruled quaderni without margins. Or the 4th grade teacher wants them to use the 5mm quadretti with margins for math, 5mm quadretti without margins for science, and the 3rd grade ruled quaderni with margins for Italian. If only I had a euro for every time I bought notebooks for my kids to take along on the first day of school, only to have them tell me afterwards that maestra said I got ABCD when I should have got WXYZ--I'd be, well, um, I'd have a lot of euros.

Nihilism: the belief that existence is senseless and useless. This is the word that dances in my mind like a malevolent mantra when I ponder this uniquely Italian back-to-school mad dash, this great September melee with everyone jousting and elbowing roughly and sorting and sifting frenziedly only to buy the wrong stuff because nobody really knows what they need until they buy it, send their kids to school with it, and have the teacher--like some cruel and indifferent deity--smite them with a word and point out the error of their ways.

That lovable old curmudgeon, Thomas Hobbes, said once that life during times of war is nasty, brutish and short. Oh, dear old Hobbesy, if only you had to face-off with the formidable and impossibly hydra-headed beast of school supplies in the Bel Paese--you'd realize that life isn't nearly short enough.


Yours from the Tuscan trenches,

Campobello

Lo and behold! A Christmas Metaphor

Dear Readers,

After some 12 years of Italian living, I've learned not to expect much from the Italian postal service (I want to add a snarky "bwahahahaha!" but shall refrain). So you can imagine my surprise when we received a mysterious envelope, addressed to my daughter, from the Poste Italiane in the mail yesterday.

I can only surmise that the postal service lifted her name and address off the letterina to Babbo Natale--wherein she detailed her preferences (anything having to do with dogs) and demands (along the lines of "I know darn well I've been good so bring me all this stuff no later than 6:00 am Dec. 25 or you'll be sorry, kiss kiss ciao ciao heart heart Gemma")--that she shoved into the little red mailbox down the street about a week ago. In this large blue envelope was a letter from Santa in which he tells how he lost his warm berretto and the elves, out of deep affection for their boss, bought him a straw hat with which to replace it, and that even though it wasn't really appropriate (given the temperatures at the North Pole during winter of course), he loved it because it was a gift from the heart. He admonishes, "You know, my dear children, that which makes us truly happy is not what we want, but rather that which we receive from the people who love us." (Nothing like a preemptive strike in case the little tykes don't get what's on their list). Then the letter says that Reindeer Matilda will help him find his old hat (because he still would really rather have that one, see, thus rendering moot his earlier magnanimity) with her glowing purple nose--you just have to build her, discover the internet address, and then go look up the webpage where you can experience all manner of fun hunting for Santa's hat on the internets.

Huh. Those knaves! Who do they take me for? Like I don't know that this isn't merely a diverting Christmas activity for a child. It's a metaphor, a metaphor for life in Italy. Naturally.

Italians love children, they really really do. To the extent that even the inept, malingering Poste Italiane will incur considerable expense at sending these little packets around. Of course, this also means they're apparently too busy to deliver the package I've been waiting three weeks for.

Italians are impossibly long-winded in print. Gemma took one look at the long-ass letter from Santa and tossed it aside, couldn't be bothered. I myself react similarly to the emails I get from the PTA--by comparison they make most Wikipedia entries look like something you'd find in a fortune cookie.

Italians need their parents for everything. The complexity of Matilda the Purple-Nosed Reindeer's construction is mind-boggling. Not only do you need a parent to build it for you, you need a parent with an engineering degree and a good dose of Mother Teresa's DNA.

Italians take a simple idea or solution and make it impossibly convoluted and unnecessarily complex. Matilda the Purple-Nosed Reindeer has some 20 small parts made of flimsy paper, requires legs and neck to be folded accordion-style with obsessive-compulsive precision, and needs all the minute intractable flaps to be glued together (and apparently handled with tiny surgical instruments)--at 9:30 pm on a school night with your daughter insisting adamantly that she won't go to bed until it's finished and you regretting that third glass of wine that shot your fine motor skills to hell. Then you're supposed to hop online, pray your crappy DSL connection holds out, and surf your way to holiday fun-time while Matilda's scrofulous, rickety legs start falling apart and her antlers go awry. Frack you, fracking Matilda the Purple-Nosed Reindeer!

Do not question life on this immutable peninsula, just accept things as they are. Why does Matilda have a purple nose? Why is she called Matilda? (Was Matilda the name of some tricked-out, nun-garbed floozy at one of Berlusca's bunga bunga parties, and is thus a kind of twisted yuletide homage to a pancake-faced man who sleeps in pickling liquid?) What diabolical nincompoop designed Matilda? And why does the postal service have all kinds of time on their hands? These and all such equally rational inquiries fall on the stone-deaf ears of the cold, indifferent Italian universe.

I cannot help but think, dear Readers, that it probably would have been better if Matilda the Purple-Nosed Reindeer had never entered my life, never clomped into my living room on her insouciant brown paper hoofs, as it were. But she did, and I--as usual--have to try and glue all the little pieces together and make some merry sense of it all.


Ho Ho and all that,

Campobello

Bringing up baby in Italy, where the wild things are

Warning: scatological content of an extremely excremental nature

Cocktails and suspension of disbelief advised

Dear Readers,

As many of us expat mums know, bringing forth bambinos in Italy is not for the fainthearted. Apart from the scarcity of epidurals ("in pain you shall bring forth children"--Genesis 3:16 and apparently Holy Gospel here in the Boot*) and the crap-shoot (after seeing the state of their bathrooms I want to add "literally", but that's just sick) that is the birthing experience in public hospitals, the toughest aspect of new mommy-hood is undoubtedly navigating the Lhotse Face of traditional Italian child-rearing, typically embodied in the fearsome, meddlesome, and confounding creature that any self-respecting Sherpa worth his yak butter would steer clear of: the Italian mother-in-law.

Come, stroll down memory lane with me, chickens, while I cull a few cow patties from my experiences as an inexperienced American mother who sailed off through night and day, and in and out of weeks, and almost over a year, to where the wild things are....

Not just a garnish

As we all know, Italian MILs are obsessed with bowel movements: their own, their neighbor's, their children's, and especially their grandchildren's. However, when my first was born, I wasn't quite prepared for the vehemence of my MIL's burning, all-engrossing desire and need to know the exact amount, consistency, color and character of every single one of my son's diaperial evacuations, and how often these occurred.  Poor little Giacomo--he never performed well enough for his nonna; it was either not enough not often enough, or too much too often, or just not the right damn kind. But as annoying as all this was, nothing was worse than the dreaded (oooh, I still get chills racing down my spine just thinking about it) stitichezza, or constipation--easily the dirtiest word in the Italian language.

I learned quickly to conceal the true nature of my son's cacca from her, like Yoda guarding the secrets of the Force from the future Darth Vader. But one day--perhaps my husband and I had hit the Chianti a little too hard and let our guard down--one of us let it slip to the MIL that our infant son hadn't pooped in five days.

And she roared her terrible roars and gnashed her terrible teeth and rolled her terrible eyes and showed her terrible claws

"O Santo Cielo! Non è possibile! Call the doctor! Call the doctor!"

So we did.

And SHE roared her terrible roars and gnashed her terrible teeth and rolled her terrible eyes and showed her terrible claws

The pediatrician pretty much made us feel like what should've been in my son's diaper. I thought she was going to sic social services on us because we were obviously such crappy parents. Needless to say, I learned the Italian word for enema that day (cristere, for those of you who give a shit--or want to give one to someone else).

Well, since that dark day Giacomo was forever labeled stitico in my mother-in-law's eyes (and me, stronza--i.e. turd), which of course meant that she began using all her old wives' tactics to scioglie (loosen) his sweet, innocent bowels, to most of which I simply turned the other cheek. Then, one fine spring day I wandered all la-dee-da out into the garden with himself in tow, so we could admire the flowers and take in a bit of fresh air. Little did I realize we were about to happen upon a witches coven: there gathered among the olive trees and rosemary bushes was the malevolent MIL, and my sister-in-law along with her mother and younger sister--who was also toting a newborn boy and had the cold, dead eyes of the thoroughly inculcated Italian female. My mother-in-law promptly introduced the two babies to one another, "Constipated, meet Emmanuele." Swift as hawks, they closed ranks.

And they roared their terrible roars and gnashed their terrible teeth and rolled their terrible eyes and showed their terrible claws

They bombarded me with advice and remedies each more preposterous than the last; it was an all-out blitzkrieg of harpy-voiced grenades. And then the A-bomb: "You should use parsley! Yes--parsley! Parsley! Parsley!" they all chanted. "Just take the stem end and insert it into his...."

I said "BE STILL!" and tamed them with the magic trick of staring into all their yellow eyes without blinking once...

"I WILL NOT HAVE ANYONE STICKING HERBS UP MY CHILD'S ASS!"

...and they were frightened and called me the most wild thing of all

Still more cow patties

There was the time I appeared in the MIL's kitchen with baby Giacomo buried deep in a sling over my abdomen, sleeping blissfully. She became apoplectic with holy indignation at my blatant attempt at infanticide and did a pretty good impression of someone in the throes of St.Vitus Dance.

And FYI, she wasn't at all impressed when I said that women in Africa use them.

There were numerous times we came to loggerheads over the infamous maglia della salute, or woolen onesie for newborns, held sacred here. I'd tell her "yes, that's just what a vellum-skinned infant who's been floating around in the soothing softness of amniotic fluid for nine months needs: A HAIR SHIRT!"

There was the time she--doubtless tired of the deaf ear I turned to most of her arguments--sent my sister-in-law into my bedroom to badger me into breastfeeding on a set schedule rather than on demand. I calmly confirmed my presence in the 21st century and said that she was welcome to remain in the 18th, if not my room.

There was the time the MIL, obsessed with Giacomo's weight and sure my breast milk wasn't enough and mystified by my adamant refusal to use aggiunte (formula supplements with crumbled cookies in them--yep, you read that right), forced my husband to rent a scale so that he (baby, not husband) could be weighed after every single feeding. I told her the only thing that contraption was fit for was weighing pork loins (or as a shoe horn for wedging her man feet into those outsize clodhoppers), and refused to use it.

Then there was the time my newborn daughter and I were visiting the Duomo one wintry morning and she decided to offload copiously while ensconced in one of those down-padded baby sacs. After heartily, if silently, cursing Arnolfo di Cambio for not including changing stations in his design, I decided to shrug it off. I figured I had about a half hour before significant seepage, so I went over to Max Mara and made a salesgirl hold Gemma while I tried on sweaters. This I did not tell the MIL. 

To all of these declarations of independence (and many more), the entire ferocious and fakakta Italian female Maternity Police--of which my mother-in-law is commander-in-chief--raised their collective shrewish voices in terrifying, hell-rousing, cacophonous union and

ROARED THEIR TERRIBLE ROARS 

AND GNASHED THEIR TERRIBLE TEETH 

AND ROLLED THEIR TERRIBLE EYES 

AND SHOWED THEIR TERRIBLE CLAWS

Yes they most certainly did.

"Now stop!" I said, and sent the wild things off to bed without their supper

Then I stepped into my private boat and waved good-bye, and sailed back over a year, and in and out of weeks, and through a day, and into the night of my very own room...

And there weren't any interfering bitches in there to spoil my supper.

The Queen of all Wild Things,
with her little fecal underachiever

As always, yours from the Tuscan trenches,

Campobello

*The MIL would quote this verse to me during my first pregnancy, bless her idiotic black heart.

Priorities, Italian-style

Dear Readers,

As many of you are aware, the whole country is going to hell: we've been royally buggered by Berlusconi and we're teetering on the brink of an economic abyss; a raft of unpopular austerity measures were passed which seem designed to decimate us plebeians while the Vultures of Rome continue to gorge on our carcasses; in protest, the union bloodsuckers have launched a blitzkrieg of strikes which further cripples the peons and, of course, does nothing to ruffle the feathers of the old buzzards in charge--who, naturally, remain untouched by any discomforts caused thereby. Our parliamentarians are dancing on our (early) graves with their bloated and sacrosanct salaries (which they resolutely refuse to reduce in these belt-tightening times), expense accounts, retirement packages, etc. that rank them as the highest paid parliamentarians in Europe (but who, interestingly enough, log in the least hours of actual labor). And consider this: if these onerous onorevoli don't show up for work at all--that is, for meetings and votes and such--they're only penalized up to a paltry 30% of their government salary, meaning they still take home at least 70% of their €144,084.36 ($187, 669.36), or €100,859.06 ($131,368.56). I'd like to know of anyone else on planet Earth who gets paid a shitload for not turning up for work, while the toiling masses are being asked to suck it up for the greater good.

But meanwhile, despite all this, my inbox has been filled with emails from PTA moms regarding the never-ending merenda debate (should kids be allowed to bring mid-morning snacks? But it ruins their appetite for lunch!), and the commissione mensa. I'm talkin' long, l-o-n-g emails, emails with articles and codicils, emails drafted in the arcane language of the Constitution (aside: nearly all school district-related emails are inexplicably like this). What, exactly, is the commissione mensa, you ask? It's a volunteer squad of parents who show up at school every day to report on the quality of food served in the cafeteria. Taste-testers, in a word.

I was sent a form emblazoned with the official seal of the school district (I didn't even know our school district had an official seal) which I was to fill out and sign--with an appropriate flourish--should I wish to become a Taste-Tester. I was also sent a three-page Code of the Taste-Testers document which outlined the grave responsibilities and solemn duties of those who choose to heed the call and become one of the few, the proud, etc. And then, finally, I was sent a four-page form which the Taste-Testers must fill out upon every inspection. Ahem--four pages.

On this form, a Taste-Tester must rate the following:

--Punctuality of arrival, as the food is cooked off-site and brought in. (Because Italians, of course, care so very much about punctuality)

--Organizational aspects. (And they care equally much about being organized at all times in all things)

--Whether or not the day's menu was pleasing, and whether or not the quantity was sufficient (I'm reminded of the Woody Allen line: "Boy, the food at this place is really terrible." "Yeah, I know, and such small portions")

--Does the menu served match the written menu which was sent home to parents? If not, how did it vary? (Altering the Gospel According to Paul might carry fewer repercussions)

--The flavor and quality of each course/item (that is, primo of pasta, secondo of protein, bread, side of veg and fruit) and whether or not it was rejected/wasted by the students. (Budding food critics, all)

--The cleanliness and orderliness of the table-settings, the service staff and their uniforms, and the kitchen area. (Italians are obsessed with cleanliness, except when they're being pigs)

--The staff's behavior toward the children. (They'd better be treated like the half-pint deities they are, or it's off with your head)

An ample area is provided on the form for the comments and suggestions of the Taste-Tester (one assumes an essay and critique along the lines of Ruth Reichl tackling Tavern on the Green is called for. If only political analysis in this country was as probing and cogent).

Greenjeans the Hungry Wino:
the school cafeteria rabbit and mascot

I confess to finding all this utterly hilarious. In a country suffering the economic equivalent of the Black Death (and where tax evasion and corruption are as rife as the disease-spreading, bubo-inducing flea), where the quality of political representation resembles something out of Titus Andronicus--people are deeply, profoundly concerned as to whether or not their child's penne al pesto is palatable.

But maybe these Italians have it nailed--maybe other things are more important and more relevant to the realities of everyday life. Maybe I should just quit harping, look on the bright side, eat my fill of the glorious Tuscan bounty which surrounds me, and go bury my head in the sand, too.

Sounds like a plan.

Yours,

Campobello

When the frosting hits the fan: an article for The Florentine

Who knew that serving cupcakes was an act of cultural sedition?

Click here to go to article

(I wrote a post on a similar theme, but the results were--ahem--somewhat different)

The Angel of Death wears a wet Speedo

Dear Readers,

It is with immense joy I announce that Summer 2011 for yours truly shall entail total avoidance of Italian beaches. (I've written about my particular aversion to the peculiarly Italian style of fun-in-the-sun here and here). In a way, eschewing the oven-baked, seething stretches of Tuscan sand--bordered by traffic-choked streets, ugly apartment blocks, video arcades and tawdry Luna Parks--has become something of a point of pride for me. I much prefer Italy's mountains--my beloved Dolomites--for a getaway that gives me everything I crave: the wonder of nature, luxurious amounts of sweet fresh air, space to breathe in, pleasantly arduous physical activity, great food and wine, and relief from the heat.

To further tickle the repulsion centers of your brains, I shall relate to you a vignette or two from beach vacations past....

The scene: Elba, June 2001. My brother- and sister-in law--otherwise known as the Bürgermeister and Frau Weiner--and their two young, catatonically-compliant daughters crashed our vacation. My husband and I had been living with his parents in Florence (this was a folly for which I'd gladly render my kneecaps in order to completely erase from memory), I was in the early months of my first pregnancy, and we had come to a shady hillside above Cavoli to relax, escape family and enjoy some much-needed Couple Time. My mother-in-law--curse her black, meddling, pantyhose-constricted soul--saw fit to reveal our secret location in a rented house to the Bürgermeister, who then showed up on our doorstep and summarily dumped his bags.

What was perhaps even more disturbing to me than this total disregard for our privacy was the revelation that the Bürgermeister and brood go to the beach and then spend most of the time there actually shunning the water.

Because water--like ice cubes or air conditioning--will kill you, of course. Therefore it is to be avoided--regardless if it's 105 degrees out, and the hot sand shears off an onion-thin layer of your feet each time you step on it. This is Italy, after all, where the feathery tendrils of tepid breezes on even the most scorching days bring on raging pneumonia, where drinking cold beverages freezes your digestion and proceeds to decimate your internal organs with pernicious stomach acids, and where getting wet--either from bathing, swimming, water-pistol fights, or rain--carries the risk of slow and torturous total bronchial annihilation.

They're a strange breed, these Italians. I mean, to them, shampooing your hair and letting it air-dry, or riding a public bus with the windows open (in summer) is considered a come-hither to the Grim Reaper--while running red lights with impunity, driving the wrong way down one-way streets, or passing on a curve at 100 miles-an-hour is regarded as completely innocuous, if not downright wholesome.

I digress. At the small local beach, Frau Weiner smothered a chaise with her rear end and remained there under the umbrella, as languorous as a corpulent Salome, the entire day--all the while shouting dire warnings at the girls who were forbidden to wade past ankle-deep in the mild surf. Me being American, young(er) and blunt, asked, "Why don't you go in the water?"

"Oh, I don't like the water! I never go in," she replied.

"Then why do you come to the beach?"

She volleyed me a look that said "you impossible fool, one goes to the beach because everybody goes to the beach," and busied herself arranging the elaborate, black, see-through, sequined cover-up over her plump thighs.

Meanwhile, the Bürgermeister refused to join us under the umbrella; he stood--stood, mind you--on his hind legs for hours under a tree back near the road, in a white tee-shirt and swim trunks, watching the girls at play with fixed and vigilant eyes, like some prissy, neurotic lifeguard. This was when I tried in vain to come up with the Italian translation of "Jeez, but that guy's got a big stick up his ass" for my husband.

Frau Weiner's aversion to water is inbred, I found out. Her parents have a beach house in Viareggio, mere steps from the boardwalk, and religiously rent a front-row spot in one of the more expensive bagni every summer--but they, too, never deign to enter the water. In fact, even though they pay through the nose for the privilege of having their chaises and umbrella available for the three-month duration, they've stopped going to the beach at all, abandoning their precious patch of sand to visiting grandchildren. "It's too hot," they complain.

That's why there's the water.

One summer, we accepted an invitation by the Bürgermeister clan to join them in Viareggio, and watched the Fear-of-Water-Hurly-Burly-Show play out daily. As usual, Frau Weiner was ensconced on her chaise like Jabba the Hutt on a plinth, each day sporting a different fashionable swimsuit with gauzy, coordinating cover-up and sparkly infraditi. This time the Bürgermeister managed to actually sit for periods--albeit bolt upright--in a canvas director's chair, craning his neck to watch every life-threatening splash the girls made. An oversized canvas beach bag sat next to Frau Weiner, and every time the girls would tire of their games and come out of the water--to play in the sand perhaps, or get a drink of water or a snack--she would pluck two fresh bathing-suits out of the bag and immediately change them, towelling them off frantically, lest they catch a chill. Every time. I was as riveted by this ritual as if she were Houdini performing the handkerchief trick out of a top hat--bathing suit after bathing suit kept coming out of the bag, in seemingly endless supply. Once again I couldn't resist:

"Why do you change them every time they come out of the water [you psychotic, Lycra-encased sausage]?"

"Because they'll get bronchite if they sit around in wet suits [you hopelessly stupid, foolhardy Yank]."

"Oh." I squinted up at the molten, orange orb in the sky and at the waves of heat shimmering along the shoreline, while sweat pooled in-between my toes. "Well, we wouldn't want that."

If the poor girls had even so much as one bite of focaccia, or a cracker, or a piece of fruit, the Bürgermeister would command from his director's chair, "NO GOING IN THE WATER NOW FOR AT LEAST TWO HOURS, OR YOU'LL GET A CRAMP AND DROWN!" Apparently that was his sole function and purpose for being on the beach at all--since nary a stiff, punctilious toe of his ever even dipped in the water.

***

So if I shan't be spending summer in this Hell--a Hell that could kill me quicker than if I were to be smeared in Spam and left for bear bait--where will I be spending the dog days, you may ask? Why, in Heaven, of course. I shall be enjoying nearly two glorious months in the majestic Pacific Northwest. What's more, I plan on wantonly indulging in all the things that would kill an ordinary Italian: basking in air-conditioned environments until I get goose-flesh, swilling iced tea that is chock full of ice cubes, eating spicy ethnic food, getting soaked at water parks and letting myself air dry--and did I mention eating spicy ethnic food?

Here's wishing a wonderful summer full of similar risks, dangers and pitfalls to all of you, my dear Readers. I may post while abroad, or I may not--we'll see. But rest assured that I'll be back in September--if the Sasquatch doesn't get me, of course. Or the water.


Yours, ever recklessly,

Campobello

Guerrilla-style potato salad (this is NOT a recipe)

In honor of Independence Day, upon which we were liberated from our Oppressors--culinary and otherwise.

Dear Readers,

It's always something. When you live in a foreign country, even the most innocuous request can open up a can of wriggling, irritating, cultural worms.

Recently, because of my Yankee origins, I was asked to contribute un piatto americano to my six year-old daughters' year-end class picnic. I smothered a loud, curmudgeonly groan and the usual array of curses with an effusive, "Why, of course! I'd be delighted!" The organizer-mom had the cute idea to ask everyone to bring a dish from their native land--which is odd, considering that nearly all the parents are Florentine and thus we'd be having the usual slew of local fare. But, upon reflection, I suppose this class is about as diverse as it gets for my little corner of Florence: there are two American moms (including yours truly), as well as a Japanese, a German, a Danish, and a French mom--and one from Calabria (though from a bona fide region of Italy, she's considered as foreign as the rest of us).

Preparing ethnic/American dishes for Italians is a tricky business (one I have touched upon here), hence my annoyed reluctance to subject myself and my not-too-shabby-if-I-do-say-so-myself cooking to the typically close-minded scrutiny of such cuisine-phobic pantywaists. The iconic foodstuffs, the hamburgers and hot dogs and their ilk, seem to be what most Italians expect from us--rather like malaria from pesky mosquitos. I have found that efforts to enlighten them with our genuine, though perhaps harder-to-suss-out, homemade specialties are usually as lost on their sissified palates as flotsam in a roiling sea of culinary provincialism. For instance, every time I have served an honest-to-goodness, made-from-scratch-and-redolent-with-spice pumpkin pie to People of the Boot, they double over and fling themselves from their dining chairs as if they'd just cannibalized a dear-departed, and practically projectile vomit all over the walls. I have, since, ceased to inflict this particular--though dearly beloved to me--dessert of doom on my adopted countrymen.

For the most part, Italians simply have no idea what other people in the world eat—beyond the stereotypes, of course—and, when it comes down to it, they simply don't care.

Once, in the bookstore where I was working, a liver-spotted, toad-like Italian cretin with Baroque sunglasses and carefully-upturned, pressed polo collar asked me to show him a book on American cuisine. When I pulled out Thomas Keller's newly-arrived Ad Hoc at Home, he added--his voice dripping with sarcasm--“That is, if there IS such a thing as American cuisine!" Naturally, I immediately rendered him unconscious by hitting him over the head with the cash register.

I feel no need to be ashamed of American food that uses the best of our local ingredients. Our vast continent is teeming with a Pilgrim's bounty of wonderful indigenous produce; that fresh, green breast of the New World about which Fitzgerald wrote nourishes its wayward children on an embarassment of culinary riches. And of course the tired, poor, huddled masses whose foreign hands stirred the great, exotic, multi-ethnic minestrone created an ever-changing smorgasbord for generations to enjoy and riff upon. American cuisine is rather like American English—peppered with far-flung influences, constantly innovating and evolving, a veritable bucking bronco of free-spirited creativity—producing a rather astonishing and riotous polyglot range of expression which ennables us to get straight to the point with a grilled-cheese-on-rye, or elaborate more thoroughly with a Creole jambalaya or New England clam chowder. It's a language and a cuisine that both shoots from the hip and frolics with the sublime--and, yes, it does have its fair share of barbarisms.

Entirely at a loss, I put the question of what to make for the class picnic to friends. Among the quintessentially American (and, I suspect, slightly irreverent) suggestions were: pizza-lasagne-spaghetti, White Castle sliders, Tater Tot casserole, funnel cakes, coney dogs, Twinkies dipped in taco sauce (this from a respected educator. Hi Mr. S!), cocktail weenies, lime Jell-O salad, mac n' cheese, and my personal favorite—buffalo jerky, roast squirrel (or, in a pinch, muskrat) and acorn mush. Now that's what I call going native.

In the end I decided on an archetypical picnic food: the humble potato salad. After all, I reasoned, Italians eat potatoes, don't they? I knew I'd be playing fast and loose, though, what with the spicy mustard I add to the mayonnaise. And of course there was the clear and present danger of the bits of pickle and celery—that could trigger the inborn revulsion/expulsion reflex. But dammit-all, I'm proud to be American and by God I was gonna give those self-righteous noodle-eaters a taste of the Stars and Stripes! Hell, yeah!

So I stormed the picnic with a splendidly defiant potato salad, my eyes blazing, my head held high.

I discovered that only myself--representing the red, white, and blue--Japan, Denmark, and Calabria showed up. (Clearly the others were chicken). "Well, here goes--to hell with them!" I thought, as I slapped my Tupperware down decisively on the long table under the gazebo, daring the first Italian to taste my offering. (I suppose this attitude makes me the anti-Christ to Martha Stewart's Jesus).

Did they eat it? No. Sure, there were a few cautious nibbles, then the culinary equivalent of a dead silence. Me and Danish mom (who brought a bowl of crispy bacon, God bless her, of which I and my wolfish offspring ate two-thirds and dumped what remained into my purse) polished off half. Then--to add insult to injury, as they say--I was asked to judge an Italian mom's attempt at New York-style cheesecake. Still burning from my slighted potato salad, I looked down at the impossibly flat, sticky-purple-goo-slathered, burned-periphery concoction and tried not to let a Kurtz-like tremor of horror overtake my body. The thing had three inches of Kalahari-dry, brick-like cookie crust and two centimeters of a glum glop comprised of cream cheese, mascarpone, ricotta and--apparently--cotton balls. But did I gag and clutch my throat? Did I spew in disgust and wrath? No. I choked the abomination down, smiled, and pronounced it delicious.

And as it turns out, I was also too chicken to cackle or mock or show my stunned surprise at the enormous plastic trough of STEWED VEAL that some Italian miscreant brought. (Nothing like thick, hot stew at a picnic in 90-degree weather, I always say! How dare they spurn my cool, tangy, tastebud-tickling potato salad? Fools! Xenophobes! Depraved stew-lickers!).

Thankfully, James Beard, MFK Fisher, and Julia Child--up there among the celestial crockpots in their culinary Valhalla--showed mercy and did not smite chicken-livered me with an outraged lightning bolt from on high.

So as you see, dear Readers, I clearly failed in my mission. I do not possess the forbearance and valor needed to force the food of my star-spangled heritage down the gullets of infidels. It takes real guts to be a soldier in the culinary crusades here in Italy, I tell you. More guts that I have, that's for sure.


Yours,

Campobello

The juggernaut

Dear Readers,

The season is upon us, like a pox--that time of year when the First Holy Communion Circus rolls into town, like a gargantuan, gaudy, Catholic Trojan horse, obliterating everything in its path, disgorging its cherub-cheeked assailants who then proceed to consume entire weekends in an orgy of inconsiderateness and suck up our hard-earned cash like a brothelful of insatiable hookers.

Here in Italy, la prima comunione has morphed into a metaphysical monstrosity, a sacramental side-show--packing more emotional and material punch than even weddings (the reason for this being that Italians become unhinged and lose all sense of appropriateness when it comes to celebrating their precious bambini). Elaborate ecclesiastical stage productions involving scores of kids are commonplace, with ceremonies lasting longer than the Oscars, and after-parties--with plenty of hifalutin loot--worthy of the Hilton sisters. Of course, this rite of passage didn't used to be such a babel-like behemoth. My husband remembers a solemn ceremony, brief enough, and a small rinfresco afterwards of plain cake and spumante with a few toothless, vellum-skinned, seldom-seen distant relatives--in addition to his immediate family--propped up in chairs lining the musty sala parocchiale. As gifts, he got an ordinary rosary, a small prayer book, and the Italian equivalent of a Mickey Mouse watch.

All the madness of the modern-day version of the event struck me--like a righteous fist--recently, as I walked past a party-supply store boasting a lurid, beribboned, Hindenburg-sized balloon (or mongolfiera) in the window, with "PRIMA COMUNIONE" stamped all over it in gold glitter. It had a cavernous gift basket attached to the bottom, the likes of which could carry a host of little holy rollers around the world in eighty days. Or more.

In reality, that basket is meant to hold a good half-ton of bomboniere, the sugar-coated almonds that traditionally are given as party favors to guests, these days in ever more elaborate and fanciful embroidered linen bundles. Inside each bundle is a little slip of paper with the name of the child and the date of her First Communion in calligraphy, lest you dare forget. Eager parents willingly spend a king's ransom on these bomboniere, and--as with much of the rest of Communion-mania--they have become increasingly secular in tone, and are often adorned with cartoon characters, action figures, or soccer balls and the like. Apparently we've reached that point in civilization when the Son of God needs a publicity boost from the likes of Hello Kitty.

But that's merely the start of the outpouring of cash--there's the fancy luncheon or dinner party to be thrown, the double-tiered gâteau or decadent millefoglie to be ordered from a good pasticceria, the expensive new duds for the ceremony, the trip to the salon for girls beforehand for hairstyling, manicures, and makeup. And then there are the gifts. I tell you, these little squirts make out like medieval sultans after a good plundering.

My baptism by fire, so to speak, was eight years ago when my eldest niece's first communion gala popped up on the calendar. I had absolutely no idea what I was in for--if I had, I would have immediately committed seppuku and been subsequently (and blissfully) absent from the whole affair. First, the gift fiasco: my husband and I had thought to give her a small gold cross necklace of the type that would be appropriate for a young girl to wear--something simple and sweet. Instead, we were requested by her parents (my depressingly bourgeois brother- and sister-in-law, otherwise known as the Bürgermeister and Frau Wiener) to chip in "as much as you can" (i.e. hundreds) for a diamond-encrusted, platinum cross pendant  from Bulgari or some such place. I was aghast. This was a bauble worthy of Elizabeth Taylor! (Me being fairly new to this country and to the family at the time, I bit my tongue and the bullet as well, nearly weeping over the loss of two-fifths of our monthly salary. Now, of course, I'd sooner eat a bicycle tire than let myself be coerced into gift-giving. I'd also relish the opportunity to explain to the hopelessly spoiled prospective communicant that you're not supposed to get what you want in this earthly life--that's what being Catholic is all about, goddammit).

In addition to this barbarism, I was forced to endure a hair-tearing three-hour ceremony in a packed-to-the-rafters mega-church, complete with musical numbers and tableaux vivants, and watch some sixty little sheep mince toward the altar where an official event photographer snapped each one posing with the resplendent, golden-robed priest and The Wafer (held aloft)--while Bette Midler's "You are the wind beneath my wings" blasted from the stereo system. My head was splitting, and I had to pee something fierce. Finally the infernal thing came to an end, erupting into a chaos of camera flashes and shouting, and in my delirium I wasn't sure if those kiddies had just been conjoined to the community of Christians or participated in an MTV awards ceremony.

After the elaborate five-course luncheon at a picturesque country restaurant, my imp-eyed niece began opening her gifts and passing them around the huge U-shaped table for us plebeians to see what riches our paychecks were capable of buying. I looked dazedly on while considering the pain-relieving effects of grappa: there was our necklace, smug in its black velvet case, as well as a lovely pair of sapphire earrings, a trendy rhinestone-studded watch, a silver and gold bracelet, and other gewgaws worthy of a maharani. Actually, she was more like the infant Christ turned Elton John and we were the adoring Magi come by way of Madison Avenue. In the years that followed, we enjoyed two more opportunities to dutifully--again at the behest of despotic parents--bestow fine jewelry (and a digital camera) upon my other nieces celebrating their first communion, and suffer through more protracted pageantry.

There may be some Quaker-like mean streak in me, but I can't help feeling that the true meaning of these ceremonies is lost in all the three-ring razzle-dazzle. When did holy get ditched for Hollywood? Don't get me wrong--I'm all for a bit of pomp if the circumstance calls for it, but I think we're drowning the baby in the bath water here.

Because Jesus Christ and Hello Kitty go so well together

Yet I fear we must reconcile ourselves to the onward march of the battalions of First Communion revelers, and resign ourselves to their Broadway-style sacramental blitzkrieg. It certainly seems to be an unstoppable force here in the Bel Paese--comprising as it does that bizarre and powerful mix of Catholicism and unbridled materialism upon which so many Italians seem to thrive. It suddenly occurs to me, though, that perhaps all this sturm und drang really has more to do with satisfying an urge which lies deep in the bowels of the Italian psyche--the boundless appetite for exhibition, the love of spectacle (along with a good party and plenty of good eats)--than anything else. I mean, think about it: why say, merely, "Violetta and Alfredo had a thing for each other," when you can perform La Traviata and bring down the house?

Indeed. Why merely have cake--or the body and blood of Christ, for that matter--when you can eat your cake and flaunt your diamonds, too?


Yours,

Campobello

* The above photo has been blatantly lifted from some Italian mum's blog, wherein she was just tickled pink and oozing self-satisfaction at having scored these babies.

Sociable medicine

Dear Readers,

Sundry winter ills have recently propelled me into the labyrinthine Italian healthcare system, or Servizio Sanitario Nazionale, which, I might add [insert oozing sarcasm] is always a pleasure. To me, partaking of this [insert oozing sarcasm again] service is often like being inside Waiting for Godot for all eternity.

But I'm not going to write about all the waiting, the telephoning, the accruing and distributing of certificates and papers, the take-a-number machines, the dingy offices, the vacant-faced medical personnel, etc. What I want to tell you about is the realization--or revelation?--I had that all the elaborate machinations of the system exist in order to give Italy's inordinately large population of old farts--or geriatric mafia--a social life. You see, the more you are forced to hang out in doctors' offices and clinics, the more chances you get to trade grisly anatomical chit-chat with your fellow snowy-domed sufferers.

For example, the doctor's waiting-room I was recently prisoner to was full of black-clad decrepits in shapeless parkas and sturdy shoes, all hacking ostentatiously as if they had tuberculosis, sighing heavily, and bemoaning their fate to those around them:

"Maria Santa, I haven't slept in days!"
"I have The Fever!" (La febbre is always intoned ominously as if one were invoking Satan)
"I can't have a bowel movement!"
"My liver hurts!"
"I've had the runs for a week!"
"My hemorrhoids are acting up!"
"O Dio, I'm unable to swallow!"

These proclamations always elicit sympathetic responses, followed by a curious one-upmanship:

"Well, I haven't had regular bowel movements for thirty years!"
"Well, my pee is purple!"
"Well, the ringing in my ears sounds like the intro to Porta a porta!"

This is a by-product of living in a Catholic country, of course. Suffering is expected, enjoyed even. Since you claim your Celestial Sweepstakes prize in the next, eternal life, you may as well wallow in your own misery in this more temporal existence. And be sure to tell everybody about it (no Anglo-American reticence here, thank you very much!)--indeed, why not compete with your neighbors to see who suffers most? I get the feeling these old folks believe that the size of their eternal reward shall be directly proportionate to the amount of physical suffering they have endured here on earth. Thus, according to geriatric logic, varicose veins equals a meagerly-appointed, single room in Heaven's hostel, while inflamed boils combined with gout and perhaps the insertion of a pacemaker garners a deluxe suite in God's five-star spa & resort, complete with cherubic-cheeked cabana boys serving drinks with paper umbrellas in them, poolside.

There's no shame whatsoever in the body's afflictions, in fact it's all part of polite conversation. When I see a neighbor on the street and volley a perfunctory "hello, how are you?" in passing, I am often stopped and served up a hair-raising tale of invasive surgical procedures, squamous skin conditions with frightening Latin names, harrowing infections of biblical perniciousness, and other torments of the damned. Once, when I went to a neighbor's apartment to return something I'd borrowed, I was met at the door by her harried elderly mother (she lives with her parents, of course) who said, "Oh! Please, wait only a moment--I was just giving my husband an enema. I'll be right back." I then spent an agonizing ten minutes on the threshold, trying not to imagine the goings-on down the corridor, desiring with every fiber of my being to creep back down the stairs, but forced by some perverse sense of etiquette to listen to an enema being administered to--from the sound of things--a most recalcitrant old man. Presently the barrel-shaped Signora returned, huffing and snapping her rubber gloves off crisply, and said, "Now, what is it you wanted?" I tossed her the parcel and fled.

If you listen closely, dear Readers, you will hear it. Like the constant drone of motorini, the never-ending raga of the ailments of the nation's elderly can be heard in every doctor's office, clinic, alimentari, beauty salon, bank, city street or piazza. Blood-pressure and white blood-cell counts, toe fungus, swollen ankles, inert thyroids, osteoporosis--the moribund music is pervasive. What's fit only for the ears of trained medical personnel in other parts of the world is, I repeat, fodder for everyday conversation in the Bel Paese.

I suppose one could view all this senile social interaction as part of the charm of Italy, indicative of a slower pace of life that allows lonely, chatty septuagenarians and their ilk the chance to feel connected to those around them, evidence of a fast-fading way of life that is bound to go the route of the brontosaurus. I suppose one could smile beneficently when a harpy-voiced old crone chirps out the state of her much-belabored intestinal tract in a dull, five-by-six-foot unheated room packed with germ-ridden supplicants. It's enchanting really.

To give yet another example--while standing in line at the pharmacy last week to fill a prescription, I had to wait fifteen minutes while the potato-faced geezer in front of me regaled the pharmacist with the excruciating details of his cataract surgery. And she didn't care one whit that I was waiting (perhaps even in dire need of life-saving medicines), but seemed to be really enthusiastically listening. I shuffled my feet, shifted my weight from one leg to the other, looked at my watch--to no avail. Cataract Man would have his say.

The chosen people


But who am I to criticize, to cast aspersions (and acerbic aspersions, at that)? I know that someday I, too, will be old. And then I, too, may gain great pleasure in recounting at length to the pharmacist (or anyone who will listen) the story of my recent hip-replacement surgery or my losing battle with incontinence--while a host of impatient souls in line behind me riddle my back with imaginary daggers as they wait fruitlessly to fill their prescriptions.

I do believe I shall relish it.


Yours,

Campobello

What's wrong with this picture?

Dear Readers,

As many of you may know, Florence was hit with a Michigan-worthy blizzard the other day, and the city is still reeling from both the incomparable beauty of it all and the utter chaos caused by city bureaucrats being woefully--if not adamantly--unprepared. Without getting into the irony of the fact that apparently Tuscans don't believe in salting their roads as well as their bread, I wanted to describe to you a scene I observed on the evening of the snowstorm, after the worst of it was over and an otherworldly hush had settled over the land. It seemed innocent enough.

I returned home to find my nephew Giulio happily making a snowman in the garden. He smiled broadly and shyly and waved hello, his shaggy mop of dark hair framing his impish face, completely simpatico. A short while later when I went out to get some more wood for the fire, I saw he was still there, the darkening, snow-perfumed sky enfolding him and his Tuscan version of Frosty. Then a shadowy figure emerged from behind the snow-dusted hedge, which was partially screening my view--it was my sister-in-law, Giulio's mother, in the craziest get-up I'd yet seen during this bout of freak weather (thick legwarmers pulled up over sweatpants, a man's parka with a few sweaters oozing out of it at odd angles, a fishermen's hat that was three sizes too big, and bright yellow rubber clogs). After surveying her son's handiwork, she admonished, "Don't stay out too much longer, Giulio, you'll catch cold--besides, it's getting dark." "Sì, mamma," came the obedient reply.

Did I mention that Giulio is twenty-five years old?

Anglo-Saxon mothers of a certain smothersome and anxious stripe are sometimes called "helicopter moms." Well, then--comparatively speaking--Italian mothers are Sherman tanks. Nothing bulldozes a testosterone-laced Italian male and tramples his independence quite so effectively and absolutely as the crippling, hyper-concerned treads of la mamma italiana.

Don't get me wrong--naturally there's nothing askew about an adult having a little fun building a snowman (I might have gladly made one myself, but being a Michigan girl, I've probably surpassed the Wolverine State quota of 2,500 snowmen per life span). But the next day, while Giulio spent the afternoon proudly putting the finishing touches on his opera d'arte, enjoying the sun and the crisp, rarefied air, another scene was playing itself out....

My 85-year-old father-in-law was shoveling snow--huffing and heaving like an early steam locomotive--alongside Giulio's dad, Luca (who, quite honestly, was faring little better).

The family compound being situated on a large plot of land, we were practically buried by snow--there were no clear walkways, the driveway was inundated, and all the cars were blocked in. Thus there was a certain urgency over the driveway being cleared because Matteo--Giulio's brother, age 23--needed desperately to get out with the car (apparently he wanted to meet up with friends--perhaps to build snowmen of their own). You see, dear Readers, my nephews don't work and both live at home with their parents, like so very many Italians, and seem content to do so for years and years--and years--to come. And while they're the two sweetest guys you'd ever hope to meet, they remain utterly naive and as if frozen in some kind of perpetual childhood, like Peter Pan or Michael Jackson. Of course, the pathetic*, rather clownish figure of the Italian mammone is known the world over and is, I think, as indigenous to this sunny peninsula as wild boar and corrupt politicians with bad hair plugs. I have never seen my nephews take out the trash, help clear the table after meals (let alone assist--gasp!--with actual meal preparation or washing dishes), do laundry, do yardwork--do anything, really, that might be construed as chores or taking the bull by the horns.


My name is Giorgio.
I'm unemployed and I live with my parents.

So--let us consider for a moment the picture I have drawn for you, dear Readers, and then let us contemplate in whose hands lies the future of this funny, ungovernable, boot-shaped outcrop of civilized Europe. Soft and immutable--spending their parents' hard-earned money with alacrity, revving their motorini with careless abandon, gobbling meals with the heedlessness of lactating babes, buttoning up their Diesel jeans and lacing their Converse shoes--are these hands capable of scrabbling out a place for Italy in the world that clamors and groans with endeavor outside its very doorstep? To me, these butter-fat, enfeebled, mother-fed hands which prefer to dally with ephemeral pleasures--like snow in Florence--seem far more suited to Neverland than the reality the rest of us mere mortals inhabit.

Yours from the front lines,

Campobello

*An admittedly--an unabashedly--Anglo-Saxon term of judgment for which I offer no apology. To most Italians, of course, there is absolutely nothing conceivably wrong in having your mother either buy or launder your underwear (at age 40 and beyond).

Certifiably insane

Dear Readers,

After living in Italy nearly a decade, I am certain--though they would cagily deny their own existence, like the mafia--that there's a secret cadre of fiendish bureaucrats locked away in a dank room in a crumbling palazzo somewhere, smoking cigars and guzzling grappa, their flat, brittle, octogenarian bums scraping against cracked leather upolstery, plotting ways to make everybody's lives ten-thousand times more complicated than they need to be. They're the kind of villains you'd see in old silent films, curling their handlebar mustaches and rubbing their hands together with Machiavellian glee.

There are many, many examples I could give to illustrate their dastardly deeds, but I am going to focus on only one at present: the certificato medico (medical certificate). Italians love to certify just about everything--from acts of Parliament to acts of God. To this end, notaries do a brisk business (while making a killing, their fees being notoriously exorbitant), and you practically need a marca da bollo (official stamp) just to pass gas. But the medical certificate has to be one of the cruelest punishments ever inflicted on the Italian populace.

Let's say I fall ill. I'm wracked with fever, my nose is gushing, I feel like I've been run over by a bus. Naturally, I call off work. But do I get to crawl back into bed, perhaps with a hot cup of honey-laced tea, and slip into a restful coma? No! I have to haul myself over to my doctor's ambulatorio and wait two hours in an unheated antechamber with a bunch of ancient hypochondriacs who prattle on endlessly about their aching vertebrae and loose bowel movements, while inside my skull aboriginal rhythms are pounding themselves out mercilessly. I need to get my doctor to certify that I am indeed sick enough to miss work--even for just one day (apparently bringing my employer an enormous pile of slimy, used tissues is not proof enough). The process of certification entails the doctor listening to me say "I'm sick" while observing my variously oozing bodily humors, after which she fills out an official slip of paper and hands it over to me. Ah, but it doesn't end there, dear Readers! This piece of paper has two sections, one of which I am to give my employer upon my return to work, and the other is to be dispatched immediately to INPS (Istituto Nazionale della Previdenza Sociale), the government arm which pays out sick leave. This must be done--under penalty of death--by registered mail, which means (oh, joy!) a trip to the post office. So, after enduring the doctor's office, I'm forced to drag my flu-ridden mass of molecules over to the nearest branch of the Poste Italiane, take a number (usually #101 out of 500), and stand and wait, praying that I infect the dour-faced employees who move slower than indolent, dyslexic sloths.

Exhausted, I return home after 3 or 4 hours of divertimento. All this to absent myself from a five hour work shift. Complicating the whole endeavor is the fact that my doctor has her ambulatorio in my vicinity only four times a week--three miserly morning slots, and once, more amply, in the evening (though the place is usually teeming like a leper colony). The post office closes adamantly at 1pm, so you really have to hustle if you want to be beaten down and tormented in timely fashion.

Here's another example: recently, I wanted to enroll in a yoga class, having decided that I ought to start looking after my well-being and de-stressing in a way that doesn't involve popping a cork. I went for a free trial lesson at a lovely yoga studio, tried not to blanch at the enrollment fees, and was given a brochure that explained their policy. When I got home and read it, I was surprised to see that a certificato medico was required before one could participate in classes. "A medical certificate for an hour of beginner's yoga a week?" I thought to myself, "We're not talking rugby, pole-vaulting, or the four-minute mile here--this is downward dog, the sun salute, the corpse pose for god's sake!" So I did what I usually do in these cases of bureaucratic water-torture--I narrowed my eyes, clenched my jaw and prepared to submit. I dropped by the pharmacy the next evening and asked the pharmacist if she would leave a note for my doctor (who'd be in her office next door the following morning) asking for a certificate saying something along the lines of "Ms. Petrosian is unlikely to drop dead of cardiac arrest if she were to do a wee bit of yoga."

"Ah, but for the certificato medico sport non agonistico [non-agony-inducing?] you have to pay," said the pharmacist. "Oh! Ah, um, er...how much is it?" I asked, with trepidation. "Usually around 35-65 Euro." I nearly went into cardiac arrest right there. "Does that mean she has to examine me? You know, give me an EKG, stress test, repeated flagellation with a yoga strap?" "Typically no--it's just for the certificato itself." I see. Just to have a simple piece of paper from my primary-care physician, for whose service and the national health service in general I render lavishly and unfailingly unto Caesar, I was being asked to shell out an extra tithe. Disgruntled and fuming, I went home and tallied up the total real cost of doing yoga (I discovered that these certificati for sports have to be renewed every year) and thought, to hell with it. I ordered some yoga dvds from Amazon UK instead.

(By the way, in order for children to participate in any remotely sporty after-school activity, they need to have a medical certificate--which needs to be re-issued every year, of course. If you have two or more children, doing at least one activity each, you can see how the costs swiftly add up. If you add in parents who might like to join a gym or something profligate like that, there's some serious lining of pockets going on).

One last anecdote and then I'll leave you in peace, dear Readers. My son suffers from a few food allergies, and in order to eat at the mensa every day at school, he needs--you guessed it!--a certificato medico attesting to the fact. Naturally, as his mother, I am the last person on earth qualified to communicate a health condition to the school (though, apparently, I am deemed responsible enough to pay the lunch bill of €140 for two children every month). This certificate has to be re-submitted every scholastic year, though thankfully it is free of charge. So, at the beginning of September, I girded my loins and set out to procure this year's certificato for Giacomo.

Our pediatrician only takes calls from--get this--8:15-9:15am, Monday thru Friday. Not a minute before, not a minute after (always tricky, given that I have to squeeze my work commute into this time-frame).  Usually the line is busy because 400 parents are trying to reach him simultaneously, and I have to hit re-dial, oh, maybe 62 times before getting through. (You could call during his afternoon ambulatorio, interrupting him during office visits, but only if a kid's on their death bed--and be prepared to grovel). Anyway, eventually I get through, ask for the certificate, he agrees to have it ready for pick-up the following evening, my husband brings it home. I hand it over on the first day of school, quite pleased with myself.

Well, two days ago the school called because Giacomo ate something with egg in it and had a mild reaction. Egg wasn't included among the allergens listed in the medical certificate, I discovered--apparently the doctor forgot, and I, being so distracted from running around after all these damn certificati, didn't catch the omission. I was told that a NEW (and improved) certificato was needed immediately so my son wouldn't be served any more egg.

If this is all starting to sound like a play by Beckett or Ionesco, then you're beginning to understand what it's like to live under this uniquely Italian form of bureaucratic despotism.

                                                               ***

An enlightened Italian pediatrician--bless his subversive soul--wrote a wonderful article railing against useless medical certificates.* In it he makes the following calculations:

--Italy has around 7,000 pediatricians, who are writing on average 10 medical certificates a day, thereby producing some 70,000 certificates per day (these certificates are needed for many absurd reasons besides sports and food allergies), and consuming an estimated 14,000 reams of paper per year.

--He supposes that for every certificate issued, a parent must spend at least a half-hour in getting it, which adds up to some 35,000 hours per day. This in turn adds up to a conservative estimate (based on 200 days) per year of 7,000,000 wasted hours, or the equivalent of one year of work by 4 full-time employees.

--He rightly assumes that most of these trips required to pick up and deliver medical certificates are made by car. Estimating a minimum of 2 km distance per certificate, on any given day, then, some 140,000 km are being traveled! That's 28,000,000 km per year, with a consumption of gasoline estimated at 2,000,000 litres.

He concludes by saying that maybe--just maybe--this "festival of idiocy" will one day end, and that all the time and energy expended over medical certificates (requesting them, producing them, procuring them, distributing them, reading them, organizing them, filing them, saving them, etc.) can then be invested in things that are infinitely more useful and gratifying.**

So lest you wonder why Italy's economic growth rate is something like minus 22%, or why we're not producing any more Nobel Laureates, the answer is easy: everyone is far too busy chasing after certificati medici.


My best regards,

Campobello

*"Tutto bene: ecco il certificato medico inutile," di Vincenzo Calia, in Un Pediatra per Amico, n.1, gennaio-febbraio 2007. For those of you who read Italian, it's worth a google.

**I would add that if you're reading this it means you are at least minimally computer-literate. And therefore you--like me--may very well ask yourselves why, in this the 21st century, Italy doesn't avail itself of technology and have these interminable certificati simply wing their way through cyberspace, granting us all--our much-suffering environment inlcuded--some relief?

Not for beginners: an Italian wedding feast

Dear Readers,

I write this with a chilled martini glass of bubbly Citrosodina (think Italian Alka-Seltzer) by my side.  Here's why: I just got back from an Italian wedding.

If there's one area where Italians excel, one innate skill they possess that places them leaps-and-bounds beyond all others--it's feasting.  Indeed, if marathon eating were an Olympic sport, the Italians would be undefeated world champions.  No one can touch them.

Let me describe the proceedings.  After a hot, midday ceremony in the Red Room of the Palazzo Vecchio in Florence, our group--some 100 of us--made its way to a lovely agriturismo in the nearby Chianti hills.  We arrived at about 1pm, and awaiting us was a fabulous outdoor buffet of traditional antipasti layed out on a mile-long groaning-board and flanked by a battalion of waiters who began serving us with crisp, military precision.  People fell upon the food with rapacious enthusiasm, like bliss-filled wolves.  All the Tuscan crowd-pleasers were present: a spinel-colored haunch of prosciutto being carved by a sepoy-like, grave-faced old codger; trays of fried zucchini and their blossoms, eggplant, and squares of polenta; little quivering balls of fresh mozzarella swimming in their own milk in a large silver urn; slices of pecorino drizzled with local honey; bruschetta with fresh tomato and basil; chicken-liver crostini; a huge terracotta terrine brimming with thick pappa col pomodoro, and a bowl of cold farro salad.  There was prosecco in abundance--always the kick-off libation in Italy--and white wine, vodka-infused punch, and fruit juice for the kiddies.

Then, after a while, we were ushered into the airy restaurant, where we essentially spent the next three hours at table.

We began with a succession of three primi: risotto with porcini mushrooms, straccetti with zucchini flowers, and crespelle alla fiorentina (delicious spinach-filled crepes in a tomato-béchamel sauce).  Then an enormous veal roast that had been set aflame was paraded around the dining-room before being carved and served with rosemary-flecked roasted potatoes.  After that, we were given thick slices of rare, wood-grilled bistecca alla fiorentina, grilled porcini caps, along with a refreshing salad of mixed greens.  There was plenty of Chianti to wash it all down with, and baskets of excellent saltless bread at hand.  We lacked for nothing (except perhaps a vomitorium to repair to now and again).  Finally, of course, came the wedding cake: a giant, colorful pastry-cream tart topped with fresh, dewy berries.

The children (mine included) began gamboling about--having miraculously, but entirely in the way of Italian children, managed to stay more or less at table all this time and eat their fill.  A small baby cried and mewed testily until tasty tidbits of Tuscan fare found their way to her mouth.  A spunky chocolate labrador named Rigoletto careened around wildly, at intervals performing a sort of canine tarantella.  At about 5 pm, I stumbled away from the table and out into the surrounding garden, utterly spent.

As you can see, dear Readers, meals of this sort aren't for neophytes, or the faint-hearted, or people who are afraid of carbs.  This is epic eating, Ironman eating--the gastronomic equivalent of scaling K2.  To make it to the top one must be fearless, determined, and a little mad.  Or at the very least, Italian.

Mind you, I thoroughly enjoy a good meal and a good wine--why, excess is my middle name. (I often think that in a past life I could easily have been a sybaritic nineteenth-century burgermeister who'd polish off a twelve-course meal at Maxim's in solemn and reverent joy, then top it off with a fat Cuban cigar and a Moulin Rouge showgirl). But even after some 10 years in the Bel Paese, I still have trouble keeping pace with the locals.

It's not over till the fat lady sings, as they say.  A table had been set up in the garden, arrayed with digestivi and various liqueurs, trays of cream-filled bigné, fingers of the very Florentine schiacciata all'uva, and an immense bowl of sliced fresh peaches on ice.  Attendants brought tray after tray of espresso out to waiting hands and gasps of pleasure all around.  I had a shot of Montenegro and collapsed in a chair.

Incredibly, as I slumped in defeat, the Italian revelers carried on, smoking cigars, nibbling pastries, and drinking Sambuca.  The thing is, this wasn't even their second-wind--they'd never lost the first one.  It was awe-inspiring.

Around 6pm, as Ride of the the Valkyries blared from the stereo system, some of the hunkier young men stripped to their underwear and jumped into the pool.  Then the bride jumped in.  The groom joined her, and general youthful mayhem ensued.  I was surprised they didn't sink like stones after all that food and drink.  If there was such a place as a Tuscan Valhalla, these would be the resident Gods.

Finally, at nearly 7pm, the gastric stupor overtaking my body like gangrene, the fat lady sang.  And--my dear Readers--she was me.

Yours,

Campobello

Beach vignette

Dear Readers,

To continue the Tuscan seaside theme...

At the beach, I often see things that make me want to flee in horror, or at least retch into the courtyard of the kids' sand castle. This, last summer at San Vincenzo:

An older couple lounge under a beach umbrella. He--with an enormous, bulbous belly which acts as a coffee-table for the sport section and his plastic cup of espresso from the kiosk--is wearing a microscopic leopard-print Speedo. Great tufts of black and gray hair top his shoulders and festoon his back, so he looks like he's wearing a medieval hair shirt. He's got a solid gold watch, bracelet, and chain. Her, TOPLESS. Nasty old-lady breasts that look like deflated avocados. Leopard bikini bottom, folds of slack flesh oozing over the top, and draped in gold, too, like the Madonna of Pompeii. A garishly pink lipsticked mouth that snaps open and shut with the rythym of her chewing-gum. She's reading a trashy gossip magazine. They wear designer dark glasses, gilt-edged, rhinestone-studded. Both smoke boredly and doggedly, and their skin is so tired, leathery and brown they look like old luggage that's been around the baggage carousel way too many times. They don't speak to each other in sentences, but now and then emit a serious of grunts that has clearly become their private language. They make one great effort at justifying themselves, heaving their bulk from the loungers and plodding along the water-line for 10 minutes--flesh jiggling, gold glinting, and ass-cracks in painful evidence.

Yours,

Campobello

Flesh circus

Dear Readers,

To quote the writer Ignazio Silone, "Non c'è popolo più triste di questi italiani allegri": there's no sadder people than these happy Italians.

Silone's words came vividly to life for me after I recently went to Marina di Grosseto for a few days' holiday at the beach. You must understand that the seaside--il mare--has both a mythical hold on the Italian imagination, and an iron grip on the collective consciousness. Everyone, I mean everyone must go to the beach for a summer holiday. Like sheeps to the slaughter, Italians go dumbly in droves to lay on their square-meter patch of hedonistic heaven.

Why do they go? It is no secret that Italians love ritual. The Catholic Mass, the morning coffee and brioche at the bar, lunch at 1:00 and dinner at 8:00, the evening passeggiata--all illustrate the ways in which Italians prefer to order their universe. (It could even be argued that these rituals are the anchors in what is otherwise an almost completely disorderly and chaotic existence). The yearly exodus from the cities to the beaches is but another example of the herd mentality that governs much of Italian life.

Now don't get me wrong, I like the beach too. It's just that the kind of beach holiday I have in mind is one of relatively tranquil stretches of clean sand, scattered with a few happily noisy children and their families, quiet couples reading and sunning peacefully, and shore and sea stretching gracefully before the eye like a cat on a sun-washed windowsill--a placid tableau of nature punctuated by some unobtrusive human elements. Il dolce far niente, after all, has its allure.

The reality of many Italian beaches, however, is jarringly different: a honky-tonk atmosphere of carnival madness--great swaths of riotously-colored beach umbrellas as dense as an Amazonian jungle; the bagni blaring announcements over loudspeakers ("Sono arrivati i bomboloni caldi!" "Buon onomastico all'Alessia!" "Oggi è venerdi 17!"); gyrating, noisy crowds; a shoreline that looks like the Ganges during the Kumbh Mela; third-world hawkers of cheap tinselly goods; coconut-sellers with their bawdy calls; sand flying in all directions from over-zealous children; and a sight-line that is wall-to-wall seething flesh. Flesh as far as the eye can see. Flesh of all shapes and sizes and ages: popping out of too-tight bikinis, oozing over tiny Speedos, lithe and muscled in the young and genetically-blessed, buttery and taut in children, withered and leathery in anziani, and watermelon-like pregnant bellies bobbing in the sun. Flesh lounging on chaises, flesh flung in adolescent torpor on towels in the sand, kid flesh industriously building sand-castles of medieval proportions, flesh jiggling, flesh browning, flesh glistening and oiled like some kind of offering to the gods--and always, always, flesh on the move: strolling the water line, going to and from the bar for espresso, gathered in raucous groups smoking and laughing and gesticulating like mad. Flesh flesh flesh! Other than the sea and perhaps a hazy outline of hills in the distance, nature is not visible through this writhing human canvas stretched to the horizons. It seems Italians are happy to swap the crush and madness and heat and traffic of the city for the crush and madness and heat and traffic of the beach--only with a lot less clothing required.

While hiding under my enormous sun hat and watching the spectacle before me, I had an epiphany: why, Italians don't go to the beach for relaxation, or to commune with nature, or for fitness, or even to play--they go for validation. It's the age-old obsession with fare figura (to cut a figure) taken to the extreme. They need to be seen at the beach, they need to show they have been there. They have always gone and they always will go--in short, they need to be a part of something that is bigger than themselves. Il mare--that watery redeemer--is an important social ritual to them, however empty it really is, just like going to Mass once a year for many is a knee-jerk reaction to Christmas. Of course, herein lies the monumental importance of l'abbronzatura: the suntan (and the deeper the better, cancer cells be damned) is proof positive of the pilgrimage completed, the gods appeased--it's the ultimate membership card, the prize, the grail brought home.

I'm sure more time and money is spent on the whole cult of the beach than on any other pursuit: there's the season's latest bathing suits that you must have, and only one won't do, you must have 3 or 4. There are the coordinating gauzy, see-thru cover-ups to acquire, and the sequinned infraditi or even high-heel wedgies to totter along the boardwalk in. There are the expensive sun-protection, tanning and post-sun products, the cute tote bags, the colorful towels and straw mats, the vast array of inflatable mastodons and sailing vessels, the shovels and pails and toy bulldozers, the pedicures, the glitter bandanas to protect one's hair, the temporary tattoos--all in service to unabashed hedonism and corpulent consumption. Surely a heavenly being, looking down on this scene, would bet his last shekel that the apocalypse is at hand--for all is vanity, truly.

Watching the undulating and shrill crowds around me, and basking like a cold-blooded lizard under the Tuscan sun, I couldn't help but feel that there is something desperate and rather tragic--yet perhaps even noble--about this beach mania all'italiana. Something akin to instigating a conga line on the Titanic.

My best regards,

Campobello