In Love with France, At Home In Italy

It was no stretch for Audrey Hepburn to act like the princess of a nameless country. To be a princess often ranks high on the dreams of what-I-want -to-be-when -I-grow-up, but as we see, the job was not as great as it was cracked up to be. It can get tiresome to have to say, day in and day out, "so happy to meet you."   As it turns out, the "so happy" phrase becomes a leitmotif of the film. The bored Princess says it as a mere royal reflex until the day she can look the princely virtuous Gregory Peck in the eye and really mean it.  When the doctor who gave her the magic injection to counteract her tantrum gave her permission to be happy, he had no idea that a lifelong love affair with Rome would ensue.  I hadn't realized until this recent viewing that perhaps the main theme of the film is the power of memory. Although Princess Ann and scoop-hunter Joe Bradley each go off alone at the end with no guarantee of living happily ever after, they ...

http://franceoritaly.blogspot.it/2011/07/sexing-zucchini-and-eating-it-too.html TO BE EGALITARIAN AND JUST SO NOBODY GETS OFFENDED, IT SEEMED FITTING TO SET OFF THIS PROUDLY MALE ZUKE WITH A FEMININE-LOOKING PUMPKIN IN THE BACKGROUND. (CINDERELLA, ANYONE?) IN CASE YOU’RE WONDERING, IT’S A BOY! Today is a royally BIG day for babywatching. Like a certain princely baby who took his time getting here, my zucchini have been slow to deliver. It’s not really their fault, since this year’s Umbrian weather has been molto strano—the coldest, wettest pre-summer in memory. It’s only now that the vegetable garden is starting to come into its own. Sex is important not just to royal families and those of us ogling at the gate: to be precise, Italian has a different word for the sex of male as opposed to female zuke blossoms:zucchino, zucchina. Naïve budding contadina that I am, it took me a while to understand this, a study I documented two...

http://franceoritaly.blogspot.it/2011/06/what-not-to-wear-when-gardening-in.html Two summers ago I wrote a little piece about what not to wear when gardening in Umbria. I’ve learned a few things since then. Between laughs, Jim looked up at my latest gardening costume and said, “I need to document this.” So (with apologies to Trinny and Susannah whose great "What Not to Wear" show I miss), here is part of the old post, followed by my a photo from my current get-up: June 2011. “…As I inspect everything more closely—especially the insect kingdom in action—I notice loud buZZing around me that suggests that I, myself, am of intense interest to some killer-sized fauna. I wonder, ‘Why are they so attracted to me?’ When I looked down at my fruity, flowery get-up, I had to laugh:they must be mistaking me for lunch! Trinny and Susannah would never have allowed me to go out gardening in that outfit. BEFORE: The WHAT NOT TO WEAR police were right t...

http://franceoritaly.blogspot.it/2012/10/a-different-type-of-religious-experience.html Last October (2012) I wrote a complicated post that may not have gotten many readers. Perhaps the title “A Different Type of Religious Experience?” did not do it justice. It was a kind of meditation on the life cycle prompted by celebrating a religious holiday in a foreign setting far from family, and it had the surprise ending below. CODA: This post has had a very troubled genesis, and I recognize that I am taking a risk by including it. As I often do, I sent it to a few friends for comment before trying to post it. Usually, they reply, which gives me some reassurance that the piece might be ready for Prime Time. But this time, no one responded, which gave me pause.  When I asked my husband, another non-responder, about it, he said that because it operates on several levels and contains a letter within it, it might be too complicated. It reminded him of those nested Russi...

"Why are those front teeth of yours so dark?" asks my observant mom who, even at nearly 89, sees and hears better than I do. My answer:"Because they're my own." When I repeated that to the cocky American periodontist, he said, "Don't flatter yourself. Those teeth have had so many fillings that there's not really much of you left in there." Hmm.. Food for thought...Especially for someone who grew up in an age when fluoride was considered a communist plot, and who had spent a good part of her life in the dentist's chair. Yet I've found dentistry in Italy to be a thing unto itself--and a much less expensive thing, at that. Even little Orvieto has a superior dentist who comes twice a week from Rome to work his magic on tough cases like mine. And unlike in the States, where most of my issues require a trifecta of separate experts (dentist, endodontist, periodontist), Marco knows how to do it all. My husband ...

I have a new friend who already feels like an old friend. Never mind that we are about two decades apart in age. E has lived in Orvieto for more than 50 years, and generously serves as the doyenne of the surprisingly large and mutually devoted ex-pat community with whom we connected last year.   E and I have become Writing Partners--a relationship I have sought ever since hearing about the concept in an article in the newsletter of the National Coalition of Independent Scholars. For two years, I was president of a local pioneer organization in the movement, but after many years of writing the newsletter (and more), I pretty much burned out. The group was especially valuable to me when I was a first-time mother with a hard-won doctorate trying to figure out how to engage with my new home town. I'm sure I owe my having been hired to teach at the university to connections that I made in this group.  Originally founded by brainy and accomplished spouses ...

(more inspired by my Writing Partner's poem on loss)                  I thought I had stuck it in my eye yesterday morning – the one contact lens I prefer to wear when the other eye is acting up. Yet for most of the day I walked around in a fog, not seeing very well. But I attributed it to that contact lens being off center. At the end the day, however, when I tried to take it out, there was no there there. Where had it gone? Is it possible that with my near-sighted, astigmatic, and far-sighted non-vision, I had walked around all day blind as a bat without even noticing? Hard to believe, but that's the only explanation I can fathom. This realization came after I read my Writing Partner's poem about loss. While getting dressed for today's lunch, my hand reached for the Russian Fabergé egg necklace that I thought I had lost. It went missing for an entire year, but then reappeared in the bowels of my bedroom drawer here a...

How many times have I had occasion to demonstrate my lack of artistic skill in the classroom? Fortunately, he's easy to draw:a stooped stick figure of a man rolling a huge boulder up something that looks vaguely like a mountain. Then an arrow pointing up, and one from the top pointing down. During my many decades of teaching French, he keeps popping up. A man for all literary seasons, he never fails to shed light on the conversation. And not just when it comes to discussing literature. He is equally at home in Bella Italia. Living as I do in the Italian countryside, I share my home with lots of dust, spiderwebs, and local fauna. Even though I make my dusting rounds several times a day, there is always more to be done. DUSTING DONATELLA I'm no great housekeeper, but in America, to have many spiderwebs and dead insects in evidence is not going to win you the Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval. But Camus says we must imagine existential hero Sisyp...

So here we are standing on line at the Post Office. We're going to be here for a while, so my favorite Eudora Welty short story, "Why I live at the PO" comes to mind. (If you haven't read it, I hope you will. And if you can hear it read by the author herself, in her inimitable Jackson, Mississippi voice, even better!) But now, back to the topic at hand. There's a handy sign posted overhead to remind us of the day, date and time. Let's have a look.     Wednesday, November 14, 11:50. Sounds good, except that today is Monday, and last I noticed, it's actually July 15. "Well, at least did they get the time right?" asks Jim, a glass-is-half-full kind of guy. Nope. My watch says 11:30, and it's always set fast to make up for my lack of punctuality. How do I know I'm in Italy? The clientele offers a clue. Where else would you see patrons like these? And in what other PO could you buy Dan Brown's new book, ...