In Love with France, At Home In Italy

Everything was unusually calm and well organized at the airport. WHAT? Where was all the chaos that always tells us we're back in our adopted country? Instead of having to run around like a nut in order to find a porter with a cart big enough to hold our dog's crate (which happens to be larger than some Paris apartments), we stumbled on a cute guy named Luigi who said he'd be back for us once our luggage and dog arrived. The typical situation is that our dog Murray gets unloaded first and is plopped down in front of the "large and irregular baggage" department. It's usually no problem to find Murray because once he hears our voices, he starts barking very loudly, conveying the internationally comprehensible message, "GET ME OUT OF HERE!" This time, before we knew it, the bags had all arrived, and lovely Luigi brought Murray to us, whisking our entire load to where our friend, Roy, was waiting to pick us up with our car. Could ...

Today, on the brink of Christmas and my 69th birthday I find myself looking out not through French-style rose-colored glasses but through my Italian windows the ones that bear the signature, la firma, the leitmotif of this house that we brought back to life. That signature, even at the age of eight and a half, continues to reveal multiple possibilities: Could be a butterfly, but a rare one like Nabokov's Karner Blue Or a flower? A four-leaf clover? Or four bodies with a head and curvy linked arms--an Italian-style Family of Man? Unlike a coat of arms that one is born into this logo was the one we chose-- a design inspired by what we saw on the gates, the "cancelli" of our adopted country I'm not even sure of the Italian equivalent of "la vie en rose" "Ottimista" is all that I can think of or the oft-used "magari," that oh-so-hopeful "maybe" How can one not lov...

"So which one of you has the appointment?" As usual, the staff looks a bit puzzled to see us cosily making ourselves at home in the waiting room. Let me explain.  My very dear writing partner and I share many things, including our dentist. She lives closer to his office where I spend much of my life (see "Taking My New Front Teeth For a Swim"  https://franceoritaly.blogspot.com/2013/07/taking-my-new-front-teeth-for-swim.html) than to my isolated house that is reachable only via unspeakable roads. So we often choose to meet at the office when I come for my dental appointments. That our wonderful-and-well-worth-the-wait dentist always runs very late doesn't hurt our plans to have our own little visit.  Although I have written on the subject before, in July 2013,  ( ON THE COMFORT OF HAVING A WRITING PARTNER    ),  I don't think I really explained very well what it has meant to me to have, at long last, a writing part...