In Love with France, At Home In Italy

    I actually wrote this just for myself this morning while still happily in bed, but I am also going to foist it on friends who have had to listen to all our moaning and groaning about our misadventures while under the illusion we could learn to negotiate the Italian bureaucracy. HA!    Kudos to James for coming up with the first part of this title:  SISYPHUS AIN’T GOT NUTHIN’ ON US. And be thankful that what you’re getting here is the expurgated version of the story. In the interest of fairness to all, the profanity and yelling that might have accompanied this tale are not here, but please feel free to imagine where they would be. Here goes:    I don’t usually think about the literal meaning of “buongiorno,” but it’s already a great day because we don’t have to think about whether we’ll get a message from the Motor Vehicle people about coming to Viterbo to bring yet more documents for our car registration.    Yesterday we even turned in the ca...

This is an embarrassed Donatella trying to get back on her horse. Could it be that a year has gone by without postings? How is this possible? The short answer is that Donatella's academic alter ego was writing a book, retired from her beloved university posts of 33 years, and downsized after 35 years from her beautiful home. It has been a year filled with transitions, and you know how much Donatella loves those. But it's time to try to catch up. There has certainly been no lack of misadventures to record. After all, this IS the Umbrian countryside where the returning homeowner is likely to encounter power outages, droughts, busted irrigation systems and garbage disposals and pool pumps, and riding mowers that have gone on the fritz. And that doesn't even include the espresso coffeemaker that gives Donatella's husband reason to live. To resolve each problem requires a certain energy and patience, but the silver lining can be a good story and the cementing (or r...