In Love with France, At Home In Italy

Here is a gallery of photos that have been awaiting their moment. In most cases, I have a story to go along with the usually shirtless young Italian(s) we have lured to our impossible-to-find country home where something is always kaput. But in some cases, I will be listing the person without the photo. I seem to recall a line from "The Godfather" and maybe also from "the Sopranos" about the need to bump off somebody who has fallen out of favor: "It's nothing personal. Just business." But where we live in Umbria, ALL business is personal, and what follows are a few of the people with whom we have developed working relationships. 1. Our Caldaia Man, Ricco, who, by Italian law, is required to come every year to inspect the boiler Here he is in action!  And here he is packing up. As you can see, he does not travel light. Ricco's visits are not cheap, but still a bargain compared to ...

This toilet has gone totally Italian! Number 9 on the Hit Parade of things that went guasto (kaput/busted) while D and G were away on vacation was J's toilet seat. How did it happen?  Another "mistero"--that's the Italian language showing how easy it can be to trick the unsuspecting speaker of English into a spelling goof. Now I don't want to accuse anyone, but I noticed it  "dopo"("after") our very thorough, "robusta" cleaner, the former Moldovan surgical nurse, came to clean. J had naively gone off to Rome for two days to visit the kids, leaving his toilet seat behind and vulnerable. On his return, it had become a dangerous weapon.

Man Ray ain't got nuthin' on this guy! So why is he smiling?  He's just been sold a set of replacement hinges and screws from another model that MIGHT work, if he can drill new holes without the whole thing becoming even more guasto. If that happens, assuming there will have been no injuries during the attempted re-hinging process, he will have to pay 45 euros to order a new one that is unlikely to arrive in our lifetime. The toilet seat folks were skeptical that the hinges they sold us would work, but 9 euros sounded better than 45. They also jokingly said that they could try ordering the correct hinges, but that every time they do, they receive the wrong, 9-euro hinges that they sold us. We all agreed it was worth a try. There is a happy punchline to this story. Our talented daughter-in-law who can fix most anything, but who was away during the guasto toilet seat incident, took a Slovene look at the whole thing and noticed that there was no need for new hinges or a t...