In Love with France, At Home In Italy

We try to steer clear of the mal'occhio (the "evil eye" that causes bad things to happen). But the same week of our little bumper mishap, a close friend told us about his own "contretemps." That's a fancy French word for problems that can arise when one is entering a parking lot at the same time when someone is exiting, but when one of you has the sun in his eyes.  One might say to oneself, as he did, "All I can really see right now is "niente," but what are the chances that anyone would approach during the second it will take me to cross this threshold? Well, because our local Lidl grocery store is very popular at that hour, a quasi-invisible someone could indeed be close enough for anyone entering the lot to scrape two of her car doors.  There was a witless eye-witness to this event. To clarify--the door-scraper's wife who had been following behind in another car and also had the sun in her eyes did not yet realize tha...

My mother just celebrated her 88th birthday, so while it's still her birthday month, I need to fulfill my promise not to post any photos or stories about the many insects that share our home. Nevertheless, by looking at these essential tools of life in the Italian countryside, you can probably tell that bugs play a big role here. As a gardener, I've continued to be very interested in learning about the local insects, especially to find out who the good guys are, but I have not found much reliable information. When I explained my dilemma to one of the first visitors to our home, an elegant, diminutive lady who has a country place in Spain, she replied without hesitation:"For the first year, just swat everything!" That didn't sit so well with me (what if one of the spiders was Charlotte?), but I did invest in a flyswatter or two (that's a fliegenklatsche, if you buy them at Lidl, the German-owned store that we like). Next, ...