Category — People

The first time I sat down with Frank, I was eager to pick his brain.  He has spent time in many places, and I hoped he could help me work out the cities I wanted to visit.  I told him Venice was on my list.  “I would urge you to follow your instinct on that one.  There is no place in the world like Venice.”  So I put it at the top.

When I came to Italy it was with no expectations, but with thoughts of grand adventures in grand cities.  Four weeks have past.  Four weeks of fantastic adventures and wonderfully people.  I’ve had side trips to Lucca and to Florence; to the mountains and to the sea.  But I haven’t visited any of the big cities I had in mind.  Venice and Rome still sit at the top of my list.

I realized a couple of days ago that I really only have 2 weekends left in Italy.  Wow.  Time to get movin’.  I thought that I would have visited three countries by now.  But the day-to-day comfort of a routine has kept me winding up and down the hill from Fornaci to Barga, happy to have a familiar place to sleep and good friends to talk with – content to learn about myself here.

But now, with the end of this leap in sight, I’m ready to venture out.  I asked around.  None of my family or friends had much in the way of suggestions for places to stay, so last night I pulled out my handy-dandy Rick Steves (tragically incomplete, but terrifically helpful) guide to Italy and started working my way through the list of Venice hotels.  I picked about 16 and started checking availability.  By the end of the evening I had 3 places I really liked.  I sent email inquiries to see what the prices would be (Venice hotels list a range of prices on their websites for each room), and checked the trenitalia website to find a good itinerary.

This morning I woke to a number of emails from various hotels.  I was able to find a three night stay in all three of my favorites, and even talked the fancy hotel down to 80 Euro (which I thought was pretty excellent given its usual price of 145).  And then I got an email from Frank.  A couple of emails and 20 minutes later, and I was in his house drinking coffee and talking Venice hotels.  I showed him the ones I was looking at and he gave input as to the locations and décor.  And I looked at the modestly appointed, “functional” hotel he had pulled up on his computer.  I wasn’t wild about it, but it was in a good location, and was about 20 Euro less per night than any of my picks.  “Why don’t you take a cheaper hotel and stay another night?  Venice is wonderful.”  He had a point.

“There is one other place, but it’s really hard to get in.”  He pulled up the clunky website for the Locanda Montin.  Its homepage featured a picture of Jimmy Carter and a list of celebrities and VIPs who frequent the place.  “It’s a really great place.  Shall we give them a call?”  I agreed – so long as Frank talked.  Five minutes later I had a reservation for 3 (or 4) nights at 50 Euro.  We were both shocked and pleased.  Finding availability was one thing, but the price was unbelievable.

I stayed for lunch and Frank pulled out maps and guidebooks for Venice.  We studied the best walking route from the train station to the hotel and discussed which train would be best.

I’m finding it a wonderful thing to accept the help of other people – whether it’s a familiar place to sleep every night, or directions to the path that leads home, or lunch and hotel reservations.  It’s not something I’ve always been so good at.  But here, where I know so little and am so far out of my element, I’m finding it easier and easier.

Tomorrow I leave for Venice, but I won’t go alone.  I’m leaving with Frank’s maps and guidebook, and the knowledge that my little bed will be waiting for me when I come home.

Okay all you foodies. This one’s for you.

Yesterday, after accusing Italians of being descendants of Hobbits,I found myself proved temporarily wrong by my friends who decided to skip lunch. I’m pretty sure Hobbits don’t skip lunch. While I headed down the hill to make myself a couple of fantastic little grilled cheese sandwiches, they stayed to work. I told them to call if they wanted me to put the pasta pot on. I’m really glad they didn’t.

When they returned late in the afternoon, I’d had a little lunch and started afternoon tea. The ladies ran in, grabbed a couple of handfuls of bread and two bananas, and we were off to Lucca. We were going for business, but Lucca is home to some friends, so we got to have a bit of fun, too.

Lucca is a beautiful city at night. The shops sparkle as people pass by on bikes and on foot. We found our friends and started our trek through the city. The ladies were pretty hungry, and had missed afternoon tea, so caffeine was high on the list. We popped into a beautiful shop that had chocolate everywhere. Chocolate in the case, chocolate on the walls, and a vat of ciocolata calda stirring itself behind the counter. I noticed this beautiful liquid loveliness as I sipped my macchiato, and thought that I would need to sample some soon.

After trips to a couple of businesses, we made our way to another shop with chocolate lining the walls. A simple sign “chocolat” adorned the front. The little storefront was jammed with people after one thing – ciocolata calda. “Kristin! Con o senza pepperoncini?” With or without spicy pepper. Yummy. Our lovely friend Manuella handed me a plastic cup and spoon of super-dark liquid chocolate sprinkled with flakes of red pepper.

We all stirred our scalding cups, sending great columns of steam up, along with an amazing scent.  We spent the next five minutes standing in the street spooning mouthfuls of chocolate and scraping the bottoms of the little cups.

We crisscrossed the streets of Lucca for a couple of hours, everyone growing increasingly hungry and tired. We had plans to attend a friend’s art exhibition in Bagni di Lucca, but the thought of finding some food and heading home was growing increasingly appealing.

In the end, we made the turn to Bagni di Lucca, hoping that we could eat at the restaurant where the exhibition was happening. The wine and focaccia we were greeted with, and the long table set for dinner, were good signs.

After mixing, mingling and checking out the art, we seated ourselves at the table. There was a fascinating mix of people from Italy, Germany, Monaco, Greece and the US. This made dinner conversation excellent. While my language skills were probably the poorest of anyone at the table, they were all very good sports, and more than willing to let me muddle through in broken Italian while we consulted my little dictionary for vocab lessons. Of course, it helped that my family is from Greece, Germany and Chicago, where a couple of the Italian guys had spent time, and that I shared a special kind of kinship with two of the others. For the first time in this kind of setting, I felt able to be more myself. The barrier of not speaking the language really puts me in a place where I’m the observer, listening attentively, trying to work out the words, missing half of what’s said. Last night, I found myself able to understand quite a lot, and even allowed myself to speak a few butchered sentences, which were lovingly understood and corrected by those around me. It was lovely.

By the end of the night I had a handful of new vocabulary words, an invite to hold Thanksgiving dinner at a home in Barga, an invite to attend a book club, an invite to another dinner, and an invite to stay in the north of Italy. I need to try to speak Italian more often.

While we talked, food began to appear. The owner announced that, per Luccia’s request (she’s the artist and is a fervent vegetarian), the entire meal would be vegetarian. Wow. Deb and Sandra looked at me with wide eyes. How fantastic! I’d be able to eat everything without asking if it had meat. Amazing.

First was a lovely, delicate pastry filled with zucchini, and drizzled with a saffron sauce.

When the owner came by with a dish to see who wanted more, I was very happy to oblige. It should have registered with me that Deb refused, saying she was full. Here’s a tip for non-Italians eating in Italy: If you are out with a group of people, and food that you have not ordered starts arriving, it’s very possible that you have begun what will be a 2 hour foodapalooza. Unless you are a champion food-eater, or are planning to head to a deserted island for the next month, do not accept second helpings from anyone. There will be plenty more. Have no fear.

After the zucchini pastry came polenta balls in some kind of a creamy cheese sauce, topped with black truffle shavings.

There were so many plates of these that I ended up eating 3, and almost had 4 before the plate (which had migrated, with others, to me) was taken away. Thank heavens it was taken away.

Next to arrive were long plates of pear and cheese salad. The slices of pear and pecorino were dressed simply with olive oil and black pepper. I had at least two helpings of this.

I believe I had a piece of bread at this point – or focaccia. Big mistake. While the brown focaccia you can find here is absolutely amazing – salty, nutty, yummy – it seems to be placed strategically to root out the non-locals. There were few of us who actually touched the bread. Fools, all of us.

As the first plate of pasta came out, I started to wonder if I’d make it through all the courses. The pasta, however, was so incredible, that I stopped thinking and started eating in earnest. Fortunately, I accepted only a few of the beautiful ravioli, which were filled with pureed squash (pumpkin, I think) and maybe caramelized onions, and covered in lovely butter, cloves and walnuts.

I was just thinking how I’d like a couple more when Deb turned to me. “Hey, you want mine?” She didn’t like hers. Joy! I shoveled her portion – which was about twice what I’d just eaten – onto my plate. Here’s a tip for Italian folks who are eating at a dinner like this with non-Italians (specifically Americans): We don’t know that there’s more food coming. Please don’t give us more food. It would even be kind to hide the food from us when we’re not looking. Really.

I’d just polished off Deb’s ravioli when the second THE SECOND plate of pasta arrived.

More squash, more butter, more clove. Ancora, ancora, ancora.

At this point, my head was swimming a little. I had consumed roughly 10 times the amount of food that is supposed to fit in my stomach, and I could feel it expanding as I sat at the table, wondering what amazing plate would be set before me next.

Instead of meat, the owner had prepared fennel baked in a béchamel sauce and covered in cheese (people, we don’t use fennel enough in the US. Its’ seriously good), a roasted tomato, braised radicchio, and baked tomino (cheese) with shaved white truffle and a mushroom that reminded me of a morel. All of it was excellent. I turned down seconds.
Then we sat. And we talked about how much we’d eaten. And how much we’d had to drink. And how much we needed a cappuccino. And then dessert arrived.

The cheesecake itself was almost savory. Very little sugar and lots of ricotta. The blueberries on the top gave it its sweetness. Any other night, I would have had three pieces. But, it was the dessert that sent me over the edge. While I was slightly uncomfortable before, I began to wonder if I’d be able to stand up straight when it was time to go.

When we got home, we didn’t have evening tea. It was a short trip to bed, where my distended stomach was comforted by the excellent dinner conversation and the excellent camaraderie of the day.

After a trip to Italy, one of my friends remarked that “all young Italian people are beautiful. But, something happens as they age, and they become trolls.” I have to say, I don’t think this is true. I think that Italians are just descendants of Hobbits. Or maybe just I am. It’s hard to say.

For real.

This is how my average day goes: Get up around 9. Have breakfast. Go to Barga. Have second breakfast, which might be before or after Elevenses with Deb’s mom (depending on the day). Work for a couple of hours. Go back to Fornaci. Have lunch. Maybe nap. Have afternoon tea. Work for a while more. Go home to start dinner. Have evening tea. Sleep. Repeat.

Now, this schedule suits me just fine. Except for eating dinner super late, I’ve adjusted to this without any problem. I like sleeping in.  Even when i get up an hour earlier than the ladies, it’s still hours later than I’m used to.  It seems that Deb and Sandra work more than most. It eems like it, but I’m not totally sure, because the work day is late (compared to the US), due to the extended lunch that closes down shops everywhere. It’s this late lunch that sends dinner late into the night, and allows for the multiple morning meals. (Okay, I’m also not sure that everyone takes both a second breakfast and elevenses. However, I’m here to experience the culture and the people, and what better way than to do it over a nice patry?)

This week was a week of good food. It started with Albertina, Sandra’s mom , and her niece and nephew showing up with a giant bowl of dough and two waffle-type irons. The next two hours were spent with the 7 of us crowded around the table building amazing sandwiches with the wafers that Albertina handed us, fresh from the irons.

They had the feel and taste of a cake cone, but were thicker and a little chewier when hot. And they were HOT. We’d each take our turns accepting one from Berti and then spend several minutes burning ourselves while trying to cut them in half, or open them like pitas. The others filled them with meaty meats, thinly sliced from the deli. I filled them with slices of lovely cheeses and roasted peppers Sandra had prepared. Three or four of these I had. And then we started filling them with nutella. I stopped myself just before I exploded (yay me). And declared that I might never eat again.

And then we went to Deb’s family’s place for dinner.

The week was filled with lovely breakfasts: bits of toast and jam and tea or croissants and cappuccini; lovely coffees with Barbara, Andre and Deb – and sometimes Alfredo (a funny man who always plays with Andre.  Pictured here with Andre’s dog).

Second breakfasts that included a lovely ricotta pastry.

It was so good I didn’t even mind that there were raisins hiding in there.

Deb is usually the mistress of lunch, preparing amazing and simple pasta dishes for us. This week we were treated to tortellini with butter and sage. She threw a hunk of butter into the pan and went to the garden to pick the sage leaves.

This week’s afternoon teas included a nice poundcake made by Sandra’s mom. It was hugely long and wonderful and had a crust of chocolate chips. It put me in mind of breads my mom and nana make. I also stopped by a favorite coffee place for an afternoon cappu and biscotto. I don’t know what it was, exactly, but it was good for dipping and perfectly sweet.

We hit the same place twice this week for dinner Il Baretto in Gallicano– a great place that serves pizza, primi, secondi and everything else. When I walked in, I felt like I was in another of Deb and Sandra’s galleries. The walls were adorned with one of Sandra’s murals, and a series of pictures detailing the art of pizza making. Beautiful.

The first night there we all had pizza. Amazing, wonderful pizza. We watched it being cooked and then scarfed it down.

The second night Sandra opted for a meaty dish and fried artichokes and Deb and I opted for calzone.

This calzone was one of the best things I’ve eaten since I’ve been here. It was a huge, 4 cheese creation with a reservoir of sauce on the top. The best part was the gorgonzola that was lurking inside, just around the edges where the crust was doubled up and folded over. I reached it last, after attacking the mozzarella in the middle, drawing out great strings of it. When I found it, the lovely liquid gorgonzola oozed out to mingle with the tomato sauce. I mopped it up with chunks of the crunchy crust. It was absolutely divine.

The dinner was almost exclusively in Italian. I sat quietly observing, Sandra and Deb checking in on me periodically. As the dishes were cleared, Sandra told me to say something in Italian. I chose “penso che vorrei qualcosa ciocolata, e caffe, forse.” I’d been thinking about dessert since about half way through the calzone.

So Paula, our fourth, and I ordered something chocolate. Profiterole with chocolate sauce.

Sandra offered me bread to clean up the sauce. I seriously considered it.

First things first. This is an emotional post for me, so I want to set some things out at the top. To my family and friends: I love you. End of story. To the girls in middle school: I hope you have fulfilling lives and are nice to people who are different from you. To the hiring attorneys: I really want to curse you, but that would only hurt me, so I hope you have gay children and that they teach you compassion. Oh, and thanks for not hiring me. There’s no way I’d be bumming around Italy right now if you had. Okay, on with the show!

Going on holiday has a certain energy about it. There’s excitement, and curiosity. There’s a sense of escape. You can be anyone on vacation, and everything is new.
An extended vacation brings with it a different set of emotions. You get the excitement and curiosity that comes on a vacation, but then you settle into your surroundings. Maybe you pick a favorite coffee shop or restaurant. Maybe the clerks at the grocery store start to recognize you.

And then there’s the experience of moving. There’s excitement, yes. Apprehension, probably. Fear, maybe. There’s a certain finality to a move.
What I’m experiencing right now is a combination of these experiences. It’s more like going away to college, or an all-summer camp. I’m not on vacation, but things are certainly exciting. I’ve chosen a couple of regular coffee shops, where the people start making cappuccini when I walk in. And my Italian family shows itself as family in unexpected ways. Like with my hair.

I keep my hair fairly short. About once every 4 weeks I shave it down to no longer than ½ inch. At about the 4-week mark, I start to go a little insane with all the little curls that appear. (Yes, Mom, I know they’re precious. They’re also distracting and frustrating.) If things get crazy, I might trim the back and sides and go 6 weeks between a cut.

And, I cut my own hair. Maybe 10 years ago I realized that I was paying someone else to cut it and then going home – or even to the car – to re-cut it the way I wanted. So I learned how to give myself a pretty darn good haircut in the shower with scissors. Then I found that I really do enjoy having really short hair, and I started shaving it regularly.

I just feel lighter – less attached – when I cut my hair. There’s no good way that I’ve found to explain it, but it is clear that my hair is a source of control for me. It’s been a source of struggle, and one of pain, and I’ve tried for years to take control of it. And an oddly large number of the people in my life have tried to take control of it as well.

Like in middle school, just for example. I’m not sure what my hair did to the people in my school to earn their ire. Maybe it was the way it poofed out, all frizz, bushy and unmanageable – different from everyone else. Maybe it was the way I slicked it back, pulled hard into a giant ponytail. Maybe it was just that it was MY hair. (It’s true,my intimidating good looks and intelligence can be hard for others to handle.) Who knows? All that really matters is that it was enough for girls I barely knew to kick the crap out of me when we played flag-football in PE, shouting “bushwacker!” as they pulled me down. Yeah, “bushwacker.” They had no idea how funny that would be.

And I remember vividly the night of the high school dance when one of my friends brought over a giant bottle of gel and did my hair. Over the course of an hour, we used probably half the bottle on my crazy hair. The effect was good. The frizz turned into curls. I was unrecognizable. I actually had multiple people come up to me at the dance and ask me if I was new. So I spent the next few years applying insane amounts of gel to my hair daily – eventually just to the top of my head (no, I don’t know why, and yes, I’ll try to post pics). I was never really able to duplicate the style, though.

When I left for college, I had sported short hair for a couple of years, but my hair was still ridiculously bushy. The pictures from that first year of college are hilarious. Me with my mushroom head, knowing that I was the shit. It wasn’t until my second year that I finally cut it all. Without telling my family or friends, I got up my courage, walked the mile or so to the salon and told them to cut it – short. Even the damn stylist – WHO I WAS PAYING – didn’t want to cut it. After the second round of cuts (she wanted to make sure of how short I wanted it, so she cut it about half the way and tried to convince me to leave it there), I walked out feeling exhilarated. Aside from the enormous amount of product the stylist had put in, trying to make it look curly and sweet, my hair was the closest it had ever been to the way I wanted it.

I waited about a week before I had my friend Jason shave my head. And at least two weeks before I told my family. From that point, there was no going back. I’d call Jason every month or so for a cut (we’d call him “Frederico Choo-Choo!” when he was my stylist), and I’d have an internal battle about whether to cut my hair before going home for holidays. If I didn’t cut it, was it because I was letting my fear of disapproval control me? If I did cut it, was it because I was responding to that same fear, equally controlled by it? An unwinnable battle. And one I still struggle with.

I learned two things about my hair in law-school. First, it can be a convenient excuse for a reason not to hire someone with great credentials. A couple of male hiring attorneys had told the director of career services that they would have hired me, but they were concerned about the blonde highlights that I had put in my hair. She told them it would grow out. I told her I didn’t want to work in a place where they wanted to control my hair (read: apparent sexual orientation. It was clear they weren’t really concerned about my hair).

When I worked as a GLBT organizer, I wasn’t so concerned with my hair. In fact, I grew it longer than it’s been in years and years. The day after we lost the election, though, I shaved the four inches of hair, looking for some kind of a fresh start. And I was relieved – and devastated by the loss of the election. Working with school districts, or fundraising for babies, I was always conscious of how I was perceived. Would people be less likely to work with me if my hair was too short for their liking? Ultimately, did it really matter if I had long hair, if I wasn’t comfortable in my own skin – in my own hair.

The girls in middle school were lashing out at someone who was different. The hiring attorneys were acting out of fear and ignorance. Anyone who might choose not to work with me is someone I can afford to lose. But, my family and friends care about me, and I love them. And that complicates things. My grandmother has finally stopped crying when she sees my hair. That’s a definite bonus. Now she just asks me to grow it long for her funeral – every time I see her. My sister tells my mom to leave my hair alone, and that’s nice, but even she asked me to leave it long for her wedding. My girlfriends have all had input as to how they think my hair should be. The smart ones, however, told me how much they liked my hair more often than they expressed their opinions about what I should do with it.

And that brings me to my Italian family. Last week I announced that it was time for a haircut. “No!” was Sandra’s response. “Yes.” This was a familiar battle, but one I hadn’t really expected. I was just looking for a place to get an electric razor. Yes, I feel a kinship with my new friends – one I can’t explain. Yes, I love them dearly. Yes, I feel that they care about me as well. But why my hair? I know we’re in Italy, in little, conservative towns. But, I’ve had a shaved head in Idaho, and in Salem, and Albany, and many other little, conservative towns. And it’s not like I’m going to take a straight razor to it and spit-polish my head. Maybe it represents an overt statement that I am, indeed, an unapologetic lesbian that makes everyone nervous, but I don’t think so. Almost everything about me is a statement to that effect. It could be discomfort with the gender-non-conforming nature of a woman with really short hair. But, I get called “sir” MUCH more often when I have longer hair than when it’s shaved. It could be that other people like my hair longer and I like it shorter, but the attachment to my hair – on all sides – seems more than a style-preference. I really don’t know what it’s about. What’s more, I don’t know why it’s so important to me. Last night I had the opportunity to examine this in a new way.

Tommy, the 14-year old boy I live with, has weighed in with his opinion of my hair – which has been the subject of a couple of dinner conversations. “NOOOO!” He motioned to the sides of his face, indicating the curls that are starting to form in my sideburns. “Yes, Tom. Anyway, I’m almost out of gel, so that will be it. Two days, max.”

Last night, when Tom came back from the salon where he was having a trim, he had a bag for me – a present. “Now, there are no more excuses,” he said, putting the bag proudly in my hands. It was a bottle of gel. Tom stood in front of me, waiting for a reaction. And, I felt completely out of control. Here stood this beautiful boy who, with a sweet and misguided gesture, had tried to help. I turned my back on him. I muttered “thanks, Tom, but I’m still cutting my hair.” I couldn’t find the way to be kind. I couldn’t find the way to be gracious. All I wanted to do was run to the nearest barber shop and shave my head. And I felt controlled. By a 14-year-old boy, and by twenty 14-year-old girls shouting, “bushwacker!”

When we all got home, Tom asked me if the gel was alright. “Yes, Tom, thank you very much. It’s very sweet. But I’m still cutting my hair.” I must have had a look on my face. Sandra asked “what’s happened?” She’s incredibly intuitive. “Everyone has to stop caring about my hair,” was all I could get out before I had to walk away. I was now in the position to have to tell a wonderful child that he had wasted his money and his emotion on something that I can’t even explain. Hiding in the bathroom, I found some space to think about just exactly I could tell Tommy about why I reacted to his gift the way I did. I felt like I owed him that much. But I didn’t have the words. So I thought. And in the context of Tommy’s gift I was able to come up with this: There are times in life when people want you to be a certain way, whether it’s how you act, or what you do for a living, how you raise your kids, or how you look. And it can be very hard sometimes to know the difference between what it is that other people want you to be, and what it is you want to be. It can be very difficult, but very important.

I have no idea if that realization will mean anything in the battle for my hair. I’m hoping maybe I’ll be able to disengage from it; to neutralize it. The only reason I see it as a battle is because I’m fighting in it; invested in it. That might be too big a step. I’m not sure. Maybe for now we could just declare a truce while I work out my exit strategy. At least now I have some gel while I’m working it all out. And people who care enough about me to share their opinions of my hair.

Sandra has a problem with mugs. My first night here I noticed this. It’s not like she hides it. When I helped wash dishes my first night here, I spent a good 5 minutes trying to fit all of the mugs onto the little shelf in the kitchen. That was before I noticed the mugs sprinkled across the shelves in the cupboards, displayed decoratively on the bookshelves in the living room, and filling overflowing bags at the studio.

“I like mugs!” she says with a wiley smile.

Tea time was interesting for the first couple of days. “NO, not that mug.” I had assumed that all mugs were equal while preparing our afternoon tea. “That’s Tommy’s, can’t you tell?” “And that one is Snoopy. Don’t touch it. No, it’s very old, don’t even touch it.” “What about this one, Sandra?” She just smiled, and reached into the sink to rinse one that we had used that morning.

I’m getting better. I’ve had some time to watch which mugs she uses in the morning for cappuccino (and which ones Deb uses), and which ones she uses for afternoon tea, versus evening tea. I can anticipate which ones I can use, and which should be left alone. I haven’t had my choice corrected in maybe a week now. Wait. I just realized that might be because the ladies were on a cruise for the last week. Damn.

While they were away, I spent some time with friends in Lucca. We had a couple of day trips to Florence and Viareggio, and several days in the beautiful city of Lucca. Along the way I’d been looking for gifts for Sandra and Deb. It turns out it’s a little difficult to buy gifts for artists I barely know. Their home is filled with many beautiful things – and mugs. I kept finding lovely mugs, but rejected them all out of principle. There are plenty of mugs in the house and I was sure to find something better.

On my last evening, as we made our way to the train station, Giovanna took me to a slightly unexpected place – a Scottish tea house. Nestled in one of the winding backstreets of Lucca was a white-walled shop, lined floor to ceiling with white tins of tea. Gio and I chose a seat in the back of the shop where a great Japanese-style tea house stood. (I have no idea how they got this thing in through the little tunnel connecting the front and back of the shop. Probably piece by piece.)

We spent some time pouring over the tea menu. The shop-owner spent some time talking with us about the differences between Bancha and Sencha, Japanese Sencha and Chinese Sencha, and all manner of tea.

By the time we had finished, there were tea tins littering the little table where we sat, the owner having brought them to us, gently scooping leaves for us to smell. When the tea arrived, it was in lovely little pots with stainless steel covers that sat over the body of the pot. Gio and I wasted no time disassembling the interesting pots. The steel, it turns out, was lined with felt. Sliding smoothly over the white ceramic pots, the liners functioned as built-in tea cozies. Fantastic! I was put in mind of the mismatched teapot that Sandra and Deb use, and how quickly the tea goes cold.

I boarded the train to Fornaci an hour later with my gigantic backpack full of new coats and boots, and a teapot under my arm.

The day Deb and Sandra returned, I tried to make the house nice. I swept, went to the market for bread and flowers, and I actually managed to put all the mugs on the little shelf. It was a triumphant morning. The van arrived and we unloaded the extra bag they’d bought to carry all of their treasures. The dogs were ecstatic to have their moms back. I was happy to have my friends home.

After settling in a little they noticed the box on the table and opened their new teapot. “Bello, bello.”

“We have something for you, too.” They were both grinning. After some serious excavation, a package appeared and was thrust into my hands. How fabulous! A present. Who doesn’t love presents? I pulled apart the wrapping and laughed. A mug.

“Bellissimo!” We all had a good laugh and the mug, along with the teapot, was sent to the kitchen to be washed and put into service. I’ve used my mug about a thousand times in the two days since it appeared. There’s something wonderfully comforting in having it in the kitchen. I know that now I’ll get at least one mug right when making afternoon tea.