a few loose ends...

As I sit here, healing and heeling (yep, I’m kind of getting in that holiday spirit…or else I’m expecting my one-legged friend The Giant for a visit), I got to thinking about my poor neglected blog. How many times in the past few weeks have I dribbled into a post some time-buying cop-out like, “more on that later!” or “photos to come, I promise!”. It’s more than time that I follow through because, as they say here, “a promise is a debt”.

Olive Harvest. I’ll start here because it’s the easiest….we didn’t have one. Sad but true, and I will be lamenting it every time I have to buy oil. This non-harvest occurred not because we are lazy or because of an unexpected surgery or even because WonderWoolman took me off somewhere causing lost time. No harvest because the olives look like this.

The really hot and dry summer left us with only one tree that even had any olives to pick, then when we went to pick them we decided the effort wouldn’t be worth the teaspoon of oil we would get. It seems that in addition to the unsuitable olive tree climate this year, there was some nasty bug that got to the olives before we did. It happened all over the region. Bummer.

The (dog) wedding photos...I won’t embarrass the poor dog with the photos of his new wife totally ignoring, snapping, and growling at him (or myself by making public that I actually put a bow tie on the dog). Spy, the lovely bride has gotten a little irritable in her pregnancy…well, only with Ruffino. Other than with him she is handling her circumstance with grace which is no small thing given her teats look like this.

After we left our great thanksgiving/wedding dinner Ruffino was clearly dazed at why that fun-loving gal he “met” up at our house was not NEARLY as fun any more. Why is there suddenly a Meatloaf song in my head.

Reflections on the Italian hospital stay…this one is a biggie. Really there’s so much to tell but let me just give a few thoughts:

--I am grateful beyond words to a country who is humane enough to offer socialized medicine.
After heavy sedatives, it seems I speak only Italian.
--I was awed and touched by the number of people that came to visit me, repeatedly, during my stay.
--I owe a HUGE thank you to my friend Mercedes who took Friday off work so she could stay all Thursday night with me after my surgery – “of course, I will! Men are not allowed and you CAN’T be alone!”, she told me.
--Those of you who have or will spend time in a US hospital, don’t take for granted those curtains between the patients’ beds. While not necessary, they are a really nice luxury, ‘specially when the poor gal next to you is having colon problems.
--I realized how much safer I feel when my husband is around.
--Doctors everywhere need to talk and explain more to their patients…it’s never too much information.
--It seems that Italian nurses come in only two varieties…surly bitches who seem that they would rather have their French manicured nails pulled off one at a time with a pliers than look at, touch or talk to the patients or the helium-voiced perky bundles of joy and hope who use terms of endearments like there was a buy-one-get-one-free sale on them at the Molto- Walmart. Strangely enough, in a time of crisis, I prefer the latter.
--Just because it’s Italy doesn’t mean the food is good in the hospital. I admit it, when they finally brought me my first meal (on my third day!) I was expecting my little bed tray to be a display of aesthetic and culinary taste…perhaps a nice chicken alla cacciatore with a side of rice, a nice glass of barbera to wash it down and a rose in a little vase just to wish me buon appetito. Nope- bland broth, boiled chicken, and water.

That’s about enough for now of my hospital musings.

4. The last thing I could think of that I promised was a group photo of this year’s Christmas market hats. That one will have to wait for a while since I’ve packed them away for safe keeping in my studio, which looks like this again.

I have just one word STAIRS!