5.11 As usual with a gorgeous day, I do laundry first! 65F is not usual for early November in my universe. Got out and walked up the hill a ways and investigated a couple of the side roads, both of which turned out to be very long private driveways, so not very interesting. When the girls got home, we went for a drive up to Iggio, in the opposite direction from where we turn to go to school every morning, then followed the road through the hills until it came out on rt 359, which I happen to know leads to Pellegrino. So though we didn’t know where we were, we knew how to get home. As we approached Pellegrino we decided to take a detour up past the Pellegrino castle (which is still a private house) and see if we could find the 13^th C church that is said to be up in the hills somewhere. Turns out, stay on the road long enough, tada! Pretty little place, lots of 15^th C frescoes on the walls and ceilings. Minor league stuff after all the opulence-overload that is Rome, but for so far out in the country? Very lovely.

Elise gave her presentation about the trip and it seems to have gone well. The teacher was rather confused by the Capuchin crypt, though – she had never heard of it, so she didn’t actually believe El when she said it was decorated with bones! She kept trying to help her find the “correct” word. Elise plans to take the postcards in with her tomorrow. She said she was able to answer most of the kids’ questions about the trip, but the thing she found most interesting about their questions was that none of them had ever been to Rome, and few had ever been farther afield than Parma! They were all fascinated (including the teacher!) that she had been so many places in Italy. It took less than 6 hours door to door to get to one of the most famous cities on earth, and yet it’s unlikely that most of them will ever see it. #villagelife, I guess.

6.11 The internet has been down since yesterday afternoon. It came on again for about 2 hours this evening then died again. I’m going to call Roisin in the morning and see if we can get a new service. This is driving us nuts. The phone has something wrong with it – crackles and won’t get a dial tone. Roisin said to call Gabby and Frank in Fidenza and see if they could help. While I was talking to Gabby, she mentioned that her friends Cinzia and Corrado had said they had met me. The world, he is small. On the plus side, dead web means I can’t get any information about the election, so I can’t be obsessively watching the non-existent returns (it is, after all, only 4 in the afternoon there as I write). xkcd, as usual, was brilliant: “If Obama wins the election Tuesday it’s going to be devastating to Romney’s tracking polls!” “Uh, maybe you should take a break…”

Elise was sick today – didn’t feel good on the trip down to school, so I brought her back up, and just as well, since I had to pull over to let her throw up on the way home. She asked for chicken soup when she woke up at 2 after I returned from The Weekly Errands in Salso. (Today’s Grocery News: culaccia is actually the cheap and sleazy cut of culatello. Do not give me any culatello, I don’t think I could stand the wonderfulness! Or the fact that it’s almost twice as expensive.) Don’t have any chicken soup. But by gosh and by golly I had chicken and noodles and carrots and broccoli and bouillon cubes, so into the pot they went to make chicken noodle soup. And it wasn’t at all bad! I only made 1L at first, but I had more of everything and she liked it so much that I made 3L more! Aurora wouldn’t touch it, of course – she won’t eat anything that’s “mixed” – but Elise and I both liked it a lot. So now add “quick chicken soup” to my repertoire of Things I Make.

7.11 Elise still not feeling good and slept again all day. Gloomy out – same temps as yesterday but feels far colder.

8.11 Took car to mechanic today and hoped to get a ride home with Eleanora. We went for coffee at Bar Sport today – Apennino is closed on Thursdays, who knew. After our coffees (oh get real, I had a cioccolata fondente, extra dark) I went to the farmacia to get Elise’s meds. The 10 mg pill she takes is only available in 20 mgs here, so I had to get a pill cutter as well. Two types of meds AND the cutter not only didn’t require a prescription, they came out to less between them than either would have been WITH insurance at home. I hate the American medical establishment. And don’t start with me on “but socialized medicine takes three months to see a doctor.” For routine wellness stuff it takes SIX months to see a doctor at home, and Eleanora called her pediatrician for me and got us an appointment for tomorrow. Italians pay 43% income tax and they agree that the services they get in exchange are worth it. Americans are idiots. (I say this, naturally, in the wake of the presidential election and all the Republican handwringing on the imminent end of the world. Obama won, thank God, but American culture is still infinitely inferior to Italian.)

Since the car was going to be at the mechanic all day, I decided to walk home. From Eleanora’s it was about 4 miles, plus I took a couple short detours along the way to see some things up close. It was so lovely out that it seemed a shame not to absorb absolutely everything possible. I had music on and most of it was pretty upbeat so I kept up a good pace (timing is everything: “Black Velvet”, with its very slow and thumpy beat, came on just as I came to the steepest part of the hill!) and got home in 1 hour and 12 minutes. Not too shabby! Have to do that again soon. Maybe Monday.

Elise took the postcards of the Bone Crypt to school with her to show her teacher. The kids apparently thought it was way cool, and the teacher was thoroughly creeped out. But at least now they know she actually knew what she was talking about!

9.11 Italian Medicine Continues to Beat American All To Pieces

Elise was ill again last night, crying and in terrible pain with photosensitivity. So this morning off we went to the doctor. She was very nice and Elise liked her. She checked El out and came to the conclusion that the biggest problem at this point was dehydration, so she gave us some VERY nasty juice boxes that Elise has to drink over the next three days and sent us away. When I said, “Whom do I pay?” her response was, “This was so trivial. Don’t worry about it. Call me Monday, or if she gets worse over the weekend, here’s my cell number.” Can you even imagine an American doctor’s office telling you, “eh, this isn’t worth the time to bill it” ?

The web access is still out and has been for 2 days now. Frank finally broke down and decided to change it out. The new guys will be out tomorrow morning if it’s not raining (something has to be installed outside). I have to get down to Pellegrino and get money, since they need 240E cash to install it. It’s very isolating to be without. I keep wondering things and can’t look them up! I feel suddenly underinformed. And of course not being able to read more Republican whining about how real Americans lost the election and have been shouted down by a bunch of minorities and non-citizens means my main source of entertainment at the moment is taken away! So sad for me.

Went over to Ornella’s to see the puppies, which have grown a GREAT deal in the 3 weeks since we saw them last. On the way home I ran into Iole and chatted with her for a few, and managed to remember to ask her about the orange peach-looking fruits on the tree in her yard. She said they were cachi, which I think are persimmons (but I don’t know because I can’t ask the web! Grrr). In any event, she asked if I wanted to try some and I said of course. Her father brought out a whole bucket of the things, only one of which they said was absolutely ready to eat. (Like our friends the medlars, cachi need to blet for days and days before they’re edible.) The others, I’m told, need to sit on a plate with some apples for three days. Somehow sitting with apples makes the process work better. They feel totally gross and squushy when they’re ready, like a tomato that’s WAY old. I tasted one tonight and it was… interesting. Sort of like the most beautiful jello you ever saw.

Shortly after I came back to the house, Marcella turned up. I had completely forgotten we had a lesson today! I had meant to cancel but couldn’t get online (again with the online!) to find her phone number. She’s teaching us an actual choreographed dance. So far so good. Sadly, we can’t have another lesson for a month. She has two conferences on the weekends we have free, and the girls decided they didn’t want to have a lesson while my friend Ron is visiting.

The heat in the house remains an issue. Downstairs is fine with the pellet stove going, but upstairs is an icebox without the electrical heat on. I try to keep it to a minimum – it’s supposed to be SUPER expensive, and lord knows I don’t want to spend any more than I have to. But the pellets, lovely as they are for downstairs, just aren’t cutting it in the whole house.

Reminder to self: you cannot run the pellet stove, the television, the oven, and the dishwasher all at the same time. Oven and dishwasher can only run together if NOTHING else (no lights, no tv, no stufa, NOTHING) else is on. Otherwise, FFFFFFFFT!