17.2 Life After Elise

Well, we are safely, and a little sadly, back from Milan.

We had a nice walk through the Duomo area of Milan on Friday, got to go into La Scala and the security guard even said, "You take a picture? No flash!" So we took kind of a lot of pictures. I love that my camera can see in quite dim light. Tickets to La Scala shows start at 13E apiece (up to 250!) so Aurora and I will watch the schedule to see if there's something we'd like to see. They were building the set for The Flying Dutchman, which opens next week. Not sure Aurora would like that, but we'll watch for something she would. The Duomo was still open when we got back to it after supper. The lights made it quite creepy inside, but the windows are such that I'm sure it's very beautiful in sunlight. We'll see it again before we leave in July. VERY different architectural style from San Marco in Venice, and the mosaic floors weren't NEARLY as nice. We're such mosaic snobs at this point!

The first hotel was a Holiday Inn, and it was fine, with very good breakfast. The second, supposedly the ritzier of the two, was very nearly a complete bust: pool was FREEZING, steam room was broken, and the massage was ok but I like deep tissue and she refused to do it. She didn't even bring a blanket for the massage table! I had to pull one off the bed. And the breakfast was only so so.

However, we did have a jacuzzi tub in the bathroom, so we both got to have jacuzzi baths -- Ro put bubbles in hers, and they foamed up so high we had to keep taking them out and putting them into the sink and the bidet to get rid of them! And then this morning at breakfast we overhead the people at the next table speaking English, and she was so excited. So she went over to say hi to the little girl, who had just turned 9 last month, and they hit it off instantly. Lauren's family were just ending their holiday -- they had been in Milan a week. I chatted for a while with the mom, Kylie, and we all became fast friends. We now have an invitation to Northampthon any time we want to go! They had a friend there who arrived at 10:30 to take them to Verona for the day, and they were headed back to London tonight.

One very good thing that came out of the weekend: the 2nd hotel didn't have any English language tv. So when Ro wanted to watch, it was Italian or nothing. So she watched Italian. And when we got home, she was low and wanted to lie on the couch for a bit. "May I watch tv?" Sure, go ahead. "Can you find the Italian station I was watching? I want to watch that." I'd be delighted!

No new snow, so the ride home was uneventful.

I talked to Julian late last night and her flight (Air France) was pretty much entirely without incident, plus she said the unaccompanied minors were corralled together at Charles de Gaulle in a playroom with video games, tv, and even a nap room! I want to be an unaccompanied minor! The plane itself made no impression on her -- always good! -- but the minder service seems to have been excellent. I wasn't so much WORRIED as just wanting her not to feel abandoned in a foreign country. So, kudos to AF.

House is cold from heat being way down over the weekend, but will warm up as the stufa gets hot. And the cold is less of an issue than new snow, and since we have no new snow, all is well!

Feb 20

Anticipating snow tomorrow through the weekend, yuck. But supposed to get warm again on Monday -- going out this afternoon and hoping not to have to again before next week!

Aurora is sad without Elise but has a playdate with Sofi today, so that goes a long way to making it better. We will skype with Elise about once a week so she won't seem QUITE so far away. But we do miss her.

Not much to report since returning from Milan. It seems very quiet without Elise, but life continues.

Our neighbor, Ornella, was in the hospital last week with a near-fatal asthma attack, and has only been home since Sunday. She came by to tell me about it this afternoon, and invited us for pizza for dinner. It was a treat for her, as she has given up bread for Lent, but also a concession to the fact that the huge doses of cortisone they gave her are making her so hungry she can hardly stand it, and vegetables just don't fill the bill. Frankly, homemade pizza is a treat for us too! I just don't have the patience to make the dough very often.

The snow is supposed to start tomorrow and continue through Sunday night, but some forecasts say "maybe all snow, maybe all rain." I am hopeful of the latter, as it was about 42F out today and is not terribly cold out now (at 9:30pm). Aurora is, naturally, hoping for a day off school on Friday. She already has Monday off, as it is Election Day and all schools and many businesses are closed or have short hours. She had a playdate with her friend Sophi today and was very happy about that. She won't be having any playdates with Matilda in the immediate future -- Mati fell and sprained her ankle sufficiently badly that she's not allowed to put any weight on it, and has to have it up all the time. I have to carry her backpack in for her every morning! But the doctor apparently said in two weeks she'll be back on it 100%. I just hope she doesn't slip on the coming snow and re-injure it! (Gabriele is supposed to get the cast off his arm two weeks from Friday. Alessandra's had a lot to deal with lately!

21 Feb

Snow has arrived. Alessandra took them in, but Aurora needed more insulin at lunch so I got Claudio to take me down to give her a shot – I have snow tires, but after the adventure with David I want to go in a car with chains. Once there I decided not to deal with it again and brought her home. Unlikely to go tomorrow -- there were already 5 teachers missing today because they couldn't get out. When I got to Aurora's classroom there were a LOT of kids in there ...because the entire 4^th and 5^th grade was there as well as 1, 2 and 3. None of the 4^th and 5^th grade teachers had been able to get through. The first grade teacher was down with the kindergartners and the upper school is doing art class pretty nearly all day. Should have been 31 kids for all 5 grades -- was in fact 25. And clearly not enough upper school teachers had gotten in either, since there are more of them, but still not enough to cover the 4^th and 5^th. Maestra Nadia said that while school is not called off for tomorrow AT THIS MOMENT, if the current snowfall continues through the night she seriously doubts we'll go in tomorrow. Frankly, if it's snowing when I get up tomorrow, I'm not going to bother Aurora.

However, I continue to be Organization Girl -- we got pellets in yesterday and I bought more groceries than I really needed when I was out on Monday. We'll run out of milk before Monday but that's it. We can always walk up to Berzieri to get more! The snow is supposed to continue more or less unabated through Sunday, then warm up into the low 50s most of next week. So *maybe* a foot in the course of the weekend, but not a lot all at once.

Feb 22

Since Aurora wasn't feeling well yesterday, and has had a number of high blood sugar readings lately, I decided that, today being a short day at school and the snow being what it was, we would just skip school for today. I called our carpool buddy, Alessandra, this morning to remind her (I wasn't sure if I had actually told her) that we weren't going. She replied, "There's so much snow, and there were so few teachers and kids there yesterday, that we're not going either. It's not closed, but it's pointless. No one will be there." It continues to snow, so our decision to blow off school was clearly the right one.

I'm taking a little break from working on the book to write this; Aurora has been watching Italian cartoons and working on a necklace for a friend all morning. She has now moved so far into preferring Italian tv that when I said, "Let's watch Big Bang (her favorite sitcom)," she replied, "No thank you, my cartoon is in the middle of the story!" She says she can understand a little of what they're saying. The cartoons more expressly aimed at little kids she can understand pretty well. Progress!

I haven't so much made progress on the book as I have written some lesson plans to coordinate with it, and made some modifications/improvements/expansion/completion to material I already had. So now the first two weeks of school and the chapters and materials I need for those are nearly completely finished. Nothing to do but hand them out. I've written a total of 4 completely new and about 11 revised/completed. So that's progress. We'll probably go for a walk at some point, but not for long -- walking in the snow is tiring.

23 feb

Piu di neve as we say here in the mountains -- that's "more snow" for those of you just tuning in...

We've gotten about 2 feet in the last 48 hours. So far the power is still on, though it flickers a lot, very dull. We have plenty of firewood in the house and the flashlight is by the bed, so we'll be fine if it goes out as long as it's not out TOO long. But it's supposed to be sunny and quite warm on Tuesday. Shouldn't be an issue for very long, at any rate.

A lot of snow. We've stayed in all day. It's snowing. That's about all the news :) We're fed and warm and watching TV and writing and being mellow in the mountain winter.

24 feb

A little before and after look at the Strada Besozzola - plow arrived at about 3. It has finally stopped snowing and is relatively warm out -- I cleaned off the car and there was only water actually next to the metal. I don't think we'll have any trouble getting out on Tuesday. Aurora will be so disappointed :) Tomorrow, of course, is Election Day so there's no school. The Italians are way more into people actually participating in the electoral process than Americans are. The contrast is somewhat depressing.