ANNIVERSARY Countdown (Count-Up?)

Today is Friday, March 7th, 2014. We were married 986 days ago, on June 25th, 2011.


Wednesday, December 19, 2012

The Basic Dialogue of Tourism

From lesson 13:

Listen to this conversation between a tourist and a shopkeeper. Ascolta questa conversazione tra un turista e un bottegaio.

Turista:  Quanto le devo? (How much do I owe you?)

Bottegiao:  Quanto hai? (How much do you have?)

Sunday, December 16, 2012

Wintery Mix

When I was a kid, this was one of my favorite jokes.

Man on phone:  Is this the weatherman?
Weatherman:  Yes, it is.
Irate Man: I just wanted you to know that I just shoveled two feet of partly cloudy off my porch!

I've always been interested in weather prediction.  Ever since the Kalamazoo TV station hired a meteorologist instead of a weatherman, I've been captivated by those big patterns on the map, and the ways that the Hs and Ls and curved bumpy lines could pretty well tell you what was going to happen tomorrow and the next day.  And now, after forty years of Al Roker and The Weather Channel and wunderground.com, we've all become some moderate connoisseurs of tropical lows and the jet stream.

And like any map, weather maps can be pretty, too.

So, as I was getting ready to do the weekly road trip from home to not home, I looked (as I always do) at Weather Underground and listened to NPR.  They both called for some combination of rain, snow, and ice pellets.  The Vermont Public Radio forecaster specifically called for "a wintery mix," another one of those terms I never heard of even though I grew up in a wintery place.

Well, to paraphrase a certain grade school joke, I just drove through 188 miles of wintery mix.  The various forms of computerized traction control in Habanero were all employed at some moment or another, from driving up Spruce Knob Road to retrieve the mousetrap I'd left this morning (long story...) to the long climb past the ski resorts at Killington to the very-not-plowed I-89 across New Hampshire.  Periodically, someone would pass me, expressing a desire to maintain the posted speed limit, but for the most part, my compatriots and I were all content to travel at 43 miles per hour on the Interstate and considerably less through the back woods of eastern Vermont.

I have a standard set of stops along my way, based on my periodic need to take on or leave behind some tea.  I stop at the Maplefield's Market in Woodstock VT; at Simon's Mobil in Enfield NH; and at the New Hampshire Rest Stop/State Liquor Store near Hooksett NH.  The guy at the Dunkin Donuts at Simon's Mobil now automatically gets me a large iced tea, black no lemon, while I'm using the rest room; I guess that makes me a regular.  The woman who runs the gas station store counter was mopping slush off the floor while wearing a Santa hat with "Bah Humbug!" in green glitter across the white fur band.

This marks the first driving snow of the year.  Which also means the first time walking around the car and kicking all the mudguards to knock the slush out of the wheelwells, the first time using the rear window defroster, the first time getting the snow brush out of the trunk.  Seasonal rituals.

We've started to learn the early parts of the winter rituals in the house, too.  How to bank the fire so we can light it quickly the next morning; how much wood to bring in from the garage; where the cats will sit to warm themselves.  We'll soon figure out when to call our friend to plow the drive; where to shovel and where to use the snowblower; which windows get packed in with snow and which are blown clear by the wind.

The house makes a little more noise in cold weather — not merely because the furnace and the pellet stove auger and the water heater run more often, but because the wood frame shrinks a little when there's no moisture in the air, and everything creaks just a bit.  Of course, I make a little more noise in the winter too, so I shouldn't be too surprised.

Sunday, December 9, 2012

Lesson Nine – A Cautionary Tale

If you have been reading this blog for a while, you know I can be a tad heavy at times, so I thought I'd share a moment of shared hysteria as H and I were returning from the house of some friends.

We are (sort of) at tape 9 in the Pimsleur Italian 1 series of CD's...in preparation for our trip to Venice. Most of it is pretty rote: a phrase, the enunciation of syllables starting at the end of the word, and then repetition two or three times. As you advance, you have to come up with the phrase itself; the speaker repairs the botched effort you have made, and there is more repetition.  We have focused on eating and drinking, and the words for "when" (quando), "what" (che chosa), where (dove), want (vuole), would like (vorrei), understand (capisco), speak (parla), and an assortment of locational words for here (qui), there (li) and a few others. (Please note that my spelling may be way off since I am only hearing these words.

So CD#9 launched us off on telling time with numbers thrown in seemingly at random: one (una), two (due), eight (otto) and nine (nove).  But as the lesson progressed it became clear that there was a method to this, and all of a sudden we were in the middle of high drama....

Say 'one oclock':  l'una
Say 'nine oclock': le nove
Say 'at two o'clock': alle due
Say 'I'd like to have lunch at your place': vorrei prantsare da lei
[Huh?  I thought we were telling time! We already have some history, by the way, with Marcello being a bit forward with Alessandra.  "I'd like to have lunch at your place" might be another of those instances...]
Ask 'at what time' : a che ora?
Ask 'at one o'clock or at two o'clock': all'una o alle due?
Say 'at eight o'clock': alle otto
Say 'at nine o'clock': alle nove
Ask 'at what time' : a che ora?
Say 'I don't know at what time': non so che ora
Say 'at two o'clock, agreed?': alle due, d'accordo?
[She hasn't agreed to anything, but Marcello is insistent...]
Say 'alright, at my place': daccordo, da me
Do you remember how to say at the hotel?: a l'hotel
Try to ask 'where is the hotel Via Veneto please?': Dove l'hotel Via Veneto, per favore?
Answer 'it's over there on Via Veneto street':  e li a Via Veneto
[Why is it that there is something in the invitation to have lunch "at my place" that seems ...what...vaguely lascivious, leering... They didn't conflate time telling with sex when I was learning French in elementary school....Maybe there's something about Italian...]
How would you ask her if she would like to drink something with you?: Vorreibe biere qualcosa con me, signorina?
[See what I mean? That rogue!]
How does she correct you and say 'not "Miss"; "Mrs."?':  Non signorina; signora
Say 'sorry ma'am': Scusi signora!
Say 'but would you like to drink something with me?' Ma vorreibe biere qualcosa con me?
[Sorry, I understand you're an adult and you DID say you are  married, but hey, what the hell.  Would you like to drink something with me anyway? You are lovely and I am a male and this IS Italy after all...]
How does she say 'no thank you'; non grazie; grazie; grazie; non grazie signore
Say 'not now':  non adesso
And how does she say 'not later': e non piutardi
[Alessandra is polite, most often, even in the face of Marcello's assertive rather...tone-deaf, one note, insistent ways.  But "No thank you.  Not now, and not later" feels like a pretty closed case.  Not to Marcello, though...]
Ask 'but at one o'clock agreed?':  all'una, daccordo?
Listen to how she says: 'It's not all right with me': no sono daccordo
Now you say 'it's not all right with me': no sono daccordo.
[You bet I will say it! No sono daccordo!  Are you listening Marcello? ]
She says, 'no thank you, I do not want to'; Use 'I' for emphasis." Io non voglio.
[Okay, so in the last five lines, she's said, "No thanks, not now and not later.  It's not alright with me.  I DO NOT WANT TO!" And in Italian, there seems to be something of real intensity about using "want" instead of "would like" and adding the pronoun "I" or "you".  Most mortal men would have slunk away by now.  But the indefatigable Marcello presses forward.]
Say 'later? at eight o'clock?': piutardi? alle otto?
She says, 'no thank you': non grazie
Say 'or at nine o'clock?':  o alle nove?
She answers "certainly not". Listen and repeat:  assolutamente non!
[OK so you know that H and I have been finding every possible excuse to look at each other and say 'assolutamente non!' By this time, we're doubled over with laughter, barely able to drive the car home.  This is the first time in nine lessons that Alessandra has stood up to Marcello's testosteronic insistence.  I can hardly wait to get to Venice and try my turn at 'assolutamente non!'  It will feel as though I am a native speaker!]
Ask 'at what time'?: a che ora?
Tell me, at what time?: midica, a che ora?
At what time would you like to drink something with me?: A che ora vorreibe biere qualcosa con me?
[H has taken to adding "baby" at the end of these plaintive sentences.  A che ora vorriebe biere qualcosa con me, bebe?  Per favore, bebe?]
Note that in the next few sentences the 'you' and 'I' are used for emphasis. How does the woman answer, ' I do not want to drink something with you?'  Io non voglio biere qualcosa con lei.
Say, "Ah!  I understand now.': Ah, Io capisco adesso. Io capisco.
'Va bene. Lei capisce adesso.'
Say, 'you don't want to drink something with me': Lei no vuole biere qualcosa con me.
'But you would like to eat something with me': Ma lei vorreibe mangiare qualcosa con me.
Add 'at the restaurant': al ristorante.
Ask 'at one o'clock or at two o'clock'?: All'una o alle due?
[Okay, baby, so you don't want to drink with me, I get it... but you want to eat with me at the restaurant, right?  One o'clock or two o'clock, baby?]
She says 'not at one o'clock and not at two o'clock: non all'una e non alle due.
She adds for good measure 'not at eight o'clock and not at nine o'clock': non alle otto e non alle nove.
Ask 'at what time': a che ora?
[How do you say "go girl" in Italian?  When a woman says "I don't want to drink something with you, certainly not!  Not at one o'clock or two o'clock, nor at eight o'clock or at nine o'clock!" she's probably not hoping that Marcello finally guesses at the right answer that she wants to go drinking with him at 10:45....]
She says 'you don't understand, sir': Lei non capisce, signore
Ask her 'what don't I understand'?  Che cosa non capisco?
She answers: 'You don't understand Italian, sir'; Lei non capisce l'Italiano, signore.

This is the end of unit 9.
[I can't wait for unit 10!  If there are any Pimsleur-ites out there in blog land, please let me know whether unit 9 in Serbo-Croatian or Hindi or Tagalog is similar. I am assuming that only the Italian and French scripts get to wine and beer in the fourth lesson....but how universal is this???  Is there a hidden subtext to watch out for Italian men when on vacation? Assolutamente si! ]

Io capisco l'Italiano un po adesso, e lei?  Sono le nove e vorrei biere del vino adesso. State bene. Buona Notte.

Saturday, December 1, 2012

Verklempt - redux

Herb challenged me to a second blog post in one day, so here it is... a short one....

There were three things in the Fire Island house  that MATTERED in the big ways things matter to us: a Danish teak table that I planned to put in the office, and two vintage Danish chairs with woven seats. They were supposed to be placed here, beside the wood stove or with the table in the office. In Fire Island, all had been in two feet of standing water, but I had used some bleach on them to knock back the mold and unknowns.  I would have brought them back with me, but the table was two inches too big for the back of my car, and the chairs would have fit without anything else, and there was all that "else" to bring here. So I hired this kid I sort of knew before he was born (political correctness aside I sort of knew his mother when she was pregnant). He has a reputation as a "good kid."

He agreed to truck the salvageables here but he seems somewhat....ADHD if you know what I mean.

I told him that while there were things I wanted, these three things were the crucial ones and there were blankets aplenty there for wrapping them....I told him that several times. I told that to his brother-in-law who brought the new truck without salt water in the engine block from Colorado. I told them that they could stay here over night if they needed to.

Do you know what's coming?
Can you tell?
Do you remember the post from June 30th about Midnight Movers here in VT?

Well, we got a "good news and bad news" call at about 12:30.

"We got to Bayshore (the mainland). That's the good news. But those two chairs you wanted? They blew off the truck on the bridge. A good carpenter can probably put the pieces back together. I forgot my truck mesh on the mainland and the wind got under the rope that was tying the leg to the truck. "

Let's see ...twenty minutes in and the chairs are blowing off the truck...And he has another 5 hours of highway driving.

Oh well... It's only stuff. And I know that.  I even believe that. But there is something in that stuff that is the embodiment of those childhood routines. And of what we believe childhood to have been. Or at least what we were told childhood was. The family myth is a powerful drug. So I am a little addicted even though I have gone "cold turkey".

Anyway, it's 7:13. I spoke to the "kid"  about an hour ago. His brother-in-law is still driving. First the "kid" said he was close. Then he said his brother-in-law was still in Massachusetts, about two hours away.  "He'll be there around 8:30 but if that's too late for you, he can find a place to crash."   Not a word one wants to hear under the circumstances.

Have I told you the story of the load of my belongings that were in storage when I returned to Vermont after 6 months living in Fire Island (!!)???  The guy who was trucking them 25 miles from the storage locker to the rental house stopped while crossing the train tracks, and the truck was hit by a train.

No I didn't make that up.

The most important lessons are the ones we have to learn a thousand times...

Verklempt

I am in VT. H just left for the dump. I am awaiting a fifth call from the guys who are bringing a truckload of damaged furniture from Fire Island, to let me know that they are on the road. They once said they would be leaving at 3 a.m.; it's now 11:30. We'll see what can be salvaged and refinished when it gets here, IF it gets here. Remember the saga of "Midnight Movers"? 

In a kind of poetic turn, it is snowing here...the first real snow in our home. The furniture that is water logged will arrive to a white cold landscape. The pellet stove does little to warm the living room, and the wood stove is cranking away, but I turned up the heat anyway. It is the first real test of our radiant heating in the kitchen and in my writing "nook".

H and I were at the dinner table last night, catching up on the week and we began to create a new list of things that are part of this new life.  Back in January, we had created two lists when we finally reached agreement with the sellers on a price for the house: "things we won't miss" and "things we are looking forward to".  The new list is "things we have now done for the first time and won't have to wonder about this time next year."  It is a way of remembering the newness of this place, and of not taking for granted all that has come with finding "home". Of course there will be the perennials that will come up in the Spring that will be new. There will be the first green of the leaves that will eventually swallow the horizon line of mountains. People write paeans to the discovery of a clump of snowbells in March, or the smell of the sugaring arch (me among them). But this is a different kind of list....
  • There's the valve that turns off the outdoor spigot for the hose. H traced the pipe to the likely valve, but we couldn't turn off the flow. Derrick, the young man who does odd jobs for us, turned the same valve, presumably harder, and the flow stopped. We will know that valve is the right one next year and we will be more assertive.
  • There's the storm windows - some are the triple track kind and I got most of them in place, but H worked with our friend Jonno last summer to take the full size ones off the dormer windows upstairs, and Derrick put them back on earlier in the week. It was a task that was familiar to H from his childhood, but he had never done it, and now, he has. It is, after all, part of owning a home.
  • We split about 3 cords of wood earlier in the year. Neither of us had ever used a splitter before, but with the help of our friends Emmett (and his splitter), Grazyna and Howard, we split and stacked the wood from two standing dead trees that our friends the Teers brought down in exchange for sugaring our trees.
  • There's the lawnmower saga of course...finding where the hills and divits are and how to remove the towing canvas with metal teeth that wrapped itself round the axle.
  • And the figuring out of which switch controls which light.
  • There's learning not to micro-manage the pellet stove, and learning how to clean it, and learning which pellets we prefer - soft or hardwood or a blend, and the nature of "fines" and ash
  •  There's the learning of which rooms we use a lot, and which ones rarely, and which chairs feel better here than they did where we lived before.
  • There's the attic vent thing....Our friend and contractor Matt, put in two new vents in the barn/ garage / pool room yesterday. He bought two pre-made boxes with louvers, but he described the way he makes a kind of box behind them so that the snow that blows in, doesn't melt into the insulation and stain the ceiling. He removed two of the battens on the outer wall, leaving a whitish area, but he will pre-age the siding so they don't show as much. Next year we won't be thinking about the attic vents at all.
  • And Matt showed me how to take down the light fixture in the shower so I could clean it (flies!), and identified the third switch as a night light rather than a defective heater....
These aren't the most romantic things that are part of my "homing" but they are in some ways the measure of how the house is changing us, one tiny discovery at a time. They are doomed to be forgotten if we don't record them now. Oliver Sachs, the brilliant and quirky neurologist, who writes about people who march to different drummers talks of the person with no long term memory who keeps rediscovering things. At the moment, that's the way it feels to live here--enmeshed in discoveries doomed to be forgotten.

But there is some irony in the fact that the furniture from my childhood will be arriving here eventually...the chest of drawers that was in the dining room and held the bed sheets which are already here, the rocker that was my grandmother or great grandmother's.  It is easier to transport our memories as they are held in objects, than it is the rituals that make up the embeddedness of home. At the moment, I am carrying both within me and feel a bit "verklempt".