Do ants have saints?

Tick tick tick tick tick tick tick.
10 AM. New guests are arriving tomorrow. Must leave house at 5:30 AM and drive to Rome's Fiumicino Airport to pick them up.
Tick tick tick tick tick tick tick.
Ok. Finish laundry by 11:30 AM. Clean bathrooms. Wash floors. Should take me to 3:30. Still time to zoom down to the Iper department store to get a lighter cover for the bed in the Valley View bedroom. Way too hot for the monster comforter on there now! Then home by 7 or so. Laundry will be dry. Make beds. Put on coffee pot for the morning wake-up. Should be able to be in bed by 9 and get plenty of sleep for the 3 1/2 hour drive through Rome during rush hour. I can do this!
Tick tick tick tick tick tick tick.
3:00 laundry and floors are done. Wait! Gotta stop for groceries, too. Make list. Stop at bank for cash. On the way to Iper by 5. Okay. I can still do this.
Traffic.
Tick tick tick tick tick tick tick.
But, I am still able to get everything I need and return to the house by 8. Take bedspread out of package. Needs ironing. Okay. Shouldn't take to long. Still can be in bed by 9:30. Run to kitchen to get iron.  WHAAAAAT? Ants!! All over the kitchen table! Crawling over the honey jars, in the fruit bowl, down the table legs. Holey moley!!
Luckily, there's ant spray in the cabinet from a few weeks ago when they appeared in the downstairs kitchen. I had blithely thought I'd pick some wildflowers to artfully arrange in a large, old wine jug next to the fireplace. Unfortunately, along with the wild flowers came wild ants. But I sprayed the suckers, got rid of the flowers, and defeated the panthehon of nature. So I thought. I hadn't seen any others for a week, but now they'd returned with a vengence and invaded the kitchen. The kitchen, for crying out loud! How do you welcome people into your house with a tabletop full of ants!
I grab the spray. Remove everything from the tabletop. Throw out all the fruit. Put the honey jars to soak in hot water. And spray the heck out of the table top.
Tick tick tick tick tick tick tick.
While I let the poison work, I run to the sitting room with the iron. The bedspread is huge. Too huge for the ironing board. It has to be ironed in small sections and turned periodically. Very carefully. So as not to wrinkle the already ironed parts. And slowly.
Tick tick tick tick tick tick tick.
OUCH! In order to make as much room as possible for the bedspread, I must relegate the iron to a tiny piece of the ironing board. There is little room to work. I burn my arm. I run to the kitchen to throw cold water on it, even though I know this is not the optimum treatment for a burn.
A pool of dead ants lies at the bottom of one table leg. But others are scurrying up from underneath the table edge. From seemingly out of nowhere. What the heck? I open the silverware drawer. It is full of....ants! They swarm away as soon as light hits them.
I splash water on my arm, take the honey jars out of the hot water, rinse them, drain the water, and empty   the contents of the silverware drawer into a sinkful of more hot, soapy water. The ants are now pouring out of the drawer, down table legs, back onto the tabletop. I rip the drawer from the table. Spray like mad. Run out of spray. Shit! The iron is still on! Dash back to sitting room. Burn is throbbing and starting to blister. Wish I'd bought the aloe plant I was admiring in Bricco! Too bad.
Tick tick tick tick tick tick tick.
After 45 minutes or so, the bedspread is ironed. 9:30. Make the bed. Back to kitchen to wash down table and drawer, dry all silverware, clean off honey jars and wrap in plastic bags, put in 'fridge. Dead ants piling up on table, floor. Sweep them up, unceremoniously dump them in trash can, and clean surfaces.
Tick tick tick tick tick tick tick.
Gah! Must check flight schedule to be sure plane will arrive on time, pull car rental info from files, check purse to be sure passport is there! Fire up laptop on top of table. Stray ants weaving in drunken curves towards me. Whap! Dead ant. Type type type. Whap! Dead ant! Whap! Whap! Whap! Type type type. They keep advancing. I keep slapping them dead with my hands. They are hearty little suckers. My hand begins to sting from the force of killing them. But they keep sending in reinforcements. Ok. This is war! Whap! Type. Whap! Type! With each blow there seem to be less advancing.
Tick tick tick tick tick tick tick.
10:30. I shut down the laptop. Grab espresso pot and fill with water and coffee. Place on stove at the ready. Open cabinet to get sugar bowl. Ants!!!  I am now out of ammunition! And getting very tired. Everything comes out of the cabinet: pasta, flour, cereal, jars of bruschetta and garllic spread, jelly, sugar,  cellophane bags of cantucci. What can be saved is sealed in plastic. What can't is tossed in the trash can.
Tick tick tick tick tick tick tick.
11:30. Can't leave the trash in the can. Pull it out and seal it. Dash to the front door to take it to the dumpster.
Now this is the metaphysical part. The nearest dumpster is just a few steps outside the door of one of three shrines in town. I mean, here is this sacred spot, with a pristine altar cloth, fresh flowers every day, and a lovingly preserved 16th century fresco on the back wall. A revered spot right next to a dumpster. This particular shrine is dedicated to Santa Lucia. As I pass quickly by the open door, light falls on her statue and I can't tell if she's smiling piteously at me or laughing at me. Because as soon as I lift the trash bag to toss it in the dumpster, I notice there is a hole in the bottom. I turn to look behind me and see I have left a trail of coffee grinds, greasy paper towels, cantalope rinds, and moldy bread in my wake. It goes all the way back to the front door. I ditch the trash bag, and make quick eye contact with the saint as I dash back to the house. "Okay, little missy. Can you help with this one? Is there a patron saint of the battle against ants? And are you she?" I follow the trail back to the house, past more saints, the ones that line the stairs up to the Church.  I'm told they are protectors. But whose side are they on? Mine or the ants? It's hard to tell, because as I enter the house, I see that the trail continues through the downstairs kitchen, up the stairs, and into the main kitchen, where there are still....ants!
Tick tick tick tick tick tick tick.
Midnight.
I grab broom, mop, bucket, and bleach. Surely bleach has got to be a little toxic to the critters I am battling. They have no weapons but their numbers and persistence. Surely I can overcome these! Sweep.  Wash. Wipe. Dry. Repeat. On floors. In cabinets. Every single one in the kitchen. In all the drawers. Pull everything out of the fireplace. Clean that, too. By now I'm so tired, my latent Catholicism is taking over and I'm praying to any saint I can think of to rid me of this scourge! But just when I think I have defeated them once and for all, I see another three or seven crawling out from somewhere I haven't cleaned yet. And I wonder...are THEY praying, too? Do ants have saints? Gawdamighty I hope not! I can't imagine a full-blown jihad with insects!
I continue cleaning, bleaching, wiping, wrapping everything in the kitchen in plastic.
Tick tick tick tick tick tick tick.
It is 1:30 AM when I believe I've seen the last of the ants.
I drop into bed, fully clothed, so I can sleep until 5:15.
Mwaaaap. Mwaaaaaap. Mwaaaaaap. Mwaaaaap.
The alarm goes off about three hours after I've finally stopped fretting about ants and have dropped off to sleep. I creep anxiously into the kitchen. No ants at the coffee pot site. No ants on the table. No ants in the silverware drawer. No ants in the cabinets.
But did you know ants are cannibals? At least these are! I see a knot gathered around the body of their fallen comrade, carrying him off. I can't help it. "Dear God, help me!" I say out loud as I stomp on them.
I quickly scoop up the bodies, and throw them out the front door right at the feet of the saints.
"There", I say, "Let it either be a lesson to all the ants' saints, or a sacrificial offering to mine."
Slam.
In the house, I grab car keys, purse, a few untainted cantucci, and head for the autostrada.
I don't know about you, but I'm not quite so religiously inclined as to trust only in saints. At the airport, while waiting to retrieve the new rental car I will share with the guests, I slip away from my them and text my property manager. "HELP! IF U HAVE KEY 2 HSE, PLS CK 4 ANTS B-4 I RETURN. TERRIFIED GUESTS WILL B GREETED BY INSECTS!"
Several minutes later, she texts me back, "HAVE SPRAYED HSE. FEW ANTS. HOPEFULLY WILL BE GONE BY UR RETURN."
During the ride back to the house, I try to make breezy conversation, pointing out the mountain ranges and naming hilltop towns. But inside my head I'm praying. "Please don't let there be ants. Please don't let there be ants. Please don't let there be ants."
We arrive. I park the car. Help them with luggage. Open front door.
Pound pound pound pound. My heart.
We enter the kitchen. One lone ant scurries away across the threshold. I covertly snuff him out. The guests love the kitchen. I exhale. I guess my saints won. My prayers were answered.

                                                                      My Saints

Ba-ba-ba Ba-ba-bra's Hand

"La vita e' l'arte d'incontro"
"Life is the art of meeting/connecting"  -- An Abruzzesi saying

Or, re-connecting, as the case may be.
Barbara, Gene, and his sister, Pam scored the winning bid for a week's stay a Casa da Carmine in a benefit auction for their local community theater. Gene and Barbara are theater friends from at least 20 years back. Their youngest son played 8-year old Thomas to my Sister Mary Igancious at above said theater. He's now grown, a veteran, with two children. THAT'S how long I've known them.
Our initial reconnection took place over their half-consumed cappucini in a snack bar at Pescara Centrale train station.We decided we'd better continue the process in the car while we could still make a run to it before a threatening squall lost its restraint. In the car, there was plenty of time for conversation.
Italians are inexorably drawn to tiny swimsuits, good restaurants (good food, in general), attractive people, and "saldi". These are the twice-yearly sales that herald the transition from winter-to-spring/summer fashion and vice-versa. They occur in January and July, when storefronts, community bulletin boards, and traveling adverts mounted on flatbed trucks are plastered with signs screaming "Saldi! Saldi! Saldi! Sconto fino a 70%!"
It was Saturday, July 2 - the first week-end day of the July saldi. To get to Casa da Carmine, we had to pass through every commercial area between Pescara and Castiglione Messer Raimondo. A 45-minute drive took 2 hours. Plenty of catch-up time.
It was astonishing to calculate how long it had been since we last saw each other -- 15 years! Eventful ones at that.
When we finally pulled up to the parking area behind the house, I became aware that it was difficult for Barbara to climb out of the back seat of our tiny, 2-door Fiat 500 after that long drive.
She saw me staring, uselessly and indelicately, and laughed. "It has been a long time!, she said. "You didn't know about my accident?"
I shook my head.
Here's the story she told me of how Barbara Got Run Over by an iPhone (user):
She was driving home from a job at Penn State, tooling along a stretch of route 322 that is mostly, but not entirely tree-lined. Going a respectable 65 MPH or so. In the passing lane a young man zipped by doing at least 80. Driving illegally with only a permit. Fiddling with his iPhone. As he passed, he clipped her driver's side ever so briefly. But enough to send her off the road at the only treeless point, where she rolled down an embankment, turning over 3 times before coming to rest at the bottom. Thankfully, right-side up. Barbara says all she remembers is wondering why there was nothing but white in front of her. The airbag. Which pinned her in her seat. Luckily. Her right leg was split vertically down the middle and if she had tried to get out of the car to walk, she would have injured it even more seriously. Within minutes she was air-lifted to Hershey Medical Center, where she spent several days in intensive care, had several surgeries, and was set up for several months of physical therapy, much of it while in a wheelchair.
That was about 4 years ago, but I could still see Gene's eyes glisten when he said "We're lucky to have her. You just never know."
Barbara broke into a big, loopy grin.
"And that's why I'm in Italy!" she said. 
During their stay, we reconnected over Adriatic beaches, olive farms run a handsome guy named Fabio, local gelatti, restaurants with breathtaking views, and a cooking lesson in my kitchen. 
Barbara's pasta turned out a little different than mine and Pam's. When she measured flour through cupped hands, it kept running out through a hole in her left one. She had lost a finger in the accident, too. Ironically, the middle one. No matter. While she was here, she was prone to giving gestures which did not require one. 

                                                    Barbara's Hand

Something Fishy This Way Comes

We in America tend to be sheltered from the source of our food. I recall a story that Greg's daughter, Kate, told of a young man in a summer camp in which she worked. It was a camp for inner city youth with limited "advantages", such as, I suppose, a local butcher. She explained to the young person that she wasn't eating the hot dogs offered for the free lunch because they were made of animal products. In fact, she had explained, hot dogs came from pigs. At which point said youth jumped up on a chair and shouted to the entire lunchroom: "Yo! Don't eat these hot dogs, man! Y'all are eating pig! Hot dogs is PIG!!"
It never occurred to me that the same veil of ignorance could be suddenly yanked from my own eyes with the delayed realization that "calamari", that exotic delicacy in which I delight in so many forms at home is, yes, actually.......squid.

Fishmonger Wagon

The fish man comes to Castiglione on Tuesdays and Thursdays. He pulls up his little van at about 10 AM just below the back of my house, across from the bellevedere, announcing his presence by playing Italian and Italianate music over a tinny loudspeaker. For a few weeks I had been thinking about how to immerse myself in local culture by striking up a conversation with this fixture of the town. What could I talk about? That I could actually have a conversation about fish did occur to me, and after a week of pondering and coming up with nothing more literarily imaginative and unique, I did just that. Thursday was as good a day as any to make pasta with fresh fish for pranzo, so when I heard the music (Rosemary Clooney's "Mambo Italiana, I kid you not) announce his arrival, I ran down to the wagon with my wallet. Too many of the fish looked too foreign, too far from the way they arrive on a plate to be viable. I was feeling overwhelmed and disoriented when he spread his arms wide over the selection of marine life in numerous baskets and plastic tubs and said "Prego" (Please...). I not only did not know the names of any of the fish in Italian, I didn't know them in English! The only familiar sea creature my mind could alight on was my quintessentially Italian favorite appetizer, calamari. So I said I'd take some. The fishmonger slapped several onto a scale. I said "Troppo. Sono da sola. (Too much; I'm by myself)". We went back and forth for a while about how much calamari  a person of my size requires, and then I got into the real conversation "Come prepararli? (How do you prepare them?). This precipitated a long explanation of what sort of dish you were going to use them in, or were they to be used for a sauce, as a main dish or accompaniment, etc, etc. Essentially, the basic Italian answer to most questions: "Depende". I told him I would be using them with pasta, and he shrugged and said, "Just cut them and put them in a pan" (I forget what this was in Italian.). So I ran back up to my kitchen and dumped them onto a cutting board. That's when I suddenly became cognizant of the source of this generic antipasto I'd enjoyed for years: It was an animal! With eyes! And guts! And a spine, for cryin' out loud! My automatic reaction was to look around for someone to deal with these guys. To get me off the hook. Too bad. It was up to me and me alone. If I wanted to eat that afternoon, I had to take on the transformation from life form to serving portion my very own self. I grabbed a knife and brought it down. Chop. There went the head. Chop. Off came the tentacles. Pause. Deep breath. My hand went all the way down into the body. Out came the guts. Snap. Lastly, the spine. It looked like a piece of transparent plastic, like you might see holding a zip-lock bag together. Chop chop chop chop down the body and finally there was something resembling the nondescript little rings you see underneath all the crispy breading in the red plastic basket at the local TGI Fridays. Now I was safe. Combined with olive oil, garlic, zucchini, and some fresh tomatoes several minutes later, I could almost forget that my food was once alive. Until next time.

Italian Lessons

A month in a new country can teach you a lot. Some things I've learned so far:
I.Words-"il fulmine" (lightening) as in "Il fulmine ha colpito mia casa (the lightening has struck my house)
             "caldaia" (water heater) as in "Adesso la caldaia non funzione" (now the water heater  doesn't work)
              "il technico della caldaia (the water heater technician) as in "Il technico ha riparato la caldaia (the            
                water heater technician has repaired the water heater).
   
Mountain storms can be wicked!

II. Routing: There is no such thing as a "short cut" in the Italian road system. Unless you want to find
                    yourself crawling up a steep, cobbled street that is only a fraction of an inch wider than
                    your tiny Italian car (with the mirrors pulled in), only to reach the top and have a concrete
                    cone block the way. Not wishing to repeat your journey backwards, you skirt around the
                    barrier by hopping the "curb", drive down the pedestrian walkway, turn onto a one-way
                    street going the wrong way, and finally make your way back to the main road. Believe
                    the nice Italian hardware store owner when he tells you to go "sempre dritto" (always
                    straight ahead)

III, Romanticizing character: I have found the people of Abruzzo to be the kindest, most open and
                    generous folk I have ever encountered. It is easy to lull oneself into a romantic notion
                    of a people based on what you have found to be the case most often. I take you, as an
                    instructional point to the Little Man:

My guest Joanna and I, both being theater people, were intrigued by the story of Alba Fucens. These are the ruins of a Roman town near the city of Avezzano. In about 300 BC, the Roman emperor decided that conquering the town was not enough. He wanted to send 3,000 legionnaires to populate it and make it really Roman. So the guys walked from Rome, with their families, and settled there. And 100 years later, bored with the locals, I guess, they erected a 2,000 seat amphitheater. This we had to see, so we set off.
After testing the acoustics in the theater (incredible - we could stand in the center and speak in normal tones and our voices carried to every part of the seating area!), we climbed to visit the Church of San Pietro ad Albens, which was built over an ancient temple to Apollo. It is not usually open to the public, but there was a family there from the area and they had phoned the caretaker who was coming to let them in. They invited us to come in with them. Although it was a hot enough day that I was regretting the weight of my jeans, the Little Man who was the caretaker arrived wearing long pants - the kind of dark green, mid-weight cotton associated with work trousers, and, in fact, which I remember my father wearing. He complimented these with a long-sleeved wool sweater, a little wool golf-style hat, and beat-up leather lace-up shoes. One knee was slightly more bent than the other and he moved very slowly, but with precision and authority, reaching up nearly beyond his grasp to insert the key in the lock, kneeling to remove a wooden plank to reveal the original floor beneath, or negotiating the steep, curved, stone stairs down to the crypt so he could point out and explain the symbols on it: a lamb with a cross, a large plain cross, and a large flower, symbols, he said, of the knights templar. When Little Man was done with his tour, Marco, the dad of the local family, dug into his wallet and gave him a tip. I did likewise. Little Man pocketed the tips with a "grazie", then shuffled us over to an worn former holy-water font. Always summoning us to follow with the same economical wave of his left hand, he reached into the font for two sheets of paper. Each had the history of the church written on it, one in English and one in Italian. He placed them in the hands belonging to the respective language's speaker. Then he asked us to pay for them. Said his daughter would kill him if he gave them away for nothing. I didn't catch what he had said; his accent and/or dialect was too thick. Marco gave him a coin, and then translated for me, saying "We just gave him over 20 euro and he still wants money for a piece of paper." Then he chuckled. I guess sometimes you have to make your "spizzi" any way you can.

And even in an area known for its generous spirit, there is the occasional hustler. You just don't expect it to be Little Man!

The House that Dad built

My daughter told me I should start a blog. Because I've been doing almost daily Facebook posts about my adventures running a guesthouse in Abruzzo, Italy. I never thought to blog about it. Didn't Frances Mayes do that already, although at that time it was called a book? I've never done a blog before. Unless that was the name of something in the 60's. Besides, blogging never sounded like something fun to do. Sounds kind of premenstrual. "What are you doing?" "I'm BLAH-GGGING!" "Oh, I'm so sorry." But, anyway, the younger generation rules, so I am following her advice.
My father gave me this house in Italy, although he doesn't know it. He is no longer earth-bound. My dad was a small man with an outrageous personality. He was uncontrollably frank and spontaneous in his verbal and physical expression. Once he lectured above mentioned daughter, very loudly, since he was nearly deaf at the time, and very publicly in a crowded restaurant, about the dangers of hickies. He was unabashed in everything he did. He was whole-heartedly in love with my mother for their entire marriage and displayed it physically until the day she could no longer stand touch because the pain from her combined lung and breast cancer was too great. He was devastated when she died. He could finally stand it no longer, and breaking down in sobs, shared with me his decision to move out of the house she had loved and tended so throughly for over 40 years. I can't remember how many times he asked "What do you think your mother would say about this?" "Do you think this is the right thing?" It was. He came to live in a retirement community near me and was having a blast. He even asked one of the activities coordinators out on a date! And when I cleaned out his apartment there about a year later, I found a box of condoms hidden in his sock and T-shirt drawer! But his new lease on life was short-lived. 8 months after he moved into the apartment, he was diagnosed with mesotheleoma. He'd gotten it working with asbestos as a fork-lift driver in a warehouse. I had no idea what the disease was. Still can't spell it. But I found out that one could sue the makers of asbestos if one had it. I asked if he'd like to do that and he said "Yeah...let's get the bastards!" He'd ask more and more often about details of my trips to Italy.  He even began to think in the native Italian he had spoken with his father and mother as a child.
 "Hey," he blurted one day, "Whatever happened to that Drinkwater girl?"
"Who?" I asked.
"You know, you know," he said, as though he was requesting an update about one of my children, "Your friend, the Drinkwater girl. She moved away when you were in high school. Ever hear from her?"
First of all, I was astonished that he'd remembered her. Our friendship occured about 40 years ago. Second, I realized he was referring to her married name "Bevelaqua" (Drinkwater" in Italian). As he faded from this world, he was going back in time.
He did not live to see the settlement, but during the whole legal process, as he deteriorated from a cane, to a walker, to a wheelchair holding his oxygen tank, he kept saying "After this is over, when I'm better, we'll go to Italy."
I took the settlement money to Italy and bought a house. I want to give as many people as possible the experience of this extraordinary area, Abruzzo, which is so much like the Italy he knew about and from which his father came. The experience he never had. I've named the house for him: Casa da Carmine.

Mille grazie, babo! XO