Fango - Jovanotti - Versione 1

The music can sound too repetitive but the words are really touching. I like him very much.

Fever!

Maybe I found out why I was such a dormouse in the last days.
Yesterday I was going to get out to do some errands when I felt suddenly dizzy and warm. I thought it was because I woke up at 3 to work in the cold night but then I felt strange... it was fever.
So I decided not to go and I lie down on the couch hoping to read something. But my eye bulbs hurted so I just rolled up in a couple of blankets and closed my eyes.
The momories suddenly ran to my childhood when fever meant MOM. My mom was always there when I needed something... to go to the bathroom, a glass of water, something to eat, a caress, a kiss... there she was.
My fever raised and I felt lonely. Monocolo did the possible by lying on my feet and creating the 'cuddles' athmosfere but... I felt lonely, until Andrea came back, prepared a camomile tea, gave me water and caresses and sweet kisses...
I can tell you it's not like Mom's hands, but it's my present and my future.

Ghiro!

You say "to sleep like a log", we say "to sleep like a dormouse".

I am really a dormouse lately. I don't know what it's happening, maybe I am simply into hibernation. Maybe it's the cold in the morning that once at home, after the shower transforms me into a sleepy, red-cheeks, comforter-lover girl. I don't know what's all about... I feel like if I live with a jetleg! I wake up at 4, I work in the cold (today 1st snow -which somehow it's better because the thermometer doesn't go too much below 0°C), come back home for lunch, eat a quick lunch without even cooking and collapse on the sofa... then wake up after some 10 mins and move my sleepy body to the sleeping room... possibly under the comforter... usually I set an alarm clock for an hour sleep... but lately I fail to hear it and keep sleeping and sleeping. Today I set my afternoon-nap records: 4 hours!

I can't believe I have been seeing the daily light only for 6 hours and a half... from 7.30am (when the sun raised today) until 2pm when I started sleeping as a log or a ghiro... depending from the language!

A life less dolce.

NYT writes about Italy. :-(

Winter

Winter
Originally uploaded by margiana.

Had a week end in Val di Fassa, on the Dolomiti Mountains. One of my friend owns a small home in Moena and decided to take a break from work driving 3 hours to reach the snow.
We stopped in Bolzano for an Apfelgluehwein and a small visit to the Christkindlmarkt. On Sunday morning we woke up early, had breakfast at home and then went out for a 2 hours walk to Passo San Pellegrino. At the end of the beautiful walk we stopped at this small church. The nature of those places is OVERWHELMING!
The cold strengthened our spirits and the view 'enlarged' our inner visions. We have been silent most of the walk... not because of the physical effort but to respect the mountains. At the end of the walk we stopped at this small church and talked a little... we all had this need to thank God for what we had just done.
After this 'religious' experience we drowned into hot chocolates. Later on we walked back to the car... at that point we opened our mouths and started talking without interruptions until the monday lunch when we reached our homes to meet again at work in the afternoon.
The walk opened a path to a mutual life stories... It has been fun and encouraging to know that we all have black holes in our lives but at the same time we try to live better lives and to learn from our past mistakes :-)

Winter season is definitely here!

Strike a pose!

Strike a pose!
Originally uploaded by margiana.

I've got good Angels in my life!
I've got old friends with whom I share grudges and memories of a past life or acquaintances with whom I entertain small talks.
I've got new friends, people who wants to know me or are interested in my 'world', those who see me as a good girl, those who always criticize me, those who I listen to and those who patiently listen to me.
I've got friends who read me and those who I read or others who share a cup of tea every once in a while.
Those I never talk to but can read my heart no matter what the physical distances are... and those who facilitate my everyday life in a practical way! In this last category I can put my 'Spice-Friends' in the picture.
I just got back home from a Spice-Fondue-Bourguignonne-dinner they organized to celebrate my b-day. It was fun because you keep dipping those small meat bits into the boiling oil (with a potato inside to avoid the fried oil smell - I can tell you it works!) and then choose the right sauce to dip the cooked meat while chatting about pretty much everything and most of the time laughing!
I loved it. I also had my b-day cake with candles on it and I still have some breath to extinguish them all :-)
Patty cooked a supercake for me that never reached our palate because it fell on the ground of her kitchen and she had to buy one at the confectioner's shop. Poor girl!
I also had a b-day present... a Bread Making Machine that will help me reduce the expenses to buy the bread sold in this italian region and that I don't like... and last but not least... a free entrance to a spa, included infusion drinks, thalassotherapeutic and thermal baths, relaxing room and musictherapy plus a cranium-sacral massage called Oriental Kerara that sounds so relaxing!
What can I ask more? My life is wonderful and I've got plenty of Angels who support me.
My everyday thoughts, prayers and thanks go to you all my FRIENDS who smooth the path of this special journey which is my life!

P.S. :35. This journey keep adding numbers... did anyone found a way to stop it?

Hands

Hands
Originally uploaded by margiana.

... hands shaking, clean, dirty, wounded, sensitive hands.... cold and warm hands... united, slender, stubby, horny hands... left and right hands, clapping hands, hand in hand, hands up, hands off... lots of hands. I like hands!
I am happy hand in hand with my soul mate:-)

Thanksgiving!

We ate everything you did... turkey, stuffing and mashed potatoes with gravy, sweet potatoes, cranberry sauce, corn, green beans, pecan pie and pumpkin pie... but above all... we also had the time to remember to count our 'blessings' and to be thankful for everything we have and don't have.
Happy Thanksgiving!

Giving my blood away!

I finally did it. I woke up early, Patty my friend picked me up and we both went to the laboratory. I passed the visits and finally I donated my blood.

The blood they took me is going to go to the neonatal intensive care unit. I feel good!

Back to the full-time job!

Is it relax or what?
Originally uploaded by margiana.

This picture represents well what this last month has been for me: relax, total abandon to the pleasure of home and 'family' life, sleep and read and cook...
From december I'll get back to the full-time.
I am happy, since I really need extra money but I still think that we should do something so that in the whole world, everybody could work and then work part-time. It gives you extra energy and extra time. I am sure we'll all have less personal problems and the society will be more just! I know the French understood everything. They work 35 hours a week and they show that this is a possible system!But other than those statements, I can tell you I feel good. The house is clean, the refrigerator is crowded with healthy dishes, the cat is recovering and right now purrs over the turkish carpet. I am listening to the best free radio in town and drinking my mint infusion. What can I ask for? Somebody wants to iron the pile of clothes I am hiding under the bed?

Smile!

Smile!
Originally uploaded by margiana.

You are probably used to read me grumble about everything, from politics to personal complaints... but now you have to know that I feel
TOTALLY HAPPY!
Yes you read it right: TOTALLY HAPPY.... TOTALLY AND FULLY AND GREATLY HAPPY!
I don't know how to explain this but I am HAPPY, I'm afraid to have an HAPPINESS DISEASE. I am uncontrollably happy.
It's like if this permanent contract uncorked me. And now all the extra energies are flowing out. I smile, from the morning to the night... everybody who's next to me is infected by my happy virus...
I don't know what it is. I'd love to control it, to contain... but the smile-grimace is uncontrollable... it starts from the 2 sides and it stretches the mouth from ear to ear.
I feel free... free with not enough money but free... I feel free to go on vacation, to call me sick at work, to think of what I'd love to buy, do and say.
Free to be happy.
I don't know how long it will last. But I want you to know that I am Happy.
So, if tomorrow I will die...or when I will... then you know that I have been clearly, purely, HAPPY... and you will be happy for me!

I still wisper Monocolo is getting better and better :-)

Sicko

I just finished to watch this movie and I have been reminded of how lucky I am to live in this sick country!

Sometimes, what we need in order to easy our anxieties and frustrations, is simply look at the neighbour's grass and see that our is greener!

Other than this statement, I don't feel particularly happy to know that in a so-called-democratic country like the US, it's so difficult to get cures for the sicks.

I think this is a worth to watch movie!

About this topic... my Monocolo appear to be recovering.... (ashhhhh ashhhh don't say it too loud!)

FALLing into you...

FALLing into you...
Originally uploaded by margiana.

Today's windy.
I should rack those leaves... but I am hypnotized by their moves...
... a cup of wild berries infusion, an homemade blueberry muffin, the cat in the basket, the good Radio Città del Capo playing.. and me watching the leaves go by.... feel the Fall...

Colours...

I wake up and watch outside... in the backyard the Parthenocissus quinquefolia is now changing colour everyday. Every single leaf has a different nuance of red, brown and orange. In the middle of the wall the green-yellowish leaves of the wisteria keep on climbing around. The green grass is now hidden by the foliage. I prepare my dark wildberries infusion and drink it in front of the window looking out at the coloured cherry tree. I get caught by the blues...
Monocolo sneezes and my heart squeezes.
I take out the quilt Julie gave us as a wedding gift... it's coloured!
Fall must be colourful in order to prepare us to live the grey winter...
I feel in one of those moments in which I have to order the mess of colours inside of me so to create more space for others to get in... The world is coloured and to live is beautiful.

It's a free world... (the movie)

My life is coming out a lot lighter in those days.... Yesterday for example we woke up late, indulged in bed for long, had lunch together and at 3.30pm I went to work. At 8.15 I was already back home, had a piadina in our favourite piadina-place and then went to the cinema to watch the last Ken Loach's movie: It's a free world...
For those of you who don't know Ken Loach or never watched his movies, it may be a little harsh... but if you already watched Bread and Roses (one of my favourite movie), The Navigators, and some other of his movies you can get to the point quite easily.
The realism in which the story grows give the movie extra power.
Angie (Kierston Wareing) is a women in the her prime who is full of energy and ambition. She has been through a lot of different jobs in the past and difficulties but now she want to show what she is worth and needs to keep her life in her hands. This is the moment! Together with her friend Rose (Juliet Ellis), Angie decides to start a recruiting agency.
It's a free world... it's a story about the modern English reality, characterized by the "miracle" of the flexible work, globalization, double shifts and by lots of happy consumer: us, who take advantage of the illegal immigration and of the poverty of a lot of persons.
The movie is all by Angie's point of view, and it doesn't give a solution... Loach just put the problem on a table and there it is...
It may be because I work with immigrants and poor persons or because I feel I am a victim (on a lighter note) of the flexible work but this movie get to a point that is central to nowadays society and should be surpassed!

IT'S A CONTRACT!...

and IT'S PERMANENT!!!!! Germana is happy today!:-)

Pumpkin fever!

Thanks to Miss Sarah who let me know this, I have been into a pumpkin fever in the last day.
Last week I bought a pumpkin ('zucca' in italian) to put in the vegetable soup I do from time to time...but this time I bought a bigger one... just in case my imagination would have needed it.
My imagination is not working properly lately so I rely on others to help me survive this period.
We don't cook a lot of zucca but I decided to give it a try and prepare great Pumpkin Ginger Nut Muffins Recipe. There is only one simple question I can't find an answer: what is for you American 'baking soda'? I use what I think is baking soda to wash the vegetables; into the refrigerator to absorb the bad odors... but I don't think we are talking about the same 'baking soda'. Moreover, is it possible to not use any leaven agents? The muffins where great but did not leaven enough.
So basically I did a zucca purée.. and today I used it to cook Pumpkin Soup with Smoked Paprika Recipe. I don't even know what a smoked paprika is... but I used regular paprika and it turned out a super-delicious-soup I enjoyed all by myself...since husband Andrea hates soups.
I warmly recommend you those 2 recipes... and if only I had the seeds I could have Toasted Pumpkin Seeds but unfortunately I bought half of a big zucca.
Thanks Sarah...

P.S. My Monocat is still sneezing and on friday I'll take him for a RX:-( hope there are no more bad news!

What's up?

Sick Monocolo!
Originally uploaded by margiana.

Well... lots of things happened in the last 2 weeks. After the great adventure of Ferrara that helped me to turn on my uni-neuron brain... other things are happening to shut it down or mess it up.
My friend Julie and her little baby moved back to Utah. Her husband is going too in November. She decided to go back home after a couple of years here in Bologna. I am happy for her because I know they're gonna be fine but goodbye sucks and I am not good with it. I boarded her and the little baby on the aircraft for which I was working... so I had the chance to give her a last hug moments before leaving. It was sad.
On the 14th my mom came to visit. I was a little stressed because I know how we do 'work' together... but it actually went better than thought. It has been good to find the lunch ready once back home from work or the house clean or the clothes ironed. We did a lot of gardening and shopping.
Andrea and I had to drive mom back to Rome and to spend the week end there but Monocolo is sick and and I didn't feel like living him at home. I feel powerless. We have been giving him antibiotics for almost 20 days with no results... it should be a virus... but the antibiotics was for the possible bacterial complication to the lungs. We stopped with those... and are now giving him only an ointment in his sick eye. I hope he's going to recover.
Yesterday it was a beautiful day. Andrea and I finished some gardening thing... he actually was working on the irrigation system and I did planted bulbs: tulips, narcissus, hyacinths, bluebells and crocus.
I turned on the heater since winter steps in the house...
At work I am totally obnoxious since my contract expires on the 31st. Nobody in the airport worked more than 11 season (It will be 5 years in february) but I am not confident I'll have a permanent contract this year. The economic and political crises in Italy is simply shutting down the hopes of the so-called young. I feel stucked and have a good quantity of rage in my heart.
I am not watching Tv but I can see around me how people gets poorer and poorer... day after day... and so do we.
I am worried for the future... :-)

I only wish I could fall asleep under my comforter and dream sweet dreams.

Internazionale a Ferrara

Last Friday was my day off and Andrea took a day off too to join me for an extra day in Ferrara.
Internazionale is a current affairs magazine that I read since probably 1994 or 95. I used to read it while at the university and later I became a subscriber when I left the Univ.
Then too much busy and could not read a whole magazine in a week while always working in travel agencies...
It's a couple of years now that I read it every week but did not got back into the subscribtion... now I think it is time again to join them on a weekly basis.

Internazionale is the only magazine of current affair with a lot of different topics...starting from politics and ending with comics and 'true stories' passing through technologies, science and 'Italy seen from the other countries'. I love it whole. There's a lot of humour in it even if it's one of the most serious publication I've ever read.
The peculiarity is that it is written by journalists of foreign countries so that I don't have to read about the Italian comedy or tragedy from italian 'slave'-journalists.

On Friday we had the chance to see and interact with Michael Braun (Die Tageszeitung), Jennifer Grego (Financial Times), Jeff Israely (Time), Eric Joszef (Libération). They usually write for a column called 'Italieni' where we can read what other countries write about Italy and our weird way of living or doing politics.
It has been very interesting to hear that my feeling of the fact that the press in Italy is not free at all and is indeed slave of the Government, no matter if from the left or from the right, is a common sharable feeling.
Later we attended a meeting about 'Latin America Lula and Chàvez: two faces of the latinamerican left' where Cristina Marcano (Venezuela- El Nacional), Mino Carta (director Carta Capital- Brasil) and Ugo Pipitone mexican economist confronted on those realities...
In the afternoon I finally had the pleasure to listen to what Amira Hass had to say about the Palestinian occupation. She's an Israeli journalist who lives in Ramallah and writes about how it is living in Palestina. I've been reading her forever... and it has been great to hear what she had to say.
On Saturday I worked in the morning but we drove to Ferrara in the afternoon to attend the meeting with writers I've read and wanted to read. The title of the meeting was 'Literature - a world of stories: fiction and journalism' with Arundhati Roy, Efraim Median Reyes, Elif Shafak and Laila Lalami.
I loved this meeting.
It may all sound boring and snobbish but I can tell you it has been everything so simple and familiar. The organization didn't expect all this crowd so we had to wait in lines and in crowded place... most of the people had to sit on the ground of the big cinema room but it was really worthy.

P.S. For those of you who speak Italian and want to listen to the meeting of Intenazionale a Ferrara go here. Some of the interviews are in english.

Again... I feel I am good in listening, reading and commenting but I am not doing anything to draw a different picture of the world. And feel often frustrated. I know I do a lot of small things but sometime I wish I could commit more to my believes.

Other than this... Monocolo is still sneezing around and today we had to give him another shot. I really hope he's gonna recover soon.

Hanging on...

Hanging on a dream
Originally uploaded by margiana.

After working 12 hours a day in the last 2 days, and not sleeping well at all, I am now back from work and will enjoy my bed for a couple of hours.
I am 'living' a little to quick lately, not having much time for me. I am also suffering of P.E.C.S. (Pre End of Contract Syndrome) which affects me every 6 months, and I can tell you that it is nothing pleasant! Trying to image what is going to come next... whether if I will work again in the airport and do the job I like or if I will work for some 6 more months (for the 12th short term contract) or if I will have a permanent contract! Well, I guess I have to wait until the 1st of Nov. I know I am annoying when it comes to work but I can't help!

Monocolo is not feeling well and sneezing all around: poor Monocat!

Next things to do after the nap:
- iron the legendary pile of clothes;
- finish to read a couple of book;
- organize my wednesday in Ferrara with Andrea to partecipate to Internazionale and meet some of my favourite journalists and writer who write for the best Magazine ever read!