Insanity Meets Knitting...Oh, wait, you must mean Alexandra...

One naked bunny

Alby has something wrong with him. We've had multiple consultations with the vet over the past few days, but he's deteriorated in a hurry. You know how we know? Well, bald patches, in a word. Large ones. He no longer has any hair at the base of his neck, and has none on his back. In other words, he's a naked bunny. Pretty ridiculous.

I have to take him to the vet tomorrow, but I'm concerned that he'll get cold when we go outside -- given that it's FREEZING and he has no hair.

Voila! Alpaca-covered bunny! And it matches his eyes!

Obvious solution: knit that bunny a sweater. Yes, ridiculous. I admit it freely. But I thought the results were worth sharing...

Love,

Alexandra


p.s. Update. He needed a hat:

Cooking up a Storm...

Eleanor's 18th birthday party is on Saturday. Now, in the US, the 18th is great. In Italy, however, it is a big, fat, honking deal. One has a party for 60-70 of one's closest friends.

Most of you know that I'm not a big party person. In fact, they're a great time for me to be indisposed or otherwise engaged. Being the mother of the party girl, though, there's no escaping it. On the bright side, though, Eleanor wants American food ... meaning I'll be hiding in the kitchen!

We're trying to put together a variety of foods (which in the US would obviously not be served together!), including Southern sausage & biscuits, chili, salad with ranch dressing, etc. Of course, none of these things are available here, which means making everything from scratch. And most of it will have to be made the morning of...not an easy task with 3 burners (six, if you include Apto B) and a temperamental oven that blows the fuse if you're also running the washing machine. In other words, there will be no clothes cleaned on Saturday, and probably not Friday either.

Now, I said one has to make everything from scratch. What I have yet to point out, though, is that one also has to modify the recipes to suit available ingredients. Some of it's straightforward enough...no allspice, so mix cinnamon and nutmeg, for instance. However, a recipe for brownies made with unsweetened chocolate must be extensively modified for the dark chocolate that is available here. Oh, and the sugar texture is different, leading to a big difference in how the cookies respond.

Needless to say, we've been test driving recipes for a few weeks here. We have the brownies down pat. A few test runs on the spice cake and we're good to go. The choc chip cookies (which are a little ridiculous because they only have mini-chips here & Michael didn't bring back the "real thing" last time he came from the States) need more work, but I'm optimistic.

Today I made 3 kilos (that's over 6 pounds) of Southern sausage. My hands were about frozen by the time I was finished mixing all that cold meat by hand! Two hours later, I had a pile of cooked sausage, and this much fat in the pan:

I think Paola, the butcher, took me seriously when I told her I wanted lean meat! Oh...and she even delivered it to our door!

Love,

Alexandra

p.s. Eleanor also couldn't find the dress she wanted. Yes, I'm making it. It's nearly finished.

Winter is here!

On Sunday it was warm and sunny enough that I ran the Florence marathon in shorts and singlet. Today I woke to the kids' exclamations that it was snowing!































James was very disappointed to learn that school would indeed be open.

Michael

Location:Todi

A Run through Florence

The kids and I had to go to Florence to cheer Michael on...and we had such a great time! We took the train to and from, and (with our unfortunate connections) spent much of our time hanging out at the stations.

Once in Florence, around 3 in the afternoon on Saturday, we divided in three directions: Michael to get his race number, the girls and I to shop for shoes for Eleanor's birthday party, and the boys to the Leonardi Da Vinci Museum to irritate the staff. Mostly joking about the last part, but they did come back full of tales of noise-making machinery that they used to their hearts' content, Archimedes' screws that they pumped rapidly enough to make a backup at the top -- thereby splashing over the floor, and other bits of boy excitement. I was terribly sad that I didn't get to enjoy it with them.

The girls and I had great success...Eleanor found her shoes at the first shop we tried. We then went through the open-air market and found a shawl for her to keep her shoulders warm. After that, it was time to buy a toothbrush. Well, I never! They actually had tortillas in the grocery store! We stuffed our shopping bag, since Eleanor had wanted to serve burritos as one of the dishes at her party. Saved me a HUGE amount of time -- homemade tortillas are amazing, but a ton of work! We happened to slide into a local gelateria and weren't disappointed.

Back to the hotel, and a little happy nap for me!

We went to dinner with Michael's crowd. There was one other family that had come to cheer on their runner, but the rest of the group was planning to run the following day. We had a boisterous dinner for 28, and figuring out the bill was a lesson in chaos.

Early to sleep, and awoken Sunday morning by the sound of cheerful chatter in the early morning.

The children and I ambled (actually, hoofed it, since I didn't want to miss Michael) to our first cheering location. We had fun people watching, and were impressed that they had actually decided to close the roads to traffic for the event! After Michael's many reports of traffic dodging in past races, we weren't quite sure what to expect.

Yes, the weather was perfect!

James picked out Michael's smiling face from the crowd. A quick kiss from me, and Michael was off again, and it was time for us to move. We sped across the city (relatively...to an 80-year-old...not to the runners), next to the Duomo, across the Ponte Vecchio, then west along the Arno to our next vantage point. Soon thereafter, we started seeing the first runners, so were pleased at our timing!

Another quick smile flashing through the crowd, and Michael was gone...time for us to pack up.

Can you see the crowds of runners on the other side of the Arno?

Our next vantage point was a hop, skip, and jump for us -- but about 15 kilometers for Michael. So we had plenty of time. We found a great spot -- a corner of a building that had a raised platform for sitting or standing. I hung out there while the children went off to gather provisions. The first man came flying by -- we were blinded by his speed. He looked as though he were running a 10k. As an indication, the time clock came by at 1:48 (km 35), and he came shortly thereafter.

Look! Here's Michael again! And he's still smiling!

Florence and Jeremy, cheerleaders

Wandering up to our next spot, we picked up some roasted chestnuts. You know, a year ago, I thought they were pasty and texturally challenged -- enough that the sweet flavor couldn't overcome the blech mouth feel. They've grown on me, and James and I are now fans. In smallish quantities, still, but mmmm -- yummy.

Foiled when looking for Michael

Wow! Michael had picked up speed and showed up WAY earlier than we were expecting him! Amazingly, at km 40, he was still looking happy. We fought our way across the race course (we were let out by some monitors at empty spots in the flow, and it took understandably forever) towards the finish line.

And that, my friends, was a complete mistake. There were foil-covered runners floating everywhere, crowds crushing us, and it was not conducive to finding anyone. We had given up and were on our way back to the hotel when Michael called us to say he'd made it back. Woo hoo! Great minds obviously think alike.

A quick lunch at a Chinese (!) restaurant, and off to catch the train. By 8:00, we were home for dinner -- courtesy of Massimo!

Love,

Alexandra

 p.s. We came home to discover that Alby had been bored in our absence. Rather than eating the hay we left next to his litter box, he had decided to investigate the corner...

Florence Marathon - Michael's Perspective

Yesterday I ran my first marathon. No exclamation points because thanks to my running buddies, I was well-prepared and only a significant injury would have prevented me from finishing. Having said that, I have to remember a faster friend who injured his Achilles' tendon two weeks ago and couldn't even start.

The weather couldn't have been better for running. It was chilly, but well above freezing, not too breezy, and sunny.




Since this was my first marathon I didn't have a recent time to submit and they gave me a race number that translates as, "you get to start behind everyone else." The significance of that was lost on me until I was actually in the starting area and I was next to a pace setter wearing balloons that said "4:45". That's 4 hours and 45 minutes. I knew from training that I should be at 3:30 or better.

The significance was further driven home when the race started. It was like the Peachtree where your particular starting block may not get to the starting line for 10 or 15 minutes. I didn't worry too much about it because I knew the timing chip could compensate for the 7 minutes it took me to reach the 0 km marker.

What the timing chip could not compensate for was that I was behind at least 5000 slower runners, on roads that were narrow enough to be filled curb to curb. There were significant stretches where runners 4 or 6 abreast filled the road. I spent the first half of the race searching for brief gaps and hustling through them.

I arrived at the half-marathon mark a couple of minutes off my goal pace, a little rested from having to run slower, but probably a little more tired than the slower pace would imply because of having to accelerate and decelerate so much while threading through the gaps.

But from that point on, I mostly was able to run the pace I wanted, and I whittled away the overage. Sadly, not quite as much as I needed to. I had to slow a little between km 35 and 40 to deal with a side stitch, and between that and the fact that a marathon is not 42 km but rather 195 meters longer than 42 km (that is, an extra 50 seconds), I just missed my expected time.

Final official time: 3:37:33
Final real time: 3:30:17
Position: 2632th overall, 2484th male, 676th in age group.

Ok, I just downloaded my race diploma and I got a chuckle. It shows my relative position among the males at each of the main timing points:

5K: 6527 (remember than I had been passing people for 5 km at this point)
10K: 5367
15K: 4510
21K: 3971
25K: 3555
30K: 3212
35K: 2895
40K: 2636
Arrivo: 2484

Those numbers do not include the female runners. I had to pass a LOT of people to arrive when I did. My major disappointment is that 3:30 is a typical cutoff for better starting place, and I missed that by 17 seconds. Maybe the next time I will be enough further forward to only spend 10 km in traffic.

Next stop: Marathon de Paris, April 6, 2014. Bib 8802.







Michael

A New Activity

Yesterday, Jeremy and I started archery, a private lesson. We started by finding out which arrows and which finger and forearm protectors we needed. Too bad they don't have an elbow protecter too! I managed to hit my elbow with a string several times and with the speed of the string, it hurts quite a bit. We had the lesson, and I had better technique, even though Jeremy managed to hit the chip package and I never did. It was quite a lot of fun, even if I was sore on one arm but not the other when I went swimming!
Ciao,
Florence

...And a Funeral...

On November 1, we received the sad news of an unexpected death...the "bidello" of Florence and Ashley's school. A "bidello" is a jack-of-all-trades, including janitor, messenger, and building coordinator; Alberto had a habit of not leaving well enough alone...when he entered a class, chances were the contents of every pencil case would be dumped out. Or paper airplanes would go flying. Or some other mischief would occur. A living, breathing, well-intentioned poltergeist might sum him up, and Alberto was well-loved by students and teachers alike.

Accordingly, we attended his funeral the next day. Jeremy and James were altar servers (as usual...they're very diligent), and it was really a lovely and tear-filled Mass. I thought the Mass of San Fortunato was well-attended; the Duomo was PACKED for Alberto's funeral Mass. In fact, we were a sea of tears.

The principal and one of the students each presented a moving eulogy, and then after saluting the coffin, everyone moved out onto the steps of the Duomo. We stood flanking an unmarked aisle...as the coffin was brought out by the pallbearers, everyone burst into applause...and again when the hearse drove at walking pace out of the piazza; many followed in an impromptu procession.

We have now experienced four major Church events (three of which are sacraments) while in Italy: Holy Orders, Confirmation, Matrimony, and now, a funeral.

Love,

Alexandra