If you haven't seen Sophia Grace Brownlee sing Nicki Minaj, you MUST look her up on youtube.

Push and Pull


Today was so very weird. Even for me. I got up and started stalking youtube for Grammys footage because this time of year Itunes kind of dries up and I can't find any good hip hop music. Yesterday I searched and searched for songs and got nothing. Today I got the Bruno Mars, the Chris Brown, and some ideas of moves from Katy Perry and Nicki Minaj and a new lease on my work life. Then it was off to teach for two ladies at Happy Gym. I walked another twenty minutes into the country side and got blocked by the railroad crossing so I had to run across with the cars that had lined up and got the same pinch in my ankle that I get every darned time I get stopped by the train signal and then have to run across the tracks to beat the line of cars behind me to the finish. And every time I consider doing the Footloose number when that bar comes up where Kevin Bacon swings on the farm equipment, but then I stop myself because I have a pre-teen who would kill me if someone she knew saw me. Finally at LIFE I taught a class for four people and went back home where I ate a mini omelette drank a forbidden cup of coffee and went to my new job at the Olympia Club.

Me, without coffee.

 I got there early to warm up and my new boss was so scared of my treadmill dancing that at one point he asked me if I would rather warm up in the sala. And I said no thanks. It is fun as all get out to pretend I don't understand Italian some days. Hee hee. Then I went and met this nice girl Graziella who was very keen to take Metamorfosi. She was a good dancer and served as a translator and assistant at times. We started out early and I taught about five ladies the opening number in advance since they were there early. When it was really time to begin a bunch of people came in and then more and more for the next fifteen minutes. In the end there were twenty of us packed into the little sala they call Apollo. Get it? It's part of their Greek mythology theme.

It is a family owned place and so the daughter of the owner who is my boss and her brother who works there and my other boss Rocco kept peeking in to see what the heck I was doing. I think it went well. I won't ever know because no one really tells you anything. But some of the ladies wanted me to come more than once a week so I told them to tell the front desk if they liked it and to see if I could come more often so that is promising. I don't know where the camera is in the room so it is possible that there were constant pictures of my butt flashing across the lobby. I am pretty sure of this because Rocco intimated that we should face the other way, but I didn't want to because there is no mirror that way and I can't see what anybody is doing.

Thank you, thank you, thank you for the fast number.

 T also has some strange days at school here. This is from a handout given to T to read aloud to the class by her English teacher: "These new tribes pushed away the populations of Celtic origin and reintroduced heathenism. They believed in different goods." "The Christians believed the end of the world would come on Domesday." Teacher: "From the seven united kingdoms came the other name of Great Brittain: the United Kindom or the U.K. Classmate: "Shouldn't that be S.U.K.?" Teacher: "Yes, I suppose so. I don't know why we don't call it the SUK."  T has tremendous laughter withholding ability. And yes, she did gently suggest a few corrections. Oy.

LA CENA INDIANA

They all came at pretty much the same time. And we were all extraordinarily surprised how pleasing an Indian dinner can be even to Italians who have never ever tasted Indian food before. Between friends bringing friends and some last minute additions there were thirty five of us in the end, all students of mine or genuine Italian citizens. Almost everyone brought either beer, white wine, or cushions so we were in business. The food was really a huge hit. A bunch of people told F he should open a restaurant, a cooking school, or, at the very least, a catering business. We forgot to make yogurt sauce and the bread didn't fluff, but other than that it was pretty much flawless. I had F put aside a plate for me to eat at the end of the night because sitting down was out of the question. Luckily I had three pre-party helpers come to figure out how to assemble the canopy and arrange the chairs and cushions and the little decorations. Bianca made a gazillion papadum with F, and Adonella was in charge of interior design, while Paula put the finishing touches on the decorations, like the little bejeweled elephants I found at the Best & Cheap store for one euro and some candles and white lillies. T did my eye make-up and lent me one of her bindis and I had my hair braided at Massimo Pretty Hair, when I went to give Federica her birthday present. I had a huge panic attack right before the party when I remembered that we were going to be speaking Italian the whole night. Occasionally I forget where the heck we live. At the beginning of the evening, we gave out nail adhesives that served as bindis to a bunch of our female guests and it was all very festive.

My friend Laura the erborista brought her guru who sat Indian style on the couch and meditated for most of the night with his eyes closed but nobody really asked any questions.  I want to make a joke about it being a blessing in disguise, but I'm too tired to formulate one. At one point I brought him some food and I spoke to him English by mistake, but he answered me in perfect English.  By then the party was so Alice in Wonderland that it did not freak me out at all to be addressed by the Cheshire Cat.

There were only two of eight huge tins of food left and one of those was mostly rice. Federica brought an engaged couple who accepted our brindisi in their honor with delight.  And then Gabriella was thoughtful enough to make struffoli, a kind of dessert from Napoli that goes very well with Indian food because it is made with honey.  Federica made this kind of coconut paste dessert that was also so exquisite called banfi di cocco, and Karin made a kind of chocolate rice krispies affair that was a new one on the Italians, but made us feel very at home.

STRUFFOLI

A bunch of us are all supposed to go to a disco on Friday night, despite the fact that I am supposed to teach an intensivo on Saturday morning, but I'm not going to refuse a night of dancing with this fun of a crowd even if it means going back on coffee again. We also got a ton of dinner invitations by the end of the night and that was an unexpected bonus.  

T had spent the afternoon at a marathon birthday party where the birthday girl spent two hours in the house of the boy she has a crush on (making out, I guess) while the rest of the party waited outside or wandered off to do other things like sign their names in pen on the walls of Lucca and grab some hot chocolates.  She changed from her party outfit into her bollywood attire for the party and then back into her street clothes to go help her friend Natasha babysit her younger brother and sister for the rest of the night. 

Just think . . . If it had snowed, we would have been alone with eight trays of Indian food, four of which had spoons with red ribbons on them to indicate to unsuspecting Italians that these dishes were the spicy versions.  Jai ho, yo.

Arrivederci, Brooklyn!

Two really funny things plus cheese making!

Tonight in class we were doing these really hard leg lifts. Let me go back and explain for a minute that,  for whatever reason, I am constantly talking about Michael Jackson because Italians love his music and because he is the easiest way I have found for translating the term pelvic tilt into Italian. Anyway, we were doing these very hard leg lifts and my client Laura shouted out to the rest of the class, "I'm pretty sure this is how Michael Jackson died." It was so funny. Maybe you had to be there. But it was so funny. 

Then halfway through the class this very good looking, muscle-y guy who doesn't even impress me because he can't make cheese (I'll explain later) came in and asked if he could do something with this hanging bar and some macho cable equipment. We are always having to get supplies from the classroom so I said okay. Apparently this was a mistake, because this ragazzo had no intention of leaving and instead began grunting and flexing and during his breathless pauses from suspending himself from the bar he stared at several of our asses while we did the above mentioned leg lifts. He stayed in the room forever. Finally, when it was time to cool down I said that I was sorry for my poor Italian but that I had not understood he intended to stay in with us and that he was a distraction and he had to leave. He apologized and left. The moment the door closed, all the women started saying that even though he was a total distraction, they were heartbroken that I made him leave. 

Now here's the cheesy bit. Literally. While I was exercising for four hours, F & T were making Indian cheese from scratch. It's called paneer. He put lemon into milk and strained it for hours and hours to make enough. This to me is the equivalent of hanging from a bar and breathing heavily. He slays me, my F. 

 

Day 3 Cena Indiana

Today I really did help because there is a lot to do to make a vegetable curry coi fiocchi.  We are also working on the lemon pickle, the tamarind sauce, and the green dipping sauce. We did a test run yesterday with the roti bread and they were really yummy. Here is F flipping the lemons expertly into the air the way Jamie Oliver says to do. I do like a man who can flip a pan.

My friend Gabriella made the phone call to Olympia Club for me. It turns out that the phone number listed on the Internet is completely wrong -- imagine the shock. No, it is not a shock at all because nobody's phone number is what it says on most of the few websites that exist for Lucca businesses, and those that do exist haven't been updated for about five years. Gabriella did a wonderful acting job pretending that she didn't understand my English and needed to know what time my class was to start on Monday when in reality it is I that had no idea when I was teaching. She even intimated that they should post the time on our new poster, as I, obviously, could not possibly have done it myself and it would be nice if at least someone shows up for class that first day.

My friend Federica who works at the Massimo Pretty Hair has the day off for her birthday and she is ecstatic to be spending some quality time with her horse Yuma. I will just bring her my birthday gift when I go to get my hair done on Saturday. I want to try some kind of braided hairdo that looks Indian. Federica was my first female friend in Lucca and she is a keeper.

Today we made T's friend Aurora watch American Idol. T and I had a contest to see who could translate what was happening first. Aurora said we reminded her of her her relationship with her little sister or of a cat and dog. Out of the mouths of babes.

Day 2 Cena Indiana

Today we are making aloo mutter vindaloo which is really spicy potatoes and peas.  Having just walked in the door from work, I am contributing to today's dish by sipping tea and making sounds of approval.

T stirring. We just needed a photo. It's all staged.

I still don't know what time I start my new job at the Olympia club. F went by on his bike to drop off this  great poster that he made for my course.

He was planning on finding out what time the job starts for me, but both of my new bosses were at lunch and there was nobody else who could tell him so he ended up agreeing with the receptionist that she should leave word for them to call me. Of course if they call me back, which I doubt they will, I can't ask that question without looking like a total loser so I have to just ask if they liked the poster and have somebody else call for me and pose as an interested client. I can make watching Indian food get cooked look complicated. I know.

Today I wanted to tell my students that they should flick back their feet like a duckling/anatroccolo, but I couldn't pronounce the word for duck and in the end I had a room full of lovely Italian women yelling "duck" at me. It was like the action scene in some cheesy war film. (Just kidding. Actually, I don't actually know the exact translation for duck as a verb rather than duck the animal, unless it is tuffare or chinare.)

Arrivederci, Brooklyn!

Day 1 preparing La Cena Indiana

Today we went to Olympia gym where I met Rocco and he gave me a class on Monday afternoons when the gym is usually very crowded. Yay! If my class is popular they will give me other hours. It turns out Zeus and Apollo are the names of the classrooms, not the names of the instructors, so I will, sadly, not be known as Athena or Minerva or Medusa or anything cool at all. Also, to tell the truth, I am not a hundred percent sure what time I have to teach, but I will bring the posters by and confirm before Monday. They had told me I was hired to teach on Fridays at the first meeting, but now they want me on Mondays and I was so flustered that I stopped listening clearly. I think he said 5:30 to make it easier for me, but I also thought he pointed at 15:30 with his pencil except that it should have been 17:30. Darn that 24 hour clock!

On the way there, F and I passed this bizarre little shack of a house with nobody in it. It is supposed to be an advertisement for orthopedic bed options to lift people who are bed bound, which is probably a great invention.  It is a life-sized diorama with a large bed and a crane looking thing that hangs over it with a white basket that looks kind of like an enormous pair of diapers. It is smack in the middle of a residential neighborhood and could not seem more out of place if it tried. It looks like Hansel and Gretel's house if the witch had a bad back and a torcicollo instead of a hankering for sweets and small children.

So weird.

I cut up garlic and did some stirring. Proud times.

Today F and I are making Gobi Mutter Masala using chickpeas instead of regular peas because we thought it would look more inviting to our Italian friends. The first step is to fry up the spices, after which you add the cauliflower and tomato sauce. Lastly you add the chickpeas and the garam masala and pepper.

Yesterday our friend Gabriella gave us some cime di rapa from her sister's garden.  F started preparing it for dinner, but burst out lauging when I told him that Gabriella had indicated that part of that plant is toxic, but I couldn't remember which part. We ate the leafy part and lived. Who says sleep helps you to remember things? Yeah, I can't remember that either.

On the way home we found out that the osteria downstairs wants F to make them a website. Let the passaparola/pass-the-word-around commence!

A vacation from everything

 

If there is an expat in the world who is not at home in bed today watching two seasons worth of Downton Abbey on sidereel.com and sipping tea with honey, I am really sorry. Indeed. (hee hee.) I canceled work for the first time ever Thursday night and now I am reveling in my wickedness and exhaustion from a super brief exposure to T's strep throat which has left me just exhausted and with nerve pain in my teeth and sinuses. It is dove gray outside and there is a humid down in your bones chill out there. F has gone to procure (that's the Downton Abbey talking) ingredients for our dinner party next weekend and T is finally swallowing without pain. She doesn't seem to have missed a ton in school, but my fingers are crossed she will make it back in time to recoup nicely and without needing a doctor's note. We are so up on American pop culture that T knows that Chelsea Handler made a rude remark about Joan River's on the Howard Stern show last week and I am waiting for a V.V. Brown duet with Chiddy Bang that doesn't even come out on Itunes until Tuesday.  We have this week's American Elle magazine and I have a yummy novel translated into Italian that has my favorite secondary theme of gourmet food running through it.

Prescription drugs & cupcakes

Well, it turned out that T had strep throat. At least we are supposing she does because she can't swallow, is running a fever, and since she had her tonsils out she never ever gets sore throats unless it is strep.  We chose our current doctor because he is the one most affiliated with our pharmacy.  This turns out to be the smartest move in Italy. The only thing is that he doesn't have office hours until 5:00 today and it is freezing cold out.  I called my friend and student from the LIFE gym Serena because she is a doctor and the last time I was sick she had told me I could have asked her for a ricetta/prescription for an inhaler vaporizer mask thing to stop me from coughing.  While I was waiting for Serena to get back to me, I called the pharmacy. They said they would just give me the antibiotics. What? I LOVE YOU, ITALY. I was hoping they would just let Serena call in the prescription, but then my friend Lara who works behind the counter said, "Scusa ma/Escuse me but . . ." she could get it for me just as easily. So while I was running over I saw my friend the florist Tina freezing her butt off, but had to run by her to get to the pharmacy.  At the pharmacy they told me to bring the prescription from the doctor to them tomorrow.  I explained that I had to work tonight so I could maybe get T seen by the doctor if F could take her, but my heart dropped when I thought of putting her through the long wait in the waiting room. Then the pharmacist told me that she would go for me and I didn't have to worry about it. Then Serena called to make sure we are okay even though she is super busy and I had messaged her that  it was all resolved. The end of the story is that F baked everyone hot molten chocolate cupcakes, even Tina. Oh and T got a purse with a free sample of perfume and body moisturizer and I got a  sample of stretch mark cream and nursing mother nipple ointment in a pink gauze case from the pharmacist. Yay? Maybe if they could just make antibiotic cupcakes. . .

Snow Day

Last night Fede drove me home after our bagno turco session at LIFE gym, and she explained to me how not to press down to hard on the brakes in a city that has no salt or snow plows.  People were really freaking out and complaining a lot, but lord was it pretty. This morning there was practically no snow in the city on the ground, but school was still closed because up in the hills there are people who are blocked in. That is called a super score for Ms. T. We are happy she got to go garbage bag sledding and romping about with a bunch of friends. At least she had a great time  before she came home after lunch with a bad sore throat. Drat.

F got a new client for his web design business and has been working hard trying to make the deadlines. This manifests itself in the fact that he talks to the computer a lot in a mumbling, grumbling, kind of way.  Sometimes he and that screen really have at it and he pushes his chair back and walks away. That will show you, you computer you. Occasionally he has a jolt of inspiration and yells "Ah HA" like some kind of really jazzed up Sherlock Holmes. He got his foglio rosa which means he can drive if there is a licensed person in the car with him. Say what? I mean he was no threat to anyone when he was driving around the whole year we were here before the year after having received residency rights kicked in. Laws are weird.

I went early to Happy gym to give my friend and client Patrizia a massage for her hurt shoulder. My boss wasn't there as she was one of the people blocked in. Patrizia told me that she and a lot of the women wish I had more of the stretch/massage classes and they would be willing to book private sessions. Maybe that is the way to go.

I went by my erborista the other day. I swear that every time I walk in there I get teared up because she and I shared some of our life stories with each other and we have a lot in common. She told me that she was going to send her ayurvedic specialist Alessandro by after sunset on Friday night to put some kind of glass cups on my back to rid me of negativity. I will personally take anything that lets me be able to sleep nightmare free so here is to hoping that whatever it is works. I think I mostly get teared up because I know they are actively wishing me well and they are not easy people to crack into so it is even more special. I still haven't heard anything about the new job from the new gym which is very Italian of them, but kind of unnerving, too. Well, at least I got to use my snow boots for something other than holding the lip gloss I lost when we moved here.

How Not to Attend a Dinner Party

1. When Bianca told me the party was domenica/Sunday and said diciannove/19, I understood immediately/capito a volo that the party was going to be on Sunday the 19th. I knew that the 19th of February was falling on a Sunday because I have one of my boot camp classes on Saturday the 18th. But of course I was wrong. She was inviting us for this Sunday at 19:00. Darn that 24 hour clock! I, of couse, had promised a month ago to have T's friend Chiara over that day so her mom could take her little brother to a kiddie party at a jumpy castle place. After having to call both parties we worked out that Chiara's mom would pick her up at the train station because of course the party is in a different city called Viareggio.

T & Chiara not being weird at all.

2. Then on the way from the train station to Bianca's house in her car, whose seats don't move thus forcing F to do some crazy contortionist moves to get in and out because my back was too achey to even attempt that maneuver, she mentioned that we were having homemade tordelli/meat stuffed dumplings for dinner.  Her mom had been cooking away with her all day to help her prepare it. That would be about when I remembered that I forgot to tell her that we were vegetarians.

Bianca, our lovely hostess.

3. Jumping back a bit, when we were first starting out in the car she asked me if we had ever been to Carnivale in Viareggio which is their famous parade and street fair which takes place in February and I stupidly answered that we didn't go last year because some people in Lucca told us it was really too crowded. Umph, she answered. And then I said a bunch of incomprehensible stuff about how I would love to go this year, which I might actually love even though I really do not like crowds.

Kid gymnastics

Coca cola in a wine glass  -- classy kid drink!

4. I brought T with us in part because of the earthquake and my wanting to be in the same city as her if there were to be after effects and partly so she could babysit some of the babies and kids that were invited. I did not, however, factor in that we would in no way get home before midnight and she had school the next day so that in the end we had to let her sleep and miss the first two periods of the day.

Our legal advocate produced an extremely cute little teether.

T in babysitter heaven.

5. In the door walked Sergio, the man who works at the Immigration help center called INAC who had helped us get our Permesso di Soggiorno last year.  Sergio looked as shocked to see us as we were to see him. He was there with his really sweet wife and son. There was also another couple who spoke French and Italian because she is Italian and had lived in France with him and he is French and lives here in Lucca with her now and their little baby who was just a tiny bit older than the other baby. Both babies were teething boys with rather impressive head spans, fantastically gigantic eyes, and long, long European boy lashes.

Party etiquette is important to me.

Me too. I hope you washed that finger, lady.

6. Not being able to stand hearing a teething baby in distress, at a certain point I stuck my pinky finger in Sergio's baby's mouth and he stopped crying only to make the loudest sucking noises you have ever heard in your life. It was quite the conversation stopper. 
I woke up this morning put on a leotard and found three beautiful ladies in my living room who somehow thought that I was going to teach them a class and then later on some other delusional women in sweat outfits also thought I was going to give them a lesson and then it happened again.  You gotta love Mondays.