Watch out for that...TREE!

Do you ever muse over how some weeks or days can be incredibly long, slow and uneventful, while others can be full of adventure and wonder? I’ve been wondering that these last few hours. This whole week was hot, dreary and slow for me in anticipation to get a solid response from Vittorio on a request we had. The last two days, despite having not heard from Vittorio as planned, have been refreshingly adventurous, eventful and beautiful.

Given, adventure is easier to find when you are not doing the same ol, same ol, but sometimes it appears even in the same ol same ol. Side note: currently (as I type, not as you read, :)) I am eating gelato from Sinatti Pasticcerie – prodotti artigianali, where I brought home apricot, mint, chocolate chip and coffee flavors...random mix, but SO good!! How did I get this gelato all the way here to La Ripa? That story is to come…

Before I embarked on these Italian adventures, Lara gave me an assignment to use this time to know myself. Last night Claire was watching me journal…and giving me a hard time about my perfectionism – aka needing the lines on my blank pages to be straight, the date in the upper left hand corner, all my writing the same size. She challenged me to write diagonally – humph – I never refuse a challenge. So now my journal is no longer orderly. Why the heck am I sharing this? Because it confirmed that I am a walking contradiction to life. I live inside the box and outside the box at the exact same time. I march to a beat of 7, 5, 2, 12, 9 while all the other penguins march 1, 2, 3, 4 (reference to a childhood book I loved growing up called Slappy the Penguin). I am a random perfectionist, I am finally admitting it - there are some things in life that have to be in order…including Rummikub cubes! ...and some things in life that are just random, such as my thoughts, actions, bedroom, some of my things, mostly my thoughts. (PS – the apricot is really good – I am eating it for each of my readers right NOW! Or whatever flavor from above you wish… ) Besides the fact that I have perfectionist tendencies, I have also learned that I am still ridiculous, still injury prone, and still able to find humor in any situation…yes, my blog title has a purpose…but before I get to that, I have not mentioned food in a while, and so it is that time in my blog’s life to once again to share on the adventures of my taste buds!

After a week of low motivation and extreme heat (UGH!), Claire and I have both been in dire need of a change, of excitement, to “go out on the town” (in quotation marks because there really isn’t much of a town to go out on around here, especially with bus limitations). Thursday, after a great lesson, Anna offered to bring us pizza up from Ferraia…yay! I love pasta, but change is always good. And then later she said we could go there, for fresh pizza (in our heads, for a night out)…double yay! Sad confession: we were fifteen minutes late because we were getting dressed up (which means clean hair, clean jeans and one piece of jewelry)...hey, when you live in sweat, dirt and grime, any excuse is a great excuse to put on nicer clothes! Despite our tardiness, we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. We had dinner with Anna, Stefano (the cook…who helped me make pasta a while ago), and Tatiana (another full time employee at Ferraia…super nice!). The 5 of us chatted and had some delicious pizzas (random topping combinations of potato, rosemary, eggplant, peppers, sausage, olives, onions, pesto, and I don’t even know what else). When we had our fill of pizza, wine and ice water, we helped them clean up in the kitchen after the guests who ate before us (28 of them!). During that time I discovered the amazing-ness of a 2 minute dishwasher and I definitely started to feel more refreshed to tackle the rest of the week.

After that dinner, we forced ourselves to go on a morning/afternoon ride yesterday – an exploring ride! I was riding Saturno – the three year old loose brick wall that I spoke about a while back. We went down to the river and went left instead of right (the road less taken). It was beautiful! Tree shaded paths, ferns sprouting around the trail, moss covered rocks, grassy patches. Then in the middle of nowhere an abandoned building that was roofless, covered in ivy vines and trees hugging its walls, and lined with arched doorways appeared out of no where. SO COOL! We spent some time riding in and out of the doorways and taking pictures before continuing on our way. We came to another fork and chose the lesser traveled one, again – forging our own trail now. The ground was covered in purple flowers and bright blue dragon flies. We weaved in and out of trees, ducking occasionally to miss a branch and humming with contentment to ourselves. As I was weaving, I tapped the wrong brick on Saturno – he didn’t go where I wanted. Before I could comprehend what was going on I felt a big SMACK to my forehead and shooting pains in my back. The stupid horse ran me into a very low branch on a very badly placed tree. Stunned, I managed to get out of the tangle of branches. Ow. For a few minutes I was not okay – seeing double, lost contact (equating to blindness), and shooting pains. I managed to find my contact on Saturno’s mane and realize that my yelp was more out of shock then pain. As we headed home to bandage me up, I started laughing and singing that infamous song “George, George, George of the Jungle, strong as he can be!” although in my head it was more like “Trace, Trace, Trace of La Ripa, silly as she can be!” All I could say for most of the ride home was “Look Out for that Tree!”…I may have hit my head harder than I thought. As the double vision disappeared we realized we made a wrong turn and so we wandered through the peaceful forest (disrupted with my singing) until we finally made it home. Yay Siesta time!

Speaking of Siestas…I have officially started utilizing that time in the day to learn to play the guitar. I can now play C, G, D, A and E minor chords! The transitions are rough, but you know…I’m learning! I still can’t sing well, in fact I seem to be more talented at blurting out random words to random chords! Anna and Claire seem to enjoy listening to my very poorly composed, sing only once songs. Fortunately, my singing may not be limited to these million dollar compositions…Claire has lots of patience, can hear a beat, and is teaching me to sing. Under her tutelage I might be able to rescue my vocal talents from the landfills…she at least has hope in them and seems to think they are rescue-able.

Okay…ready for random story 2?! It’s pretty intense, I left you hanging earlier…but now the time has come to share how on earth I got this delicious Mint gelato! You may, or may not find this story entertaining, *smile*. It started simply enough. Woke up and fed the horses. Came in and had Claire’s awesome pancakes (I think I would starve or get very bored with the same thing over and over again left to my own devices) which sadly also means our syrup is gone. Oh well…very worth it. (PS – did you know that peanut butter on pancakes is awesome?! I hate peanut butter! What is happening?! First coffee, then tomatoes, now peanut butter?! What is next…peaches and strawberries?! Bleck.) Anyways...Thomas came to pick me up for Mass and we went to San Domenica in Siena. Mass was held in the lower Church and it was beautiful…if felt like Mass – I felt home. The Chapel itself had gothic style brick ceilings and walls decorated with beautiful stained glass windows. I was too entranced by the crucifix to really notice what pictures were in them. The whole experience is hard to paint in typed words, the only other thing that can be shared simply is that the celebrant, Fr. Alfred White was from New York, which was comforting for some reason.

After Mass, as Thomas and I walked to get him coffee, I could hear drums in the background. I watched the skyline full of pigeons and narrow roads up ahead, we were moving toward the sound. We walked down a cobble stone alley, past a restaurant, and up another road (past the white wine gelato shop) and then we saw them. How could I forget my camera?! Amidst the old buildings, orange roofs, and endless stone walls…here in the streets was the celebration of a contrada. Not only that, the Torre contrada – my favorite contrada. They had on medieval costumes, they were twirling flags, beating drums (1,2,3 fast, 1,2 slow), townsfolk dancing behind. Thomas and I walked next to them on our way. I felt a grin spread across my face...for thirty seconds I felt part of the magic, walking side by side with a drummer, entranced by the flag throwers, excited to celebrate. The drummers and flag throwers are all boys, the youngest that I saw looked about 12 and the oldest about 50…so diverse in their unity to celebrate! But what were we, I mean they celebrating? I asked Thomas. Cool history lesson! Each contrada has a patron saint. When it approaches the feast day of their Saint, they march through all the streets of Siena…praying to, celebrating, honoring their Saint. Who was getting such an awesome procession today? St. Anna and James Major. This wasn’t a show for tourists; it was a genuine procession of prayer and celebration...costumes and everything! I have a flyer from it (some of the best souvenirs you can not buy in a store) that has made me question - why don’t parishes honor their patron saints in America in such a cool way, or better yet…at all?! Hmph.

Moving on. Due to the sidetrack of this celebration – coffee was no longer needed, time was slipping by and Thomas was awake. We started to drive home. Snap. His car battery died, leaving little ole me (I am gladiator don’t forget) to push his car through the streets of Siena. I did it! I was surprised how easy it was…until I realized that the car was probably in neutral and I probably wasn’t THAT strong, bummer. We continued on our way and as always Thomas showed me another beautiful back road. This time consisted of a little windy road shaded by big overgrown trees that straightened out into fields of sunflowers and old buildings...to wildflowers and rolling hills in the distance. As we drove I smiled again, to my right was sunflowers (Big and tall, some small…some lost their petals and others seemed to be consumed with petals…all beautiful) Side note: Erin – I think of you every time I see these, I know they are your favorite and every time I wish I could share the moment with you! Well, I am always thinking of someone from home, but, well, anyways…to my left were tall (insert name here) trees…like in a Tuscany postcard. Someone pinch me, please. As I was lost in my surroundings, Thomas pulled into a very randomly placed parking lot. Surprise! He tells me this is some of the best real gelato. I walk in, try some flavors and buy some. We drive home. I know, pretty simple way to acquire it, huh? Be honest, were you expecting something more dramatic than running into a TREE?! :) haha.

And as always, there is so much more to share…but these are the highlights (rather detailed highlights, might I add!)…I have to save something for when I get home!...like Mini training, bugs in the ear, eagle sightings, kitchen adventures, and well… ;) (And I only put that list for future reference for myself…I have the memory of a goldfish, or maybe even worse!)

Actually, if you are bored at work or something, I will share the bugs in the ear story…it is rather humorous. If you don’t have all day to read my musings; then consider your self caught up on my life for the moment, scroll down to lessons. Last week we took the ponies for a walk down to Ferraia. Claire ran in to check her email. All of a sudden I heard a buzzing in my ear, thinking it was a fly I shooed it away. It came back, switched to my other ear. Back and forth it went. (it is quite a shame no one saw this, really…) As I got more agitated I took off my hat and started swinging it around. This made the little bugger even more mad. The ponies started freaking out at my flailing arms and crazy hat. So from the outside I imagine this is what I looked like: some girl holding two wide eyed ponies flailing her hands all around her head with a Japanese tourist hat, screeching and grumbling, yelling “stupid bug, go away, no seriously…I am telling you…GO AWAY…I am warning you…BUG!...argh….ponies stop that!...NOW!...BUG!...I…will…get…AHHHHHHHHHHH”...at which precise moment you see a serious head banging movement and eyes bulging out of the girls head. The stupid bugger flew INTO my ear. Still swatting I start to walk away from this thing that is now following me. (really, I must have looked ridiculous). The ponies won’t move. So now here I am swatting at this thing and playing tug of war with two stubborn little ponies and getting no where. Panting, I place the hat back on my head, take a deep breath and try one more time, at which precise moment the bug goes away and the ponies walk like nothing happened. Ridiculous. Thankfully the stupid thing didn’t go deeper…into my ear canal, I would have freaked out even more. Lol.

Lessons of the week:
- Watch out for that…TREE!
- Saliva is a great way to save dry, dirty contacts
- Ice is actually a special treat when you have not had it in a very long time
- When in Italy…don’t be picky with your food…saying you don’t care, or you are open to anything when choosing pizza toppings is the BEST thing to say…ALWAYS try new things, new concoctions…very pleasant things happen in your mouth…Italian cooks are generally better at choosing flavors than me.
- Pushing a car is not as difficult as it might seem…or I am just suddenly super strong! :)
- Playing rock paper scissors for who makes lunch is a bad idea – I usually lose and my lunches tend to be unrecognizable – burned cheese is usually involved.