Saturday, February 5, 2011

Help! I've Fallen (in Love with) Tuscany and I Can't Get Up

The Negotiation Process (Early July, 2009)
     Yes, it is true.  Marianne and I have decided to throw caution to the four winds, plus about half of my retirement, and go to Italy.  This is the land of ancient wonders and ruins, feudalism, the Renaissance, baroque treasures and architecture, fascism, and the vespa.  More exactly we want to discover Umbria and Tuscany.  Florence, Siena, Spoleto and Assisi, Orvieto, Cortona, Montepulciano, San Gimignano, and Pisa are all on the list.  Oh, and we need to do it all in about a week.  This creates some tension when ever we start talking about the trip.  We have ‘words’ about planning it at least twice a day. 
     “Wouldn’t it be nice to go to Lucca after we take the train to Pisa and climb the Torre?” I say. 
     “Wait.  I am not going to Lucca.  I don’t wanna go to Lucca.  Got it?!” she snaps back as she looks up from her Nora Roberts’.
      “Got it, goddamm it.”  I say under my breath.
     Not all of our exchanges come out that way.  Sometimes we hit the ‘sweet spot’ together and click into a pleasant thought, “Wouldn’t it be great to have dinner near the Trevi that evening we have that lay-over in Rome?”  Our eyes meet, hearts swoon at the romantic possibilities, and she says, “Now that I could get into.”  Score One!
     I have spent several weeks shooting emails across the world to Italians like Marianna, Rosa Marie, Massimillian, Fernando and Rosetta, and more in the hopes for finding accommodations, transportation and tours.  My brain and my saved email folders are stuffed full of hundreds of URLs, locations, pictures, promises, and cautions from those ‘pasta people’ over there.  Try as I might, I can not escape the nearly constant thoughts and visions of actually seeing, tasting, and experiencing this foreign country. 
     Everywhere I go I am reminded of this possibly impending travel.  We have friends who go there every year.  We know friends of friends that just visited this place or that one and “thoroughly loved it”, and the woman who owns Toad Hall in Yachats, studying Italian when I walk in, tells me the couple that just left is going to live in Italy.  I buy at book at Borders the sales clerk says how great it would be to live in Tuscany for a year and go to all the feste (weekend festivals).  It won’t stop. 

      So, where was I?  Ah, yes, I had put the lawn mower away and watered all the plants and vegetables.  I showered because I had to go back to the dentist today.  My new crown doesn’t fit right and has been hurting for weeks.   I have had this dentist for about eight years now.  I like his work and his sense of humor.  He is also a guitarist and even though I haven’t heard him play, I bet he plays some mean Green Day and Prodigy. After examining the crown, and getting another x-ray, we are stumped to find a date that works for the both of us to do the needed repairs.  He can’t find a time that we can both be in the office to because I have a week in Montana and he will be on a three week trip to Europe. 
     Great.  “I will be avoiding hot and cold food and beverages for over a month!” shouts my inner voice.  
     “You mean that we will have to keep eating only on the left side of our mouth, and taking in liquid by cleverly contorting our tongue to avoid the right side, Doc?”
     “Something like that,” replies the Dentist.
     Oh, no.  Wait, did this guy say he’s going to Europe—possibly Tuscany—it can’t be?  Why not me?  Why do the public servants of this world (like teachers) have to sit at home and have their spouse’s think-up projects for them to do during the summer?  So just not fair!  There it is again.
   “I bet I can guess where, Italy?” I chime-in, after struggling to swallow after his gloved fingers are finally out of my mouth.
  “I wish,” he said.  “No, we’re going to Germany, Austria, and Paris.” 
   Ever since 1966, when Julie Andrews went yodeling through the Austrian Alps, I have had the unquenchable desire to be in Salzburg—home of Mozart, cradle of western music.  At that point I had to physically restrain my one hand from flipping off my dentist with the other.  Then I thought, “Is he touring southern Bavaria on my broken tooth payments.

     After the appointment, as I am pulling out of the dentist office’s long, tree lined parking lot, I nearly run over a kamikaze squirrel.  My day proceeds from sad to worse when I go to the church to check in with my priest about where things stand with music for the next month and a half.  While there, I talk music and Europe with our temporary office manager—the priests’ long time friend, who had the summer off and came to visit; we lost our office manager and Cindy happened to be in town.  She is a fiery contralto with dark hair and eyes.  She speaks fluent Spanish, Castilian of course, lived in ‘Barcelona’ (quite audibly lisping Bar-thelona) and studied piano for 15 years at the Madrid Conservatory.  I am also returning a handful of contemporary jazz CD’s she’d let me borrow over the weekend—all the hottest stuff from the Bay area. 
     I casually ask if she’s ever been to Italy and she explodes with a ‘diva-esque’ sigh. 
     “Oh, yes, she has been to Italy.”  Her boyfriend at the time was Roman.  “I love Italy.”  From the inference in her voice, I could tell that the five years romance a hot and impassioned one. 
     “Yeah, it was great until I got a call from his wife,” she hissed.  That’s the way Italian men do it.  At least the men in Spain tell you they’re married.”
     To diffuse the note of tension, I said “I heard bad things about Romans”.
     “Yeah, like they’re liars!”
    Okay, so Ferenc Mate said it like it was.  He had written in his book “A Vineyard In Tuscany” and didn’t trust a Roman, and his less than honest dealings with this landowner in Montepulciano, Italy.  Mate wanted to buy a small plot of vineyard by the house he and his wife were living in, and raise grapes.  The Roman agreed to sell him the land, but changed the deal mid-stream and poor Ferenc didn’t get his vineyard.  Later on he did get a whole vineyard, land and a Friary south of Montalcino, where the couple now produces award winner wines.   That would be another place to visit.  
     Confession time here (since we are in a church).  I emailed the author, praising his two Tuscan books and letting him in on my dream of Tuscany—realistically realizing he would never write back.  Well, he did, by gosh (remember, I’m in the church).  He said I shouldn’t let go of the dream and even invited Marianne and me to drink some wine when we get there.     
     Cindy proceeded to tell me all about her escapes in Italy, and specifically Rome.  It made me want to spend time in the eternal city.  I knew by our itinerary that we really only had one day.  Since I am always intimidated by really big cities, and foreign ones are way out of my comfort zone, I realized that we were going to have to book a tour (like of those bus things) if we ever wanted to see the sights of Rome.  I could see the dollar (euro) signs just piling up and the bank card literally exploding in my wallet.  Why can’t we skip ahead a year from now and we would be in Tuscany all ready?!