What a week and overheard

I finally heard a politician, an Italian, say something I believed completely. He said. “Everyone has something to hide. I would not care to be a person who lived a life in which everything I had done I would be willing to publish.” Me too! He was talking in support of privacy laws which are chaotic in Italy.

Paola and I are trying to walk everyday, about 2 hours. It’s hard to fit in now that she is at work early every morning. Monday I had a late afternoon appointment for a medical exam. I got to complain to a lung specialist that nicotine and tar were the glue holding me together and I have been falling apart ever since I quit smoking. He, who is more overweight than I am, gave me some pretty useless diet advice but said to wait until one year after quitting.

Tuesday and Wednesday we did walk.

Thursday I went to Florence and exchanged books, ate lunch, saw a movie and had a look at what will be in the markets for Christmas presents. At least that’s lots of walking.

Yesterday I was fitted with a little machine that does an ekg for 24 hours continuously. You have to write everything you do and how it felt. I was so sorry I couldn’t write, “Had wild sex with a man half my age, heart skipped many beats.” I went out of my way instead to do ordinary things, but as many of them as I could fit in. I should wear my cell phone and pretend it is a Holter, because I would get lots more done that way. Paola and I did go walking– with sacks but without a mule. We collected a lot of plums. They are getting better and better with the cold, but are starting to drop off, which is sad. Apparently not even the wildlife comes to get them. When we came home we found that Olga had become a great grandmother while we were out… of a human, not a cat or a dog.

So today is our first ever in history neighborhood get together. I am so interested to see who lives in all these houses along the hills and the road! It is to happen at our one and only neighborhood bar which is famous for its torta al testo. It’s the local flatbread split and filled with local farmers’ prosciutto crudo. You still drink wine by the coppa there. It has grown out of the local farmhands’ habits of eating in company their small meals between the big three. So many people like it that I have a hard time getting out of the valley on weekends. The site from which that photo came looks a lot like our bar, but it isn’t.

And that is all the news fit to print from Barzotti.