Friday night at the Piazza

When last we talked, Sally our English friend, was going to stop over and look at the apartment.  She made the climb, heaving a bit as she reached us.  I grabbed to hug her and she carefully pointed out that she had brought us freshly laid eggs.  I can't wait to eat them this morning.  They are of different sizes because different hens lay different size eggs. Who knew?  I never thought about it before, but it makes sense.  It is just so weird to see one large egg, a little egg and then medium size brown speckled eggs in the same carton.  The things that I haven't thought about that have been automated in our food production. Fortunately for you, I  won't go on a Berkeley rant about that.  

Sally loved the apartment but thought we should look at buying a little cottage in the country, and sell this since it was so lovely.  Hmmm.  I told her Gary hated the out of doors work, started sneezing when he got near anything green, while I loved to look at the out of doors, but being in it made me hot and itchy.  She thought perhaps a city apartment suited us.

The card playing in the piazza takes on a different tempo on Friday night.  First of all, they play later, not finishing until 7:00 rather than 6:30.  Then we had the floozies show up, well one floozie and one wannabe.  So I was looking out the window at the theater unfolding beneath me, and I was trying to define how I could detect an Italian from a foreigner.  As I was trying to piece this together, two women walked into the piazza and down towards our apartment and the men below. 


One woman had on a white dress with large black printed flowers, a black patent leather wide belt and black stilettos (how do they do it?) She had large black sunglasses, "done" black hair and a saucy walk.  The other woman looked like she climbed out of a rag bag but was also definitely Italian.  Mismatched prints, top and bottom, brown sunglasses, brown limp hair.  Thinking about it she may have been Albanian :) The two sat down at an empty table where the men were finishing up and "miraculo" 3 Italian men of 70 plus years, some of the younger crowd,  sat down with the women and bought them drinks.  One man had on a lavander shirt, unbottened for 3 buttons down, another man had on a wide blue and white striped shirt, ( with a sleeveless red vest) and the other man had on white pants, and a beige shirt with some kind of blotchy print on it. 

Watching the men compete for the one woman was hilarious. 
 Am not sure how funny Miss Mouse Hair thought it was,  but she got a free drink out of it.  The men leaned into the aging beauty touching her hand and arm.  As they fawned over her, she leaned back and laughed and then leaned in to talk. This back and forth movement seemed to mesmerize them, kind of like a cat playing with a mouse.  She had a bandaid on her arm and the men all made over it.  At one point one man looked like he was going to kiss it for her, but I think thoughts of mama and germ phobia prevented him. 

 I  couldn't hear what they said, which was just as well as I am sure I could have written better dialogue for them than what was going on.  Eventually they all got up and the man with the lavender shirt, ( who had on tassled loafers while the other men had on tennis shoes,) literally gave one of the old geezers a hip bump and walked off with aging beauty. The two men started hooting at lavender shirt but he smiled pulled her arm though his and walked out of the piazza.  Miss Mouse Hair took a seat against the wall as the other two men left the piazza.  Then at 8:45 all of the men returned from dinner and had one more game of cards.  I guess because it was Friday night they got out of the house again as the women go to Friday mass.

It is Sat. morning and the "biologico" or organic market is going on down below.  I am sitting in my iron bed looking out at a beautiful tall hill out in front of me.  Sally pointed out her house half way up the mountain and said we could do a heliograph test (something with mirrors) to let me know where she is.  

Gary and I slept through the entire night, so we are both much better today.  We still don't have any mirrors in the house, I can't seem to find Emanuele to ask him about that or to get our comforters.  When I mentioned it to Paolo his office person, he said yes the comforters were in storage and since they were for winter wasn't it nice it was May.  I said yes it was nice but I wanted the comforters.  He smiled and said Manuele would be by later, he wasn't.  I hope he hasn't sold them.