Bella Italia: Life is sweet and I shall taste it all

Bella Italia: Life is sweet and I shall taste it all

The human mind is incredibly adaptable, which has been a key component of our success as a species, but that adaptability has a downside in that after a time, we can get accustomed to most anything, be it heaven or hell.  I am incredibly blessed to live in two of the most gorgeous places on the planet and thank my lucky stars every day that my bi-continental life makes it almost impossible to ever take their beauty for granted.

Saturday morning, despite having what I later learned was a nasty case of bronchitis compounded by a horrid allergic reaction to the medication I was taking, I dragged myself out the door for a run along the sea.  Never said I was a sane person.  I live on the top floor of a lovely old building at the very top of a little hill, less than a stone’s throw from the shores of the Mediterranean, which makes her pull all that more powerful.  Saturday morning she was particularly lovely, her waves sparkling the way they do when Spring is just around the corner.  Despite the hacking and incessant nose blowing I just had to go out for a run.  Just brought a few packages of Kleenex and hey, there are trash bins all along the way!  After a while I took to jogging on the beach and just had to take this shot.

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Later that day, post shower and lunch preparation, given that I was already violating pretty much every ounce of common sense by jogging for 80 minutes with a bad chest cold, I figured I’d go for broke and shared some gorgeous champagne on my terrace.  The alcohol is purely medicinal!  Couldn’t help it with such a gorgeous sunny day and Spring whispering in my ear that warm-weather opportunities for mischief are right around the corner.

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Bella Italia!  Life is sweet and I shall taste it all.  I wrote that back in 1997 when I was on a train between Venice and Milan while vacationing before starting my MBA program, having no idea that one day I’d have the incredible fortune to live in this land of endless beauty and have a life more magical than I could have ever dreamed.  So today I toast to life, there have been years when you kicked my ass in ways that I thought would surely have broken me, but today I thank you for every one of those days as they’ve made today even more beautiful.

 

 

An Italian Blond Day and Champagne

An Italian Blond Day and Champagne

Ever had one of those days when you realize that the Universe is having a bit of fun at your expense and taking the opportunity to make sure you don’t get overly confident? That was my Friday. I’d recently returned to Genova, Italy, where I spend a good deal of my time and was working through my usual jetlag, awkwardness getting back into the language and in particular, the Italian driving sensibilities. Italians can be best described as private anarchists and public communists, which manifests itself into a set of driving norms that leave me seriously contemplating the use of a paintball gun while driving to better express my appreciation for those around me.

My Friday morning consisted of a series of, “I cannot believe I just did that,” exercises which I’m positive is the Universe’s way of hinting that maybe, just maybe, there is something to that whole blond thing.  I made myself coffee three times, losing my cup every time. Still not sure where the other two cups ended up as my cleaning lady inevitably finds them all and discretely puts them in the dishwasher. I’ve seen her sideways glances and slight head shakes which I’m fairly certain mean she thinks I’m insane, and probably not too bright given my Italian fluency, or lack thereof.

Later in the day I thought things were finally turning around for me, when I made the unfortunate decision to drive myself and a colleague to a meeting. It was a freezing cold day, with lots of wind and rain, so being a true southern Californian I was fully decked out in heavy coat and mittens… and there’s where the trouble began.

Now that I’ve finally mastered the art of the round-about I get frustrated when others foil my attempts to navigate them smoothly. On Friday I was maneuvering my way around a particularly busy one onto the Sopraelevata, (a Genovese version of a raised highway on which one’s max speed is whopping 60km/hr or 37mph) when this woman damn near pushes me into another car on my right by swinging wildly into my lane from the inner most lane in a hurried attempt to make it onto the on-ramp, forcing me to slam on my breaks so as to avoid any collisions.

I was already gunning for bear at my own idiocy that day, so this became the perfect opportunity to vent my frustrations! I jetted onto the Sopraelevata behind her, my colleague and I yelling loudly, fists shaking with heavy scowling and considerable head shaking. The crazy woman in that awful tiny red car had the audacity to shake her bloody finger at us in her rearview mirror! Oh no she didn’t! Now I’m really raging to give her a serious talking to, when all of a sudden my engine revs up wildly slowing me down to a ridiculous 30km/hr or so. My colleague is still ranting, but getting a weird look on his face as he tries to figure out what the hell it is that I’m trying to accomplish. The car continues to slow, with RPM jumping wildly. I’m flailing about, face turning 18 shades of red, trying to figure out what the in the hell is going on. The crazy woman in that puny Punto smoothly pulls away from us and now the cars behind me are honking angrily as I finally realize that in my eagerness to give her the what for, I nicked the manual gear shift on the steering wheel with my mittens, but couldn’t feel it because those things are so damn thick!

I did the only thing anyone could in my position. I fixed my gears, pulled over into the slow lane, head hung feeling more blond than at any other point in my entire life. My colleague’s shoulder started the telltale shake of a man desperately trying to not laugh. I gave him my best scowl, which he didn’t at all buy into and the two of us laughed until our stomachs hurt.

The point of this story? The best way to end a day like that is with a bottle of 1995 Bollinger Champagne. It is incredibly good all on its own or with some pasta. It presents with the nice little bubbles that tempt your tongue, rather than the big ole ones that make you hiccup relentlessly after the first sip. Slide a few glasses into the freezer, put the champagne on ice, take a long hot shower, and my evening was able to repair one hell of an Italian blond day.