Live from Firenze

Complete day 1 in Florence is in the bag but I must start with yesterday.

I left the train tickets on the kitchen table. I left my shoes in Canneregio beside the bed... I think. I was upset all day because I realized the first of these mistakes as we packed to leave Venice ... no, I must go back further. First, we overslept... No further. Two nights ago...

It started when I broke that man's candle on the Strada Nuovo after a complimentary aperetif and a bottle of Valpolicella when my husband told me to pose next to the display of brightly lit candle holders. Who said you can drink all the wine you want in Italy because it has a lower alcohol content so you wonàt get drunk? (By the way, the drinking age in Venice is strictly adhered to! No one under 16 can drink!) Anyway, they probably never had this valpolicella! So, tipsy, I placed my fingers on the ledge not realizing the candles were resting on a piece of wood that was as tipsy as I was. I didnàt see it fall; I heard the crash and the man yelling in Italian. I said "I'll buy it!" but he kept yelling so I started to walk away which made him yell in English, "Where are you going?" I said I had offered to buy it but he was being mean! So he got nicer. I offered him money and he started giving me change, insisting I only had to pay his cost... I think he gave me more that I had given him but it was dark so who knows. And then he insisted on wrapping it! And then I started crying! I don't know why because it was over but there I was, in a puddle. And I realized, I hate making mistakes!!! Boy, was I right.

So we go back to our beautiful hotel and book a tour for 10:30 a.m. to the island of Murano to see the glass factories and I ask for a wake-up call at 7 which never comes. We wake up at 9:20 thanks to the maid who closed our shutters when she turned down our bed thus leaving us in blissful darkness. We fly out of bed, grab breakfast, arrange our check out, leave the bags with the bellman so we can quickly grab them as we head for our 3:30 train to Florence and then it hits me... the tickets! I had put all our papers in a blue folder weeks ago and when the tickets arrived by Fedex, I put them there as well. But two days before the trip, our travel arranger sent me a whole new set of vouchers so I removed the old ones and put the new ones in the folder. On the day we left, I took the folder and, on a whim, told my husband to put the envelope in his suitcase so we'd have two copies. This would have been perfect since the train tickets were in the envelope, and had my husband listened to me, we would have been fine. But he didn't. It remained on the kitchen table and we left for Italy.

So I spent the entire day beating myself up. Why should I have expected he would bring the envelope. I have never held him responsible for any of the "business" of our lives. WHy would I expect he'd start now. My mistake ached in my body all day, It was a pall over me as we took the boat to Murano and walked the beautiful cobbled streets and bridges of that wonderland of handmade glass objects. I was nauseaus as we walked to the ferrovia to get new tickets for Florence; sick in my stomach thinking about calling my son in CT and asking his to overnight them to us so we could get a refund on the unused tickets and still get to Rome on Thursday; just miserable as i watched the Italian countryside slip past the window, and somwhere between Padova and Bologna I realized I had forgotten my shoes! I was certain of it. In my haste to pack in Venice, I was certain I had neglected to pick them up from beside the bed. And the shock started me laughing. They were the most comfortable shoes I have ever owned and they were in Venice and I was on a train I had paid for twice to a city I had never seen before but I was certain would cripple me if I tried to walk it in my mocassins. My husband was sleeping and I was shaking with laughter. Tears stremed down my face and the woman next to me must have thought I'd gone crazy because she didn't so much as look in my direction which made me laugh harder. But I hadn't lost my mind. Just my shoes. And my tickets. And the pain in my heart. It was gone.

We got to the hotel, called my son who reminded us how we'd be lost without him. We agreed. We went to our room (another story) and I opened my suitcase. There were my shoes,right on top. Perhaps the curse has passed.

Staying Present

I lectured today on the need to stay “present”. Well, it wasn’t much of a lecture actually. I was teaching Acting 1 to a group of high school students, which is quickly becoming a really cool way to start the day. I mean, just when I started to be convinced that I hated teaching, I got the chance to start a year with kids in this public arts magnet school and, you know what? It ain’t so bad. In fact, I’m thinking I could be pretty good at it, if I could be exempt from the formal lesson plans and the bureaucracy and the cafeteria duty, etc.

But back to being “present”. I have gotten in the habit of looking at the calendar and saying, “Two weeks from now, I’ll be in Venice.” Two weeks from this moment, I’ll be having a glass of vino rosa in la Piazza San Marco.” Two weeks from now, I’ll be driving to Sorrento.” And that’s not good. Between now and then, I have a lot of stuff to do! Most of it requires a great deal of concentration! If I’m focused on “then”, I explained to my class, I wouldn’t be a very good teacher “now”. I saw them nodding in agreement as I suggested they put away thoughts of their upcoming history class and stayed focused on the task at hand. Be “here” right now.

This blog entry is a case in point. There’s no wi-fi where I am sitting, babysitting two kids who have been given “lunch detention”. There are several things I could be doing to make better use of this time, but the lack of an internet connection prevents me from catching up on my several other jobs. I could bitch. I could be frustrated. Instead, what a nice moment to relax and let my thoughts go where they want to go. … to Italia.

Italia

My husband is diligently, and FINALLY, planning our dream-trip to Italy. I admit I have been incapable of doing it myself. The Internet sites overwhelm me; the various touring companies confuse me. I get nervous. So I challenged him to “get it done”, and he’s doing it. With his usual meticulous approach to shopping, he has now been on a website called European Destinations since the wee hours of the morning. This is not his first visit to the site. He has consulted with Costco Tours, Perillo Tours, Soriano Tours and everyone we have ever known who has ventured there before us, and has returned to European Destinations armed with knowledge. He’s got us going to Venice, Florence, Rome and Sorrento with side trips to the Amalfi Coast, Pompeii, and I don’t know what else because he keeps saying I should come and look at what he has planned and when I get there he says he’s not ready. He has thrown out several oohs and ahs when encountering such ideas as taking our rented car and doing the Amalfi Coast on our own, a bicycle trip through Tuscany and touring Florence on the back of a Vespa, prompting me to think he is planning the “50 Ways to Die on your Trip to Italy” tour. Not a bad way to go when you think of it.

Omigod, we did it! We’re going! We clicked to send, danced around the kitchen, called my mother, danced around some more. It’s not quite real to me yet. I mean, you don’t just dream about something for as long as I’ve dreamed about this and then just say, “Oh, okay, we’re going.” WE’RE GOING! And now… we’re shopping for an Italian language program.

My baby got a job

My baby got a job! Okay, he’s not a baby and this isn’t his first job. But this is the first one that matters. Four years of college, a three-years grad program that he compressed into 2 ½ and a master’s in a field that is actually in demand… I’m so excited I could scream. I did scream! When he told me the news I screamed. He’s going to be the sole full-time speech and language pathologist at a rehab center and nursing facility nearby. He doesn’t even have to move across the country (one of my closet-fears).

A few weeks ago on one of those Sunday morning talk shows, I heard a prediction that chilled me to the bone. For the first time, debt from school loans has outpaced that of credit cards. They went on the say that this is the first generation that will not be able to repay their loans because they will not be able to find jobs. Just the other day, my friend told me about his niece who got her master’s in education last year. Unable to find a job, she has been thinking about becoming a cop.

I hugged my husband when we heard the news. For all our faults and shortcomings, we got this right. Perhaps because of our shortcomings… I’ve heard this theory that economic security runs in three-generation cycles: 1) the family that struggles to make ends meet and give their children a chance at a better life; 2) the children of those working families who go on to become professionals and live the “American Dream”; 3) their children who wind up squandering their legacy and falling back into poverty. Perhaps our economic struggles have served as a cautionary tale. All I know is that I am delighted our children are now both safe and secure in careers that seem to be fairly recession-proof.

Now I can just concentrate on worrying about me.

Where have you gone, Paddy C?

I’m getting a little sick… no, not a little…. VERY sick of all the discussion about cuts to benefits and no tax increases for the wealthy and yada yada yada. Why is it that not ONE congressman or senator has the balls to stand up and say “WE need to give something back”?

My call in starting to fix the economy is an immediate 10% to 15% rollback of salaries to all elected officials. It won’t kill them. Most of them won’t even feel it. They’ll make it up on speaking fees and book deals.

Next, no more getting paid once you leave office. Once you’re done doing you’re job, you’re done collecting a salary. That’s how it works in the real world. Unless they promise to fork over to the general coffers everything they ever make because of who they are and what they have done... (All those speaking fees and book deals)… in which case they will probably not burden us with their tiresome rhetoric and 20/20 hindsight anymore.

You want to have a bodyguard? Pay for it. No more Secret Servicemen for retired politicians. And their families!

Immediately, every public official starts paying into the social security system and getting the same benefits as the rest of us. It’s what the Constitution calls for! No elected officials shall make any law that doesn’t apply to them as it does to everyone else (or some such wording). Why do we allow them to lord this over us when they have no personal stake in the outcome? Conflict of interest you say? The only conflict of interest I see is that they have forgotten they are “Public SERVANTS”! e

Now, as I enter the tenth month of trying to renegotiate my mortgage, stand with me and yell, “I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it any more!” Paddy Chayevsky, where are you?

The Trip- Part 1

I am lying on a king-sized bed in a Holiday Inn in Gainesville GA after a marathon trip from Winchester VA, down the Shenandoah Valley, past the Monongahela National Forest, the George Washington National Forest, the Cherokee National Forest, across the Tennessee panhandle, the Pisgah National Forest, through the Smoky Mountains and Asheville, NC where I had once spent a rainy afternoon with a bad boyfriend, where my Smartphone failed me and couldn’t get me a reservation on Priceline so we had to call our son in CT to go online and get us a hotel reservation, into South Carolina passing Campobello (is that the place where “The Sunrise”… is at?), down into Georgia about six hours after I had wanted to stop in the first place. My body is still tingling from the vibration of the road.

Day 1 was cool. We stopped in NY and had a nice dinner at a Mexican restaurant, then saw a Broadway show: “House of Blue Leaves”. (Good but John, Swoozie and Christine were better. And whoever told Jennifer Jason Leigh she could act?) We continued to NJ that night and stayed with our kids and granddaughter.

Day 2 of the adventure was fairly sane. The GPS took us clear across Pennsylvania before making a sharp left toward the south. Winchester VA was so nice. We stopped driving at about four p.m. having gotten a reservation on Priceline at a Borders with free Wi-Fi. $50 for a 3-star hotel. Adorable! Such a cute room. Ikea chic. King-size bed, 42 inch flat screen, one of those tall, round, ultra-modern sinks, glass shower with a smoky glass wall that overlooked the bedroom area. Very sexy. Mini-fridge with complimentary bottled water and free Wi-Fi that worked immediately. We found a few restaurants online that looked wonderful and headed down to the historic district for a truly memorable dinner at Violini’s.

But that was yesterday. Today my husband took me on the modern-day equivalent of a forced march. He SAID we could stop whenever I wanted to but somehow, whenever I suggested a stop, it was either too far off-course or too late because we just passed that exit. Suddenly, stopping for another night before reaching our Georgia destination became a “waste of time”.

So Day 2 we ate at a 4-star restaurant and Day 3 we dined at Five Guys.

And that’s another thing! There are no more local anythings! Wherever you go, you’re in the same place. Every exit has the same hotels: La Quinta, Holiday Inn Express, Hampton House, Comfort Inn, Days Inn and, of course, a Super 8. Every town has McDonalds, Starbucks, Dunkin Donuts. (Where did all the Krispy Kremes go?) I saw at least a dozen Outbacks, Red Lobsters, Friendlies. Then there are the regional redundancies: Shoneys, Golden Corral, etc. Every mall is the same: Marshalls, Borders, outlet stores. You drive for hours and if the mountains didn’t change, if the mile-markers didn’t keep their relentless .10 mile pace, you’d swear you hadn’t moved. I do want to send out a special thank you to Borders for the free Wi-Fi. Meanwhile, we’ll rest up for a day and then continue south. More to come.

My incredible Spring

I am sitting in the teachers’ room at a public arts magnet school where all my thoughts of wanting to teach are being dashed like ten-foot waves on a rocky shore. I got a job replacing a theatre arts teacher who has to take the rest of the semester off because of health problems. What’s most amazing to me is that ALL the teachers aren’t in rest homes! It is May. That’s nine months of backtalk, bureaucracy and early rising. I’ve been at it for two weeks and I need a vacation.

When the job was suggested to me I thought “Sure! Eight weeks? Piece of cake!” And, in theory, it IS a piece of cake. (I've been told that the normal pre-requisite for a Sub is a newspaper and a cup of coffee.) But teenagers are not cake. They’re not even cookies. As the regular teachers are not shy about descrying, they are... smaller than that. (Enough said. I know you get it.) At first I was shocked to hear them describe their charges in such colorful terms. Now I applaud them on their restraint.

I don’t want to paint all of the students with the same brush. There are some students that make it a pleasure to come to class each day. They sit, listening attentively, participating to the best of their ability above the din of the other ones; the ones who sit with their backs to you, who can’t stop talking, who answer back with the disdain one generally reserves for worms and rodents; the ones who look at an assignment as a challenge to their autonomy; who couldn’t care less about being here and will say so, unabashedly, to your face.

It may sound clichéd but “when I went to school” you wouldn’t dream of answering back to a teacher. You were afraid of teachers (!) even though the law said they couldn’t hit you anymore. (My husband went to a parochial school where they hadn’t gotten that memo yet and was routinely thrown up against the locker by a belligerent brother.) But these kids… Fresh? Omigod! They talk incessantly and when you ask them to stop they look you square in the face and say they weren’t talking. You start to feel a little crazy, seeing their lips move, hearing the murmurs and being told you imagined it. They lie on the floor, sometimes in pairs. They dress like they’re going to a rock concert. They lie right to your face. In groups!
“Your teacher sent me this lesson plan.”
“Oh, we did that already!”
“You did?”
“Twice.”

They hate us! Maybe hate is too strong a word. They tolerate. They disrespect. They know better. They think teachers were put on this earth to make their lives miserable. It is a cesspool of discontent. And if you demand attention, if you demand respect, if you demand anything, they will tell you outright that their “Mama will come to school and lay a whoop-ass on you” if you write them up. (That is a direct quote.) Oh, yes, ‘The Write-Up”- that is the punishment! I saw the following in one of the classrooms I visited. For a first offense a disobedient punk gets a verbal warning. (Oooooh!) For the second offense they get their name written on the dry erase board. (Oooooohhh! Now I can see this sort of public humiliation working on a businessman who has been caught trying to buy a hooker, but not on a kid who has just defied the authority of a women who comes up to his elbow.) For the third offense, you get “written up”. A formal complaint is lodged with the principal’s office. (Ooooohhhhhhhhhhh! See above comparison of student to teacher and multiply by 0.) For the fourth infraction (Fourth? Really?) your parents have to come to school for a meeting. (Refer to above section where student tells you Mama will lay a whoop-ass on you.) There's "In-house Suspension" where you get to run into the person you disciplined on a daily basis. And, of course, for the most persistent, major offenders, there is 'the boot'. I don't know how bad you have to be to get 'the boot' and I don't really want to find out. I'm just a little scared.

Still, if I had the opportunity, I would do it again. There have been moments - a class where everybody wanted to be there; a thank you from a student who had been praised; a thank you from a student who just had a good time in class. Those good ones... they make it all worthwhile.