Everyday Life - Sometimes

Wednesday Evening

It’s always exciting at the Bravins – if someone’s not dropping by about the time Mikki’s thinking of preparing dinner; a bed’s being delivered at 9:30PM…just as I was thinking I’d be more comfortable in my night gown! There’s lots of advise & helpers to determine where and how to set up the bed; so I’ve moved out of the line of fire. My assistance is unneeded. Philip I’m thinking we need to take one of those Rosetta language courses – why don’t you order the Italian course from Amazon? I don’t want to come back here for Christmas with the entire Bravin family and just sit there drinking coffee with my Idiot Smile plastered on my face. Mikki says the entire family gathers at her home in the afternoon. Adriano is very patient with me and helps me with nouns but I want to do better.

The girls start school Monday. Lizbeth, you might want to teach here – full salary – 18 hrs. per week.

Weather is cooler but still very muggy and the mosquitoes drive us indoors as soon as it’s dusk.

Thursday, noon

Today’s is Linda’s 85th birthday – Bueno Compliano (good complete year.) It’s also Market Day – all of downtown Portuguaro is street after street of booths with every type of items you could hope to buy – 52 weeks of the year, on Thursday – it’s Market Day. Adriano’s wife, Emanuea is here and joined us. She lived with an American family and speaks very good American English. They bought fish for dinner – lots of different kinds to fry for tonight’s supper when the rest of the family will be here (fond memories, for me, of Philip and Franco going to Carole to get the fresh fish as a special treat.)

I found a couple of Euro coin holders – 1st Mikki and I’ve found in several years. We bought some flowers for Franco – Mikki and Giorgia took the bouquet to the crypt. We stopped to see if the front of the monument design is ready for the family’s approval. The verse being printed – in English – “There are souls in this world which have the gift of finding joy everywhere and of leaving it behind them when they go.”

We had an hysterical time yesterday; Giorgia decided to make Crème Puffs with carmel filling; from a recipe she found on the internet. Mikki was at a teacher’s conference & Giorgia was well past the beating-to-death the batter before I figured out what was going on – too late. Instead the puffs were flatter than pancakes. I assured her, they would still be tasty (with my fingers crossed!) We then started on the carmel sauce…Michele returned to help us and between the 3 of us we turned the carmel into brittle. Eventually Gio and I got the brittle back to a liquid stage and added the cream and other stuff. The sauce was quite good – the dough – not so much. Only her grandparents ate more than one – Giorgia refused to taste any of it. Thanks Kid!!!

Note to self about Christmas socks – Miki does hers on Jan 6, believe it’s the 3 Kings Day. Mikki says Christmas Day is all ready exciting enough and then they need to get ready for the family to arrive for the afternoon. Also Philip; what do you think of maybe going to Rome before we head home – it might be a great time to see the city without so many tourists? Just a thought.

Enough - oh, one final note; inheritance, I only mention it because we made a wrong assumption which was corrected when Mikki & Giorgia met with the legal consultant – Kilian and Giorgia can’t refuse to accept their share of the property and have it go to their mother. If they don’t accept; the inheritance goes to Morgan – so they will keep their shares.

Bye for now - birthday people arriving