Photos, Again

Here are the photos again.

Kibbitzers in Lucrino.  Our old frail neighbor supervises the men making the handicapped spot.  Jack parked there to load the truck and the old man kept yelling at him.  He pretended not to understand.

Abigail eating her maple teething biscuits that Nonna brought her from NY.  Yummy!

Friends for coffee in Lucrino

HOUSE BEFORES

The dining room.

Jack's study.

Our bedroom.  Abigail is there temporarily.  

Big bathroom. With fabu shower.

Living room.

Kitchen pass-through to living area.

Living area.

Pantry.  Delight.

Entry way.

My favorite room.  The laundry room!!!!

Hallway to bedrooms.

We are SO happy to be on base.  It was a great decision.  Tobi is more relaxed.  We are more relaxed.  We have eaten on our balcony every night this week.  I insist.  Even if we have to bundle up and shiver through the end of the meal.  

More AFTER pics, when there is an after to show.

Itinerant AGAIN

 I have been buried under all of our worldly goods.  Thankfully, my Mama came to save the day.  She seems to show up at exactly the right time to help me move, no matter where I am in the world.  Here is an email she sent home last week.  

wide awake on Friday and ready to boogie

 

a big event: painting handicap lines on the street, lots of kibbitzers

 

She just loves her organic maple teething biscuits.

 

Better water in Lucrino makes for curly hair

 

Jessica and Connor at the Breezy Bar in Lucrino

 

Abi's room

 

Where I sleep (in Abi's room) note hot water bottle

 

Jack's study

 

master bedroom

 

Abi's place, probably temporary

 

The small bathroom with stall shower

 

big bathroom with tub on the right, sideways

 

what the living room looks like today, Monday

 

the kitchen: these are sideways because I couldn't see the screen when I was sitting outside

 

the kitchen side of the living room

 

the living room

 

the living room viewed from the entry

 

Anna is happy to have a pantry.

 

the entry way

 

laundry room

 

hall with Jack's study on the left, master bedroom on the right

I'm showing you the before unpacking scene so when Julietta and Anna and I attack the chaos, you'll know where we started.  Right now we're happy to have Julietta here to bring fresh energy and her good eye to the situation.  

Decisions, decisions...

We've had a week full of decision making, introspection and honesty.  It is tough work.  But in the end, the actual decision wasn't that hard to make.  We have decided to move again.  NOT move from Italy.  This isn't a move that has been ordered by the NAVY.  No, it is self directed.  We are moving house.

We have decided to move onto Base.

And as these things go, it is bittersweet.

Our little seaside town, tucked away on the Bay of Naples, is just too far from the small, tender shoots of a social life that we have been able to cultivate here.  We live in probably one of the nicest areas around. It is beautiful by Naples standards.  That means that there isn't too much garbage piling up on any flat surface, that the stray dog packs stick to the lake.  There are some sidewalks--albeit in sorry states of disrepair and only once a week or so do we see the shattered and scattered proof that someone's car has been broken into/stolen outside our house.  I make it sound pretty awful, huh?

I can see our friend, who is Naples biggest champion, fuming at that last paragraph.  So, I will add.  The shopkeepers around our house all wave to us and demand that we stop so they can oggle Baby when we pass by.  We have a nice market, and our favorite restaurant and cafes.  It has been home.  It is the house to which we brought our Baby Bee home from the hospital.

I feel like we are moving away from ITALY.  But then, I haven't been totally thrilled with this part of Italy myself. I also feel entitled to say that as I have spent the better part of the last six years living in Europe with a few months spent in Japan for good measure.

It isn't that we don't love it out here in Lucrino.  It all comes down to one simple yet weighty factor.

I am lonely.  Miserably lonely.

I spend my days wrangling a baby, reading blogs and drooling over Pinterest.  A thrilling existence.  My big outing is when we go to the Commissary on Sundays to food shop.

So, off we go.  Decision made.

A grown-up decision that will benefit the entire family.

Now we just have to pack.  Good thing my mom is going to be here.

My new plants

Rosemary, funny miniature tree thing, spider plant.  

We bought the rosemary and the tree thingy today.  

The spider plant was acquired...

The lovely nonnas in our apartment building have beautiful hanging jungles draped over their balcony railings.  Huge pots filled with palms, geraniums, spider plants and hens and chicks balance precariously over the railings. The trailing fronds tickling the windows a story below.

Rosario's plants are the most beautiful.  She has the most wonderful sing-songy voice. She talks to her grandson, possibly the most beautiful little boy in the world, and her voice wafts into my kitchen window.  Whenever we go out and she is pegging out her wash, she leans over her plants and asks me, " come sta, Anna?"

She makes me turn around so she can see Abigail.  She claps her hands and laughs gleefully when Abigail sees her and smiles

On Tuesday we had a roaring, raging storm.  Here in Lucrino, next to the water, we get major winds--winds that blow windows open, and rattle the Persian blinds so hard that they set the security alarm off.

One of Rosario's pots blew off the balcony and met its fate in a heap of soil on the drive below.  I had to get out of the car on the way into the garage to haul the thing out of the way of the car.  I got into the car and leapt out on a whim before Jack started off again.  I went and pinched a few baby plants to plant.  

I doubt Rosario will mind.  

The pot is still sitting where I left it almost a week later.  I wonder if she is going to reclaim it.  Maybe I need to start my own hanging forest?

Compulsion or Highly Developed Sense of Aesthetic?

My Tita's Cabinet.  

 I tease my aunt and my mother that I can determine their stress level by looking into their kitchen cabinets. If mother and aunt are feeling particularly stressed, their Fiestaware will be arranged in some specific manner.  They mostly lean toward color blocking or separating into warm and cool colors.  The effect?  Beautiful.  Pleasing.  Soothing.

I consciously coordinate the color of Abigail's baby spoon with whatever food she is sampling.  Sweet peas, purple spoon.  Sweet potato, turquoise spoon.  The effect when feeding baby? Beautiful...maybe that's a stretch. Pleasing--yes. Soothing. Definitely.

My question:  Is this a compulsion or just a highly developed sense of aesthetic?  I know what I think. What things do you do that could fall under this category?  Is it compulsion or just a highly developed sense of aesthetic?

Things that make my heart smile.

Turkey meatloaf, mashed potatoes, peas and carrots.  

So, All-American, 1950's housewife, I had to post it. 

Jack's long-sleeved t-shirt drawer.  

Doesn't it give you a sense of blissful-inner calm?

Ikea Nightmare

The Offending Piece

On Saturday we got up and at'em in record time for the Georges.  We got to Ikea before 11:00!  Seriously.  I even showered.  We went for some hang-y things for the kitchen and frames.  We came out with plants, frames, hang-y things for the kitchen and hang-y hooky things for the garage and a dresser.  Typical Ikea trip.  I mean it is amazing how the Ikeans (?) can so easily convince you that your life would be simplified by some snap-together three part piece of Swedish ingenuity.  

The dresser.  Jack hasn't had a dresser since way before we got married.  He needs one.  We got this one for 49 euro!  It was originally 250 euro.  SCORE.  And now we are part of the Ikea Family Plan.  Really. That sounds like we have joined forces to produce tall, blond, robust Swedish children who sit in saunas and design flat pack living solutions for small spaces.  We should have bought two dressers (Jack adds, "I don't know about two.").  

I started to put together the dresser.  This was the biggest and most complex thing I had ever constructed from Ikea.  I was all set to do it.  I even read (looked at the pictures) the directions through once.  I even read the part that said to check all the bolts and stuff to make sure they were all there.  Do you see where this is going?  

I looked at the bag of TONS of little dowels and screws and stuff and thought:

Wow.  Does anyone ever go through all of that?  And what happens if something is missing?  Do you call the company?  Would the Italians understand me?  If they did would they do something or just yell something like this is Naples, of course we haven't got the right number of pieces!? Nah.  This is all packed by machine.  They have to have all the parts in there.  ---Oh, there is a hole in this bag.

*All of this thinking happened in a fleeting moment.  But it happened.

NOW you know where this is going.  

Skip to Jack taking over the construction because Baby needed Mama.  

In total we were missing: 

2 little dowels

3 wood screws

1 plastic bolt for a drawer

and 

1 big bolt to fasten the leg

I don't know what he did about the rest, but after a failed attempt to match the bolt at the NEX Jack drove a huge wood screw through the leg.  Jury-rigged.  And the LONGEST construction time ever!  It spanned two days.

Jack said after releasing a number of NOT blog friendly expletives.  'Well.  It was 80% off because it was missing 20%.'

But it is built and awaiting his clothes and my love affair with Ikea has soured, a little.

Weekend Review or Challah Glory

We had a nice weekend.  Despite the icky weather.  We are in the midst of the coldest cold weather snap that Europe has experienced in a long time.  It is pretty cold here in Naples.  Not as cold as it is in New York, but cold.  Feels like winter and being across from the sea makes it feel colder and damper.  There was actually something frozen falling from the sky at one point on Friday.  Wild.

These are the highlights of our weekend.  I will post each separately to avoid running on and on.

Challah Glory
Ikea Nightmare
Feral Dogs vs Tobi
Midnight Super Bowl
Sleepy-on-Hudson

Challah Glory:

This Friday our friend came over and cooked us lentils and pasta.  Lenticchie e Pasta.  It was yummy.  Yummier that I didn't have to cook.  I perfected my challah.  I am making the dough in the bread machine and then braiding and baking it.  Zabar's beware.  It reminds me of once when I took the train to the City by myself and bought a loaf of challah in Grand Central and ate the entire center of it between NY and Cold Spring.

Beauty on a Platter

Our Second Anniversary, January 31st

When I walked under that chuppah two years ago today.  I was completely unaware of the scope and breadth of the adventure I was embarking upon.  I only knew that my love for the man I was standing next to was deep, strong and courageous enough to get through anything.  

Not only would we get through, we would do it with love, joy, grace and a lot of laughter.

Two years.  

Two deployments (One combat).

Two Masters Degree (one in progress).

Two moves (one overseas).

One dog adopted.

One Baby born.

One Family made.

Engagement Pic

Jamaica

LOVE