White Orchid Melody Blog

I leave my house at about quarter ’til seven. I walk down the steep “traversa“, aka alley. When I get to the main road, I begin to jog against the nonexistent traffic. 1.7 miles later I have descended from the mountain and arrived at the nest. I stop. I stretch. I wait. I am early. 5 more minutes until my scheduled pick-up (kidnapping?). But this is Italy, so I wait another 20 minutes. My driver/host comes flying up the road, screeches to a halt, and I jump in. Back down the road for our other companion, the one who’d invited me along. She is late, we are late, because her cat has escaped. Off we go to Qualiano. We are late. How late? I do not know.

We reach our destination in a throng of traffic, search for parking, learn a new word “pazzo“. As in “pazzo traffico” or “io so pazzo.” I am crazy. But I am alive. We walk around a bit, find our numbers. I am a replacement runner, so today my name is Grazia. Grazia is not well. She is there to cheer on her team, but not to run. So, I run in her stead. But first, there is bathroom break, change of clothes, introductions. We bunny hop to keep warm. Alas, it is time. Herded into a corral, waiting. People speak to me. “Io sono Americana,” I reply. “ahhh, americana!” is the universal reply…and then silence, or a quick “gud lock” or “buona fortuna.” The Italian anthem sounds amongst “SHHHH! SHHHH!” the universal “be quiet.” And then a flourish of white doves and balloons at 1300 pairs of legs get ready to move. A “pop” and a rainbow of confetti, and we are off. What a celebration of life!

I begin very slowly. I know enough to pace myself early on. Race excitement can kill you, burning up your reserves too soon. Anxious and pushy runners pass me. I’m in the way. But that’s okay. I’ll pass them again later. Two 5k laps through Italian suburbia. The streets are blocked, the traffic builds. People get out of their cars to watch. A young girl hanging out of a van window cheers us on with a “pttthhhhh” raspberry, as in “I’m bored, why are we stuck here.” I laugh and the guys next to me laugh too. It is good to run and laugh and be alive. 4k, almost halfway there, speeding up, passing, motivating. 1st lap complete–28 and some change. Only one quick lap left. I can dip into my energy stores now. I like passing other runners. So, I keep doing that, chasing them throughout the second lap. I find a good pace and push myself, looking eagerly for the next set of balloons marking the kilometers. I young boy yells “ciao bella” as I go by. I smile. Running, smiling, pushing hard. 9k and I’m off. Sprint, push, go, only one measley k. Do it. 55:21. Phew.

Water. I need water. Where is the water? Cooler…Gatorade? No, it’s wine. Not exactly thirst quenching. I find my group. My group finds me water, and cake. Yum. I love Italy. What an amazingly fun time!

It is such a gorgeous day! If only all of my marathon training could be in weather like this!

As I was running around the lake this morning with my friend, some Italians asked to run with us. Fortunately my friend speaks Italian very well. The Italian woman was asking if I’d like to go run with their group at a race on Sunday. I think she was excited to see other women out running! So, despite the fact that I understand very little Italian, I am going to go run with a bunch of Italians on Sunday. If Brian can go biking with an Italian group, understanding even less of the language than I do, then I should be fine. Right?

I guess we’ll see. I won’t be an official part of the race, so I won’t have a number…unless someone drops out. It sounded kind of crazy. But I am up for an adventure. It is a 10K, so I have to decide whether I want to do my scheduled 8 mile on Saturday or not. Probably I shouldn’t. Maybe I’ll just do a mid-distance run on Friday instead.

All this blabbing about running, and I’m supposed to be writing about travel. Unfortunately we won’t be doing much travelling for awhile. We were thinking of going somewhere over Thanksgiving, but then I got the tax bill for our rental property. Ouch. And having vacancies for several months hasn’t helped with our balance sheet. So, there goes the travel money for a little while. We are thinking of doing a staycation, though. There are still plenty of things we haven’t seen in the immediate area. So, we’ll catch up on that list a bit.

It is a beautiful day. Alex and I had a nice run this morning, and then I dropped him off at preschool for the first time in two weeks. I was a little worried that he’d have a meltdown and we’d lose whatever ground we’d gained before. He cried when I took him in, but he got over it. He was playing with play-dough when I got there….I think he might have been eating it. Fortunately it was the homemade flour and water kind, not the fluorescent colored “non-toxic”-yeah-right kind.

On the run this morning, I was admiring the view around Via Panoramica, thinking how lucky I am to be here. Today was the first official day of Marathon training. What a blessing to be training for a marathon in this beautiful place! Every run will be full of beautiful sights. I love trudging up the hill and getting to the lookout for a stretch break. It is amazing that I live here and get to see that every day! What a wonderful blessing!

The holidays are approaching. It is a time for family. Being here with no family around makes it seem kind of different. We’ve always either had the family come to our place or we’ve travelled to see them. Everyone here is in the same boat though, so friends become family. We have some Thanksgiving invitations already. We are going to a potluck type dinner on Wednesday night. I’m so excited for that! I love trying a variety of different foods…dishes that you’ve probably had before but that taste completely different at the hands of another cook. And of course, there will be my favorite thing about Thanksgiving: dressing and gravy! About a million different ways to make dressing depending on what part of the country you are from. Cornbread dressing is still my all time favorite, but it is always fun to try different versions. And then there’s gravy.

Nothing beats gravy. (yeah, I know, I’m vegetarian…but I make an exception at Thanksgiving and Christmas) The best meal of my life was basically a plateful of gravy. Brian and I were in Sierra Vista, AZ while he was going through a training course. We decided to drive to San Diego for Christmas eve/Christmas since we didn’t have anything else going on. We had a nice visit. It was 65 or 70 degrees and everyone was in sweaters. Kind of funny. Much like Italy actually. But anyway. When we got up Christmas morning, we were going to head out to eat breakfast. I took my vitamins before we left. Well, we ended up having to wait an extremely long time since it was Christmas and all the restaurants were packed (who’d have thought?). We waited so long that my vitamins started to upset my stomach. By the time the food came, I couldn’t even eat. Mind you, we’d just gotten engaged. Brian must have really been wondering what he’d gotten himself into! So, I couldn’t eat. So Brian ate (a lot), and we started the drive back to AZ. By the time we hit the mountains I was really, really hungry. And it was Christmas, so not much was open. We randomly turned off at this tiny little town in the mountains. We drove around and found a little shack of a restaurant. They had Christmas dinner! So, of course that is what we ordered. Out comes a plate of turkey, dressing, and green beans–all smothered in gravy! Seriously. Best meal of my life. Of course, the fact that I was starving and fully expected to eat McDonald’s made it even better

This is a recipe to keep on hand for late winter/early spring when the new lemon crop begins to show up in markets.

Lemon Cream Pie

1 pre-made graham cracker crust*
3 eggs
1 can sweetened condensed milk
finely grated zest of 2-3 lemons
1/2 cup fresh lemon juice
1 cup heavy cream
1 tbsp powdered sugar

*If desired, brush crust with one egg white and bake in 400 degree oven for 5 minutes to add a bit of crispness.

Whisk eggs in a medium mixing bowl. Whisk in the lemon zest and condensed milk. Very gradually mix in the lemon juice.

Pour filling into crust. Place on cookie sheet and bake in 325 degree oven for 30 minutes. Filling should have puffed slightly and be set. Cool completely. Place in refrigerator to cool several hours, or overnight.

Just before serving, prepare whipped cream. Place a metal mixing bowl and beaters from mixer into the freezer for a few minutes to chill. When nice and cold, pour the milk into the bowl and beat on low-medium until soft peaks form. Sprinkle in the powdered sugar. Continue beating on high until stiff peaks form. Spread over top of pie.

The local secret to yummy lemonness is using early lemons…the ones that are still a little green on the ends. I’ve made a few of these pies now. Some were during the summer with mature lemons and now recently one with the early lemons. The flavor was much more intense with the early lemons. So, if you see the new crop of winter lemons coming in, get them and make this beautiful pie!

We are finally on the mend. Alex is about 90% with only a runny nose and occasional cough. I am about the same, though still a little tired. Yesterday my girlfriend that is visiting went with me to another friend’s house, where we all got Hawaiian Hot Stone Massages. It was super fabulous! The massage lasted about two hours, full body. The therapist, Eugenio, is an Italian who spent many years in the states learning his trade. The stones he uses were “harvested”, if you will, on a beach in Maui, as part of a very spiritual stone selection ritual. His guide explained that the stones would select him, not the other way around. So, they have good energy. When placed in a steamer, the lava rock absorbs the moist heat and then transfers it to achey muscles….heaven! I’ve had Eugenio’s standard massage, and adding the heat element brought a whole new level of relaxation. I think it cured my cold

This week has been a muddle. I mis-posted Recipe Thursday on Wednesday because I didn’t know what day it was…I’m sick. I have whatever crud Alex had, on top of the seasonal allergies that had been plaguing me already. Obviously Alex has been home rather than at preschool. Our friends that are visiting have been out on their own for day trips. Hopefully they don’t get sick too!

The weather here has been so strange! Friday we had terrible rain, just a torrent! My friends had gone to Naples via train. Made it fine, only got rained on once; but as they made their way home the train just stopped running two stops before the one they needed to get to. That’s Naples for you. So, I drove up to the station to pick them up. I realized why the train had stopped though. There was terrible flooding. The streets here have no drainage. About a kilometer from the station I came up to a section of road that was completely flooded. I’d driven through 6 or 8 inches, but this was a foot at least. Mind you, in the states I would never, ever, have considered driving through this, but to try and find another route was no guarantee of safer conditions. There was a van stopped in front of me just watching. There was a fiat in the middle of the stretch of road, off to the side, stopped with his flashers on. He obviously didn’t make it. So, I wasn’t sure what to do. I was in the Element, so I knew I’d be better off than the fiat anyway. So, I waited and watched. A VW Jetta drove through, followed by a van. Okay, so I’ll go for it then. I didn’t want to drive into oncoming traffic, and I wasn’t sure if one side was deeper than the other. So, I waited until I didn’t see any more cars and started through. Of course here comes two cars. They were going really, really slow. And tailgating each other…through a flood…brilliant. I wasn’t going to stop in that water and they weren’t leaving me much room to go through, so I started honking. It was a fiat followed by a small alfa romeo. The alfa romeo flashed its lights at me as though there was anything I could do. I just plowed by them. I was almost sure I was going to hit the alfa. Not that I cared at that point. I certainly wouldn’t have stopped in a flood to file an accident report. But I made it through. My guardian angel must have been there. It was stressful. Scariest Naples driving so far.

Then Saturday was a perfectly beautiful day. It is the strangest thing. I didn’t go for my run, as I am still feeling terrible. I got up with Alex for awhile, then went back to bed and Brian got up with him. Since it was such a nice day, Brian took our friends out to see the volcanic ruins at Herculaneum. I missed out on a beautiful day for sightseeing. They said the ruins were great. Much better than Pompeii. So, we’ll have to go back sometime.

Now today it is storming again. So, bizarre. I guess it will be this way all winter.

I was thinking today about determination and perseverance. How do you stick with something when the going gets tough?

I was reading an article yesterday about homeschooling versus institutionalized preschool. There has been a nationwide initiative to have preschool available for all children aged 3 to 5. The motivation for this is to get kids all on the same level and ready for school. This is particularly advantageous for areas with a large non-english speaking population, as it gets the kids immersed in the language before kindergarten so that they don’t fall behind later on. But some studies have shown that small children learn best through supervised play. Essentially, allowing the child to direct his or her activities while the caretaker is available to encourage appropriate activities (i.e. playing with crayons not knives). Interestingly, that is the concept at the preschool here in Italy. The kids just get to play all day. The teachers talk to them a lot, sing songs–basically things to help them develop language skills. The government run version of preschool in the states has set times for everything…time for snack, time for potty, time to color, now time to sing. The children have no choice in the matter. This is the same as all public educational systems in the US. When young people get to college many have a hard time with their new found freedom. They don’t know how to be responsible because they’ve always been told exactly what to do, how to do it, and when to do it.

I have issues with our educational system. Even at its best it makes people fear failure. You can never be creative (or successful) without being willing to take risks. Teaching a child to fear failure goes against everything I believe in. I think we’d all be much happier if we had the “there is no attachment to the outcome” mentality. But that is definitely not the way public schools do things. I’ve always understood that my beliefs weren’t quite aligned with our public school system. So, I always sort of thought that I’d like to homeschool. That is unless I found a viable alternative.

One of the moms in my neighborhood is a teacher. She never really planned to homeschool. But upon moving here, and being an hour bus ride from the school (a school that wasn’t really that great anyway) they decided to homeschool. The motivation was providing a better education than what was locally available, making up for some slack areas from previous public school education, and avoiding the kids having to ride an hour each way to school and back. So, it was situational home schooling, not philosophical. Things were more difficult than anyone had expected. As I’ve written here, there is a tendency to feel isolated when living in a foreign country. You have to try really hard to stay in contact with other Americans, just to have someone to talk to. So, when you are at home all day teaching your two kids, when do you get to interact with other adults? You don’t. And the kids don’t get to interact with other kids. For some personalities this is okay (introverts). The family in question found that it was working alright for the daughter, but the son was really struggling. He is a typical extrovert who thrives in groups–truly needs to be around lots of other kids his age. They were doing organized sports groups three times a week. But it just wasn’t enough. Sometimes a situation gets the best of your ideals.

Seeing this situation I’ve questioned whether I can really homeschool a child or children. Do I really have the patience for that? Alex is not even two, and I already want him out of the house a couple hours a day! But at the same time, I wouldn’t be homeschooling because of a situational issue. I have very strong objections to the US school system. I’ve had to figure things out the hard way. I’ve constantly struggled against that fear of failure that was instilled in me at a very young age. There is a battle inside my mind anytime I try something where I don’t instantly succeed. “Do something else, you are no good at this.” “Just give up!” Perseverance is not my forte.

Interestingly, running has helped me get past that programming. When I was younger (middle school/high school), I was always interested in running. It always looked like fun. But the couple of times I tried it in middle school, I wasn’t very fast and I didn’t have the endurance to do distance. Unfortunately public education isn’t geared towards encouraging kids to try new things. So, I let feelings of intimidation and inadequacy keep me from ever pursuing my interest. Fast forward to a decade or so later. I was working at a YMCA and a coworker encouraged me to come out with the marathon training group. They were going for a 12 mile run. Every bit of logic said “whatever, that’s crazy,” but my coworker said “I think you can do it.” That’s all it took. Having someone believe in me. I went on to train for the full marathon, an exercise in discipline and perseverance if there ever was one! It was something I never thought I could do in a million years. It was something for which I have no natural aptitude. But I did it anyway. It helped me learn that it is possible to see things through even when they are uncomfortable, illogical, and maybe even insane. I can truly do anything I set my mind to.

And here it comes full circle. Even though it will be an immense challenge to homeschool, isn’t that what is truly best for my child? If I can teach him things in his first 10 years that it took me 30 to learn, shouldn’t I do it? If I can set him up to succeed by not fearing failure, by understanding the value of trying, exploring, and being creative, then isn’t it worth it? Shouldn’t I persevere under the uncomfortable, illogical, and insane moments that are all part of raising a child?

I guess I didn’t adhere to my schedule very well. To my defense I’ve had a sick child on my hands! But for the back-track-recap:

Saturday I had a great long run. My friend visiting from the states joined me and my local running buddy. He was much faster than us, but kindly stayed with us most of the run. The very last part of the run is a massive hill. I knew I’d be taking it nice and slow so as to make it to the top. So, I told him to go on ahead. “Just keep going up,” I said. “You can’t get lost.” Well, I didn’t think he’d be quite so far ahead. There was a turn off just before the top of the hill. He missed it, of course. So, we got to do a little extra for a total of 8 miles. (We had planned about 6.75) No problem. We have an 8 mile coming up for our first long training run, so now we have a good route!

Later Saturday, Alex came down with a fever. So, he’s not been feeling so hot since then. Yesterday I noticed little blisters on his hands, so we think it is hand-foot-mouth disease courtesy of his new preschool. This means no preschool until he gets better. Hopefully that will be soon. He won’t eat much right now, but has been drinking plenty, so I guess he’s fine.

Yesterday I drove my visitors into downtown Naples so they could catch a ferry to Capri. Then they will spend a few days along the Amalfi coast, which is just gorgeous! Brian and I did a hike out there earlier in the year. Breathtaking views! It was hazy and cloudy yesterday, but the rain came through last night and cleared things up. So, they should have a beautiful bus ride up the coast today.

I was pretty stressed out yesterday. A drive in Naples traffic plus a trip to the commissary plus a sick baby minus my better half equals “ahhhaaggg!” It was one of those days that brings out the negativity about living over here. Most days it is a blessing beyond any I could imagine. But some days I feel the lack of family support, the isolation, the frustration of the culture shock (which never really goes away). I guess managing a sick toddler by myself brought out the worst. I didn’t even have a chance to write my gratitude post, which is probably just as well! Although, I did go for a nice long walk in the late afternoon. I am grateful for the calming-stress-relieving aspect of exercise. I felt much better after our walk. Alex and I went to bed nice and early, and we both got a good night’s sleep. Hopefully he will be better soon (and hopefully I don’t get sick!).

It’s Wednesday–my day to write about whatever strikes my fancy!

I thought I’d talk about my to-do list. Exciting, right? Well, I have multiple to-do lists. I have the one that says “clean bathrooms, vacuum rugs, call so and so…” but you may have noticed I put one off to the side on the blog here. It says:

Be content in the now
Learn to play the piano
Learn Italian (asap!)
Find a figure drawing class to attend
Get more portrait commissions
Take advantage of as many travel opportunities as possible

This is a higher order of to-do listing. These are the bigger things I want to accomplish now that the little guy is in preschool. Some are more important than others, and some are easier to accomplish than others.

1. Be content in the now – This one actually has nothing to do with having free time. This one is the umbrella to-do–the answer to all my wandering trains of thought. I find myself thinking often about the future, wondering what it will be like. What should I do when I leave Italy? Where should we live? What do I want to be when I grow up? It’s great to have an idea about things. But not to the point where it keeps you up at night. And that sometimes happens. So, my goal is to stop thinking so much (in general) and focus on the now.

2. Learn to play the piano – Our landlord left this gorgeous piano in our house here. I feel so sad that no one knows how to play it! Alex plays around on it sometimes, but otherwise it just collects dust. Piano lessons are not something I can do while Alex is napping, obviously. But now that he is in preschool, I have a couple hours to fill each day. I emailed all my friends here asking if anyone knew of a piano teacher. Luckily, one of my friends emailed back that her husband was getting violin lessons from someone who also does piano lessons (and speaks English! even better!).

3. Learn Italian (asap!) – I have been seriously delinquent in the advancement of my Italian language skills. I’m sure my neighbors thought I’d know much more by now. Unfortunately I don’t talk to Italians as much as I should. Or I get by too easily with sentences without verbs. “Alex school” and “no today” were two such sentences I uttered this morning. They get the gist of it, and I’m off the hook. But I expect more from myself. There is a tutor here in town, so I have on my list to call him to set up a time. I am also considering a class at the “university” on base.

4. Find a figure drawing class to attend – I was very excited to find a flyer for a free drawing class on base. But I emailed for more info and did not hear back. So, I’m going to need to just go and check it out. This is an evening thing, though, and we are going to be busy for the next few weeks. The class is still life and models, but I don’t know if they’ll have nude models. It sounded rather amateur. I’d like to find a proper nude figure drawing class, but this goes back to number 3. Need to learn some more Italian first!

5. Get more portrait commissions – I just finished another portrait commission for a friend. I really enjoy doing this! I want to do more, practice more, get better! Then next year I want to enter some competitions. I was so inspired by the contemporary section at the National Portrait Gallery in London.

6. Take advantage of as many travel opportunities as possible – This one is no problem at all! We have done great so far, but we are already one quarter of the way through our stay here! Eek! Must see more! So, we just have to keep taking advantage of any and all opportunities.

Quite a list, no? But it’s good to have goals, especially when presented with newfound free time!