And The Gods Are Good

I mean is this a gift from the gods or what?



My friend Carla was here two weeks ago to take a cruise from Roma and showed up at dinner with two jars of peanut butter - one has since gone the way of all things peanut-buttery. Then Ron and Gord showed up with a tub bearing the Kraft bears and 2 kilos of smooth, creamy peanutty goodness. And then if though they had not showered me with enough - hmmm showered = peanut butter, nope - then my old boss from Ottawa Yves, well he's not actually old more like my former boss, sent me.. well let me tell you about Yves.

Yves and his lady friend Linda were on a cruise - what is it with everyone I know and cruises, I thought that was old folks stuff, oh yeah sorry - and scheduled to stop off here for a day. We were going to meet at Piazza Navona have some pizza, a litre or two of wine and maybe some gelato and Laurent and I was going to get to meet Linda. Saturday morning Linda phones from the ship - poor Yves had taken ill during the night, the message was sort of garbled but had something to do with speedos and lemon juice I believe. Anyway Reader's Digest version they were being quarantined on the ship for 48 hours. We were disappointed and so was Yves - he said he had a small gift and wanted to see my face when I opened it.

Two days later when their ship docked in Bari they trotted off to the Post Office to send me my parcel. Now from previous postings you may realize that a trip to PostItalia is a major expedition but they took time out from their busy schedule to brave Italian bureaucracy to send me two jars of peanut butter. Now that's some boss!

And Yves, if you read this I had nothing to do with the quarantine signs all over your office - honestly!

As you can see I'm set with Peanut Butter now until at least Christmas - okay maybe the end of November. Grazie Carla, Ron and Gord, Linda and Yves - okay you may not be gods but you qualify ast the least as Peanut Butter fairies!

23 ottobre - San Giovanni da Capestrano

We Gather Together ...

And no I'm not early with this wish - for Canadians this weekend is Thanksgiving - hey the harvests come earlier when you live in an igloo! Also our holiday is based on the old Church of England calender which designated the second Sunday of October as Harvest Thanksgiving.

I remember this Hymn from my childhood as we celebrated the harvest in our small parish church - I love the pure Englishness of it being matched with what is obviously more than a flower show in this video.

We've celebrated Thanksgiving in Mexico, Egypt, Poland and when we lived in Chicago we had two - ours in October and American Thanksgiving in November. This will be the second year we've celebrated here in Rome and we are breaking with a few traditions. Because Laurent is heading for Tokyo early Monday morning we are having our Thanksgiving meal on Sunday as lunch - but in true Roman style not until around 2 pm which means we'll finish at 8 pm.

Where food is concerned we're going fusion and I don't mean tomato sauce on everything. Our Thanksgiving meal has always started with Smokey Pumpkin Soup but this year that will be replaced by Pumpkin Ravioli in a red pepper-cream sauce followed by the more traditional fare of the season with a few small changes. Its almost impossible to get a whole turkey here - the butcher looks at you as if you're mad that you would think he would even have such a thing. But you can buy turkey breast, thighs and drumsticks - though again when you ask for the whole breast the butcher regards you with some suspicion because you aren't asking him to cut it into scallops - so our guests will be dinning on turkey bits! And rather than the traditional green along with their whipped potatoes (with prosciutto and mozzarella) and glazed carrots our guests will be having sauted chicory with garlic and grilled zucchini. Desert will remain as it always has been, my friend Naomi's incredible Apple Mousseline with Zabaglione sauce - there are some traditions you just don't play with - except we just may get some fresh fig or chestnut gelato to go with it. Or maybe both!

One tradition that will continue is celebrating the festival with friends. Our old friend Ron and his partner Gord will be arriving early Sunday morning and joining us and our Roman friends Larry and Vin. I've lost count of the number of holiday meals we've shared with Ron but it will be wonderful to have him and Gord here with us this year.

To all our other friends - we wish we could gather around the table with you as we have in years past but as lunch starts on Sunday we'll be toasting you one and all.

And I leave you with this little poem from my friend Carole Collette:

May your stuffing be tasty
May your turkey plump,
May your potatoes and gravy
Have never a lump.
May your yams be delicious
And your pies take the prize,
And may your Thanksgiving dinner
Stay off your thighs!

09 ottobre - San Daniele Comboni

Go David, Go

Late last night I received an e-mail from David, a work colleague and friend - they aren't always the same thing - that had me cheering and tearing. He had a battle with cancer five years ago and yesterday his oncologist gave him the "all clear" - five years no cancer! To quote him "WooHoo!"

My work buds - Pauline, Shirly and David

One of the pleasures of going to the office every day was sharing jokes, stories, good things, bad things and Friday lunches with Dave. If we don't share the same enthusiasm for the Ottawa Senators that's because I've never really figured out why grown men would smack a small black cylinder around on a piece of ice. Or why other grown men (and women Shirly!) would get so worked up about it.

So, David in celebration I'm going to do something in public you never thought I'd do:

GO SENS, GO!

12 gennaio - San Modesto

Friendship

I love Pat and Stanley and this one expresses how both Laurent and I feel at the moment.

For non-French speakers here's a rough translation:

Stanley (the dog): You still feeling down Pat?

Pat: Yes

Stanley: Come on buck up, I've arranged a little surprise.

(Fireworks)

Pat: Wow! That's great! How did you do that?

Stanley: Its nothing. Just a little imagination and lots of friendship.

Pat: Its real cool - Friendship.

You've got that right Pat.

Thank you to all our friends.

28 decembre - Santi Bambini Innocenti Martiri

The Traditions of Christmas - Christmas Crackers

Our Christmas traditions are a mix of Laurent's French-Canadian heritage, my English-Canadian background and a few things we've taken from places we've lived or people we've known. Laurent had never heard of Christmas Crackers before our first Christmas Dinner in 1979 but they had always been part of our family Christmas. And their decorative place on the table, the sound of the crack, the useless trinkets, silly hats and sillier jokes preface any Christmas dinner at our house.

But to me Christmas Cracker had another meaning after 1978 - it was the name of the yearly missive from my much-loved Ryan. I wrote about Ryan when he left us in October of last year and all that I wrote then holds true today. His Holiday letter was like no other. It wasn't the endless list of little Tiffany's accomplishments as a budding ballerina/equestrian star/girl scout/Rhodes scholar or stories of Aunt Betty's mysterious sex-change operation - it was funny, it was irreverent, it was touchng but never sentimental (God how he hated sentimentality) and it was Ryan.

The Cracker didn't always arrive in time for Christmas - sometimes it was late January before it showed up in the post but Ryan was a busy lecturer, teacher, author and columnist and you knew it would be there at some point. When it did arrive you could be sure it would be filled with goodies: Snippets from The Times of London Obituaries, passages from books read that year, anecdotes from a trip here or there, quotes from favorite authors, comments on CDs heard that year - things that said nothing of his accomplishments (which were many) for the year but much about his experiences. Stupidly I didn't keep all my Crackers but I do have and treasure the last one he sent out in 2005.

Though we will have the traditional crackers on our table again this year, I miss the one that arrived every year in the mail. But not as much as I miss the person that sent them.

19 decembre - Santa Fausta

High Days and Holy Days - The Feast of the Immaculate Conception

Our friend Robert maintains that there are four times in the year that it looks like Halloween here in Rome - and none of them come on the last day of October. According to him December 8th and the festivities surrounding the Feast of the Immaculate Conception in Piazza di Spagna is one of those Mr. Dress-up days. So it was hard to resist his invitation to meet him along with Walter and another old friend Yvon, who was in town visiting from Prague, at la Fontana della Barcaccia.

The Statue of Maria Immaculata was erected in 1856 to commemorate Pius IX's declaration of the Immaculate Conception. Its at the southern end of the Piazza just in front of the Spanish Embassy.

The faithful converge around the column to sing their Aves and Salves and present enormous floral tributes to Our Lady. Parishes under her patronage process through the square with banners as do members of various confraternities in capes, caps and plumes. The odd Bishop or Cardinal wanders through with his entourage and various orders of religious join the processions and the singing. I was mildly disappointed that there were no flagellants but was reminded this was Italy not Spain.

And at around 1600 Big Ben and the Boys from the other side of the river come to place a floral crown on Our Lady's head. Well actually Big Ben doesn't do it himself - I'm told one of those brawny brave Vigili del fuoco(firemen) goes up in the cherry picker on his behalf. Then there is just the festive crowd that comes to watch, roam the street and celebrate what is, for most Romans, the first day of Christmas. And of course being Romans they head into the trattoria and restorante for an extended lunch (pranzo.) How could we do less?

Off we headed to Ristorante Mario on Via della Vite. Its a warm, cosy and extremely popular place because of their exceptional Toscana cuisine. For starters two bowls of warm white and black beans in olive oil and a large ball of Buffalota Mozzarella followed by Ribolleti (a thick Tuscan vegetable soup - just the thing on a chilly day) then a remarkably light lasagna (paper thin pasta, a light bechamel sauce, a savoury veal-beef mix, a sure hand on the cheese and not a sign of tomato sauce) and a slice of warm apple tart to finish. All of course accompanied by a very nice white from Tuscany.

The place was now packed - every table occupied by groups of families, friends, colleagues and the two rooms were filled with that now familar sound of Romans celebrating over drink and food - I know it seens odd to say but it is a sound I've never heard anywhere else. As we ordered our coffee the waiter, who had been good but slightly aloof, heard André, a friend of Robert's who had joined us for desert and is currently finishing his Doctorate in Mid-Eastern Studies, speak Arabic with Laurent - suddenly we were his favorite table. He was from Alexandria but has lived in Italy for 25 years. The bottles of grappa and lemoncinni were brought out and left on the table, conversations at this point were going around the table in Arabic, French, Italian and English.

Seemed a highly appropriate way to celebrate a major Feast Day.

16 decembre - 111a domenica di Avvento

B-Day Ditty

My friends Ian and Scott, who have retired to the town of Banff in the Canadian Rockies - lucky bastards - sent me a Blue Mountain birthday card: its in the style of one of the old Silly Symphonies with a mouse singing a little number called It's a B-Day Ditty. I now can't get it out of my head - thank you on so many levels guys!

In the past I've spent my Birthday in Hanoi, Mexico City, Cairo, Warsaw, Chicago, Montreal, Ottawa, Toronto and several other places that I can't remember because I'm old. However if anyone had told me I'd spend one at a children's theatre in Roma I would have checked for some of that Castel Sant'Angelo weed Aud Hat was talking about.

It was torrential rain Sunday afternoon and of course the idea of even getting a line through to the radio taxi was absurd. Off we headed five blocks to Via Constanza, umbrellas losing the battle against the driving rain, the 60 Express to Piazza Venizia and a wait for the H Express over to the other side of the river. Our friend Walter was appearing in a production of Oscar Wilde's The Happy Prince (Il Principe Felice) at Tearo Le Maschere in Trasteverre. Its a small (100 seats) but charming theatre with a professional company devoted to presenting a season of plays for children. We joined our friends Vincenzio and Larry and Walter's partner Robert in the back row with three other men - all friends of the actors... and Dorothy.

Four actors presented the Wilde tale of the Statue and the Swallow in a freely adapted version - Walter played among other things a tramp, an animal trainer, a town crier, an unemployed father and a cruise ship sailor. A cruise ship sailor??? Well yes as I said freely adapted: in this version the statue and the swallow become humans when the Blue Fairy from Pinocchio wanders in by mistake. They leave the cold behind to go to Argentina on a cruise ship - don't ask. It was actually a lovely way to spend the afternoon but my heart jumped when they said there were two people in the audience who were celebrating birthdays. Thank god it was a five year old brother and sister (twins) - the little boy was as unimpressed with the Blue Fairy's kiss as I would have been.

12 decembre - Santa Giovanna di Chantal

The Traditions of Christmas - Gift Giving

We are very fortunate that we have established good friendships here in Roma. A few like our friend Robert are long-standing others such as Robert's talented partner Walter and Larry and Vincenzio are recent. We spent a good deal of my birthday weekend with these four wonderful men and other friends and acquaintenaces of theirs. I'll blog more about that tomorrow.

So what does this have to do with the Christmas tradition of gift giving. Well Larry writes about it today on his blog. The smaller children in the school where he teaches have found a wonderful way to reach out to children in Roma who live with HIV. Take a look - and the pictures of Larry are pretty damn fine too.

10 decembre - Nostra Signora di Loretto

About Bloody TIme!

First follower: And will the veil of the temple be rent in twain?
Cult Leader: Well the veil of the temple is always dodgy.
The End is Nigh - Beyond the Fringe

Laurent and I will be exchanging our wedding vows at 1545 this afternoon in our friend Joelle's garden. And despite the warnings of various religious groups we hope that the veil of the temple will remain unrent and the family unit as we know it will not dissolve. That is not our intention - our intention is to consecrate our loving relationship of the past 29 years.

We decided that at this point we probably won't find anyone else to put up with us so why not make it legal. To be honest our original thoughts behind this step were based on legal and financial reasons; however as planning progressed the event has taken on a deeper meaning. We realize now that we are making a serious, spiritual commitment in the eyes of God, our family and our friends.

Many of our friends have sent good wishes via e-mail, snail-mail, blog comments and postings, flowers and telephone calls. It has been touching and both of us have found ourselves tearing up at the odd moment. A few have asked questions about the ceremony and a few have made lewd suggestions not appropriate to such a solemn occasion. So I thought I would post answers to some of them.

• The ceremony will be held in Joelle's garden - thank god its sunny and warm. Her son, our adopted nephew Andrew, suggested a lovely, shaded area surrounded by hedges - a perfect circle.


• We are a small group - Joelle, Blake - our oldest friend in Ottawa, our best friends Rick and John - who will be our witnesses, my niece Stephanie and Elaine, the Chaplain, make up the human contingent. The rest of the animal kingdom will be represented by our Reesie and Joelle's Riley, Tugger, the cat and two ferrets.


• Yes Reese will be there but not as a ring bearer, as evilganome suggested being a daschie he would probably eat the rings.


• The service is a short Unitarian ceremony Elaine, Laurent and I created and includes much from the Book of Common Prayer. Elaine is the daughter of a former colleague at Air Canada and her father was my Director at Transport Canada - the world is small.


• Our rings are the puzzle rings we bought in the Khan in Cairo in 1989 and have worn ever since. Laurent's is gold and mine is silver. They cleaned up real nice.


• Rick is reading the traditional passage from St Paul's letter to the Corinthians however as much as I love the language of the King James version the translation of caritas as charity rather than love has always bothered me so he will be reading a modern translation.


• Though we are not having flowers as such - no bouquets etc - we are bringing a beautiful arrangement Deb and James sent us from England and exquisite roses given to us by Molly and Dave over to adorn the table for the champagne after.


• We are having a small wedding cake after the service with champagne sent to us by Deb and James, Maria and Gordon and my colleagues at Transport Canada.


• There will be a small wedding supper at a local Bistro later this evening.


• And yes I did see my intended after midnight last night and in his usual spot - pillow on the right side.

At the beginning of the ceremony Laurent and I will be lighting a candle together. That candle is meant to represent our friends, family and colleagues who cannot be with us. To all of you who have sent us wishes in one form or another - you are part of that flame and you are very much with us in our hearts as we exchange our vows and make our commitment.

This Side Tiber - I :Words of Advise

Well we've started working on the move - so many things to do in the next few months: medicals, inventory, rewriting my CV for the international market, getting the house ready for sale, getting Reesie microchiped and the list goes on. August seems so far away but we really only have four months to get everything done. I will not panic! I will not panic! I will..........PANIC!!!!!

Of course once all the confusion of moving is over we will have the culture shock of adapting to a new way of living. And Laurent and I have to get use to living together again - its been three years except for the odd few weeks once every six months.

Our friends Betty Jean and Stephen will be leaving Rome just as we arrive - cowards, running off to Damascus just to get away from us. But Stephen sent on this little piece of advise:
There are a couple of things that you should be aware of - first, living in Rome is not at all like visiting Rome. It is a Mediterranean country - not at all European. If you put it on a par with Beirut, Damascus or Cairo, you will be OK. Simple things like an ADSL connection - think weeks, months, not days. And the daily shopping is a pain. The Italians put it this way - "the complete confusion is something not to be understood, merely appreciated."


PANIC!!!!!!

Seeing the Sights - Some Not Often Seen

As Laurent's time in Beijing is drawing to a close friends are making that last minute scramble to visit before he leaves. Anna and Luigi were originally scheduled to visit last year but health concerns delayed their trip. Gratia Deo they were able to spend some time this month doing the Beaulieu tour of Beijing and a little freelancing in Xian. And Anna was able to SHOP! Imagine our surprise!

Though it was cold and snowy during their visit it was uncharacteristically clear - the polution in Beijing is, to put it mildy, a major problem. Laurent says that he can only recall seeing the Fragrant Hills that bound the city at the north three or four times in the past three years. Luigi took this shot from the Forbidden City just after a snow and wind storm. On a normal day the buildings in the background would be shrouded in smog and the mountains invisible. This is a sight not often seen.

Not In Memoriam but in my memories

Sadly the upcoming trip means that I will not be able to attend the Memorial gathering for one of my oldest and closest friends, Ryan (Ron) Taylor. For those of us who loved him, his death this past October has meant our world has been diminished.

I met Ryan 31 years ago this summer just past. It was a bright sunny Sunday afternoon and I was walking down the canal in Ottawa whistling a Rossini aria. Suddenly one of the most melodious baritone voices (think Leonard Warren sings Verdi) I had ever heard said: Di tanti palpita - Tancredi. I knew that I had to become friends with anyone who recognized that piece of operatic ephemera.


And friends we became - despite living in different cities, often on different continents. It was the sort of friendship that meant we wouldn't see each other for a year or two but spoke, wrote (he was always better at it than I), or e-mailed once or twice a month. As with all friendships there were periods when a certain coolness developed. I recall a frosty ride on the Underground from Salder's Wells to Baker Street seated at either end of the carriage - the icy glares freezing unsuspecting Londoners in mid-doze over their late-edition Daily Mirrors.

But those periods never lasted very long and were quickly pushed aside by happier events. "The Lad" - as he always called Laurent, Ryan and I in MossBros tuxedoed splendor heading down to Glyndebourne on the afternoon train from Vic Station. Christmas Eve celebrated with family and friends in the McClaren St. apartment under the watchful eye of Queen Alexandria. Ryan avowed that the portrait was an early example of Photoshoping - Alex's head on a Tiller Girl's body. A sunny weekend in Cooperstown, happily combining two of his passions - opera and baseball. The Cracker - that odd mixture of Times Obit, book reviews, books-he-had-read quotes that arrived every Christmas. A surreal vodka-drinking visit to a political cabaret in Krakow - he was the only person I know who would take Polish lessons for a two week visit. Trashing all the singers but our beloved Ewa Podles over late night port and desert after the opera in Toronto. Simply sitting before diner on his last visit in May, listening to and revelling in the most infectiously funny recording of Perichole's drunk aria - in Russian!

A week after learning of his death I watched the first episode of his TV programme, Ancestors in the Attic . I wanted to reach into the TV and hug him for all those wonderful memories then slap him because he had robbed me of experiencing more. A gentle note from his cousin Dayle reminded me that the slap was a selfish reaction and the hug a loving one. Thank you Dayle - you're right, the hugging feels better.

In memoriam:

Dearest R
If you had any faults - and like all of us you did - the greatest was that you did not love yourself enough to realize how much you were loved. You are greatly loved. "The lad" and I miss you.
Your "darling boy"