FuoriBorgo

scarlet fever

The other week, Rebecca got scarlet fever: she woke up not feeling her best, and by evening her ears and throat were aching so much that she wouldn't take a sip of water even though she was running a high fever.  The following afternoon she broke out in a rash.  By then, I'd already heard the doctor's diagnosis.

We've seen illness in this family, and hospitals.  I've seen this child of mine in intensive care struggling to stay alive, and I've seen her through countless sicknesses, to a point where, at times, I feel my whole life revolves around disease.  Yet when the doctor diagnosed scarlet fever, I panicked.  Or almost panicked, because panicking isn't a luxury that mothers of children with chronic disease can indulge in too often, especially me being alone with the kids, and Tom six thousands miles away.  But as the doctor was examining Rebecca, I felt fear rising inside me like an ocean wave, threatening to drown me.

This deep fear came from seeing the tears in my grandmother eyes, each time the subject of her three-year-old daughter came up, who'd died of scarlet fever before my mother was born.  I'd seen the black&white photos of the little girl with wavy fair hair, and looking at them I'd often imagined a scene where the little girl was dying on the sofa in the living room, my grandmother crying, holding her hand and stroking her feverish forehead.

So scarlet fever has always been a fatal disease to me.  Even after Rebecca's doctor had said "Scarlet fever is totally curable!" I still felt that fear deep inside.

Naturally, the doctor was right: 24hrs after starting a course of antibiotics, Rebecca had already improved miraculously - I've never seen a cure work so effectively and rapidly.  I couldn't help thinking of the three-year-old girl in our family's past, Rebecca's great-aunt, who was taken by a disease that my girl shook off in just a day with the help of antibiotics.  I couldn't help hugging my girl tight, and feeling grateful for antibiotics.

And I couldn't help thinking how senseless we are, throwing so carelessly away the good things that man has made: the antibiotics that save lives, and that are now used widely in agriculture creating the perfect breeding environment for "super bugs" - as antibiotic-resistant bacteria are called.  A recent article in the New York Times indicated that for ways to treat super bugs we should consider how infectious diseases were cured once upon a time before antibiotics, and "raid grandma's medicine cabinet".  But first and foremost, why not stop abusing antibiotics to the detriment of our own health?  Because "grandma's medicine cabinet" doesn't always contain a remedy.  Just ask that three-year-old girl with wavy fair hair, who was taken by scarlet fever in 1934.

while at the sewing machine together

"We should really also give her something store-bought," said Rebecca, breaking a long concentration spell during which only the irregular stitch-stiiitch-stitch sound of the sewing machine, which she was learning to operate at a slow speed, could be heard.  

"But why?" I replied. "Nothing we buy could be as precious to your friend as this nightdress you've spent the better part of the morning making for her with your own hands."  I was pleasantly surprised to see that she seemed convinced.

"She's so lucky!", continued Rebecca. 

"Why is that?"  I asked out of politeness - because I also think the birthday girl is very lucky: they live in a house right on the beach, and where their terrace ends, the sand begins.  But Rebecca wasn't thinking house-envy thoughts.

"She's lucky because her hair is long", she explained.  Ah, long hair envy ...  I found my voice of wisdom, and reminded her that she should wear her hair in the style she likes, and not echo someone else's.  Besides, it's not the length of our hair, but what we've got inside, that matters.

"But also, her hair is curly", she went on.  "No, I'm afraid, you can't have natural curls," my voice of experience explained. "When you're older, you might want to try to have your hair permed, but it will never look naturally curly.  It'll look like straight hair that's been permed."  And because she didn't ask the question I feared, "How old do I need to be to have my hair permed?", I concluded with my voice of wisdom: "It's important to learn to accept and be grateful for what you have and who you are."

"And her hair is BLOND!" she finally blurted out.  Well, ...

I told her that her own hair is a beautiful color, the color of ripe chestnuts, the color of her Daddy's and my hair.  I didn't add that at this point in life I too begin to envy blondes, because they don't show white hair as easily!  I didn't tell her, because white hair wasn't what my six-year-old had in mind when she was thinking her blond-hair-envy thoughts.

Then we went back to the sewing machine, and as we sewed our envy evaporated.  And together we made a very special present for the (lucky) birthday girl - together, and by hand.  

Pattern Notes: this is the first time Rebecca really used the sewing machine.  With my guidance, she was able to do all the straight seams and the hems by herself (though naturally, not all the stitching is perfectly straight), and she enjoyed it immensely.  The pattern is a very easy one, and easily adaptable, from my favorite French sewing book, which I've previously made into the original Chemise de Nuit, a summery nighdress, and a blouse as well. 

676 hours in the kitchen

Have you ever calculated how much time you spend on average in your kitchen, cooking meals?  I did the other day, when I heard on the radio that because of the economic crisis, Italians are spending more time in the kitchen: 56 minutes a day during the week, 69 minutes during the weekend.  The research quoted was also gender specific: 11 days a year (264 hours) in the kitchen for Italian women, and 8 days (192 hours) for Italian men.  The first question that came to mind was: where are those Italian men?  I want to meet them!  No, forget it, that isn't the first question that came to mind at all.

The first question that came to mind, actually, was: how long do I spend cooking every day?  Now, the answer is a bit muddled, because "cooking" for me is the time I spend working in the kitchen, and includes not only the food prep but also cleaning up and dish-washing after meals, which quite often take almost as long as the cooking itself (don't get me going on the fact that our kitchen doesn't include that wonderfully useful appliance, the dishwasher!).  Because I'm quite sure that the study in question assumed dishwashers and not the cooks washed the dishes, I've only considered the time I spend preparing meals as "cooking".

On average, I spend at least 1 hour and 40 minutes a day cooking meals for my family on weekdays (about 10 minutes for breakfast, 30 minutes for lunch and 1 hour for dinner), and considerably more during the weekend, when my main baking, food preserving, and fancier cooking take place: let's say 6 hours each weekend.  That works out to be 13 hours a week, or 676 hours - 28.16 days - a year:  over twice as many days as the average Italian woman.  In other words, I spend just under a month a year in the kitchen cooking for my family!

If a month a year spent cooking seems a lot, I reckon that until just a short time ago, I, like many mothers of small children, used to spend even longer, cooking multiple meals: one for the carnivore, one for the vegetarian, one for the child in their picky eating stage (our kids are all reformed picky eaters), a mushy meal for the baby, one for the parents who just liked to eat grown-up hot-spicy foods once in awhile.  And let's not forget those long, interminable winter days spent puttering around the kitchen with bored little ones!  When my children were smaller, I probably spent two months a year cooking.

So I guess I feel lucky: now that my children are older, I've moved up in the culinary world, make one meal for the whole family, and spend only 28.16 days a year cooking!

I cook from scratch, and I could no doubt cut back the kitchen time a lot if I didn't.  However, a part of my role as a parent is teaching my children the value of food, by which I don't mean abstract notions about nutrition (or not only that, anyway), as if meals were collections of chemicals like fuel for a car.  We aren't cars that need to be tanked up with nutrients to keep going.  Instead, I want my kids to see food as nourishment and pleasure for a healthy body and soul: the taste, the variety, the color, the texture, the freshness, the look and the fragrance of the ingredients that we bring in from the garden or choose at the store, and that we make into meals which we enjoy together.  They needn't be gourmet meals, but must be made with quality ingredients.  By showing my children how a meal is an affair for all the senses, to be enjoyed with family and friends, I hope to teach them not to be satisfied in future with the plastic look, the obscure origin and the flat, fake taste of unhealthy ready-made foods that cost a few euros, and take a few minutes to heat up.  Some of the best things in life, including our nourishment, take time and require work. In my case, 676 hours' worth in the kitchen each year.

dancing mice

quando il gatto non c'e'
i topi ballano
*
when the cat's away
the mice dance 
(an Italian proverb) 

In a way that was quite unplanned, when our boy was invited by the national tennis federation to a training camp for selected players these last few days, all the rest of us also ended up taking some special time away from our routine.

Rebecca and I went on a little trip to Milan, where we got together with cousins, aunts and uncles, and where she, as the only visiting grandchild, was pampered and doted on by the nonni.  I got to go to a beautiful and inspiring art exhibition on Amedeo Modigliani and the painters in his Parisian circle, who, at the beginning of the 20th century, created art while often living in utter poverty and alcoholism.  I discovered some new names, and was mesmerized by the haunting French landscapes and Parisian scenes by Maurice Utrillo, as well as by the colorful portraits by Moise Kisling.  Oh, to have access to culture, and to be able to go to an art exhibition at last!  I also lost myself among shelves of fibers in the largest yarn store I've ever been to in this country.  But generally, I just walked miles and miles around a city I love.

Tom and our big boy had several special father-son days, complete with a dinner out, and some late nights spent discussing life while watching a tennis tournament streaming live on the computer, and ... even skipping school one day!  But spending special time one on one with your father is an excellent excuse for missing school, in our opinion.

We're now back together, and back to our normal life at home, but each of us is still a little giddy with all the recent extracurriculars (and we're a little tired too - but happy tired, just like after dancing).

indoors

While it poured outside, we spent a fair amount of time indoors - in the company of one or two, and sometimes three, loads of damp laundry that were having a hard time drying out and returning to their proper place inside the closets.

muffins on Monday

(TypePad is working on solving the problem that several of you are experiencing when trying to leave a comment - sorry for the trouble, it should be fixed soon!)

My absolutely favorite part of the snowstorm this week?  That it came on a Monday - a Monday when health reigned in the family, the kitchen was reasonably well-stocked, the wood pile was high, and schools were closed because of a severe weather alert.  On Monday, thanks to the pre-announced storm, we got to sleep-in.  What a treat!

Ever since the boys started high school, in fact, our weekend has miserably shrunk to one day only, and Saturdays have become regular weekdays when the alarm clock goes off too early, and the race begins to be ready, out the door, and at the Medieval bridge, the high school drop-off point, 15 kilometers away, by 8am.  No matter how old and independent the kids are, how hard we all try to get organized the night before, how early we get up, each morning is a race with frequent reminders: Finish your breakfast!  Hurry up in the bathroom, we all have to use it!  Did you remember to get your laundered thermal tennis undershirt and put it by the fire to dry last night?  Don't forget you cell phones!  Did you pack your snacks?  Feed the cat as you go out!  It's a good thing that we know the drill so well by now, and we can laugh and joke about it (most mornings). Still, there should be a law against school on Saturdays, don't you think?

So the Monday snowstorm gave us back our two-day-weekend, at least this once, and while the blizzard raged out there, grateful to be snowed-in, grateful that we still had our power, and grateful for the chance to sleep-in, at around 8am I cooked muffins for breakfast - not because I like to bake in the morning, but because baking breakfast takes time, and on this exceptionally snowy Monday we finally had some.

Happy weekend (hope you have a proper two-day-weekend in your part of the world!)

pure & dazzling

The day of the snowstorm on Monday, everything was gray, loud and dramatic out there.  You couldn't tell the cloudy sky from the snowy ground, as strong howling winds that made the house creak and squeak blew the falling, drifting snow in big pale swirls all around.

We woke up the day after to an almost eerie silence.  All was quiet, and the world out our windows was pure, dazzling white.  "We have had more winter weather this February than any other month this winter" wrote the Edwardian Lady in her country diary in 1906 - and we too have had more winter weather this February 2013 than in all winter.  But it is February: still wintertime, but the days are longer, the sun is higher in the sky.  It is February snow - the month that derives its meaning from "purify" - and I can take it:  the occasional day when we get snowed in, and all we can do is watch the storm, and then enjoy the brilliant clean snow before it melts. 

(making these super simple crochet mitts, combining the brown color of the soil & the gray of the blizzard)

beginnings and endings

I'm having a hard time beginning the week this Monday.  My heart is not completely in the things I must do, and my thoughts are lost ... somewhere ... maybe in the events and happenings of the last few days.  There have been beginnings and endings, this weekend.  We connected again with friends we hadn't seen in too long, and while we parents chatted and caught up, our four teen boys picked up just where they'd left it the last time we'd gotten together some years back.  Only this time there weren't playing wild-racing-around games, but loud card games and telling jokes to the sound of rock music.  We also lost a friend this weekend, a woman of my age, a mother, a wife, a daughter, a sister.  Sitting in a church full of people during the funeral, it weighed on me that this wasn't the first time I'd hugged a bereaved husband, children and parents. 

And throughout all this, in and out of rooms, in and out of events, a little ballerina flitted about in her new hand-me-down tutu, murmuring the names of ballet moves in French, singing along to Italian children's songs with joy, peace, and passion.

beautiful slush

We got snow this weekend, the first snowfall of this year: announced by many (the doom-saying meteorologists), feared by some (me!), and eagerly awaited by others (my 6-year-old).  Contrary to all expectations, it was a very wet, slushy snowfall: not heavy enough to stop our friends from coming for dinner (in their four-wheel-drive), not dry enough to entice out teen boys (who didn't change out of their pajamas all day long), but nonetheless white and magic enough for my little girl and her Daddy to venture out together in it, play with it, roll on it, eat it.

short

I've been getting used to wearing a shorter hair style.  Last summer, I lost a lot of hair for some reason - so much and for so long that by September my hair was looking thin and wispy.  So, for the first time since moving here thirteen years ago, I went to a local hairdresser.  He rolled out a case with an impressive array of different scissors, choose one, and proceeded to cut a drastic layered style that made my hair look even thinner and wispier, and that months later made my hair stylist in Milan shake her head, and pronounce that the only way to salvage my hair, and give it some "mass", was to cut six inches off. 

I do miss those six inches that, some years back, it took so long to grow.  And I especially miss being able to tie my hair up in a bun, which is how I've worn my longer hair (here).  But hey, now at least I have "mass"!