Bag packed

Everyone I know seems to either have left town or be on his or her way out. I too have just packed my bag, but I'm not going anywhere. My bag contains diapers (both adult and baby sizes), toilet paper, towels, nipple cream and disposable underwear, among many other things, per the list of items the hospital has asked me to bring. I feared that with so many people I know leaving town and with it being Christmas (my eighth in Italy!) time and being nine months pregnant and far away from my family, I would go in crisi. But I'm OK. There's been a lot of stress with finishing up final visits (a two-hour wait just for an EKG at the hospital and I got testy with the technician because she expected me to strip down to the waist in what was basically a public antecamera with no door where my full-frontal toplessness - not to mention my oversized stomach and linea negra - would have been visible to the entire waiting room; I'm not a prude but I'm also a human being and not a slab of meat) and trying to complete all of the bureaucracy for the conservation of the cord blood. I would get frustrated at the fact that public offices and ministries in Rome are open from 9:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. and that their phones are either always busy or ring off the hook, but I can't be bothered. I've entered into "the zone" and I can't let anything get to me right now. I'm not going anywhere but a new adventure is about to begin, and all I want to do is focus on the joy of that.

P.S. I wanted to add that not EVERYONE I know is leaving. If I know you and you are here in Milan, I wasn't saying you don't count (though we are probably busy with our respective family/holiday obligations and won't see each other much anyway - Uffa!). But I do seem to know of an inordinate number of people leaving for exotic and far-off locales this year. Divertitevi!

Holiday observation

As if things weren't "exciting" enough around here health-wise what with my six days of convalescence with the killer cold and flu, I tripped over my computer chair this morning, landing first on my knees and then on my right shoulder and finally somehow on my back. I was in so much pain (thought my shoulder had come out of socket) that at first I didn't even think about whether I had landed on my stomach. I've since been obsessing about it all morning, wondering if somehow my stomach took some abuse in the fall. Seeing as though I have two visibly scraped knees and ended up on my back, I really don't see how that could be possible. I have a call in to my doctor. Let's see what she tells me...In the meantime, I'll distract myself with a blog post.

Our tree is a mix of my childhood ornaments and generic holiday balls. As our family collects more ornaments, the balls will go away.

One thing I find odd here is that despite Italy being so family-oriented and so fixated on doing things "all together," there is no culture (or at least in these parts) of making a big deal of trimming the tree or of even personalizing the tree. The Christmas tree seems to be but a decorative element under which to stash smartly wrapped gifts. That I know of, families don't tend to gather around the tree with hot chocolate and trim it together, taking out treasured ornaments and discussing them one by one. It seems that here, mamma makes fast work of sweeping and mopping a corner of the living room and then throwing up the tree by herself. Ornaments are generic - colored balls in holiday hues or big red ribbons - and serve as mere adornments with no sentimental value attached.

An ornament I painted as a very small child. No, the photo isn't blurry. I was never good at arts and crafts.

I didn't grow up with The Waltons or anything, but I do remember the trimming of the tree as being a special occasion. We even had hot chocolate and some years strung popcorn and cranberries. My brother and I each had a box of ornaments that we'd been collecting over the years - things we'd made at school, special ornaments given to us by family members, mementoes picked up on vacation - and we'd take them out and do the whole "Remember the time...?" thing. This is a tradition I've started with Cristiano, and a couple of years ago, I brought over my box of ornaments (carry-on on the plane just to be safe) so that we could have somewhat of a personalized tree here. We've also begun to collect our own "family" ornaments.

One of the few ornaments Cristiano and I have together. A memento of a trip we took a few summers ago.

Being American, I'm so used to repeatedly hearing the phrases "You just don't have the history..." or "You just don't have the tradition..." that I took a small amount of pleasure this weekend in correcting Cristiano on his tree trimming skills (hello, the lights go on before the ornaments!) with "You just don't have the tradition of doing this." Score one for those traditionless Americans! Plus, we do festive family holiday cards!

Speaking of Christmas, the priest is coming to the house to bless it tonight. I just got the notice in the mail with a little envelope in case I want to give a donation to the church. I usually answer the door and say right away "Buonasera. Prego, prego but I should tell you that I'm not Catholic and my husband is not very devout..." and he typically nods and blesses the house anyway. And I typically give him money anyway. Hey, after eight years, I do have some traditions here!

Product plug

Despite this past weekend being a big holiday weekend here and despite all of my fantastic plans for visiting the various Christmas markets (which have all since ended, sigh...), I spent this past weekend on my death bed with a horrible flu/cold/fever combination. I've been really sick since Thursday night. Being nine months pregnant, there's not a lot I can take to combat this evil. I've rested a lot but actually slept very little because I feel like one big uncomfortable congested and feverish lump. What I wouldn't give to just whip out the TheraFlu brought back from trips to the U.S. and allow myself the pleasure of one night of drugged slumber. Cristiano went to the pharmacy to get me cough drops and was told I couldn't even take those! I've been gargling salt water and drinking hot lemon water for days with lame results.

Around noon today, I remembered that upon staying in a hotel at the Terme di Sirmione, we were given some "Acqua di Sirmione" (bad literal translation from the Italian - they call mucous "catarrh," for example - but I provide the link nonetheless) from the thermal springs as a departing gift, so I dug it out from under the bathroom sink. Sirmione is a beautiful walled town about an hour from here that is famous for its healing waters. It is probably my favorite quick escape from Milan. I remembered that the Acqua di Sirmione could be inhaled or put into the aerosol nebulizer machine that every Italian home seems to have here. Well, at least everyone in Milan (with the smog being such as it is; I have friends who inhale salt water in the nebulizer daily before heading out into traffic on their motorbikes just for good measure...) seems to have one on hand. Anyway, a few squirts of this magical sulfur water in each nostril and I feel human again! If you have access to an Italian pharmacy and are looking for an all-natural cold and nasal congestion remedy, I highly recommend it. My throat even feels better. It'll set you back about 10 Euros, but you get six mini bottles of the water. Well worth it, in my book, for some much-needed relief. It can be used for babies as well, so I'll be stocking up...

A year in the life

I was going to reflect on my year of blogging, but I'm not really sure if that would be of much interest to anyone. I will say that in reading others' blogs, I've been really impressed with how they've added interactive elements, gone out of their way to drum up reader participation and even begun to use their blogs to make money. I've never really done any of those things because I didn't want to stray from my original intent, which was just to have a place where I could write exactly what I thought without being censored or influenced by anyone. I've been writing professionally for almost 15 years now, and I had gotten very tired of always having to answer to someone else. I really just wanted to be able to write in a very stream-of-consciousness way without thinking too much about it and without an editor. I never really set out to get so personal, to tackle so many "controversial" topics or to make this a place where I rail against things I don't like in Italy.

But the beginning of this blog coincided with what was to be a turning-point year for me in the old Belpaese. I lost my job. I began working from home. I got pregnant. Lo zio died. It was a year in which I stopped saying "I'm fine here" and started thinking that I wouldn't mind moving home in the not-too-distant future, even if it will mean major reverse culture shock. This was my life and thus this is what I ended up discussing on my blog whether it was of interest to anyone else or not. I come from the "write what you know" school, and it would have been very difficult for me to put all of those things out of my mind to write up a biscotti recipe or something. Which isn't to say I don't like biscotti or recipes. I do, and I enjoy reading about those things on other people's blogs. But that's just not what I set out to do here in this particular forum, and I stubbornly didn't want to follow anyone else's model. I've been writing for others for too long, and I wanted to write for myself even if I was discussing the most mundane topics of my everyday life here.

A few weeks ago my in-laws asked to see my blog, and I told them I'd prefer they didn't read it! Actually, they don't know English, so they wouldn't get too far anyway, but the thing is that the topics I tackle on my blog, I rarely talk about in my "real life" here. Most of my time is spent with Italians, and while I never mask my true feelings about living here, I also don't go out of my way to air my grievances either. That just gets obnoxious. Most Italians know what the problems are in their country, and they don't need some foreigner telling them "how it is." When asked for my opinion, I don’t hesitate to give it. But there are certain topics I wouldn’t bring up on my own. Well, except here, on my blog.

What would Walt say?

A few weeks ago I had to take a streptococcus test at the hospital. While the results were ready this past Friday, I have not had the time to make a special trip to the hospital to go pick them up. Here the only way to get results for your medical exams is to go in person and wait in line for them. Today I had my prenatal class at the hospital so I "popped by" (or I thought it would only be a matter of "popping by") after class to get my exam results. There were three windows open for picking up test results, but after taking my number, I realized I had 60 people ahead of me! I marveled at the fact that there were three full-time employees (the windows are open from 8:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m.) being paid to give out test results all day long. In the U.S., I took tests directly in my doctor's office and she always called me personally to give me the results when they were in. I understand that a large proportion of the Italian population is elderly and does not use the Internet, but there just has to be a better way. Perhaps a code system whereby you call in, give your secret number and get your results. Or, yes, even a secure Internet-based system for those with access.

I noticed people with canes and people in wheelchairs all waiting impatiently just to pick up an X-ray or a little slip of paper. The fact that one has to make a special trip to the hospital, pay to park and walk, hobble or be wheeled the 15 minutes to the inner depths of the place just to pick up test results strikes me as being ridiculously inefficient. But my whole pregnancy has been like this, and I go through this weekly and would have never found it blog-worthy had I not later talked to a friend in the U.S. whose wife is a nurse.

While talking about our impressions of how the U.S. presidential campaign is going so far and, specifically, how we think the health-care issue is being tackled, he mentioned that his wife's boss is requiring her to read The Disney Way for work! I give you the book-jacket description: "In this book, you'll learn how to: Give every member of your organization the chance to dream, and tap into the creativity those dreams embody; Treat your customers like guests; Build long-term relationships with key suppliers and partners; Dare to take calculated risks in order to bring innovative ideas to fruition; Align long-term vision with short-term execution. And more. No fairy dust. No magic wands. No wishing on a star. Just sound, effective management principles that stem from Walt Disney's values, vision, and philosophy." While I think it is absurd that nurses and doctors would be required to read such a hokey marketing bestseller in order to offer better "customer service," the contrast with what I see here where the words "efficiency" or even "bedside manner" are all but inexistent was just too much.