Charmed, Charmed Life… (Thanks Diana for the music!)

Date: January 22, 2009

Yay! Finally, some photos!


Mom, Dad, Ashley, Monty and I the day I left for Italy.


This is one of the many cats that hang around the house. I forget her name, but she is very very old. Alice says she is about 8 years old.


This is Micchi. She is so sweet, and has these short stubby legs and a rotund sturdy body. So sweet. She comes in the house when it is rainy and sits next to Alice on the sofa. She is by far my favorite so far.


Finally, the sun poked its head out of the clouds for a few hours!

This morning a silverfish wormed its way into the box where I keep my socks and underwear. I was horrified, truly. I was so upset, I thought about going to ask Alice if it was normal to have such a bug problem, or if it was my room. I was really freaked out and shook everything vigorously before putting it on, hoping there were no little hosts in my clothes. When I went downstairs for breakfast I was almost about to tell Alice what had happened when Elia found a spider hanging off of his high chair. I showed Alice what he was pointing at, and she proceeded to grab the spider by the string, amazingly it did not go berserk when she moved him like the spiders in America, and opened a window, putting him outside. I knew then that the bug thing is normal here, but I can tell you if I catch one of those varmints in my room they are dead. I don’t do the bug thing.
Breakfast consisted of a cup of “Muller” vanilla yogurt (surprisingly very vanilla-y and good), a small glass of milk, 4 gluten free and honey sweetened cookies (a new favorite of mine), and a small palm full of blackberries.
Alice finally got her dishwasher fixed and returned to her, and it was nice to be able to just rinse all of the breakfast dishes, instead of doing all the cleaning by hand. After I cleaned up the kitchen from mine, Alice and Elia’s breakfast, I did my first load of Italian laundry. Their washers are front loaders and very small so Alice does everyone’s clothes just about every day to keep the laundry at a manageable level. Since it is too cold and wet outside for the clothes to dry, Alice puts everything on this self standing metal clothing rack in front of the potbelly fireplace and the furnace. Afterwards, Alice said she thought it was a good idea to take a walk since the sun did manage to poke its face out of the fog this morning. So, she dressed Elia, and then herself. She said that I could go with them, but I opted out. First of all, it gave her some time to be alone with Elia, and second, it gave me some time to be alone, well at least for about fifteen minutes. While they were gone I took the vacuum up to my room and when twice over my wooden floor hoping to exterminate the homes of any hosts living in my room. The Italians might take the time to save a spider, but this Texas draws a line in the sand. I wouldn’t care if the critters were just outdoors, but in my room (especially on my bed) is crossing the line and most likely leads to fatality.
When Alice came back she decided to make some lunch; pasta with zucchini and pancetta. Oh my goodness! This pasta was so good I wished she had made enough for seconds! The recipe will be at the end of the blog! We are having more and more trouble getting Elia to eat. Well, I think they have a lot of trouble with him. He is a sweet boy, but a little spoiled, which I suppose is natural for an only child. Anyway, he nearly screamed for the entirety of lunch. Here is the deal. He wants someone to feed him, and Alice wants him to learn to eat with a fork and spoon on his own. Well, to combat this he screams and screams and puts his dirty hands into Alice’s food and she ends up letting him he her food while he sits on her lap. This was also a major problem at dinner, and afterwards Alice and I sat talking about it. She asked me what I thought of the situation. She said that she did not know if it was better to take away a plate of food that he will not eat by himself, or to force him to eat what is on his plate by himself. I told her that I was a very bad child when it came to eating, and recalled for her all the things mom use to do to try to get me to eat my vegetables, and taste new things. There are many things to try, and Alice has a lot of things that she wants to work with Elia on. For instance, he has is this sort of high chair, but stands up and reaches across the table when he wants something. Alice does not like this, she says he needs to stay seated and not get up like that during dinner. She wants him to not bring his toys into the kitchen, etc. I told her that I could accomplish all of this so long as she, Alfonso, and I were all together, and that it was okay for me to discipline him. She seemed really happy that I was up to the task, and I felt like I knew more where I stood in the family. I mean, everyone feels odd about disciplining another person’s child.
After dinner, there was quite an event; Elia said his first English word: “Green”. At first, Alice did not hear him, and I tried to get him to say it for her, but of course, once there was a show, he clammed up. She went back into the kitchen, listening, and pretty soon after he said ‘green’ once again. Then when Alfonso came back in from walking Luna, he said it again. They were all pretty excited; myself included, and were finding green things to point to. Maybe tomorrow we will work on ‘Blue’. After this event, it was time for him to go to bed, and Alice said that I should practice putting him to bed alone because it would be necessary for me to do once the restaurant was open. Everything went smoothly, except when I finally put him in bed (he cried for his mother), but was calmed by my quiet singing of ‘You Are My Sunshine’. However, when I came back into the living room, Alice was sobbing. I mean, crying like there was no tomorrow. I felt bad, and also a little awkward. She said that she was happy that he would go to sleep with just me, but her favorite time with Elia was putting him to bed. I hugged her on my way to bed, asking if she was okay, and she said she was fine. Of course, I know now how special naptime and bedtime are for her, and when she can, I am going to let her do it. I certainly would not want to rob her of that time with him.
Tomorrow it is suppose to be raining again, but at least I will be going to get an Italian cell phone, and possibly some art supplies. Other than that, the day is open, and it will be my first time alone with Elia when Alice and Alfonso are at work. Cross your fingers and wish me luck!!

Fusilli with Zucchini and Pancetta

2 cups (approx) dry Fusilli pasta

1 Small Zucchini cut down the middle and then finely sliced by hand

1 cup diced Pancetta

½ a small onion

4 tbs Olive oil

Grated Parmesan Cheese

In a skillet on medium high heat, add about 2 tbs of Olive Oil and the onion. Cook until soft. Begin boiling the water for the pasta, and when ready add the pasta to the pot and cook according to the directions on the box. Then add a little more olive oil to the pan with the onions and throw in the pancetta. Cook until done and lightly golden (maybe five to seven minutes?), then add the zucchini and cook until soft. Once done remove the skillet from heat, and turn the flame down to low. Strain the pasta, and lightly shake out some of the excess water (you want a little water left in the pasta so it will create a kind of sauce), and pour the pasta into the skillet. Put back on low heat and mix the two together well. Serve with grated Parmesan cheese on top.

This is a really good dish, so I hope you like it!