topotales

snow falls on our home:
white quiets even my sigh.
warm chimney-smoke curls.

At least three times in the past two weeks, Pnut and I have been driving along and I’ve started shouting

“DEER!  DEER!  DEER!”

while my foot pumps the airbrake on the passenger side, and my hands brace for impact.  Paolo looks at me sideways, a bit stunned and confused as to why I am yelling en-deer-ments at him.  Then it dawns on him that - indeed - there are large, white-tailed, warm-blooded animals not too far in front of the car and he brakes.

Chicago can teach one to avoid muggers, Venice can teach one to avoid poor quality fish.  Deer are something altogether new for both of us.

As Pnut said yesterday, “I still find it strange that wild animals just prance around, clippity-clop, in the streets, and in our back yard!”.

Clippity-clop, strange indeed.  Here is the view from our back deck at least once a day (if you count four, you’re correct, and there are another three out of frame):

And when we’re not fascinated by the wildlife, we are awed by the pastimes in our neighborhood. After watching, drop-jawed, the whole of our town on the lake last Saturday, ice-fishing and riding snow-mobiles, Pnut decided to get brave.  What you see here is precisely as far as either of us got.  It’s about one hundred yards from our front door.  I’m safely behind the camera, on solid ground in case you didn’t guess.  Charlie, I think, wanted to go with his dad but I had visions of myself sliding behind him with a couple of broken legs while he dragged me across the lake.

Pnut has been thoroughly enjoying his xpat experience so far.  Last night at dinner, he comes out with these little gems:

P: So I was thinking how funny things can be when you translate them from Italian to English.  Like in Italian when we say “va cagare” [fuck off], you could say “vaca gare” which in English would mean cow races.

T: (blink, blink)

P: Oh, and do you know why all the Italians in New York are named Tony?

T: (blink, blink) Uh, … no?

P: Because it’s spelled TO - NY.  Get it?  To… NY?  ha ha ha ha ha

T: I think I’m gonna need another glass of wine.

Last weekend, I taught Pnut how to make an anglers cast in our backyard with a fly-fishing rod.  This weekend, we went and bought our state fishing licenses and headed off to a four-season area listed in our fishing guidebook for NJ.  Pnut has done plenty of fishing of his own.  After all, no Venetian islander hasn’t searched for cozze on the beach, sold buckets of mussels to tourists, dunked their hands for eels or dived in the lagoon to spear something.  But watching Pnut discover fly-fishing has been a lot of fun.

I gave him just a teensy bit of advice on his first cast (listen closely to my instructions):

And about two minutes later, this is what he caught:

What you can’t hear Paolo telling me is that the branch is “like a fly cemetery”.  Our little nymph may rest in peace with a nice view of the river and all the fish that shall never have a chance to bite it.

I was pretty much done for the day after this (did you see the SNOW?), and sat in the car with the heat on full blast for another two hours or so while Paolo embedded a few more flies in a few more trees.  And rocks.  And bushes.  When he returned to the car his face was flushed and he was elated.  He hadn’t caught anything we could take home, except Angling Fever.

Fly-fishing doesn’t seem to be a sport with any beginner’s luck quotient, but we did catch this beautiful sunset on our drive home.

sunset

AKA, the post wherein it is revealed that living half one’s life abroad does not make one cool.  But in fact does encourage one to think about the strangest nuances in life.  And wherein I prove once and for all that - alas -I am not eurochic.

Here are some mental readjustments and silly anecdotes from the last month as we adjust to life in America and I experience the prickling sense that I no longer belong.

1A.   Eating and restaurants.  Yesterday, I ordered steak.  Pnut said “Remember when we first used to go to dinner, how you’d cut the the steak up into tiny pieces first, then eat?”.  Yes, like a little child.  Because American diners do this thing that makes them immediately recognizable anywhere: we cut with fork in left hand, knife in right hand.  Then, we lay the knife down and put the fork (tongs up) in our right hand and pick up our food.  Europeans keep the fork (tongs down) in their left hand, knife in right at all times.  They spear the meat and then somehow push veggies, potatoes, or whatever else is on their plate on top of the meat and balance the whole lot to the mouth.  This is a skill that takes several years to master.  However, it is a skill that will allow you to eat dinner peacefully with your European friends, so that they don’t feel compelled to stare, hypnotized, as you juggle your fork from hand to hand.  Fuck.  Do I have to unlearn it now?

1B.  Thank you, god, I will no longer have to act like cutting up a sandwich or hamburger is normal!!!

1C.  Free coffee refills? (Ok, it’s not real coffee, but still, it’s free?).  Free soda refills?  Are you kidding me?  Perhaps I’ve died and gone to caffeine heaven.  And free water?  Really, it’s free?!

1D.  Yes please, a doggie bag.  And you won’t give me the evil eyes?  Even better.

2.  Banking.  I went to the bank.  On a Saturday.  Without an appointment.  They took my money in a friendly fashion.  Belgian bankers, take note!  If you are nice, you get more money.  If somebody wants to give you money, they shouldn’t need an appointment to do so.  And if you are open on Saturdays, it gives you a chance to get even MORE money!

2B.  Uh, somebody please remind me how to write a check so I can teach Pnut?

3.  Social Decorum.  I stand walk down a quiet street, a passerby says “Hiya”.  I stand in a queue and a fellow queuee starts up a conversation about the weather.  I sit at a bar and the guy next to me says “howya doin’”.  Pnut and I go hiking and people we pass say “goodmornin’”.  We go to stores, restaurants, businesses and get friendly service.  I feel like taking all of these strangers faces in my hands and kissing them on the lips.  Thank you Americans, for being NICE.  It may be fake, but it’s just NICE to be NICE.

4.  Language.  Two weeks ago, we went to Burger King.  Paolo looked at the menu, and and asked the woman behind the register: “Uh, yes madam, could I please have a whooper?”.  “You mean a Whopper?” she replied.  “Yes madam, a whooper”.  Then she looked at me, I looked at her, and we both cracked up.  Why does whooper sound like something sexual when an Italian says it?  What is a whooper, anyway?

4B.  My mom and dad took a short holiday from Nashville, where they currently live, and went to Chatanooga for a weekend.  I tried to call my mom’s mobile a few times, but she didn’t pick up.  Paolo’s analysis?  “They must be doing plenty of Yankee-panky”.  When I finally reached my mom, she said “Tell him this is the South, no Yankee-panky here, just hanky-panky”.  “Oh,” said Paolo, “did I say it wrong?”.

5.  Fashion.  At the Grand Place in Brussels, Americans can generally be spotted by their flip-flop wearing ways.  The white-sneakers, of course, are a true give-away as well, but no self-respecting European would dream to wear flip-flops in public.  There being snow on the ground here in Jersey, I haven’t seen any flip-flops yet.  But I have noticed the new fashion in wearing house-slippers in public.  Finally, fashion has caught up to me.  I fully intend to parade around Venice in my houseslippers when we go back for a visit this year.

Did I mention?  I’m in a great mood!  As a matter of fact, I’m… HOOKED ON A FEELING!

Is it real, you wonder?  Why, yes.  It’s The Hasselhoff.  Be afraid.  Be very, very afraid.  And be sure to attend Oktoberfest in Germany next year (he’s always performing there) if you wanna hear the follow-up.

Tiffany, this one goes out to you and Andrew…

It has been hard to start writing again.  To revisit these pages so full of the sordid anguish and heartache of the past year and a half.  It’s not something I ever want to see again, or think about.  My friend Kye once told me that people have these “star-crossed” years in their lives where everything falls apart.  Like an acid coccoon that eats away at your self so that you must emerge a different creature.  I’ve clung to that bit of hope for a long time, but I’ve been hesitant to call the year “over”.  Yesterday I talked to Kye for the first time in over five yeras.  Is it a sign?  It feels so good to have real, true friends in my life again.  So let me declare now the Shitty Year of All Fucking Shit, as it will hereafter be referred to, as OVER.  Or rather, that I am over it.  Whichever.

The important thing is, I am here and Pnut is here.  My mom, dad, my brother and his wife are all doing well.

Jersey?? You ask?  Happily, one of the most under-rated places I have ever been.  Most people think of the Interstate from here to NY.  Truly, I am in agreement.  It is disgusting.  Dirty, full of gutted dead deer and other indistinguishable animal (I hope) remains, traffic backed up for miles and miles, overrun by shopping plazas and strip malls, and thoroughly depressing in that solely Amerikana fashion.  But take an exit, my friend, and you are in small lakeside villages, rolling hills, farmlands and provincial areas where the “townies” hang out in their local pubs, and everybody will tell you exactly what they’re thinking without hesitation.

We didn’t get the house in Dover-Rico, but we are almost finished with the purchase of a beautiful log cabin in the borough of Hopatcong.  It’s one of those cabins that used to be a vacation home, built in the early 1900’s.  Knotty pine walls and a loft space with a bathroom that forces your knees into your ears as you seat yourself upon the throne.  But Pnut and I are used to living small, and we like a space with little privacy so that when our friends are in our home, we can enjoy them as much as possible.  The previous owner fed deer from the deck in back, so there are four-legged visitors a few times per week.  The largest lake in NJ is just a few houses away.  And we’re close to the Gunks… even closer than we were to Fontainebleau from Brussels!

As for school… I am applying.  I am gathering immunization records, SAT and ACT scores from almost a score years ago, transcripts and other odds and ends of paperwork that trail you for the whole of your life though you can never locate them without serious excavation work.  And I hope to start for this spring semester, though it seems unlikely given the timing.  Pnut and I are already planning our visit back to Europe, and our belated honeymoon to either Argentina or Chile later this year.

So it is with some trepidation, but not much, that we start this new life in America.  Once again with just a few suitcases of posessions, but books in transit.  With each other.  And like most people moving to this country - with many hopes and dreams for the coming years.

Spider sang this song (E ti Vengo a Cercare) for us at our wedding in VDM.  It is one of my favorites.  The Battiato version is the original, but this CSI version that holds sticky in my throat and breast.