If not now, when?

One American woman. Twenty acres and a 1650 farmhouse in Tuscany. Random introspection and hilarity, depending on the day.

27 April 2005

No turning back now...

$1000 and a mouseclick later, I've got the ticket: May 18th I'm outta here. Whew. Deep breaths... 22 days!

As it's turning out, the adventure is mostly in the getting there. I'm giving up my beloved United Airlines in order to switch loyalty to Delta (coupled with the requisite begging them to honor my premier status for the year while I prove my loyalty to them. Wish I could have gotten around it, but with Alitalia and AirFrance as partners, Delta really was the only way to go. Plus, as one of the few of the 'big six' not having declared bankruptcy yet, seems a comparatively safe bet. So, I leave on the 18th but I'm not actually flying into Rome, I'm flying into Nice -- where I have to pick up the leased car. This handy trick will cost me an additional 2 1/2 hours of driving, but will save me $550 over the life of the lease... (I have to pick it up in France or pay a 'drop charge' since it's a French govt. subsidy tourism promotion program, pretty interesting actually - www.europebycar.com - long term leases for tourists, business travelers.) It comes out to about $650 a month, gulp!, for a car with all the taxes, registration, insurance, etc etc etc - I figure I'll do this for the first 6 months and go from there. The office is offsetting a piece of the costs, since I would have had to rent a car anyhow for the tour management stuff, so that helps soften the blow a bit. After that, I'm sure I'll buy something - but need to have something to drive when I hit the ground. Self sufficiency is key, especially in the early days.

I head back to the Italian Embassy on Friday to figure out what advice they have about who I need to talk to in Italy to try to get the labor ministry or whoever to bless the deal so I can come BACK here with the stamps, forms, whatever -- to get the official visa after the first trip once I have run the gauntlet of bureaucracy over there. Yeesh.

After the first emotional rush of it all, getting rid of the STUFF at the house is proving much easier than I thought. Momma's gonna have one heck of a yard sale (or rather a 'giveaway to anyone at the office who needs stuff') the first weekend in May, which will hopefully clean me out. Yee-haw. Unencumbrance - while initially scary - is a pretty alluring feeling!

Off and running now for drinks with friends, which is becoming a nearly daily occurance on the 'farewell tour' this month. Bad for waistline, good for emotional stability. It's really gratifying to look at the life I've built here over 12 years. Will be tough to leave, but even harder to stay with this opportunity sitting in my lap.

17 April 2005

Hold on to your wallets, kiddos!

News from The Diplomat yesterday that the satellite internet connection will cost 3,000 Euros to get installed and 175 Euro a month for service. Whew, baby! Add to that the fact that gas costs something resembling 5 Euro a gallon, and multiply all that by the current abysmal 1.35 exchange rate and it doesn't take Greenspan to figure out that this might not be the year to give up a significant % of my salary to move to Italy...! Aaaah, but you can't take it with you, so why the heck not??? Vow of poverty, etc etc.

Speaking of vow of poverty, it hit me all in one fell swoop this weekend that - gulp - it makes no sense whatsoever to spend $180 a month on a storage space for all the accumulated debris of a life. So have begun in earnest the sort-donate-sell process (yeeehaw, everyone loves a garage sale.) Then of course, you hit those weird 'what do I do with THAT?!?' things. Current winners in that category:
  • My ratty, well-loved green and white checkered baby blanket and teddy bear
  • The mag-cover-worthy wedding pic of me and the Ex. (who ever thought 8 x 12 was a good idea?!? Good god, don't ever get married when you're 23 and stupid. There oughta be a law.)
  • Junior high school yearbooks (I would spend $$ never to see those pics of me again, but somehow, I can't bring myself to toss 'em.)
Back to the boxes. Gonna be a mother of a garage sale next month: Stuff from my life, make your best offer...

15 April 2005

An off key humming

Tonight is definitely angst-filled. It's not doubt about any of this, although I did have moments today where I said to myself, 'Self, what ARE you doing?!?!', but it's definitely THERE. Do you ever have those days where things just seem to not vibrate at the right level? When things just seem a little, well, 'off' - (like those dumb cloudy-then-clear Claritin commercials?). Today was one of those days. Maybe it's nerves about going to the Embassy tomorrow. So many people think I'm confident and well spoken and self-assured (and I am mostly), but things like foreign authorities still fill me with a sense of dread. Like in one fell swoop they could make this not happen (which, indeed, they could: the giant game of dominoes that I've worked so hard on and someone casually sneezes on.) Though I think I've got my duckies in the proverbial row...


  • Notarized letter from me asking for the visa
  • Notarized letter from the employer asking for the visa (visto per lavoro con retribuito di compagnia esterna), or so I think ...
  • The new-and-improved passport valid 'til 2015 in hand (bonus: MUCH better pic!), thanks to the Washington Passport Agency and $127 (god bless capitalism, eh?)
  • Codice Fiscale
  • Letter testifying that I've got health insurance
  • $65.20 in exact change to offer for my national visa application

... but I'm COMPLETELY 100% certain that they'll send me back needing something else. Whatever that 'something' is, it is more than likely that I will have to get it when I am in Italy at the end of may, which wouldn't be the end of the world, but is definitely even MORE intimidating - meaning I need to find on my own whatever agency, etc., there to jump through bureaucratic hoops with in a different language. Admittedly, the thought makes me sweat a little!

Although, on the upside, I got a lovely note today from Beatrice, all in Italian, which I understood perfectly. The Diplomat (who went strangely quiet all of a sudden after the last trip, adding to my neurosis) also sent a note mentioning that he's arranging for the satellite internet, which is great news. He finally heard that he'll be posted to Cairo, which I feel bad about - he really was hoping for Warsaw. He also mentioned that I might be solo when I get there in May, as he'll be in Ottawa, which adds to the 'whew- talk about no safety net!' feeling....

Although, in all of this, it seems that is a crazy small world. This blog ... The View from Il Loggino -- that I stumbled across is from a woman in a similar situation, moving to the Val d' Orcia, is Of course, that serves to make me even MORE nervous (she mentions FBI fingerprints?!?! geez... )
Okay, enough neurosis for one night. Deep breath. One step at a time.

10 April 2005

Totally Worthy Washingtoniana

Today - a lazy Sunday, picture-perfect blue sky with just a few wispy clouds, sunshine, pre-mosquito season, exactly 68 degrees with just a hint of breeze every now and again - is the day that EVERYONE wants to live in Washington D.C. Today is the day that I will miss desperately during rainy, cold, dreary days which are apparently legendary during the Tuscan winters.

Now, I have lived in Washington for more than 10 years, and days like this (especially falling on a weekend!) are not completely freakishly rare, but are certainly infrequent and unpredictable enough to be cherished (like fragile and breakable things - nod to Mary). In an average year, I can remember perhaps a dozen such days, and I'd like to think today was a special gift from the weather gods just for me, knowing that I'm leaving.

Today, Blossom and I (no comments from the Peanut Gallery - he chose his own name!) set off to fight the tourist throngs and take a Whole-Foods picnic down to the Tidal Basin. SPECTACULAR! We got rock star parking and walked past the movie-set Lincoln Memorial / Reflecting Pool. Found the perfect and surprisingly quiet spot to spread out in the dappled sunshine (now there's a seldom-used word) beneath the blossoms with a view of the Monument, with shockingly few annoying children in the vicinity. Had a perfectly civilized picnic of edamame, chevre with fig sauce, shrimp, fresh asparagus, tomato and mozzarella salad, and (my new favorite product improvement), little cans of Sofia champagne (really, you should try them - juice boxes for grownups!)


Now THIS is the way I'd like to remember DC! Credit to Blossom the artist for a fantabulous photo...

Fought off one, albeit fleeting, pang of guilt about the project needin' done this afternoon. Perhaps I'm already transitioning to the more sane pace of la bella vita Italiana?

Forse... penso che mi piace! (Perhaps, and I think I like it!)

09 April 2005

One more thing....

.... On the list of things to be missed when I'm not in DC anymore. Gotta love the Wonkette!

Don't try this at home, kids: I'm a professional

Whew, baby. Pangs of moving angst started to set in tonight as I contemplated the gargantuan list of things that are needin' doin' in the THIRTY THREE DAYS that remain for me in this city before my sassy behind is on a plane to Rome. Sheesh - be careful what you wish for is right... Tell the rest of the extended family I'm leavin'. Schedule freight shipment. Passport. Visa. Car. Tour promotions. Order storage space. Decide what I'm doing with condo. Put life's possessions into categories:

keep in storage
perfect excuse to trash or sell
why on EARTH do I still have that (mamma ain't seen size 6 since the early 90's...)
pack for freight shipment
pack in 2 suitcases not weighing more than 70 lbs. (saw off the toothbrush handles?!?!)

I live in exactly 625 square feet but somehow this seems daunting. And yet more on the to-do list: address change? Discuss tax implications of all this. CYA Power of attorney for condo closing. New eyeglasses. Switch bank accounts. Pull together a 'ciao for now' party. Finish technology planning (bless the Doc for mostly taking this part off my list for the moment. I'm sure we'll hit the 'oh,shit' point sometime, but for now its going swimmingly and I don't need to borrow trouble from tomorrow). In part I'm avoiding it because I hate the idea of living in boxed chaos for the next month, but if I leave it all to the last minute, I'll kill myself. This is like all those term papers I always knew I *should* do in advance but still put off 'til it meant pulling an all nighter. But I'm SURE I'm more disciplined now that I'm all grown up, right? (hah!) Deep breath. Eat the elephant one bite at a time.

It's worthy of glorious, sing-from-the-rooftops mention that on the work front, Capt. Silver Fox and Bald Eagle are being amazingly, pinch-me-i-must-be-dreaming supportive, as I was reminded today signing and notarizing the visa requests. I'm so committed to make this work, in part because I don't want them to have taken this leap with me and be wrong. I've made all sorts of peace with the possbility that this is a huge crazy laugh when you look back on it folly of mine, but it would kill me to let THEM down. And they believe in me, they really do. (they like me, they really like me!) Have I mentioned that I have the best job in the WORLD? Okay, perky princess glittertoes, back to reality now... and resolving to make a major dent in at least one of the aforementioned issues this weekend, even despite the smashing cherryblossom weather. Thankfully, ND(BT!) is working this weekend, or it would be all too easy to find reasons to avoid the mountain of work ahead.

Aaaah, the perfect excuse to use my favorite double Italian entendre ("do-able"): Si puo fare! (pronounced: see pwoh far-ay). That's it for today, kiddlies. Buona notte.

07 April 2005

The Pope, Colin Powell, and Moments

When Mom and I were in Italy in 1999 (I think it was her first trip to Europe if I'm not mistaken?), we walked through Vatican City and she commented how wonderful it would be to be able to know what it was all like when St. Peters' Square and all the surrounding buildings were televised when a new Pope is elected in the future. Five and a half years later, here it all is. ... though it feels even closer, now that Rome (FCO, in airport code language says she the travel dork) is my home airport. Quite a rush.

A part of me is wishing I was there as it all plays out, if only that I would be fascinated to see the spin on their TV coverage, but the other part of me is greatly relieved to be missing it. 2 million people crushed into a city that is only home to about 1 million in what can only be politely described as an aging infrastructure has got to be an enormous strain on all the resources in the area, roads, surrounding towns, etc. I was there during Holy Week and traffic everywhere was obscene, I can't imagine it today with world leaders and 2 million more bodies...

I've been watching the practically round-the-clock coverage, a bit transfixed (if only for the occasional words in Italian plus the familiar scenery), and I realized today that if I *were* living there, I would be as far from Rome as I could possibly be. Don't get me wrong, the Pope was a great man -- (I'm not a Catholic, so I don't mean to sound like a heretic here, and apologies in advance to anyone I offend), and his passing is certainly a significant historic event (and truthfully, I will do so in my own personal 'marking of time' as well). However, as I realized last night in a truly 'Washington Moment' when I was lucky enough to be eating dinner 10 feet from General Colin Powell and his wife, Alma (after he accepted an award at a dinner I was attending and well-seated at!), I'm ultimately just not a starstruck person. Not a photograph taker or an autograph seeker. So there it is. They put their shoes on one foot at a time just like the next guy, and ultimately what is so much more intriguing to me is discovering the potentially more fascinating story of the life of the person who is relatively unknown.

Enjoy a life of moments, not momentousness.

06 April 2005

Of books and covers

Had lunch today with one of my new favorite people, the Sensitive Rebel. (He'll probably hate his nickname, and there were a thousand others that might have worked equally well, but I'm going with this for the moment. Suggestions welcome. I debated Brilliant Sensitive Rebel Provocateur Onionesque Softie Cultural Commentator, but it seemed a bit, well, much). As I floated out of myself for the moment and looked at us sitting on the sidewalk at Stoney's (a tiny little dive bar in DC where they sell the BEST reuben sandwich I've ever eaten), I saw a coiffed, polished, sunglassed, slightly uptight, perfectly lipsticked, professional-looking woman and a t-shirted, wildly tattooed and a bit pierced, intellectual and quirky yet 'angry youth'-looking man, toasting each other with lukewarm bottles of Miller Lite and sharing sandwiches on a gorgeous spring day.

And I giggled in spite of myself thinking that a 'snap judgement' would have most wondering what the two of us could possibly have in common. (I can hear the party game now -- he's an artist that she's commissioned for something, he's a brother in town for the weekend, he's her dealer, she's his therapist or his lawyer, she owes a friend of his money ... ) All a bit funny and yet the cultural commentary is depressing in its own right. Nope, we're just two people who happened to cross paths in this crazy life who have so much more in common than our seemingly disparate physical images would ever belie.

They say politics make strange bedfellows, but I can't help but think that all the politicians look mostly the same (and by that I tend to mean White, Male, Greyish, Straight, statistically speaking cheating on his wife, usually Christian of some flavor, and power-tied). Those of us out here in real life are so much more interesting, diverse, and -- at least in my experience -- honest. Real. We say 'I'm sorry, I screwed it up' when we do something wrong. Without the benefit of handlers or gatekeepers, we fly off the handle every now and again and have to learn how to articulate our own boundaries, and when to let people in. We say please and thank you when we need something, rather than behaving with a sense of entitlement. We don't believe we're infallible - indeed, we probably spend an inordinate, or certainly an inappropriately disproportionate amount of time worrying we're inadequate.

It's amazing what can happen - what friendships can be found, what truths can be learned, what life experiences can be shared in even the most ordinary moments - when you stop the dangerous and oh-too-quickly-learned habit of making assumptions about people.

05 April 2005

It's the little things

I'm already starting in my head to create a list of things that I'll miss (and NOT!) when I'm not in Washington anymore:

MISS ...
Amazing burgers and spicy fries at Hamburger Mary's
Impromptu martinis at the office
6 choices of Thai restaurants (chicken pad thai, no egg) in walking distance
My beautiful fingernails (sigh!)
Walking down 16th Street towards the White House on a beautiful spring morning
Sunday afternoon at the local bar, where *someone* knows your name (thanks, New Ageist -- yes, your blog nick transfers over!)
More than a dozen free museums I could wander to on a moments notice (not that I *do* of course, but I COULD! -- invoking the spirit of the "sex on the kitchen floor" conversation from When Harry Met Sally, one of the alltime greats...)
The hairstylist that I would give up Boyfriend #1, 2, or 3 for without even blinking.
My very favorite bartender who knows I get the 'big girl glass' (Don't get your panties in a jumble, Sensitive Rebel -- you know you've never been 'a bartender' to me.)
The swankorama loft condo I never got to live in.
Chipotle (Sad but true. Hate that they're owned by McDonalds, but it is what it is -- now can we just convert all the Mickey D's around the world to Chipotles?)
Matt and Katie (sick obsession. I know. I'll miss Matt more than Katie, though.)

NOT to Miss ...
Washington humidity: swampland. Have ya BEEN to DC in August?!?
The drip-drip-drip of the rainspout onto the steel steps out my window
A fireplace that doesn't work
The rat that seems to have nested somewhere near my front yard
High heels when I forget my walking shoes
Tourists standing on the left on the metro escalators
That creepy 'who do you work for and what can you do for me' feeling when someone checks you out when you meet them.
Slimy congressmen and lobbyists who think they are SOOOOOOOO all that. And there are waaaaaaaaay too many to name.
The fact that people look at you like you have horns and a tail if you smile and say hello on the street here (Nope, it ain't Peoria, sweetheart.)
The desperately painful, alarmist,irrational, 'the sky is falling' american-centered national news media.