Very Dangerous

Yesterday was very dangerous.  The night before, I had just moved into a new apartment and unpacked.  I stayed up until 4:00 AM reading a Grisham novel, and the next day, just before noon, someone was at the door repeatedly hitting the buzzer.  I threw on my clothes from the day before, and left my room to find that Charlie had just let the landlady, Luciana, into the apartment.  Luciana is an elderly Italian woman who is fighting the effects of aging and losing sorely.  While her makeup is not egregious, the vaseline that she daily rubs into her skin makes her shine as if she's James Brown swearing at a Sunday picnic.  She dies her hair constantly without removing its former colors; her current color is Thundercat.  Whenever something needs to be checked or fixed, which is usually three or four times a week, she enters the apartment without warning wearing short skirts and tank tops without a bra.  She enjoys parading her body in front of Charlie, Peter, and me, and it seems that she doesn't have much else to do.  She tells the Katie and Jen that they are lucky girls to live with such men, how are they able to resist?  While she does have a point, Luciana believes that everyday is a Golf Pros and Tennis Hoes party and acts the according role well.

Fortune would have it that when I moved in, there was construction going on on the exterior of the building.  The workers were contracted to paint the building and replace a few terra-cotta roof tiles, a job that shouldn't last more than two weeks.  It's been over two months.  This both excites and irritates Luciana, and she had shifted her life's focus from seducing her young American tenants to harassing the workmen.  Morning coffee is attended by men walking up and down the scaffolding just outside the kitchen window, close enough that you could shake hands, and Lucia screaming and croaking at them from the apartment above.  The workman answer her salvos with a barrage of insults and laughter, and if Italy did not have the siesta, there would not be peace in the apartment until nightfall.

Yesterday, however, Luciana needed a change of pace and decided that she needed to check the pipes in the apartment, that is those in the wall.  As Charlie let her in the apartment, she told us what a disaster the construction is, how it is very dangerous -- her favorite phrase -- and what a pack of lying, disrespectful, slimy, subhuman thieves the workmen are.  She then asked me to crawl out onto their scaffolding, borrow their latter, and bring it to her so that she could access the crawl space door placed two thirds the way up the living room wall beyond arm's reach.  I did so, receiving many lauds my masterful athleticism.  Lovely flattery, isn't it?

She asked me to extend the ladder and hold it for her.  I did so again, quickly realizing that I had made a bad call.  She was dressed normally -- braless tank top and short shirt -- and I would be right under her with a view that only doctors should be subjected to.  I was new in the apartment, and she had planned this.  Charlie watched on laughing.  When he went to get his camera to document this particularly ridiculous encounter, she screamed at him, yelling that he shall never to produce a camera in her presence.

When she climbed the latter and reached the crawl space, she asked me to hand her a lamp.  I climbed the latter to bring it to her, but she instead squatted on her haunches, knees wide, revealing a large pair of white, lacy panties.  I turned my face to the side repulsed and simultaneously trying not to laugh.  I held the lamp up to her.  She took it, and began rooting around in the crawl space, dog cussing the workmen the whole time.  Like someone who knows nothing about cars analyzing their engine after it seizes up, she measured pipes, banged on various surfaces, and asked us to turn on water throughout the apartment so that she could check if there were any leaks.  Content, Luciana asked for us to hold the latter once more so that she could descend.  I held it, making damn sure not to look up.  Charlie was laughing again, and she realized that her intentions were exposed like so much else.

"Maybe I am indecent!  Yes, I am indecent, but I do not care!" She yelled at us triumphantly, descending.  "I am not decent, and I do not care!"

She reached the floor and glared at us.  There is not much to say in response to such an affirmation, so Charlie and I were both silent, trying not to grin or laugh like conspiring fools.

While she Charlie swept up, and I replaced the latter among the workmen's materials.  As she was walking out of the apartment and speaking with Charlie about utilities, I went to my computer and played a song loudly in her honor.  She kept walking.

Critical Mass

Gentlemen, whenever there are three times as many women as men, you will not have fun.  You may expect this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L_fCqg92qks.  You will never find this.  You will find discussions on past boyfriends, health issues, career issues, and women out of favor with the women with whom you have unfortunately found yourself stuck.

On another note, la festa di San Giovanni was not nearly as satisfying as it was last year, primarily due to the fact that the organizers launched fireworks horizontally from Piazzale Michelangelo versus vertically from the Ponte Vecchio.  Italian logic failed once again.  While everyone could see the fireworks, no one except the fit few who climbed la monte della croce to the piazzale were able to feel the boom and shock thump their chest and organs.  When God created the world, his voice came first.  Light came later.

An Evening in Florence

My negligent self has not posted a few nearly finished articles for lack of time and focus.  Work has picked up its pace, and I have thoroughly enjoyed scratching deeply my entrepreneurial itch.  It's like poison ivy under a hot shower, every hour well spent.

I am sitting on my balcony overlooking the cupola and piazza of Santo Spirito -- a lone cricket is chirping from the church's terracotta roof.  Below the crowd is boiling with laughter and voices rising in English and Italian.  I am waiting for someone, who will soon rap on my door, and while my apartment lacks gas, water, electricity, it is washed in candlelight and night breezes, as warm and darkly luminous as wine.

Digital Photography

Access the link below to see why digital photography cannot accurately reproduce a work of art:

http://www.google.it/search?q=sargent+gassed&hl=it&client=firefox-a&hs=V7B&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&prmd=ivns&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=4v7XTeKHJM-RswbF7vj3Ag&ved=0CCcQsAQ&biw=1427&bih=640

An entry about the trip to London is pending and will be for some time.  Sanford and Susanna arrive in Florence soon, and having just picked up fresh fruit and vegetables from the Santo Spirito market, I am leaving to meet them at the train station.  I wanted to note briefly an encounter the other night on the Ponte Vecchio while out on the town with a friend, a former submarine officer.  I overheard them speaking to one another and said, "Ya'll must be from the south, and you sound like you went to Sewanee."  Both reckonings were correct; two were freshly graduated Sewanee alumni (one had made it through only two semesters having never learned where to smoke one's marijuana on campus), and the night's shenanigans intensified.

Excellent Saturday

Wake up late.
Eat a long, leisurely lunch at a surprisingly decent all you can eat Asian fusion restaurant with a friend.
Ride along the Arno River until the back path is lost to grass and stones.
Fix a bike for a cute Venetian girl waiting near a closed bike shop.  Get treated to a coffee and gelato by the same cute girl.  Former flatmate sabotages the situation during the email exchange when she tells the other girl that if she wants to contact her, just contact you:
"Abito sotto lui." ("I live under him," as if I were a sex addict or some form of totalitarian regime)
"No," you retort, "il suo apartamento è sotto il mio voleva dire." ("No, her apartment is under mine she means.")
Cute girl regards you both askance.
Your friend explains, "Ma siamo sempre insieme." ("That is we are always together.")
Another ride, this time through le Cascine, a large, beautiful park full of families, prostitutes, and thieves.
Discover a statue of George Washington.  Yell, "First in war!  First in peace!  First in the hearts of his countrymen!"
Discover a horse racing track and a shooting range with cheap rates.
Flying through the park on your bike, wipe out harder than you have ever wiped out in your life, sliding on your side five yards through the gravel with the bike still under you, dust billowing into the air and a crowd of amazed spectators running to your aide.  Spring up, announce to all that you are okay, get back on your bike, and ride off covered in dust and blood.
Shower, remove sharp gravel from your flayed left arm, and apply bandages to it.
Go out for Notte Blu and listen to a duet of classical pianists playing Mozart and Brahms in la Loggia dei Lanzi in Piazza Signoria.
Get to bed early.

Tessera

In Poland, Wenus is the goddess of love.