The Grass Blowers

2:18 am Wake up, can't sleep due to too much caffeine.
3:20 am Pee, due to too much coffee, cant go back to sleep, eventually doze off.
3:48 am ditto
4:14 am ditto
etc etc etc until:
6:30-8:15 Decide that I cant sleep, birds are chirpin too loudly anyways. so, i stumble out of bed, feeling like the morning after a night of snorting meth, coke or some sort of sleep depriving drug (and all i really did was stay up til midnight). check cnn, foxnews, fb...good grief its still early! i even checked people.com. i read articles i dont even care about, obama's wife says to move on after the distancing from the controversial reverend? did mariah carey get married? i even youtube'd while waiting for sophia to get up. opened her shutters. poked her. opened door to balcony, took inside folded clothes from the 'italian dryer'. stare at sophia, poke her. i didnt really wanna try too hard to get her up due to the fact that she did that biochemical waste hazard last night - was she still sick? she never sleeps this late. if we wanted to catch to the 9:42 train to mondonico we had to be out the door by 8:45.
8:30 i poke poke. she rubs eyes and finally, in groggy scratchy voice: 'MILK'! Cool could we still make the train?
8:38 pia arrives at table. guess we cant make that dang train after all. i thought i could have convinced her to eat breakfast on the way to the metro, but she wasnt having that. oh well....
i guess we would go for the 10:39 train.
9:10 double check backpack...oh crud, only 2 diapers left and knowledge that the yogurts revenge may not yet be over. we run to the market and pick up a pack (9.69E for pampers 14 diapers, went for the cheapy 8.50 packet containing 24 diapers).
9:38 wrestle sophia, stroller, enormous backpack down the stairwell and out the front gate.
9:45 see the metro roll past us...crap, oh well, the next one should come within 20 mintutes that still leaves us, 20 for the metro ride and another 20 to get the ticket and walk to the tracks. whew okay.
9:50 tick, tick, tick. oh good i hear a train. oh crap its from the other direction. okay 5 minutes to get to the end of the line and another 5 to turn around and come back. we can still make it.
10:00 tick, tick, tick okay where is the train??
10:01 -10:10 same as 10:00
10:11 finally the train arrives. crud, okay 20 minutes for travel time will put us at 10:31 and 9 minutes to run up the stair, into the train station stand in line and buy the tick.
10:28 inside train station, but line is long, will use ticket issuing machine. run to only open machine, only to be cut off by these 2 japanese girls, who besides snaking me from the backside on purpose, dont know how to use the machine and so are taking forever.
10:30 look around for new machine. one by one they fill up. the 2 girls go try there luck somewhere else.
10:33 i can still do it. dang the machine wont take all the numbers to my bank card and now is stuck in the middle of a transaction. cancel, cancel, abort, abort! good grief hurry!!!
10:35 run to new machine (ha those stupid girls are still at the machine and still dont know what they are doing). this machine takes bills. insert 1 bill, spits it out. insert again, spits it out. try another, spits it out. i try about 6 bills and none of them work. the ticket is just 2.70 so i fumble in my pockets and my purse for some change. i have just barely enough. come on, come on, print faster. validate ticket in machine (because despite having bought a ticket for a specific train at a specific time, all tickets must be validated...if you can find a machine that works).
grab fold up stroller, strap on backpack, run with sophia down the escalator, down hall, check for which track the train is boarding from. its 14 cool, its right here, run up stairs. stop, stroller under one arm, backpack on back, sophia under other arm, run, run, run! oh good some other girl is running and shouting for the train to wait. toot toot - jerk off couldnt wait another 30 seconds??? the conductor closes the doors in our faces and takes off. defeated. there is only 1 train every hour.
10:39 and 15 seconds set sophia down, drag folded up stroller down stairs, thump, thump, thump. open stroller, shove sophia in, push her down the hall. check, double check and recheck to see if, perhaps by magic another train is scheduled to arrive. there is another going towards lecco (like ours) but doesnt stop in ever god forsaken town, like the one we are going to, so we are s.o.l. at least those stupid girls have missed their train too, i see them wandering around.
10:41 stare at departure sign, wander around, stare at sign some more get offered a dont use fur flyer - but refuse.
10:51 wander some more, offer of same flyer -refuse.
10:56 go to get a cappuccino and brioche (croissant) from autogrill. jelly one for sophia and a cream filled one for me. sit down. capp is watery and tepid, brioche is dry. and...oh great, urine smell from bathroom passes our way everytime someone opens the door. not making things tastier. sophia whines that she doesnt like the brioche. then she shouts 'I DONT LIKE BRIOCHE pffftttt!' she is in this shout, defiance, make a scene out of anything stage, whats the scientific name called??? being a TODDLER? ack! then she whines that some jelly has dripped on her, set my brioche down on a napkin to help her clean up the sticky stuff. she grabs the napkin and drops my brioche on the ground, splat - cream everywhere. scream at sophia impatiently to have a little patience. clean it up. feel kinda badly 'bout screaming, offer to eat the jelly part so she can just eat the bread. and sglop...OMG, this stupid thing is filled with about a cup of liquid jelly that has just gooshed out everywhere! break off empty dry end part and try to make amends, but there is still a drop of jelly and she isnt having it. starts into new shout tantrum and so off we go...
11:02 wander around and get offered another flyer (some 2 people keep asking) i take it so i can show them my 'pass' the next time and they will stop asking me. great hands are all sticky from the jelly, stupid flyer is sticking everywhere.
11:03 walk into bookstore while trying to shake off flyer. cant look at anything because flyer is too dang sticky, but bathrooms are too far away to go and come back.
11:18 cant take it anymore i am sticking to everything. if csi comes by, they will be able to see a very visible and distinctive thumb print on every book ive touched. go search for bathrooms (not the urine smelling ones at autogrill).
11:25 luck turns around - find bathrooms, but it cost .60 cents (almost a dollar to go pee!). no one is at the cash register, so i walk past and just go in. there is even one stall opened and its all very clean!
11:30 find train tracks, find train already there, find a seat, sit down. whew! call franci to let her know we will arrive at 12:20.
12:20 franci is at the station waiting. i give her the biggest hug in the whole wide world and apologize profusely for being late!

The kids run and chase each other through the orchard.

Pietro plops down on the grass.
He looks guilty of something, wonder what trouble he is going to get in next...

Sophia on the hunt for her BFF Pietro and dandelions.

Sophia is enamored with Pietro's cousing Emanuele (aka Lele) and she follows the poor kid around everywhere speaking english to him.
Sophia and Alice draw in the drawing room.

Hangin out with Seltz, Lele and Alice's short haired cat.Franci and her brother Filipo teach Elena and me how to blow on grass and make noise, something they used to do as kids for hours. It took me forever to get it.

Wondering what whistling with grass sounds like?Take a gander at the video. If you wanna save yourself 20 seconds, read on: it sounds like some weird freaky godzilla dying a horrible and agonizing death. It's hard to distinguish filipo (who is blowing on the grass) from his son lele (who is just screaming). sorry its filmed ala blair witch/cloverfield, but sophia was pulling on my arm.

Lele chews on some wild grass that tastes like lemon.

The Witches and Warlocks carpool around the patio.

* other activities not pictured: fantastic lunch of pasta, meatloaf with rosemary picked from garden, salad and spinach picked from garden and pasticini (little cakes and pastries) from local bakery. playing under table while everyone else ate. playing and sing to alessandro . walking thru the woods to look for gigantic snails. hunt for lizards. bug watching. bug poking. flower picking. blowing dandelion after dandelion. searching for 4leaf clovers. picking eating wild strawberries. dog piling francesca. kicking a deflated soccer ball. playing in the old garden shed. ah to be a kid again (instead of just running after them!)

6:20 train back to Milan and of course i have to run again because i always seem to be late! Whew what a day!