Mid-week P-day

Wednesday is now effectively our P-day, what with me teaching Institute in Naples on Saturdays, which takes pretty much the whole day. It was wonderful to have some time to relax at home after a very full week. I walked down to Conad to get produce in the morning, then we stayed home until mid-afternoon. 

At that point we headed out to recycle the old Institute desktop computer at the local drop-off spot, the same one where we took our old washer a while back. From there we drove downtown to pick up Dee's foot x-rays from last week at the clinic. Here in Italy it is the patient's responsibility to keep the x-rays to bring to the doctor (!)  It was mid-afternoon, lunchtime, so there was not much traffic, but driving back we had to turn dozens of times, often onto narrow streets. It seemed much more complicated than it ought to be. The concept of streets at right angles to each other is foreign in Rome: everything is at odd angles, often with multiple streets fanning out at an intersection. Stressful.

When we got back to our neighborhood, we looked for a gelato place. We've been here nine months I still hadn't had one :(  Just up the hill we saw a little cafe with gelato, and an easy parking spot miraculously opened up right next door just as we approached. With Dee walking slowly on crutches, we were not sure that we would be able to park close enough to walk there. So we got to enjoy a little date together, eating while sitting at a table outside on the sidewalk. The gelato was so good, apparently made in-house, and they also make pastries which looked delicious, so we will have to go back! The weather was pleasant -- not too hot or humid, with a nice breeze.

After getting home, Dee cleaned the floors, and then she tutored Martine in math online via Zoom. My wife has many amazing talents. She also did lots of laundry during the day.

This week a couple of my food items (rice, beans) have gone moldy in the fridge after only a few days. It is very unusual, and we are not sure if maybe the fridge needs to be kept colder with the summer heat. So I had to cook another batch of rice but got distracted and did it all wrong. Fortunately it seemed to turn out ok, but I need to pay more attention next time.

In the evening it rained hard, with some lightning and thunder. That cooled things down enough that we turned off the fan before going to bed. I even got out an extra blanket, but ended up not using it. I was tired and went to bed about 10pm, which is early for us here.

I'm walking with crutches again. I don't need to put much weight on my arms, but my foot was sore so I need to take it slower.