Tuesday we were home almost all day. Since Wednesday is a big holiday, I walked down to Conad and the Chinese store in the morning for a few things. Dee went to the local open market, hoping to find some yarn, but her vendor wasn't there, due no doubt to the pending holiday. My new shoes were fine for the walk. Fortunately, she was able to find some lovely Senegalese necklaces, so the trip was a success! She also bought some anti-itch cream for bug bites at the nearby pharmacy, since we might need it next week. We discovered it when Alyssa and Wes were here. She got attacked by something biting in Florence and was really suffering. This stuff did the trick, along with a prescription for the infection.
In the afternoon, I finally got my Iliad SIM card activated for my phone, after uploading my passport photos a couple of times. Their coverage seems good around here, which was my only worry, and the plan is awesome! I let Sorella Feil know about it since she doesn't have a cell plan yet here, and I also told Jenna Perego about it. Jenna had a plan that cost over twice as much, with way less data and minutes, and she was especially jazzed about unlimited free phone calls to the US. Once I told her about it, she hopped on the train right away from their house well outside Rome and came downtown (only 20 minutes on the train) to buy one.
Dee and I each did some family history work, I for Dexter and she for her own family and for Sergio from our ward. She now has a bunch of family cards for us to use at the temple next week. For well over a decade she has kept us busy doing her family names, mostly Italian with some Dutch, and it is always nicer to have our names. As my wife says, with family history and temple work we are all capitalists: we want to own the names.
It was nice to have time at home to catch up on some stuff. I particularly enjoyed watching/listening to more talks from the FairMormon conference while working on things, finishing the talks for the first two (of three) days. Our old US Moto phones seem to be working just fine here, including some informal testing wherein Dee watched the signal strength as we drove to and from the mall later. It is not clear to me (yet) why Verizon wouldn't allow us to use its international plan with these phones.
It dawned on me that, when we go to the Swiss temple Sunday night, we would be leaving our car in a parking spot outside the church for six nights, in what is not the safest part of town. Dee suggested seeing if some of the young missionaries could use it, which was a good thought. Then I had the idea that the Benincosas, a new senior couple with whom we have spoken on the phone, are arriving this week and will not have a car, so I called Anziano Balzotti, the car czar, to offer that they could use it while we are gone. Both he and President Pickerd really liked the idea, so that's what we will do.
There was rain, with thunder and lightning, during parts of the afternoon and evening, cooling things off outside very nicely. We opened some windows wide and let the fans blow in the cool outside air. In the late afternoon we went out to Auchan at the mall to buy some small bowls (I had broken one recently while washing dishes) and toiletries, plus a set of plastic shelves for the bathroom closet at the Institute for only 14€. We hope that the shelves work, but at that low price it seemed worth the risk. On the way home, we stopped at the car wash and rinsed the car, then vacuumed out the inside to make it look nicer for our guests later this week. We then filled the car up with gas, noting on the way a warning light. I looked it up in the manual and figured out it was a tire pressure warning. So I was able to put more air into all four tires, each of which was substantially lower than the suggested pressure. My hands got completely filthy doing that, but fortunately Dee had tissues and hand cleanser to give me. All in all, it was a very productive and quick trip. To top it off, we got a great parking spot, as the streets are very empty these days.
We had an evening at home, interrupted twice by somebody on the intercom asking to come in. Dee asked who it was, and he said "delivery". She asked "for whom?", and he said missionaries, so she let him in, but nobody showed up at our door. An hour later, the same thing happened, so this time I asked "what is the last name?", and the guy said "uh... missionaries". So then I said, "you aren't really delivering anything, you just want into the building, right?" Complete silence. I didn't push the button to let him in.
Doug bought me a chicken that I cooked for myself. It was strangely skinny and stiff, so it was hard to get it in the crockpot. Even the chickens in Italy are thinner than our US ones.
Lara from San Diego contacted me for some more help with her Italian research. I get a kick out of it, and she loves getting a quick answer.
Since we were home, I did tons of laundry. The living room is our drying area now.
Two weeks without Institute! :(