Bagpipe serenade during housework

Saturday was a busy day, partly getting things ready for Chiara to arrive. In the morning, Dee announced that she had discovered www.eScarpe.it, an Italian version of Zappos, the online shoe store with free shipping and returns. Oh the pathos of not having known about it for well over a year living here! Not sayin' that she used Zappos a lot back home, but I did get to know our UPS delivery guy very well.  So I jokingly asked her if she was now willing to extend our mission; her answer was no, but only after several seconds of internal debate 😉😀.

She cleaned the apartment a lot, noting that it is much more rewarding to clean after not having done so for a good while, as you can really see the difference. But of course dust and dirt really accumulate quickly here. Below is visual proof: a photo of the dust mop used less than 24 hours after a prior good cleaning on just one room!

The back bedroom tends to become a receptacle of things we aren't using at the time. Now it looks a lot nicer, all ready for Chiara. Dee put on the new bedding that we bought a few weeks ago; with some color in the bedspread it looks much more vivid than with the old plain white stuff.

 

In the late morning I went out to fill up and vacuum the car, which really needed both, then over to help the Hydes with the internet at their apartment. They have a Viasat satellite modem internet service that is still running. They aren't sure who is paying for it nor what the plan is, but for now they wanted to be able to use WiFi throughout the apartment instead of connecting with just an ethernet cable. The old D-Link router I had given them wasn't working, so I brought my little travel router, which worked fine. It was puzzling. My best guess is that the old router is just dying. They had an old DSL modem/router from their last mission here (this is their third mission together), which I configured as a WiFi switch, and that worked fine. He still needs to figure out the deal with the current service, but for now they are in good shape.

When I got back, I helped Dee with a few things, including frying the sausage for her dish to bring to our ward Christmas party in the evening. I did some dishes and took out the trash, but she did most of the work. I also finished incorporating Sammy's edits into my translation of the "Other Wise Man", so I may be almost ready for my lesson in a week.

The weather has been warmer than a week or two ago -- still chilly, but pleasantly so. Dee had the windows open while she was working hard, and at one point she said "I hear bagpipes". Sure enough, they were playing somewhere nearby. In a while the music got louder, and we spotted them down in our piazza. Apparently the old tradition was that the shepherds would come down from the hills and play their bagpipes, and people would come out and give them money. We just took a few photos from our 6th floor window, and you can hear a sample of the music here. You can zoom in to see them in their furry vests.

Two bagpipers at the center upper end of our piazza

Anziano Willey called at one point, asking for some advice on their internet service. At the end he forwarded me warm greetings from their dear friends from Atlanta, the Cooks, who were in our ward in Richmond about fifty years ago. Their daughter Pam and I are good friends, having graduated from high school the same year, so I called her to tell her about the connection. She and her husband Rick know the Willeys as well. It turns out that Pam and Rick will be in Switzerland next month to see a new grandchild and will try to come down to the Rome temple open house. It would be great to see them. All roads lead to Rome.

The smoke alarm in our bedroom went off some time after finishing the sausages. It took a while to turn it off, and then it kept chirping for some time. These models have a lock making it difficult to even get them off the wall. Worse, the batteries are not removable, so, if they decide to make noise, a hammer can seem like the only option. Eventually the noise stopped, but only after making us cancel our inspection of the Rome 3 Sorelle apartment, because we didn't want to leave our place and have it go off again for hours. The Balzottis would call later in the evening and explain how to remove it from the wall, which involved pulling out our stepladder and using a screwdriver. Now, if it happens again in the middle of the night, at least I can take it off the wall, wrap it in a towel, and put it in the freezer. The tricks you learn as a missionary!!

We left for our 6pm ward Christmas party about 5:30pm. Traffic was heavy, but we have been here long enough to know that it would not start on time anyway. There was a brief opening meeting where we watched a "Light the World" video in Italian, followed by a welcome from the bishop. Then we got right to the food -- our ward's specialty. There was a ton of all kinds of good stuff, including porchetta with wonderful bread. There were plenty of people to mostly finish it off. I ate until I was stuffed. Another popular dish was Peruvian Papas Huancaina. 

 

 

 

 

The Simoncinis and the Hydes were there. It isn't their ward, but our ward's reputation for food is well known, and it was great to see them. Anziano Simoncini's comment was that eating was the only activity that the Italian government hadn't learned how to tax yet, so he does all he can. The dad of Pamela, one of my wonderful Seminary students, was there, and it was nice to meet him. Junior also showed up. He's a very nice nonmember guy who has been attending everything (and I mean EVERYTHING) for the past year. We left for home early, before the dessert and the children's nativity scene. Maybe Santa was going to come too, but we had a bunch of stuff still to do at home.

Sister Yanacallo showed up with some very nice french braids. It turns out their investigator (now called friends) thought Mormons weren't allowed to do their hair. When she found out it was no problem, she quickly did the braiding. Isn't that a cute story?

My mother's cousin and dear friend, Gloria Ferrari Ballins, died on December 10. Mom found out on Dec. 18. The rosary was Dec. 19 and the funeral the next day. Gloria and my Mom were almost exactly a year apart. They had lunch together every month  until a couple of years ago. Mom was really broken up about it. Gloria was a great friend and person. She also helped at her parish, doing the dishes after funerals and weddings. She let me copy her photo albums several years ago, which I treasure. Her mother had  pictures of my grandparents that we had never seen. After the funeral, Mom slept 48 hours. It was too much for her.