Sciopero: light day

Thursday morning we both woke up well rested. It was nice for Dee to sleep in bed instead of on the couch. She is in general feeling much better about her dad, but we aren't out of the woods yet.

Just before 10am I went with Anziano Willey to see about their home internet, which had stopped working after a few days. Parking was impossible near their place, but fortunately they have an extra reserved spot inside which he let me use. The Infostrada clerk said that they had run out of fiber lines, which is odd because it was already working at first. He said that we could return everything, or try DSL, which is slower and still has a very long contract. In the meantime they are using their MiFi device, but that isn't good enough for long term. So we walked down the mall a few yards and found a TIM kiosk, where they promised good service for only a little bit more per month, so he signed up. We shall see.

Meanwhile, Dee went to the local open market to look for a new blanket for the campus (rare, but occasionally handy for naps or someone feeling sick) and a new tablecloth. They didn't have any of those, but she fortunately was able to drown her sorrows with some nice new necklaces from her favorite African vendor. She also stopped at the pharmacy on the way back and stocked up on some meds.

It was a planned public transit strike day. Fortunately for us, this one was not on Friday, our big day, as most of them have been. Thursdays are usually slow anyway, and this time only one GANS showed up all day: Junior, for English class in the evening. It was nice to have some time to prepare for lessons.

I got some temple open house tickets in February to go with our landlord, Marco. I had sent him the link to get his own tickets, but he asked if I could go with him and help explain things, which is nice. His mom may also come along. 

Some Sorelle came by to give a missionary lesson at the campus, and they were wearing pants! It was so novel that I had to take a photo.

We were able to leave early for home, hitting Lidl on the way to get the rest of the ingredients for pancakes and sausage Friday night. Traffic was bad, and that store didn't have enough sausage, so we also went to another Lidl near our house to get the final packages of sausage.

Lynn was able to take Dottie to see my father-in-law at the skilled nursing facility, which was great. She was complaining about how hard it was to find parking, but I said that she couldn't complain compared to Rome! Dee followed up with this photo of a recent parking job on our street:

After teaching my Italian class at the Friendship Center, I took Pam to look for shoes. Her feet hurt on her long shifts at the Temple. There's a great shoe store near the Institute and Friendship Center called Geraci. I bought my beloved Gore-Tex boots there. The lady was extremely helpful and Pam left with a new pair of shoes. Since it's January, they were 40% off. The government decrees that January and June are for sales. 

With the slow day, I was able to get some paperwork things done. I have a lot to finish up before we come home, and most of it is paper. My nemesis.

We had leftover Savoiardi cookies and cold orzo, the barley drink that is used as a coffee substitute. I really like dipping the cookies in the orzo!