30 November 2011

Andiamo al Parco Giochi!


Let’s go to the playground! The kids made this request frequently the first couple of months after we arrived. Ingrid claimed she never saw kids her age around our neighborhood, much less played with any. As far as I could tell, this was pretty accurate. Where were the kids? In August there was a good chance they were off on vacation, spent most of the day at grandma and grandpa’s house, or just stayed inside during daylight hours due to temperatures in the upper nineties. We found the stress and irritability level of the younger set—and, consequently, our own—was proportional to how often we got them out where they could be amongst their own generation and, try as we might (why was it so hard to try to get used to eating dinner at 8:30 or 9:00pm and head into town with the family after?), our late night outings with Ingrid and Niko worked out only perhaps once every week or two. So, when we had a sort of stir-crazy, everyone fighting, out of routine family explosion one hot day in July, we decided to promise at least one trip to the parco giochi per day.
         But which one? Part of the fun early on was seeing if we could find a new playground, or, after we found them all, discovering when the ideal time was to visit. The first we saw, located just inside the walls and next to one of the main gates to the historic center, sat across from an elementary school and preschool. Easily accessible and visible, this playground tended to be the busiest. But not when we went. The first couple of times maybe one other kid, usually one or two years old, toddled around the seesaw and the springy horse and motorcycle. Eventually Ingrid had it figured out: little kids in the morning, big kids in the evening. We tried again and sure enough found the place teeming with kids scampering about, parents standing nearby ready with a well-placed boost or reprimand, grandparents sitting on the benches watching it all in amusement. 
         Another playground we located, much larger and, in addition to a little train, slides, climbing structures and swings, featured...grass! Surrounded by a chain-link fence and open from sunrise to sunset, this playground was located about one hundred meters outside the walls encircling the town. Niko and Ingrid beamed when they saw how big it was and that there was grass to run around on, not just dirt or stones. We’ve only been there maybe five times but we’ve never seen more than two other families. Go figure.
         Then there was the smaller playground hidden in a courtyard, replete with fountains at ground level for running through, trying to block with your foot, sitting down in and beating the heat. Or the playground on the far side of town, just inside the walls, which the kids tended to prefer not, I think, because it was the farthest from our home, but perhaps due to the comfortable morning sunshine (well, I guess that must’ve been us) or the right combination of monkey bars, climbing structures and swings (more likely).
         Lauren found these trips to the playground very educational from a linguistic standpoint. Here was real language, kid-directed language, language you need every day as a parent. Yes language students, I’m talking about the Imperative. The Command form. ‘Come here, go up, come down, be careful, stop it,’ and the like. But also, of course, there was the magical world of kidspeak, fascinating enough when you hear young children talking with buddies—or by themselves—in English, doubly so when they’re using a foreign language. Enchanting to my ears, practical for Niko and Ingrid. One of Ingrid’s favorite expressions that a girl taught her on the playground when she saw her hanging upside-down from the monkey bars was ‘fare la pipistrella’ or ‘to do the bat’ (it sounds so much better in Italian).

         
      The kids get plenty of time with other four year olds and nine year olds now that they’re in school. The days are shorter, too, and so our trips to the playground tend to be limited to the weekends. Still, I don’t know where we’d be without these places. They helped us through the summer and are a highlight of every weekend. As any parent of young children knows, we need all of the help we can get. Imagining the plethora of suggestions (demands) my kids might come up with for activities to do when bored I’m always slightly relieved when the question turns out to be not 'Can I take all of the food out and mix it up with dirt and put it in the refrigerator?' or 'I'm going to show you how many ways I can annoy my brother/sister, 'kay?', but instead a simple ‘Can we go to the playground?’ We're tired or have x, y, z to do, sure, but parents, let's nod our heads--it starts there--and with that kids have the answer they're looking for. We don't need to say anything else but, uttered more to convince ourselves, more to get ourselves up for it, not sure where it will lead us this day but some form of adventure guaranteed, we say "Okay, all right. Get your Coats." 


26 November 2011

A Thanksgiving Communion


For sixteen years, starting at age nineteen, I didn’t eat animals. Cheese? Sure. Eggs? Of course. Fish? Nope. Chicken, Beef, Ham? No, definitely not and no way. Did my sophomore summer preparing fries and spending hours soaking up the smell of sizzling ground-beef patties have anything to do with it? Or was it the ethical quandary surrounding the mass slaughtering of animals to produce the millions and billions of hamburgers my employer sold? Perhaps it was a concern for health—cholesterol, arteries and all of that? How about the ecological and humanitarian costs of putting so many resources and energy into this food source when, if they were instead applied toward producing other non-animal foods could provide nutrition for ten times as many people and seemingly solve many food crises? When I didn’t want to make my meal companions too uncomfortable or felt like giving them a little surprise while I got on with my salad or meatless casserole I would answer their queries questioning my vegetarianism with this statement: ‘I just don’t like the taste’. Truth be told, that was a lie, and my reasons did include some of the typical environmental, health and moral reasons many vegetarians give, but it was fun to say and entertaining to see the shock register on the meat-lovers' faces.
            Then one summer in the middle of triathlon season a few years ago I felt like I needed something more in my diet, tried elk stir-fry from a local farmers market, a week later visited a former student on his dairy farm where we received a few pounds of fresh ground meat and then grilled it up back home. My first burger in sixteen years. In theory it shared similar origins with the burgers I’d worked with years earlier, but somehow (the fact that the meat came from one cow and not dozens, one cow whose diet was mostly grass, and one who was not packed in with others all of her life may have had something to do with it) this one was so much better. There was no turning back. And no, I didn’t get sick.
            In Italy the opportunities to eat meat abound. Since I’ve been eating meat for several years now the dietary transition moving over here definitely wasn’t as difficult as it could’ve been (I did come across mention of a society for vegetarians in Italy but don’t think their numbers will threaten to put any meat growers out of business in the next century or two). I can’t believe I’d lived all of those years without prosciutto! And the steak I had the other night, cooked (slightly), sliced in quarter inch strips and topped with fresh-pressed olive oil, arugula and shaved parmesan! So satisfying on a primal level, and pretty darn tasty, too.           
          
          I have trouble imagining consuming octopi, organs, veal, heads and eyeballs, although I do admit to eating rabbit. Once. The second time I saw a rabbit here it was missing only its fur and skin. Pink, shiny, and stretched out on its side behind the glass display, this bunny was not hopping anywhere. It was Monday and I’d gone to the local butcher’s shop to look for a bird we’d be needing soon. The rabbit’s eye met mine.
            When I was a vegetarian I used to think that if I were to eat meat ever again I should be prepared to slaughter the animal myself. Were I starving and looking for meat for survival I don’t doubt my capability to do so, but in this first-world corner of the planet I am fortunate enough to inhabit the thought of doing so still slightly sickens me. Nevertheless, even now as a meat eater I think it couldn’t hurt for everyone back in the States who eats meat to, if not slaughter once themselves, at least see the process done, or maybe visit one of the butcher’s shops like those over here where everything is so much more…alive, or recently alive anyway. Where it is obvious what part of the body that chunk of meat is, or which animal it is, that it is an animal. Call it a reality check.
            Anyway, I felt reminded that what I was looking for was also an animal, and that it would be killed and prepared for my family and me. They didn’t have it, but after a minute on the phone my butcher said it was all set. Without taking my name or phone number, he simply told me to come back in two or three days. When I returned Thursday he went in the back room while my mind conjured up various versions of what this 6-7 kg bird might look like. Would some feathers still be in? Head (eyes)? Claws? But no, there were no obvious parts left on that we wouldn’t see back home, and in fact its innards had also been handily scooped out for us. Was this because the butcher knew what I, as an American would expect? Or was it just typical for this bird (and I’ve seen little hens—entire little hens—shrink-wrapped on small foam plates at the grocery store)? When he brought our turkey out the lady next to me exclaimed in admiration and smiled, chattering with the butcher about the bird and possible steps to prepare it. I paid and took the heavy and soft bird—thankfully we wouldn’t have to defrost this one—and we set about making our meal.
            Except the oven didn’t work. It soon became clear that I was to do anything possible to remedy the situation ASAP. After frantically calling the owner of our house and then the realtor who sometimes helps out, explaining our situation and trying to understand the waves of Italian rushing at me through the phone, I finally found a switch. The switch. Yes, apparently all of the other times we’d used the oven the switch had been flipped on, unbeknownst to us, and therefore we’d been unaware said switch even existed! So the oven heated, the bird cooked, and Carol and Michael joined us during their visit all the way from Massachusetts for a wonderful Thanksgiving meal. Being so far from home, familiarity and routine made this tradition (which we often share with Carol and Michael and other family at their house) ever more poignant and important. The Italians went about their daily Thursday routine as every other but in our home the American holiday was alive and well. Ingrid and Niko smiled and laughed more, fought less, rallied with us around the common goal of producing and enjoying this special meal and enjoyed lots of playtime with their grandparents on the soccer field, reading a book or putting together and flying a toy jet fighter. For hours the house took on the rich and comforting smell of the meal that was coming together.
            I had so much to be thankful for and first and foremost on the list was family. The wars and hate in the world hadn’t gone away but they were still outnumbered by peace and love and on that day the politics, economics and environmental consequences of food production and food choice just didn’t bother me. The world I see every day is multi-hued, filled with contradictions, more free-response than true or false. So when I took a bite of that turkey there was no ex-vegetarian’s remorse, no guilt, and no sense of lost ideals. What I felt was extreme satisfaction in the moment, a profound communion with family and with the cycle of life. An animal had died but nourished all of us. Who knows, maybe I'll return to a non-meat diet in the months or years to come, but for this third Thursday in November, Mr. Turkey, I would like to extend to you my deepest thanks.

14 November 2011

Lucca Comics & Games


            If you could be any superhero who would you be? As a kid my choice varied amongst a few characters but I found most affinity with the climbing and swinging ability of Peter Parker’s alter ego: Spiderman. Sure, although no slouch, he probably wouldn’t stand much of a chance arm-wrestling Superman and didn’t sport the ultra-cool bad-guy fighting gadgets of Batman, but boy was he adept at making his way silently through urban environments to get the crooks when they least expected it. A squirt of his web and WHAMMO, another foiled crime. And what a suit! Imagine my surprise and delight when walking into our own urban environment one morning a week or two ago I caught a glimpse of the red-and-blue-spandexed man-spider himself. I managed to snap this photo (and not without detection, as you can see) before he slipped anonymously into the crowds.
         Truth be told, although delighted, I wasn’t as surprised as you might think. This was the third day of Lucca Comics & Games after all, and I’d grown accustomed to seeing superheroes galore, as well as video-game characters, the princesses, monsters and cloaked sword-wielding folk from role-playing games, and countless other comic-book look-alikes, many of the Manga style popularized originally in Japan.

      
           Preparations for Lucca Comics & Games and the 155,000 fans who would come to town over five days to enjoy it probably began as soon as the festival ended last year, but for me the reality of this gigantic event (which I later found out is the second largest Comics and Games festival in Europe) began to become clear at the end of September. Why was the largest swath of grass below the walls being covered with plastic? Were more pedestrian paths being constructed? Would some sort of landscaping occur? A few days later dump trucks brought in load upon load of rock, then the bulldozers smoothed and compacted it upon the sheeting. Whatever it was, it was gigantic.


Then came the white tents, equally voluminous. Never before had I seen ones the size of several football fields, replete with wooden flooring and ventilation systems. After four weeks of preparation the construction finally drew to a close. Meanwhile similar tents had taken over the town’s two main piazzas and a section of the path on the walls, along with a bandstand for the many musical groups that would play day and night during the festival. It had taken us awhile, but somewhere in their set-up we finally realized what the tents were for.


         And then they came. Yes, the ones already costumed up when they got out of their cars were among the more obvious festival-goers, but we noticed the others right away, too, even outside the walls on our street. Mostly Italians yes, but dressed a little more casually than the typical Lucchese style, and so many more twenty-somethings than we were accustomed to seeing.


         So for five days and nights the town’s population swelled many-fold as thousands meandered the walls, the streets, the convention areas—people-watching had never been better—visiting cartoonists and game designers signed autographs and gave tips to aspiring artists, gamers staged mock battles, contests abounded for best costume, best new game, and musicians rocked it out around the clock.


 When all was said and done, most praised Lucca and the organizing committee for staging such a professional event and many also lauded the great behavior of so many mostly younger visitors. The tents are coming down now, most already packed and hauled away but the largest down on the grass below the walls proving more challenging to quickly remove (couldn't some of those superheroes have stuck around to lend a hand?).


We enjoyed some of the novelty and excitement surrounding Lucca Comics & Games and celebrated Halloween by dressing up and wandering amongst the costumed crowed up on the walls but we were also not too disappointed when it ended.


The population shrunk back to a sustainable level and, after a busy summer and fall, life in Lucca began to settle back into its quieter season. Seeing Spiderman was fun, but after five days I think we were all ready for him to strap the camera back around his neck and just be Peter Parker for awhile.