am calm.
took the early afternoon to walk to town in the drizzling rain, listen to Bon Iver and get my hair cut. Have returned home, taken a hot bath and sipped chamomile tea while flipping through Vogue Italia. It is about to storm, during which time I will do yoga. see? am calm.
If I am going to be fair about the situation, I will admit that I become a raging MONSTER when I don't get my proper sleep. When woken at 6am by shouts and thumping bass...when kept awake late into the night due to the pop of firecrackers being set off outside my bedroom window...when unable to enjoy a comfortable, booze-free evening at home (I say "booze-free" because I was being super good and drinking only sweet tea until my nerves turned into electrified jellyfish tentacles and I demanded a glass of wine) due to an F-ING RAVE going on in the woods behind my house...I get cranky. Really, really murderously cranky. I say this because the (idioticmoronicdisrespectfulhoodlumdeginerate) teenagers who use Bosc di Sot as their personal landing pad for dirt bike racing, acid trips and the like were, it seemed by their wide eyes, surprised when I opened the window at 8am this morning and screamed SHUT THE FUCK UP. Perhaps they didn't understand the English, or perhaps they are just 17 and confused in regards to how it is appropriate to act on a Wednesday night/Thursday morning, when normal, decent, responsible people (...) have to go to work and stuff (and stuff?).
I have been at the end of my wits with those kids for a couple of days now. They don't have school or anything till the end of September, so in the meantime they haunt our neighbors- the kid's grandparent's- house. These are not the kind of grandparents one fears and reveres...the old man is just decrepit and I've never heard a word out of him. The old lady is sweet enough and sort of spooky, but I doubt she's the type to lay down the law. As far as the teenage boy is concerned, the place is paradise: no supervision, ample space to ride his motorcycle and light fires. I mean, I was 17 once. I get it. I also get, in retrospect, that I myself was a bit of a hoodlum and in need of a smack upside the head from time to time.
Poor, sweet FL. He's so damned peace-and-love about everything he just doesn't have it in him to break up a good party ("I remember 17 so well, and I can tell you that I was even worse," he said once) or yell at anyone. I can see our future now: I'm gonna have to be the bad guy, the mean mom, the buzzkill...
We went and spoke to the kids and their mom last night at 11 o'clock, when we feared our windows were going to shatter due to the incessant pounding of bass coming from the woods. The mom looked at us empathetically, but said only, "oh, I know, he's a handful..." before dismissing us with promises that the party would be over by midnight. I think she might have been drunk.
Midnight came and went...we finally fell into an exhaustion coma around 3...only to be woken at 6 by a blood-curtling scream coming from right outside our window, followed by gales of laughter.
My heart stopped cold- it sucks being woken up by something like that- and I guess it scared the piss out of FL, too, because he did something I'd never seen before...
He went to the window and YELLED. He yelled at them! He lost his temper! It was great.
I plotted the teenagers' extermination all morning, until I thought my brain would explode, and then I decided to go out. As fate would have it, I ran into the grandmother in the drive way, and boy, did I give her a piece of my mind. Really let her have it, my wobbly Italian fueled by injustice and headache and lack of sleep and shattered nerves. I wasn't mad at her, was not at all angry or disrespectful, but I told her strait up, calmly and firmly: enough is enough. basta. no more parties, no more motorcycles, no more fireworks, no more music, no more bar-b-qs, no more cars blocking the drive ways, parked in our grass. They had blown it, lost all their neighborly lee-way, and the jig was up.
I'm pretty sure this is what I said, in Italian:
"This is not a bar of the locals," I told her. "This is not an empty field of corn, a road made for bikes that ride fast in dirt, a warehouse abandoned. This is our home, Bosc di Sot. This is a place we share, and where we have peace. If those boys forget their respect, leave their respect at their own house, but do not bring their respect here, then for me they are not so welcome. Not here- at Bosc di Sot."
Something like that. I think it sounded rather fine.
I ended by informing her that the next "tiny piece" of noise I hear from those kids will be enough for me to call the carabinieri. She said she completely understood. And then we hugged. And she went inside to yank her grandson's ear and holler a bit and make lunch. And I went downtown and bought myself a Vogue.
So, anyway, that's that. We'll see what comes of it. In the meantime...
The hunt for English schools is looking rather dire, as most all the websites clearly state that one must already have an Italian work visa in order to work. Which just makes no effing sense. But there are a few that I feel good about, so this afternoon I will call them and pester them and plan a time to go in in person and speak with them.
This weekend is the Festa dell'Uva, the wine festival in Cormons which welcomes in the harvest season in Collio. Should be a blast.
Tomorrow I will recount for yall last Saturday night's great event, which was: an Italian wedding! It was fab, primarily because all of my dreams came true and my heart exploded with joy the moment the waiters brought in PROSCIUTTO TOWERS for every table. Almost cried.
