did this in Caesar seem ambitious?

   Years, I tell you, years. Years of dreaming, deliberating, getting ideas, being inspired, being disappointed, deciding, changing minds, worrying. Fretting, fighting, quitting. It's been years of putting up with delays and being unable for every reason to finish the ground floor of this house. And all this time, one of our most difficult decisions was how to finish the floor. Now the carpenter was demanding a floor. He couldn't take accurate measurements for the doors without a threshold.
   It's an old house, terracotta is traditional. Shall we stick with terracotta? We've lived with terracotta upstairs, in the kitchen, in the bathroom, in the bedrooms. We're sick of terracotta. It's dirty. It's porous. It takes more maintenance than we want to do. So what else? Old or modern? Dark or light? Shiny or rough? Underfloor heating compatible? Stone! Cut stone! What stone? Marble? No; surprisingly affordable here but too grand for a farm house. Travertine? Also surprisingly affordable but wine stains. Sandstone? Everything stains. Granite? Ridiculously expensive, dark and also stains. Wood? Really expensive, worthless for a kitchen. Alex fell in love with polished concrete. Very trendy. Very difficult and expensive. I didn't think I could do it. It would require a polisher, and then a treatment. OK, how about Ultratop, a synthetic, 'self-leveling' floor poured in retail stores. It looks like a fake polished concrete in the pictures. No supply store sold it. The experts came out. We ordered a sample bag. We talked a neighbor into trying it. Theirs bubbled and they barely talk to us now.

'Tiramisu' from Carducci l'edilizia
giorgio7carducci@yahoo.it

   Desperation drove us to Omar. Omar is a modern day rug merchant, but Omar doesn't sell rugs. He sells tile. Not Chinese tile. Italian tile. Gres porcellana. Ees beeuteefull. Anytheen you want. Omar has built a three storey temple to Italian tile where people like us can find salvation. We took home heavy samples that looked stunning in his temple and ridiculous in our muddy ruin. With our capacity for decision-making exhausted, we chose a tile identical to our white-washed walls but with one concession to fashion: 'large format.' Our tiles are a meter square. I'm not supposed to lift them by myself. Pondering the methods of laying these monsters, I realized that such large tiles will magnify any

irregularity in the surface of the structure supporting the tile. A wave, crack or seam in the concrete will be amplified three feet away into a sharp, tripping edge. Panicky, I rushed to YouTube for tips and found a genius in southern Italy who has invented a tile spacer with a leveling cap built in. These draw the tile edges level with adjoining tiles while they are still floating on fresh glue. With $100 worth of these gadgets and another $100 worth of high-tech setting cement waiting, I'm now cutting our precious tiles to fit the wavy walls of our rooms.
    I figure by the Ides of March the world will be judging my work. And knives will be waiting for me in the forum.

world champions in Florence

    It was Bob's idea, some time ago. He said, "I'm coming back to Italy and we'll go to the 'Worlds' in September." Great idea, Bob. To us, 'The Worlds' means only one thing: The Rainbow Jersey. It's something a bike racer is entitled to wear all year long indicating that she, or he, is the world champion by virtue of winning one race on one glorious day every year. If you manage to win the Yellow Jersey at the Tour de France, it hangs on your wall all year. You win the Rainbow Jersey; it hangs on your back. The 'Worlds' date back to track events in 1892, and the first road race world championship was awarded in 1921. Italy has won more medals, historically, than any other country.
    This year Italy hosted the 'Worlds' and, in fact, held them in Tuscany for the first time. Bob did show up, and we went to watch the 'Worlds.' Rain and shine.
     The guy who actually made it possible was Max, my best Italian friend from Rome. He's a clever, cheerful Tuscan transplanted to Rome working in TV news production and a very distant employee of Silvio Berlusoni. Who he hates. And so should you. Max's family lives in Pistoia, birthplace of the pistol and a short distance west of Firenze. I visited here once before with Max and the reception was so warm and homey, I was eager to return and equally eager for Bob to experience Italian hospitality at its best. We arrived on Saturday in time to see the women's race.

Max dodging the sun at Montecatini Terme

    The race route passed just south of Pistoia over a daunting climb before heading for 10 circuits between Fiesole and Firenze. Absolutely beautiful weather. We watched the race on TV from behind a feast supplied by Max's aunt after visiting the start in Montecantini Terme. This is an old (seriously) resort town in the grand, over-the-top, Roman style. Colonnaded palaces, huge gardens, fountains, statues, the whole fiasco. Through the spacious wooded grounds, the team vans set up shop with mechanics, trainers, sponsors, racers, and gwakers all milling about in decorative lycra and festive chaos. We studiously noticed surprising gear ratios indicating a much more difficult course than was advertised, and sure enough, the race was wildly exciting with numerous heroics on every hilly circuit. Marianne Vos of Holland is currently the best cycling athlete in the world, seemingly able to win on any kind of bike in any kind of event yet still maintain remarkable popularity 'in the bunch.' She won, predictably, but it is was a good race with tough rides from English, American, and Italian riders.
    We took the train to a crowded downtown Firenze for the men's event on Sunday and spent the day walking up the

Max wringing out in Fiesole

mountain to Fiesole in seriously deteriorating weather. By the time we got to our picnic spot halfway up, we were all completely soaked along with our sandwiches. Despite the misery, I'll never forget the enthusiasm of the crowd. The sound: the vibrating power of the most deafening, sustained boom from the hundreds of tifosi crammed onto the sides of the road. These weren't screams or shouts, but a deep, inhuman, baritone roar so uncharacteristic on what is normally an eerily silent passage of a pack of bike racers up a sustained climb. The climb finished in the town of Fiesole where a huge digital movie screen displayed the video feed from the various helicopter and motorcycle cameras. A good vantage point except for the fact that the torrential rain allowed very little camera action and we were frozen stiff, shivering and soaking wet. Standing in the cold wind in front of a fuzzy tv screen didn't make a whole lot of sense. My hands had become frighteningly uncontrollable. We ducked out of the wind into a crowded, steamy bar to thaw out over a hot chocolate, but the effect didn't last long. Unable to stand still for fear of exposure, we retreated down the hill, more or less ignoring the race, until we reached the 'pit lane.' In each cabana was a closed circuit tv displaying the race which we could see from across the street.
   The sport is famous for awful conditions and it's rare that an event is shortened or postponed due to weather. This race was no different, the race must go on; but many described it as 'epic.' A few tough favorites survived till the end and they must have been angrily determined to see this through. In particular a rough, tough Colombian, Rigoberto Uran, who finished second in the last Olympic road race, looked in perfect position, romping strongly up to Fiesole and recklessly careening down the mountain in true Colombian form. The roads were no longer awash in deep, running water and Rigorberto put his mountain skills to the limit. Until he lost it on the descent and cartwheeled dramatically into the mountainside, raising screams from us frightened tv watchers. The Italian favorite ran out of gas chasing two Spainards. They looked like sure winners, but botched their tactics and allowed a Portugese to win, bringing tears to all eyes.
   Great idea, Bob! He drove us back home that night with the car heater going full blast.

going vegan

   For a long time now, Alex has kept her ear to the rantings on the internet about the quality of our food. Before I knew her, she had tried dieting, fasting and purging to help improve her life with apparently satisfactory results since she was successful in attracting me as a mate. Now that she's succeeded, she's still not satisfied. Now, it seems, she wants to keep her mate in tip-top shape for ever and ever. That's very flattering, but the trouble is, I have to change my habits, which I fear may change what she saw in me in the first place. I'm worried because I might become a little grumpy and her grand plan could backfire.
   Today for lunch, I put a cover over my lentil salad saving it for later. At supper time, we were served garden snails to top our whole grain spaghetti. I'm not sure this is pure 'vegan,' but it may be an abstract contribution to the success of our vegetable garden which will one day contribute to our "vegetable-based, whole foods" diet. In a previous post I have already mentioned bird seed as an important contribution to our youthful complexions. Every morning we get a heap of ground up flax seed on top of our soy-milk muesli. One thing is certain: I remain a lean, mean, fighting machine.
    It's easy to say it all started with a movie called "Forks over Knives," but that's not really true. The movie is just the latest in a long string of reinforcements to the conclusion that what the grocery stores are selling isn't that good for us. Prior to watching the movie, Alex read a book called Fats That Heal, Fats that Kill. The book drags everyone through a first year study of biochemistry, before concluding that veggies are good and meat is bad. And flax seed meal is really good. Full of fresh omega-3s. Now we are moving on to the the writing of Colin Campbell, first his distillation of data in the China Study, and then on to Whole which I have a feeling will promise me an old age of worn out teeth.
    Parallel to this, I accidentally discovered the TED talk by an outrageous English thinker, Aubrey DeGray. His fast-paced argument proposes that my children may be faced with the prospect of immortality and that we need to get our "shit together." I've long wondered that the whole Darwinian thing of adaptation through natural selection is hopelessly old fashioned in the face of modern medicine, birth control, genetics technology, and wealth distribution. After all, we haven't been naturally selecting our food stocks for quite a while. George Bush and the Catholic Church may have interfered with embryonic stem cell research but the delay was brief. In Japan they have figured out you don't need embryonic cells, in fact, you don't need stem cells at all to clone to your heart's content. According to Nina Tandon, replacement body parts built from your own data is only 10 years away. It's nice to know that I no longer need to consider evolutionary improvements to myself, I feel pretty happy with myself as I am. Or do I?
    There is this other podcast (BBC's radio discussion 10 Billion) that's troubling me. Stephen Emmott writes that the global catastrophe is just around the corner. We don't have enough water and we have demonstrated that we have no intention of dealing with it. Apparently it takes four litres of water to produce one to drink, and 100 to produce one cup of coffee. With a growing population and shrinking ability to produce food, due to climate change, we're all going to die. But wait a minute, if we start living forever and stop having babies, maybe we can hold out till .... we're imortal!

permission granted

    26th August, 2013. I pinned to the wall, as required, our notification to the world that we are making

improvements to this little relic of history. It's been a long and costly grind, and is in fact our second permit it the ten years of working on this property.
   After 10 years you'd think there would be something to show off. That's a long time. But, sadly, there's not much to show. Most of it is under the building or hidden in the walls. But, time does allow evolutionary improvements through 'environmental selection.' A ten year record rainfall has demonstrated leaks in the basement and flooding in the garden, which we've been dealing with all summer. After years of observing the changing seasons, the prevailing winds, the path of sunlight, and traffic patterns around the house, we have made numerous changes in our approach to the final layout of land, rooms, doors and windows. The result improves with time.

'photo-shopped' concept of east elevation

    For example, in our main sitting room on the ground floor, I discovered that the east windows described in our original plans wouldn't work. They made some sense on paper but when it came time to plan wall demolition and construction of reinforcing elements there just wasn't any room for all this. Further, one of the windows would be so close to the corner of the building it would threaten the integrity of the wall. Not only did it violate common sense, it violated the building code. Knowing the inspectors were only keen on external changes that improved symmetry, I began to imagine replacing the two windows with one 'door.' The room already has two exterior doors and another large window so the light appeared sufficient, especially considering the ratio of glazed area to floor space, however the openings were all on one wall. Illumination was coming from only one direction leaving dark shadows everywhere and giving every face a dark side. I made a couple of re-touched photographs to illustrate the idea to all the doubters (which included everybody) and eventually I convinced our 'geometra' (architect/inspector) Ettore to submit a new design incorporating the changes.
   We needed to submit an extension of the permit anyway (for more time) and we had decided to move the

project from our old geometra to Ettore's office where we felt much more comfortable. Ettore speaks english, is young and well educated and has a keen affection for old buildings. What we didn't expect is that to accomplish all these changes, we were better off submitting an entirely new project requiring a whole new set of drawings, a repayment of filing fees, a new design review, and subjected us to a new set of anti-seismic laws following the earthquake in Aquila.
    It's a great relief to be back on the job (digging in the foundations felt like a serious reversal of fortune), but the job has gotten even bigger with the requirement of steel reinforcements. We have contracted our steel framing and Giles and I are having fun making a great big hole in the wall.

borrowing the car

    Now, you may think our present car ill fated, what with the loss of £5k in an internet scam in trying to buy it, and the difficult discovery by Alex, Giles and the girls that it had no airconditioning during the maiden voyage across europe a few years ago. But, actually, it's been pretty good, getting 50 miles per gallon (really!) and seating seven on lots of occasions. It's been great to drive and very comfortable with tea trays, cubby holes, vanity mirrors, and courtesy lights all over the place. But, it's still a car. A machine. It's far more reliable than your average person, it even gives fair warning before a nervous breakdown; but this time was a combination of bad timing and bad luck.

    Alex lured her head-of-house from school days for an overnight visit through facebook. On the morning of their train departure, Thomasina ran in saying she couldn't open the boot. Dead battery. Two days before, we'd driven to the coast and back with a full load, then to Lake Trasimeno the previous day and now, suddenly, nothing. 

    My battery charger snapped its fuse as soon as I touched the terminals, and in disbelief, I snapped two more replacement fuses before I believed I had a problem. Hijacking a neighbors car, I took the battery to the mechanics down the hill. They received it, saying they'd check it and then went on vacation for a week. In the meantime, I found a circuit in the car that was also blowing it's fuses. Coincidentally, we also filled the house with four (yes) workaway volunteers all requiring food and trips to the train station.

   At last count, we've now used four different neighbors for transportation and shopping. 

   In the latest twist, our helpful mechanic, unable to find the faulty component, has taken it to another auto-electric specialist. There we are told the alternator is bad and a new one will cost £500 installed, a price the original mechanic can't stomach; so an intrigue is beginning where the estimate is rejected, we retrieve the car, and pay the original mechanic to find a used/reconditioned alternator. But, of course, it's summer and these mechanics need another week at the beach. It all began on the evening of the 13th.

Post Script:   On the 8th August the car was returned to us. Our favorite mechanics, who freely admit to being mechanics and not electricians, saved us $120. I was called upon one Saturday to help retrieve the car from the specialist elletrauto. Nico drove us in to Chiusi, he had a long chat with the specialist, paid $40, put me in the driver's seat and I followed him home, running on the battery with the alternator bits sitting on the passenger seat. A few days later Nico's father returned the car to us at supper time with a new alternator installed $120 cheaper than the specialist. That's how things work here. Sometimes.

-- 

My guitar show (posted by Thomasina and David)

   Rolling Stone magazine is seen as an authority when it comes to the 'Best of All Time.' They keep a list of the best guitarists of all time (Jimi Hendrix on top). The guitar is the reigning Queen of musical instruments. I tried to play one once, with mom. What a mistake. Perhaps the Petersen gene swaps musical talent for something else... or nothing else.
   Lately, though, the Petersen gene may be diluted enough to allow Thomasina the ability to play something. She's been seeing a guitar teacher every Saturday in Paciano for the past three years, seldom practicing (without serious force from Alex); but she actually can play. The guitar teacher, Paolo, is clearly fond of her and thinks she has natural talent. He must exist in a world of constant frustration, trying to get lazy kids to remember 10 notes in a row; or perhaps he really is the most patient man in the universe. Whatever the case, he lately managed to organize a concert featuring his pupils in a collection of tunes dedicated to two local school children killed in traffic accidents. One family took offense, but the other was gracious enough to get the ball rolling. Paolo took it upon himself to organize everything including a strong pitch for a local charity dedicated to child safety. He's a nice guy.

A month ago, I had a guitar concert.

To most of you, that might think that sounds normal and you are probably thinking:

"I've seen lots of concerts and shows, whats the big deal?

But what if I tell you that you're wrong? Going on stage is a HUGE deal! 

Let me ask you something: Have you ever been on stage, in front of hundreds of people and double the amount of eyes looking at you almost willing you to make a mistake?

Well I have, and I tell you that it's no piece of cake.

   The hall was small, but purpose built. Stage, seats, speakers, lights, curtains, the whole deal. It was a two night affair. The students had to learn a couple of pieces each, and the selections were varied between generes with Paulo often sitting in, in fact often leading, and in some cases singing. Mean spirited members of the audience might have called it a venue to demonstrate Paolo's command of the art, but the audience was entirely parents or friends of parents forced to be there, so nobody really complained. There they were. Our kids demonstrating talent. Remarkable.

I've been doing guitar for almost three years and last month we finally had our first concert (if you could call it that). I do admit that I have done close to no practice for all these years but I still enjoy it.

I started working really hard a week or two before the concert and did at least half and hour of practice a night. I should probably have done more because my performance wasn't exactly outstanding, but that's not the point. 

   The only people likely to read this post besides Thomasina and myself (Alex won't go near my blog) is John and Grazia so I'll say right now that a boy named Luca stole the show. He dazzled us with riffs as delicate and inspired as anything the instrument has ever produced. We all sat goggle-eyed while he stole our hearts with his improvisations. Paolo was stunned. Luca, rumor has it, has been signed by four recoding companies who are now locked in litigation over copywrite. The recording in my portable camera has been confiscated.

So the big night came and I was sitting in a tiny room, backstage, sweating and trembling with fear together with all the other kids who were doing the show.

I had to do two guitar pieces and sing a song with my friend Lisa.

Now this is when I ask my self: How in the world do all these people like Obama, Michelle, Pop singers, Doctors, Teachers...get up on stage and talk, lecture and sing without breaking into a sweat and run screaming from stage "Mommy!!"?

I mean seriously, I know I haven't had any stage practice or anything, but you are under so much pressure when your in that spotlight and all eyes are on you.

   On the first night, Thomasina performed a solo classical number and sang a duet with her friend Lisa.  There she was. Up there. In the lights. A nervous wreck. I couldn't have done it. But she did and we were thrilled.

Anyway, the first piece was a solo and it went ok,

   On the second night, she played rhythm in a trio featuring Alessio and Paolo. Remarkable. Of course by the time we watched her on stage we had the music memorized, and memorized, and memorized; and we were confident because she had the sheet music with her on stage.

but the second bit was a complete disaster!

To be continued.... possibly.

underpinning

    Underpinning. I think it means shoring up from below. Foundation work. That's what we're up to foundations?! Talk about an upside down project.
right now. Foundation work. It's been what? eight years? And we're finally getting around to the
    But, yes, foundations. Or lack of them.
    It all started with a damp spot. A damp spot that spoiled the nice new plaster that was to be our kitchen wall. The kitchen that would set us free from so much crowded, time consuming inefficiencies that have plagued us for the past eight years. 'We are experts in temporary kitchens,' I heard myself say to our latest volunteer. We have known nothing but temporary kitchens for as long as our children can remember. And a pantry? We've got plenty of food in storage but do we have a pantry? If we need a roll of loo paper, we hunt around upstairs in the dusty corridor (which is the last place left in this building site for storage) among anonymous cylindrical formations of brick dust until we find something squeezable. Hopefully it's not last years zucchini.
     The damp spot grew. Another one appeared. Then standing water. Standing water cannot be explained away by global warming. Standing water in one's future pantry is... not allowed. So we tried to melt tar paper against the wall. And we tried to will the season to return to normal. Both strategies proved futile. Then, pouring water. Water began to pour into our new stairwell. It poured in from the surface of the wall at about waist high. Just poured in. It ran down the stairs into our wine cellar where we had to siphon out lots of it every day. We were visited by an expert: waterproofing the foundation from the outside was our only choice. We dug and we dug deeply and we finished the surface and we

waterproofed and we protected the waterproofing and we... we came to a point along the wall where the foundation stopped. Oh mio Dio! Now we were not just waterproofing, we were underpinning. Serious structural stuff. The oldest part of the house had a very shallow foundation which we exposed as a rustic wall when we leveled the ground floor rooms and the outdoor terrace way back in the very first summer. Now, looking for a solution to some creeping damp, we've found a very good reason for some creeping damp but saddled ourselves with a much more serious solution.
    Ironically, at the same time, we've been applying for a new building permit and waiting for a new set of permissions along with an engineer's report before we can legally begin work. The last thing we needed was the engineer to find out that part of the house had no foundation. Especially that part where I had already, without official permission, enlarged both the window and door openings (which weakens any wall). By pure dumb luck we had excavated only newer walls when he looked around, but now we must hurry up and get some cement in, waterproof and push the dirt back before anyone notices.
    All this excitement began when we had Charlie and Richie here to push on with the heavy lifting. They could make short work of the heaviest projects (have a look at the photo of a beam replacement on the third floor. They are lifting that thing with a rope, by hand). But now they're gone and in their place are workaway volunteers. Poor things. Down in the ditch with bucket and trowel. It's been a month and a half since Charlie and Richie left. The rain has stopped, spring flowers have finished, school is over for the summer, everyone heads for the swimming pool after supper, the vegetable garden is off to a new start along with the irrigation system, the damp spots are fading, the lawnmower and strimmer are wheezing, but the waterproofing job is still not finished. We are still surrounded by a (dry) moat and the piles of mud have hardened into mountains of pottery clay. With tall weeds growing out of them. And this project is still waiting for its underpinning.