deferrrr, deferrrr, to the crochet me contributor!

Ok not sure if you'll get the Mikado reference, but whatev. I am quite proud to announce that I have published an article in CrochetMe online magazine! woo hoo! The article is about the lace trim necklaces I've made recently. It's a tutorial on the process, materials etc... I am happy to be a part of one of my favorite websites, and they have some pretty durn cool stuff, if I do say so myself. Enjoy!
(go to Features, then Neck-laces, and there we are!)

photos up...

Well it might not be the best-looking photo share site, but I have a large chunk of my Italy photos online now. D and I took turns snapping shots, but you can probably bet that if there's a person in the photo, D took it. I have inherited the Williams penchant for empty landscapes and close-up flower shots. Sue me. The only time it was really a problem was our honeymoon. There was a total of one shot with D and I in the same frame. Another place, we each took a shot of the other, then glued the photos together later. Pathetic, right? I was too busy saying, "Oooooh look at THAT mountain! Oooooh an elk!"

Enjoy the photos, and visit again soon, as I will complete uploading the rest. Maybe some crochet stuff too...

fyi

check below my wedding post for writings about florence. I don't know how to change the time-stamp on the blog, so I started working on the florence bit a few weeks ago. anyhow, enjoy!

our wingbeawer

I'm putting a brief halt to my Italian posts to be a proud Momma: this weekend A was the ringbearer for my friend Abby's wedding. This was his first wedding ever, and I was very nervous that the ceremony was right during his usual naptime. He's a great sleeper, and is Mr. Crankypants when he doesn't get his nap, normally. But all the prayers apparently worked, as he not only did his job well, he was almost completely silent during the service, a real first for him. I think the tiredness paid off, since he just lay there sucking his thumb and waving his little feet in the air.

Anyhow, that's all incidental stuff. My friend Abby is a very laid-back person, marrying an equally laid-back, quirky guy named Chad (who is also 6'5). So I was confident that we would not have the Bridezilla factor, no matter what happened. They initially wanted A to come down the aisle on a bigwheel, but his feet didn't reach the pedals yet. Lucky, since the aisle was at an incline, and he would have just careened into the little flower girls and made them cry. Whew!

Instead, he just walked behind them, holding the pillow Abby made, with ring-pops tied on (Chad had proposed with a ring pop). It was a sore trial for him to not bury his face in the pillow and suck the pops into a sticky mess, but we explained that they were Chad's, and Chad was going to eat them later. So A walked down the aisle, looking around at everybody and all the origami flowers the girls were handing out, and then he got up to the big marble dais and handed the pillow over.

The part we hadn't practiced much before was what to do when you're done handing the pillow off. Naturally, he did the only sensible thing, which was to run back the way he came, past Abby and her Dad and all the laughing congregation. Since he's younger than 5, everyone thought everything he did was adorable so it was no big deal. And it was pretty durn cute, though I say it.

The reception was a blast, and he entertained our table with some very hammy versions of Singin' in the Rain songs. Then the crowd started dancing and A cut a rug with me and the flower girls. He was completely wired on sugar (having eaten half a roll and an entire slice of wedding cake), and chased the "beeuful geeuls" around trying to hug them. He kept trying to spot Abby, who he knew was the VIP for the day, and had a blast with Abby's British relatives.

Topping the weekend off, we went to Truro Church the next day with our dear friend Ed, and heard the head of Compassion International speak about his organization, which we support, and through which we sponsor a child in Thailand. I am very happy and very tired. Enjoy the photos!
ps. I made A's little bowtie, and added tons of flowers and crocheted bits to a plain Target purse above. I was tres proud of my handiwork too! :)

Firenze

I realize that my posts are gi-normous. Thank you for your patience. I am going to try to break them up into manageable chunks, separated by happy photos...

Well I still haven't finished writing about my lovely vacation. Hopefully you aren't sick of reading about it. If you are, you know what you can do. Go to cuteoverload.com and stare at some sappy puppies. What'd you think I was going to say?

The last two places I haven't written in detail about are Florence and Cortona. The last time I went to Florence (2001, August), it was not a particular success. We stood in line for the Uffizi, along with about half the population of Japan and a few other American slobs like us, and then when we got in, D had to use the loo. Well the loo was at the VERY END of the museum, through every century and region of Western art you can think of, and to add insult to injury, the bathroom toilets had no seats. Most toilets I used in Florence had no seats, some had no toilets at all if you know what I mean. Like hole-in-the-floor and hope-you-have-strong-quads-toilets. So D and I did not enjoy our experience. One can't feel sublime in a place where huge knots of tourists swarm in front of the painting you're trying to experience, and then you're boiling hot and annoyed that some dumb American is explaining the wrong painting technique to Auntie Ethel standing behind you. After that museum, D and I decided to wear headphones to every subsequent place. It was beautiful to wander the National Gallery in London, Jimi Hendrix blocking out every ignoramus in the room (but maybe not every snob, you may think. well go ahead and think it. you're right).

This time, we decided: No Uffizi. Easy peezy. Also, one of the few things I wanted to see was Beatrice Galli's yarn shop on the way to the Boboli gardens. Very close by is also one of my favorite paintings in the world: Pontormo's Descent from the Cross. So with that scant list in mind, we drove the very manageable distance with our friend B, found a parking lot, and started walking. It turned out to be one of the best food days in my life, no exaggeration.

B had lived in Florence for a semester in college, and knew the less-touristy places where you could get great food, shop, and whatever else. We went to an indoor/outdoor market, with table after table of fresh produce, cheap clothes and linens. I got a half kilo of the best cherries, and then went inside for a Cafe Latte. I don't get coffee often, and most places butcher Lattes or make such huge ones they're cold by the time half of it's gone. Or Starbucks--shoot me if I ever get a latte there, all burnt-ashtray tasting. Yeugh. Anyway, this one was excellent, like my pal Fabio in Roma used to make. He'd put cinnamon smiley faces on top too, as a special touch. Probably did that for all those art school dames.

We wandered around a bit, going towards the Duomo, and stopped in this little chocolatier that had very Japanese-looking packaging. The salesman offered us a ton of free samples, each one better than the last, of every kind of exquisite chocolate. We bought a huge box for D's mom, and on our way out the salesman gave us each a spoonful of their gelato. Now I am by no means an expert on food, but this gelato was indescribably good. The closest thing I can compare it to is if silk and cashmere had a cold, chocolate-flavored baby. We were stunned, and resolved to return with the rest of the ladies from our villa. (All 9 of us were in town that day)

D enjoyed taking lots of detailed shots of the Duomo, and we went inside with our group. It's huge and beautiful, and people still don't really understand how it was put up. Brunelleschi was a genius, and even after reading a whole book about it I still don't get it. For some reason, I felt sad and oppressed in this space, thinking about how many people had lived and died to put it up, the incredible ambition of a cathedral. I thought about the fact that work had begun nearly a century before, while the Black Death destroyed half of Europe's population, over half in Florence itself. And yet. Their lives were nothing but toil and suffering, and yet. I don't know why it depressed me instead of lifted my spirits. I guess just thinking about the extreme luxury in which I live, gives me a sense of awe that others had (and have) so much less. Even the royalty of the Renaissance had fleas, and bathed once a year. And here, these flea-bitten folk put up one of the most beautiful buildings in the world.

We went to a trattoria after the Duomo, the place I referred to in an earlier post with lots of local comfort food. I am now a devotee of fava beans--cannellini in our grocery stores. I've come round to beans after 30 years of detesting them. I am embracing my inner Briton.

D and I walked across town to the river, crossed the beautiful Ponte Vecchio, and found Signora Galli's shop. She is an incredibly nice lady, and very accomodating. We had a long conversation about yarn manufacturers, the dearth of Italian knitters (most of her customers are tourists, and Japanese ones), and the difficulty of learning a new language. She opened up the back balcony of her shop so D could take pictures of the bridge and her lovely flowers. Meanwhile, I was in yarn heaven, touching all of the exquisite Italian-manufactured beauties there. Most of the world's luxury fibers are processed in Italy, I read recently. Cashmere, Silk, and Merino wool are brought there to be sorted, cleaned, dyed and then spun into the fibers that make high-fashion sweaters and other textiles. Italians, whatsamattayou?

I bought a good amount of yarn: some Egyptian cotton, some in fibers I know not, and some mohair too. Most of the yarn I bought was of a raspberry persuasion, with changes in texture instead of hue. One skein looked like Easter grass, candy-colored, but amazingly soft. The bunny illustration on the yarn wrapper was fuzzy just like the yarn. Another skein was like a watermelon-flavored candy cane; raspberry color with green and white spun into it. Ahh, bliss.

We went to our pilgrimage church to see the Pontormo, walked to the Strozzi Palazzo and the gorgeous Boboli gardens, and because I am slightly moronic, I mis-read the watch I was wearing and thought we had to run out of the gardens to meet our friends for dinner. Hmm, idiota. We were an hour earlier and of course, no one was there. So we walked to a place B recommended and sat down to our third gorgous meal of the day (after I realized my mistake in watch-reading). All I know is I want some tagliatelle right now!

cows...we're remarkable cows...

From a song A loves to sing, from the Philadelphia Chickens soundtrack by Sandra Boynton. A loves this whole CD, from the 'markable caows song, to the bellybutton song, to the "bad ge-ul" song" (the bad girl song, called "I like to fuss," one of my favorites). Anyhow, I am thinking about that CD because we have been to two farms in 2 weeks, half a world away. Yesterday we returned to the Clark's Elioak farm in Columbia with A, where they have a petting zoo, and also many of the fiberglas structures from the Enchanted Forest.

You can tell someone's family grew up in Baltimore by their instant recognition of the Enchanted Forest. It was a little theme park in a wood, with little houses and figures from nursery rhymes and fairy tales. Some of the structures were sliding boards, picnic tables, or little seats. Humpty Dumpty held up the sign at the entrance, which was a castle with a dragon, and inside were trains that would take you everywhere around the park, or you could walk. I remember the huge Mount Vesuvius sliding board in the middle of a lake, and sitting in Willie the Whale's mouth. Willie had a hole in his gullet so you could see into his stomach, which was a glass-fronted fishtank with all kinds of fun things inside. I think at least two pictures survive of me sitting there, looking bored. I did not fully appreciate the wonders of the place when I went, as I was at the cusp of "too old for this nursery rhyme crap" when my grandparents patiently took me. Of course, they loved taking pictures of me with anything, including every single character at Disneyworld.

A year ago or so, we went to the farm with my friend J and her son. She had found out about the petting zoo, but hadn't grown up here so the Enchanted Forest was a new thing. I had a visceral, almost primal, reaction to seeing these sculptures for the first time in 20 years. It was eerie, sad, and excellent that all these crumbling monuments to the 1950's golden age of childhood were still around. I liked how decrepit they looked, like a Nightmare before Christmas come to life. Since then, we have gone back twice, and all of these sculptures are getting refurbished and repainted, so that the one-legged Gingerbread man has a new leg, Papa bear has a nice clean pipe to smoke, and the 3 Pigs have a new house of brick (well, it's fiberglas too, but you know).

This time around, D came with us, as he decided to make a proper 2 week vacation out of his time off (I, also, am on vacation of sorts, not doing anything beyond what is necessary to survival this week). It was excruciatingly hot and muggy yesterday, and I realized why the parking lot was almost empty; A broke into a muck sweat almost from the moment he left the car.

All the same, it was a great time. A went down the rainbow slide, which properly terrified him afterwards (it's a really high slide), confronted his fears of the "Eeemo," --an emu that looked like it was expiring as it sat there panting in the sun, and fed some very cute lambs. And I found poor Willie, who has disintegrated so that all that's left is the tip of his tail, and a bit of raggedy tongue. It's going to take a lot of work to get Willie back to ship-shape (or ship-devouring shape, as it were).the villa in the distance, sheep very scared of us and moving in a pack, back and forth

The other farm, ah yes. Because I did mention two farms. Our villa was just down the road from a very earthy farm (read: dirty), which I wanted to see because I love sheep. Not just for the wool factor, but I love how Biblically dumb they are, and need that reminder of my own status as one of a flock. And as dirty as they are, I still think sheep are cute too.

We passed this farm every day, to and from our various excursions. Sometimes a little old Nonna (granny) was out there too, hunched over and toothless and beautiful over some plants, or sweeping the steps. There were huge Val di Chiana cows facing the road too, and we met the farm dog, Stellina, when we made our big al fresco dinner. So finally we made the short trek down the dirt road and asked the Padrona if we could take some pictures. She, the daughter-in-law of the Nonna, was a very eager guide of her domain--we met her husband later and he made it very clear that she was the one in charge of the whole enterprise. I think he must have worked in the vineyards or olive groves. I could barely understand anything he said, but I understood about half of what his wife said. Which was great, considering the overwhelming array of animals there and how loudly she talked. Maybe it's universal--talk louder if people don't speak your language.

So we wandered the farm taking pictures, first of the sheep, then goats and pigs, a pony that looked as toothless as the Nonna, and several other dogs that looked even more matted and tick-ridden than Stellina, who followed us around, licking us at every opportunity. The Padrona said something about tonight or tomorrow, mangiare (to eat), and then "we have rabbits, chickens, cows." So I thought, is she inviting us to dinner? So I asked, "Us? Mangiare?" And she said, yes, at seven. So we went back to the house and returned at 7, prepared for a real Farmer's delight dinner.
Stellina, meaning little star in Italian. She's a good dog, though quite sporco.

Of course you probably know where this is heading: hijinks ensue, something's lost in translation--namely, that she was inviting us to watch the animals eating their dinner. Realization dawned as we were led from pen to pen, watching various buckets of grains being delivered to the well-fed critters inside. She had a lot of rabbits (coniglie) guinea pigs (piccolo coniglie), 200 chickens, a baby goat, and 3 or 4 calves. Two of the calves were twins, and delivered by the Padrona herself. She said the first one came right away, the second wasn't breathing for 10 minutes because it was stuck for so long. So she picked it up by the hind legs and shook it for a bit, and gave it a cortizone injection and then "apre gli occhi"--it opened its eyes and was fine.The brown and black calves in the back are the twins. the one in the front was 20 days old. awwwwwwwwwww.

We met her two sons, one of whom was feeding the goats. I asked him if he spoke English and he shook his head sadly. Then Mom came up and said, "Him! He has English classes for SIX Years, and he speaks NOTHING! Niente!" He apparently did well in everything else, just not languages. Very much like D, in fact. Teaching him to say anything correctly in a foreign language requires Job-like patience.

We really enjoyed our trip to the farm, and got some delicious free eggs out of the bargain as well. "Here!" she said. "You can have them for dinner tonight!" Yeah, um, that was kindof the idea.

a few more photos?

we'll see, once again, if blogger will cooperate. there was a wicked strong thunderstorm tonight so who knows if it will work.some more san gimignano towers, as seen from the battlements.
d and I took a very romantic walk to find the car. we were 180 degrees off, but had this beautiful, steadily darkening, view the whole time. Found the car eventually, and several cats as well.
a wall of climbing roses, boboli gardens in Florence. The whole garden here smelled heavenly, and had patterns of boxwood hedges with full peonies blooming inside, and views of San Miniato as well.
d, the clothing catalogue model. he's carrying my stuff too, the little dear.