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Now that we're back from Venezia,
I'm faced with trying to find activities for Renato and Miles
so they don't get on each other's nerves, as is often the case
when you're stuck with a friend in the middle of nowhere for
a week. Most of the time they keep themselves occupied:
they play in the field below the house, or amuse themselves
with the month-old kittens in the garage, or take "Briciola"
(say "Bree-cho-lah" -- means "Breadcrumb"), the neighbor's dog,
for walks in the woods. Here Briciola makes herself at
home on Adriana's lap to watch the Lazio/Coppenhagen match on
TV. |
| We looked for Briciola this morning to take her along with
us on a hike, but couldn't find her. She had apprently
gone off with her master, Alberto (Renato Sr.'s cousin) and
Franco Rotelli (world's laziest shepherd),
to prune some trees or something. [A quick aside about
Franco: Renato Sr. and Alberto were mighty annoyed last week
when they discovered the decomposed body of a sheep tossed into
some bushes behind the house. Franco doesn't like to work
too hard, and burying dead animals can be strenuous. If
Briciola hadn't come back to the house dragging a sheep leg,
Renato and Alberto would never have been the wiser.] Renato
Sr., Renato Jr., Miles, and I set off without the dog. |
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| Renato Sr. knows the woods like the back of his hand
and took us across the field and down the mountain a bit
on an old stone road, now quite overgrown and eroded,
that he maintains was built in the 14th or 15th century.
We came upon an old house that's used mainly as a storage
place for chestnuts or wood that's been gathered and is
waiting to be transported back to civilzation. |
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During the walk I reminisced about a similar hike we made
when Georgia Willett came to visit a few years back. We
walked all the way down to Cargalla, the closest village, where
some relatives insisted that we have a "snack" and forced huge
slabs of a big, creamy, white-frosted cake on us with spumante
to wash it down. Made walking back up very difficult. |
| After lunch we took Miles down to Succisa,
the small village across the valley where most of the Tonelli
clan lives. There was a lot of activity at the local bar:
the men were playing cards and some bratty kids were outside
doing terrible things to a cat. The owner of the bar came
out screaming at the children, removed her shoe and flung it
at them. I wasn't quick enough to get a picture, though.
The men were playing a game called "Briscola" (say Bree-sco-lah,
doesn't mean "breadcrumb") and using a Piacentine deck, pictured
far right. I learned how to play, but the scoring is
strange and the cards are confusing so developing a winning
strategy was near impossible.
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The suits are swords, cups, clubs
(which look like real clubs or big sticks: "bastone") and coins.
There are no eights, nines or tens in the desk and instead of
queens there are men on horses, but they call them queens anyway.
Better
pictures of Piacentine and other types of Italian playing cards
can be found here. |
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On a road that leads from the cemetary past the bar to the
bocce court, I noticed a new railing alongside the road.
There isn't any reason for a railing there -- no cliffs or anything
-- so I asked Renato why it was there. He told me that
the "old blind guy," who I've seen walking around the village
on occasion, asked the villagers to build it for him and gave
them the money to do it. So they did the entire span of
road where he takes his daily walks.
We hung around for a while, then started home for Case Rotelli,
but stopped along the road to check out the new foal that
had been born a few weeks ago.
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| The horses came running over to us to eat oak leaves from
our hands and to let us swat the flies away from them, which
Renato said they appreciated (he seems to know a lot more about
livestock than I do, because I couldn't sense any real appreciation,
but I assumed that it must be so). They were very well
groomed and felt warm and velvety and I stroked their heads
for a while before I remembered that I am allergic to horses.
I discovered this last April when I went horseback riding for
the first time in 25 years, but I only remembered it this afternoon
when I started sneezing and felt my eyes burning.
Okay, if it doesn't rain tomorrow then there'll be a procession
because tomorrow is the Feast of San Lorenzo, and those of
you who know me well know that San
Lorenzo is my favorite martyr! Who's yours?
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copyright 2002 m.tonelli
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