Back to Normal

July 1, 2004: our moving truck approaches Chicago, and that famous skyline stands in front of a vibrant  blue background on a gorgeous summer day. An omen, I think, of all the good things to come in our new home.

Goodbye, Hancock Center. So long, Sears Tower...

Five years later, to the day: Well, you can see for yourself what the weather looked like as we departed the Windy City, and I could say the gray weather matched my mood. But that would not be completely true. I think again, of course, of all that I’ll miss, but I know there is no going back. We are on our way to CT, and I will have to make the most of it.

And no more vegan treats from the neighborhood organic bakery

Samantha gave an admirable account of some of the move snafus, so I won’t repeat them. Of course, she can’t capture the angst roiling inside me through most of the ordeal: Will the truck break down? That lurching motion doesn’t seem too healthy. Is the cat alive? She hasn’t made a sound in hours. How is everything holding up back there? Anything damaged? Anything we forgot, even though I know we both went through the empty apartment several times before leaving. And what will we find in this new house, which I have seen for all of 15 minutes?

Hard to believe all that was just ten days ago. We are now remarkably unpacked, organized, and feeling at home in the new place, though the old owners were pigs and things  will — especially in the kitchen — never be as clean as I would like. (Yes, yes, I am anal about those things, I know.) Not that the house was trashed in a foreclosure-sale manner; I suppose they met the spirit of the law when it comes to “broom clean.” But as I scrubbed the range — “what is that shit that won’t come off?” — and found increasing evidence of boil-overs and spills seemingly ignored, I had this thought: Would you take a dump and leave it there, expecting the next person who comes along to flush for you? Probably not. So why do you expect the people buying your home to clean the remnants of old food and such in your kitchen?

You cannot make this stuff up...

And as we are quickly learning, either our sellers or the people before them did most things on the cheap and/or with jerry-rigged methods. Hell, why hire an electrician to put a light inside the garage when you can run an extension cord from your house and hang a lamp upside down from the ceiling? I’m sure more pleasant surprises await, more opportunities for us to contribute to the economic health of the home-repair sector in the Greater New Haven  area.

Did I mention the lovely view across the street? At least nobody makes any noise there...

And what about the town, or our little corner of it? Well, there are some good things: I can easily walk to the library (which isn’t very good, unfortunately), the grocery store, the bank, several decent restaurants. Within a short drive is our beloved Trader Joe’s and more good restaurants. But West Haven  is not Glastonbury, the North Side of Chicago, or other upper-middle class neighborhoods I’ve called home. It is much more like some of the places I’ve lived in Hartford, but with a vibe I can’t pin down yet.  I suppose you could call it blue collar or working class, if you were being kind. If you weren’t, you’d use some of the descriptors I’ve thrown out to Samantha, ones I won’t repeat here. But if you like tattoos, motorcycles, and two-family homes not quite infused with what the realtors call pride of ownership, this is the place for you.

To be fair, our street and many others around it have lots of well-kept homes, and the people we’ve actually met have been more than kind. But there is a cultural difference between our old Roscoe Village scene and the new town that will take some getting used to. Am I an intellectual snob who hates dilapidation, and being stared at while running errands on my bike, with a look that says, “Why is that middle-aged white man riding a bike?”  Guilty as charged. But I know (I hope…) I can live with the shortcomings because of the pluses: a great house that was a good deal, proximity to New Haven, proximity to the water (as with Lake Michigan in Chicago, I might not spend much time by it but I like knowing it’s there). And I will live with it if Samantha is happy with everything, because that was the whole point of moving: End her misery after five years of urban living that she disliked from the start.

I’ve found one unexpected plus. As much as I loved/love Chicago, I know what Samantha means when she says coming back to CT feels like home. The trees, the hills, even the highways — they’re all familiar, and in a good way. So maybe the Crisis of the move is not so bad. Maybe the Crisis in general is over. Why, I think I might be…normal!

Brother, can you spare a lawn mower?

Uh, no.  False alarm. I know the adjustments will bring new anxieties. And the old ones still have residence within, particularly about playwriting. And even blogging — my god, it takes 2 weeks to write one? Yes, home ownership, a poorly run town government, occasional pining for all I’ve left behind – plenty of fodder to fuel the Crisis. Ah, it’s nice to know that some things never change.

Stressed and Depressed

Six nights to go.

"What the HELL is happening here?"

Six more nights in our box-stuffed apartment, with the cat spastically moving from one empty bookcase to another, pulling herself into the bottom cavity. Six more nights to think of all the things I still haven’t seen (Wright’s Robie House) or done (concerts at the Metro, the Riveria, the Aragon; dinner at various vegan-friendly restaurants). Six more nights to stress about what could still go wrong, after several weeks of things-gone-wrong that either turned out OK, or made me shrug and say, “What can you do?”

For the latter: the fucked-up process that was getting a mortgage. It began with me in Italy, so that made Samantha the point person. She had never been through the details before, and to give her credit, she did a good job. Still, she didn’t know all the questions to ask — or didn’t ask the neurotic ones I would have — and she trusted our broker, and once I got back, I stayed out of the process so as not to step on her toes, and didn’t follow my hunches. Bottom line: the broker blew the call (”wait, wait to lock”) and we missed out on what would have been a great rate, though we did end up with a decent one, historically speaking, though this is one time I take little comfort in history. But that one point-or-so spike in early June hurt us, throwing the estimated payments out of whack.

As did the news that our house was not easily insurable; too close to the water, most of the big-name companies said, even though I doubt a killer hurricane has hit West Haven in decades, and it’s not like a storm surge would pour over the other dozen or so streets between us and the Sound. So, the insurance was almost double what I expected. And did I mention the taxes? And that we need work on the garage, and chimney, and have to paint, and…Welcome to your new home.

For the former, the almost snafus: We (ok, I) spent the week worrying we would not get the funds to the lawyer in time for the closing. Tip: when dealing with an internet bank like, say, ING Direct, carefully find out its policies for transfers before you try to send big bucks somewhere. I take part of the blame; again, I ignored a hunch that told me I should have taken care of it last week. So human error and those damn bank policies almost tripped us up. Thankfully, we are on for tomorrow’s blessed event.

The old-time neighborhood movie palace, complete with neon signs and a working Wurlitzer

Beaucoup microbrews on tap and a great beer garden in back; plenty of these in Connecticut (haha)

What else is in store these last six nights in Chicago? Lots of thinking about the last time I’ll do this and that, which I may have mentioned before. Already had our last supper at our favorite vegan restaurant. Just one more movie to go at the great neighborhood theatre, and I hope one last beer still awaits at the favorite local pub. One more free concert in Millennium Park, one of the rare rock shows — the Feelies. Weather is supposed to be perfect, and I can’t wait. We’ll skip one last visit to the Taste of Chicago this weekend; once or twice is plenty for that crowded quarter-mile stretch of way-too-much fatty flesh. And then there’s the food, which isn’t so hot either.

Each train ride downtown makes me wistful. I still get excited as we close in on the skyline, as we go over the Chicago River and I look at the streets crossing in parallel, reminding me of the opening shots on the original Bob Newhart show (there’s a statue of him and his couch by Navy Pier). Walking through Lincoln Square and North Center (the featured neighborhoods in this week’s Reader), I still think, “this is home.” Even though it soon won’t be. I can’t imagine ever feeling the same comfort in our little corner of West Haven, even with a raw restaurant (with a less-than-mellifluous name)  within walking distance.

I try to imagine liking life back in Connecticut. Lord knows my friends try to help, telling me how good it will be to see us again. But the visits will be sparse; they have busy lives, we are not that close to most of them. I will not have the daily existence that lets me live, mostly, without a car, take a quick train or bus ride to great free events, walk to my choice of bars with good beers and food we can actually eat. (I have perused the menus of the bars that could be our new local haunts: they have never met a form of animal-based cholesterol they didn’t like. The token vegetarian offerings certainly don’t have vegans in mind. And no one has ever heard of veggie wraps or burger, which are ubiquitous here).

I’ve written before that I had a hunch things could work out OK in West Haven. I wouldn’t call that a lie, but maybe a bit of whistling in the dark. Not much I can do about it now, though. We get the truck on Tuesday, load on Wednesday, reach the new home on Thursday.

Goodbye Chicago.

Six more nights.

Mussolini’s Revenge

Mussolini would not be pleased.

In the heart of Milano

That thought kept popping up on Day 4 of our Italian adventure. Before we left, we decided to leave Piedmont for one day and venture into Milan. I wanted to see the Last Supper – perhaps my one and only chance to do so – and the side trip would be a nice break from the cemeteries and town halls that dominated our hunt for family roots. I did not, however, want to drive in the big city, and since I love train travel, I made arrangements online for us to go from our farmhouse apartment to the center of Milan.

Trusting the Internet for this was probably my first mistake, though I didn’t learn it until we met our cousins on the first night. How convenient, they said, that the farmhouse was just a half-mile or so from the local train station in Valenza. And there was a direct train right into Milan. Not to the central station, but it would be easy enough to take the metro from there to anywhere we wanted to go. Ah, I see, I nodded, smiling and thanking them. I didn’t tell them we already had our tickets, and that my web research hadn’t uncovered this option. No, I had us leaving from Alessandria, about a ten-minute drive away, and then changing trains in Voghera. D’oh.

Doesn't that just scream "Speed!" "Reliability!" And that's one of the nicer ones...

I also first thought we would drive into Alessandria, but with the local station so close, why not take the train from there? We did, and I felt somewhat vindicated that our cousins’ suggestion would not have worked: the direct from Valenza left too early in the morning and did not run late enough at night. The original itinerary was sound, given the time of our visit to see the Last Supper (you just don’t walk in off the street to see it; you need tickets months in advance). Of course, we had added another connection on the trip back, but the last train from Alessandria to Valenza left after we were due to reach Alessandria. No problem.

So on Thursday we reach the Valenza station. I duly validate our tickets, and we board a beat-up two-car contraption for the first leg of the trip. It sounded and ran like an old bus stuck on rails. But we chugged into Alessandria on time. And we left there for Voghera, again on time, in a slightly larger and nicer train. In Voghera, we were making another step up, to an InterCity train. Only problem was, it came in late. But not really a problem; we had plenty of time to reach Milan and make our tour.

Close quarters...

The InterCity trains have six seats in small compartments off a main hall. Seats are reserved. With our arrival, the compartment was full. The day was hot. The air conditioning was non-existent. The lanky dude across from me had several cell calls in three different languages. Thankfully, he was the only one of our seatmates on the phone, but I realized in that moment what a traveling hell it will be if the airlines allow cell phones on planes. Ring tones and vapid conversations assaulting you from every direction – great.

Now, Trenitalia, the national railway, had no control over our seatmates and their habits. But it did control the train, and ours was barely moving. This semi-sleek and supposedly fast vehicle could not have outrun our diesel-bus bucket from Valenza. Track problems? Mechanical problems? Don’t know, but I kept thinking about Mussolini, and the first tug of what became a nagging fear entered my head: What if the trains have problems going back? If we miss a connection…no, no won’t happen.

The Sforza Castle, from the bus

Roman ruins

The day in Milan was fine, except for the heat and the tourist-trap lunch we had. I broke down and tasted some of my mother’s gelato – heavenly – and we saw the major sites along with the Last Supper. Back at the train station, with the nag close to becoming an anxiety-induced panic, I checked on the last train from Voghera to Alessandria. If something went wrong and we got to Voghera too late to catch it, we would be a long way from home. The information guy told me it left at 9 pm. I was not sure he understood what I asked, though he spoke English. We boarded the train and I hoped for the best.

Once again, reserved seats in mostly full compartments. Our car included an earnest-looking young guy and pregnant woman who looked like Juliette Binoche. The train left Milan proper and began to pick up steam  – much faster than anything we had experienced on the trip in. No track problems! No mechanical problems! We’re going to be all –

And then it stopped. It was an easy deceleration, nothing jarring. Only to my soul, that is. Because in that moment, I knew: Forget Mussolini and making the trains run on time. His ghost was having its revenge for the ignominy of being strung up like a Parma ham back in ’45. Screw precision and timetables. You people are fucked.

Juliette called home. So did the others in the car. The young man let out a swear that roughly translates as “cock” and then apologized. But nobody blamed him. Most of these folks were on their way home after a long day’s work on a too-hot Thursday in May. And we had those two connections…

After a few minutes, the engine roared back to life. Relief spread through the compartment. We slowly moved forward, coming to another stop at a small-town station not on the itinerary. Annoucements in Italian we couldn’t understand, but we got the gist – mechanical problems. No shit, Giacomo. We were waiting for a local engineer to come. People filed off the train, to smoke, get some air, kvetch. Though no one seemed totally surprised. Maybe this is the norm in Berlusconi’s Italy, even in the modernized, industrialized north. I saw a group of people huddle around a conductor. Could be another hour, I learned. I looked at my watch. We would never catch the last train from Alessandria to Valenza. With luck, lots of luck, we could still get from Voghera to Alessandria, then could take a cab back to Valenza. With no luck, hope there was some sort of habitable hotel near the Voghera station.

Suddenly – dare I say miraculously – we were herded back onto the train. It had sprung back to life. Take that, you spirits of fascism past! We would be all right, we would – wait. What does that announcement mean? Broken English from our seatmates. The next stop would be the last one for this train. We would get off and wait for another train to Voghera.

Doom. Gloom. And an incessant self-flagellation, as I felt like I had screwed up. I should have looked harder for a direct train. I should have driven. I should have helped more nuns off their trains, like the one I aided in Milan that morning. For once, I was not sputtering at my mother. I was sputtering at myself.

Off the train now, waiting for the next one, and a small commuter train comes in. I turn to a young guy near us. He, luckily, speaks good English. He tells us this train will stop at Voghera. The one we are supposed to take is nowhere in sight. All aboard!

So this is Voghera...

We get to Voghera in time to catch a train to Alessandria. Only the info guy back in Milan was wrong. It’s about a 90-minute wait. And of course we have just missed the one that would have gotten us to Alessandria and let us take the last train to Valenza (a minor hit for the Italian knock-off of the Monkees, the Capuchins). By this time, it’s almost 9. I have not eaten, because I wanted to wait till we got back, haha. I need a beer. Luckily, the station restaurant is still open. Two Amstels and a candy bar fill some of the hole. My mother has held up well through all this, and we are resigned to that expensive cab ride back home, assuming we find one whenever the hell it is we reach Alessandria. For a moment, I let myself laugh. I remember that this is what traveling is all about. Adventure. The unforeseen. At times, grappling with adversity. And it’s not always pleasant. But it’s always memorable. My mother and I are sharing a traveling adventure in Italy, courtesy of Trenitalia. OK.

Now, this is more like it!

A few minutes later, I see that the pride of the Italian train fleet is about to pull in. A Eurostar, truly sleek, gleaming, the kind of high-speed travel Europeans take for granted and we can only dream about. It’s about to pull into Voghera and…it…stops… in…Alessandria! Of course, from what I know about European train travel, these babies require advance tickets and are much more costly than the local train we were supposed to take. But it was worth a shot…

The train arrives – on time. The conductor steps off. People enter and leave. Finally, we approach him, show him our obviously useless ticket. He is about to wave us off, when my mother explains we were on the ill-fated train from Milan. He looks at her. He has pity for an old woman traveling with her obviously incompetent son. He lets us board.

We spend the next 20 minutes or so whizzing through the Italian countryside. The seats are comfortable. The air conditioning works. And we get to Alessandria about an hour early than we would have if not for the kindly conductor (and only two hours later than the original itinerary called for…). We are both beat. But we made it back. And I am here to tell the world that the precision of Italian trains died with Mussolini. I guess you can’t have everything.

24-Hour Playwriting People

Some folks say it’s good to break routines, get out of your comfort zone, challenge yourself to do something new.

These people, obviously, do not know much about anxiety, especially the variety that afflicts certain writers.

But for my last theatrical hurrah in Chicago, I thought I would do something different and enter a 24-hour play festival. They’ve become popular in recent years, and though the details might differ, the basics formula is the same: Throw a bunch of writers, actors, and directors into a room, give them 24 hours to create a number of short plays, then stage them the next day.

Ours works a little differently. The writers have 8 hours to write a play after meeting with the actors and choosing a few they would like for their show. We picked numbers to determine the order, then drafted our talent, a sort of fantasy playwrights’ league. The next day, (today, actually) the five directors choose the play they want to do, which makes me wonder how enthusiastic some of them might be if they all really want to do one or two and think the rest are dogs. I assume they soldier on and do the best they can. Over most of Sunday and a bit of Monday, the actors and director do all that they would normally do over weeks of rehearsal: a read-through, blocking, memorization, intra-cast affairs, prima donna-ish pouting, etc. Meantime, production folks work on sound/music cues. The show goes up Monday at 8 pm, after roughly 24 hours of work by everyone involved. I went to last week’s show and had fun; we’ll see what this week brings.

So, comfort zones and challenges: I am very particular about my surroundings and tools when I start to write a play. Certain chair, cup of tea, pen and pad for writing in longhand, absolute quiet and isolation. Well. The scene Saturday was a little different: Five writers and the producer hanging out in the basement of the theatre, mostly hunched around laptops. The occasional query randomly thrown out, the scratching of chairs as another of us scrounges for caffeine and/or sugar. I was not sure how I would do in this setting, and though I survived, I’m still not sure about what came out.

The idea of the fest for the writers, the real challenge, is to go into it with a completely open mind. Use the actors’ strengths and interests as the creative starting point, or the props everyone brought, even a random phrase tossed out in the informal meet-and-greet before the draft. I took a little of all three: a line I wrote down in my notebook based on what someone else said: “Quiet crowds scare me.” My female actor’s confessed penchant for spastic acting. And three props I was drawn to for no particular reason — a tiny, pointed plastic hand attached to a stick, an orb that looks like a crystal ball but is actually a rubber ball filled with glitter, and a small gun that is actually a laser pointer. With a trigger that shocks you when you touch it.

I won’t go into the details of the play. Maybe I’ll post it when this is all over. All I know is, even stepping outside of my comfort zone, the words flowed pretty easily. They usually do. Give me an idea and I can crank on it, even plays. I can’t guarantee the quality, but the words will spew. It’s the essence of being a freelancing whore. But the ease of this experience worried me; it can’t be good if it came out so quickly. I can’t turn this in. This play sucks.

I left the basement, went to a nearby café, and wrote another 10-minute play. Even faster this time, because I eschewed doing the first draft in longhand and put it right into the computer. I used different props and had a more serious tone (as serious as you can be when the opening scene has a couple indulging in sexual role-playing: ace WWII pilot taking a break from fighting the Nazis for his weekly “exam” with a rubber-gloved nurse).

I went back to the basement. The other guys were still hard at work. I felt like a fraud.  How could I think I could write two plays of any value while they were still working on what I assumed was their first. They were craftsmen, trying to get every word just right. I, as always, was a hack. I had the producer read both. He did not laugh derisively or throw up. He subtly  indicated he had a slight preference for the first one. He said it would be the first work in the multi-week festival that featured a gay couple, which I guess was a good thing. We’ll see tomorrow night. Of course, the acting and directing will play a big part in the final product. We will see.

Uh oh - entering the Discomfort Zone

Postscript: I googled one of the other writers today, on a whim. Still an undergrad and has won several contests and had two pretty big productions in LA. Followed by my reading about another theatrical wunderkind, a woman in grad school at Iowa who has had many prominent productions and dazzles with her multicultural content and experimentation with dramatic form. And me? A pushing-50 hack mired in middle-brow naturalism, who did not achieve the theatrical goals he set for himself before heading to Chicago, and who now returns to CT wondering why he still does it. Maybe a good crowd reaction tomorrow night will help remind me. But overall, it’s harder to keep thinking I’ll ever realize those dreams. Did I learn here? Yes. Did I enter a theatrical community? Less so. Do I think I can keep going with this, especially while battling all the qualms/regrets I have about leaving Chicago? Dunno. I guess it’s all just another plunge into the discomfort zone.

Tuning in Tony

A brief break from all things Italy and Crisis related for my take on the Tony Awards – for what it’s worth.

It's such a tiny thing...

I’ve largely stopped watching all the major awards shows, and these last five years, Broadway has barely registered on my radar. I think we have seen one show during our time here in Chicago. Not surprisingly, the local theatre scene has grabbed most of my attention, though quick perusals of the Sunday Arts section of the Times has kept me slightly in the loop. I did know the names of all four works nominated for Best Play and had a vague sense of the new musicals and the revivals in both genres.

A couple of things struck me as I watched: I really wanted Neil LaBute to lose, for reasons I can’t pin down. I’d just read a good interview with him in The Dramatist and I’ve liked some of his work. Maybe just the sense that he wasn’t Tony worthy? Stupid little jealousy or pettiness? (that wouldn’t be a first…). And the musicals. The songs I heard from Billy Elliot and Next to Normal made me feel very aged. I know they were supposed to make me think, “Wow, how contemporary and energetic these scores are!” But to me they sounded like pretty mediocre mainstream ‘70s rock, and I longed for a show tune of old. Give me Rogers and Hammerstein! Give me Gershwin! Give me Sondheim! Sir Elton, stick to the mega-payday gigs with your buddy, the other Billy.

And the dance number from BE with the riot police: If that kid went “Ahh!” one more time as he bounced around, I was going to reach into the screen, grab one of those faux bricks, and attempt to smash his skull. Then there was giving the award to three teens who share the role; “No way they’re gonna get it,” I thought to myself. “Too ‘cutesy.’” Another reason why I don’t bet on the ponies…

But how will it play without the high-powered stars?

Frank was kinda funny too.

Anything positive you can say? Well, there was some OK pro-LGBT humor courtesy of Neil Patrick Harris, which I guess is playing to one demographic. (As the commercials for rheumatoid arthritis and high blood pressure and other old-folk maladies were playing to another.)  I thought I would like to see God of Carnage and Norman Conquests, if I could actually afford a ticket. Probably have to wait for a regional-theatre version of the former.

And I realized again, as hard as it can be when just tiny moments of plays are shown on TV, how much I love live theatre. It doesn’t have to be Broadway. Tonight I’m going to see five short plays written by local playwrights, rehearsed and produced less than 24 hours after the writers finished them (I’ll be one of the writers in another edition next week). Gimmicky? Yeah, but it gets actors on a stage and audiences into a theatre. I’m for anything that does that. So if the Tonys stoke some kid’s desire to act or write or direct, or at least see a Broadway show, that makes up for any of last night’s lapses.

All in the Famiglia

What did Tolstoy say about families? Happy families are all alike, unhappy families are unhappy in their own way, and Italian families are dysfunctional like nobody’s business.

Maybe he didn’t quite say the last part. And maybe it’s not dysfunctional as much as loud. Into everyone else’s business. Concerned about one another, until someone pisses somebody else off, and then they don’t speak for years.

You know, dysfunctional.

Not this kind of family...

...this kind.

The Italy trip was about the family on many levels. (But not like “the family” a la The Godfather or The Sopranos. Those peasants of the Piedmont who anchored my family roots were about as far from organized crime as you can get. One of the distinctions between northern and southern Italians that the northerners won’t let you forget, though I am not so naïve as to suggest organized crime has not penetrated all areas and strata of Italy. As it does here. Though I do plan on ranting about the stereotypical association of  Italian Americans with the Mob in a future post.) First was traveling with my mother, specifically so she could see the town where her parents were born. Next was meeting Rita and her family, the second (third? second once removed?) cousin who speaks English and helped us navigate through a foreign land. And lastly was the mission my sister set forth for me: dig through records and learn as much about the Italian progenitors as possible.

Traveling with my mother was fraught with the potential for violence. We are too much alike in our anxious ways, though perhaps she is more so. And having been in Chicago the last five years, I doubt I had ever spent more than a few hours alone with her, probably only around the time my father died back in ’06. So this was going to be the condensed-soup version of mother-and-adult son bonding, with nothing at hand to dilute it to a palatable strength.

The Fiat in which murder did not occur.

Yet here I am, writing the latest installment of C?WC?, so we know I did not kill myself as the only logical solution to escaping my mother’s less-endearing qualities. And she, as far as I know, is hale and hearty in her Connecticut home, proof I did not kill her after the third or fourth time I told her to shut the fuck up as I tried to follow the directions of our GPS and navigate another maddening rotary. Yes, we both survived. And for the most part we enjoyed each other’s company, and she got around well for an 83-year-old, and I lost patience only a few times besides the incidents in the car. We were even able to chuckle together over our worst traveling mishaps on a day filled with the ups and downs that mark any European adventure worthy of the name (more in another post).

Rita, I think, I mentioned before. She and her too-patient husband Giovanni guided us through back roads, fed us in their home, took us to meet other relatives, and told tales about distant family that made my mother’s eyes beam with joyful recognition. She insists I come back with Samantha so we can stay with her and Giovanni. An offer I can’t refuse, if the stars align.

Then there was the genealogical hunt. Not sure I did as well here as my sister would like,  but let’s face some facts: We had a huge language barrier. The people in the town halls have lots of other duties besides helping visiting Americans trace their family roots. Not all the info was in one place. Getting the tidbits we did find took a lot of time and energy. I feel like adding one or two names to the family tree was a pretty good accomplishment, all things considered.

My great-grandfather...ok, it's actually from the ceiling of the town hall in Casale Monferrato.

In the streets of Casale

The first stop was in Casale Monferrato, the seat of the diocese that includes Fubine, our grandparents’ home town. The woman in the municipo was friendly and wanted to help, but we spoke no common language. I did get one good tip — records for births, marriages,  etc. after 1866 would be in town halls, records before would be in churches. The 1860s, of course, having marked the rise of a united, independent Italy and secular, republican government, and the decline of the Roman Catholic Church in civil matters (in theory at least; consider that divorce was illegal until 1971).

The woman also insisted we take a guided tour, for us alone, of the municipal building. My Italian was just good enough to get that “Garibaldi slept here,” the equivalent of Washington bedding down in a small town here in the States. A genial, slow-moving, slow-thinking old man gave us the private tour of what had once been an 18^th-century palace. We learned later from a pretty slick book they gave us that Casale has lots of historic buildings, but after a quick lunch and a tour of the outdoor market, we headed back to our base in Valenza.

The church in Mirabello

The next expedition was to Mirabello, a small town not far from Valenza. Our great-grandfather Pietro Zeppa had been born there and then moved to Fubine. We entered the town hall and stumbled upon a woman who spoke decent English; a godsend, since the guy in the records office did not. He reluctantly dug into the archives and pulled out a book from 1869. There, in Italian writing even our helper could barely decipher, we saw some of the milestones in Pietro and his family’s life. His father was Carlo, born some time around 1838, and his mother was Maria Ferrando. Carlo was a contadino — a peasant. At some point, Pietro left his hometown, moved to Fubine, and married Maria Pino. In 1892, they had a son, my grandfather.

Fubine skyline, such as it is

The search for more information continued in Fubine, and once again, Rita and Giovanni came to the rescue. She went to the rectory and asked the young priest to let us look at the records. Rita has a somewhat forceful way, and I think the guy might have been intimidated. Perhaps his background also made him likely to help. Originally from Togo, he had only been in Italy a few years, and he probably goes out of his way to accommodate the locals. Seeing an African priest in a  small Italian village was the last thing I expected (a sign of the Church’s woes in attracting European and North American seminarians).

The priest brought out several books, and I scrambled to write down names and dates as both he and Giovanni flipped through their pages. Again, more time would have been a plus, but I was aware that we were in this priest’s home, intruding on his time and invading his space, and none of us were parishioners. Since French is his native language, I made a not-too-mangled attempt to tell him that I wanted him to have 10 euros “for the church” for his efforts.

Distant relatives buried in Fubine. And to make things really complicated...

...Pietro and my grandfather are from a different (but maybe related?) Zeppa family.

I haven’t sorted through all the new info with my sister yet; that will come when we go back to Connecticut. But on the whole, the various family aspects of the trip went well. Though few close relatives remain in the region, I feel like when I go back to Piedmont (yes, when), I will be returning to a place I know well. A place where I belong, even if I really don’t.

Flight

Ah, that symbol of Italian punctuality and pride in customer service...

I was planning on giving a fairly light-hearted look at our experiences with Alitalia during our recent trip. Then I thought it might be inappropriate coming after this week’s Air France disaster. But would that stop me? Of course not. So, first a few serious words on this week’s event, then on to Alitalia.

Plane accidents scare the shit out us, don’t they? At least me they do. Then add the mystery surrounding Air France Flight 447: no reports of trouble, the sudden loss of contact, the delay in finding wreckage. All the “what if’s”  and “how comes” pop up, while we think about the fate of those 200-plus people on board. Did they know disaster was coming? Did they have time to “prepare,” as much as one can prepare for catastrophic death. And I guess I’m not really sure what one would be preparing. Saying a prayer, I suppose, if one were religious. Perhaps a last thought of a spouse or child.

Then we safely on the ground think about the loved ones those unfortunate people left behind. And we relate, because we all have loved ones, and we all, for the most part, have flown on planes. We know that something so common and generally safe can lead to almost instantaneous death because of events out of our control. The other day, I was one of four strangers casually thrust together in a 7/11 (coffee, not a Slurpee). A spontaneous conversation broke out: What had we heard about 447, what was the latest? Sure, our voyeuristic interest in the gruesome was partly at play. But I think we and the others who have talked about the accident the last few days also think, “There but for the grace of God…”

I am not what a flight attendant might call a “good flyer.” I fear death anyway, and loss of control, and being stuck in an oversized tin can 40,000 feet above the ocean, held up my some near-magical principles of science I don’t really understand…well, none of that helps. But about 15 years ago I realized something: The world was filled with so many places I wanted to explore, and most were only reachable, realistically, by plane. I would have to adapt. So I began taking my buddy Ativan along with me, and I did visualizations beforehand, showing myself in a smooth takeoff, flight and landing. That helped. And so did telling myself, in a completely irrational way, “It is not my fate to die in a plane crash.” So far, all that has kept me from becoming a really bad flier, the kind who drinks too much and runs amok in the cabin and has to be restrained with belts and locked into a bathroom for most of the trip.

I survived our 8,000 miles or so on the trip to Italy and back. And I will fly again. The statistics say…But I will always be concerned for my friends and relatives who fly way more often than I do, and on consistently longer trips. And I will always wonder how many folks on Flight 447 took their Ativan, and did their visualization, and reassured themselves with their little mantra (most likely in French or Portuguese), “It’s not my fate to die in a plane crash.”

Yes, thankfully, unlike those poor souls, I did survive my transatlantic flight. With, I learned soon after we booked the trip,  “the worst airline company in the world.” At least that’s what Michael J. Totten wrote back in March. It was my own fault I had come across this. After we booked the flight, I began to think, “This fare is too ridiculously low. What is wrong with Alitlalia?” Totten describes a strike and resulting delays and unhelpful staff that sounds truly hellish. I learned more: The company was in horrible financial straits, though Italy’s selling part of it to a private carrier would strengthen the national airline. Someday.

I stepped up my internet research, placing a  Google feed on my home page that would alert me to any more bad news. And I found a travel site with a page devoted to updates on possible transportation strikes in Italy. (Worth bookmarking if you’re planning a trip, and the site has other useful information on Italy.)

So as the trip approached I waited for bad news. Strikes on the day we were supposed to leave? Bankruptcy? Interminable delays at either end? I was not suspecting, however, the tidbit my RSS feed provided. I never saw this in the mainstream press, but some time in April, the Milan to JFK flight – the one we would be taking home at the end of the trip – had run into some trouble. Somewhere west of Ireland, the pilot had a suspected heart attack. Not a small problem, though I doubt the kind of medical emergency really matters when you’re flying a 275-ton behemoth over the Atlantic. Luckily, the co-pilot and an Alitalia pilot on board as a passenger safely landed the plane at Shannon Airport. The pilot is OK, as far as I can tell, and the passengers got to spend a night in beautiful Dublin.

Best not to tell this little story to my mother, my sister and I decided. Not that I was so thrilled about hearing it either.

Early morning, somewhere over Europe

I’m glad to report that there were no health issues on our flight. And Alitalia, by my experience, is not the worst airline company in the world. My vegan meals going over were good, we reached Milan on schedule, the flight was smooth, the wine flowed – even in economy – I had my choice of 7 or 8 good movies on the personal entertainment center, the baggage arrived intact.

But I ordered vegan!

On the flip side, however, they screwed up my meal on the way back. The attendants kept waving my boarding pass in my face: “See, it does not say a vegan meal.” Well, all I know is, I called before we left to make sure I would have one. How was I supposed to know that fact should have been entered in the database and noted on the pass? One attendant tried to make up for it, giving me one of the crew’s meal of pasta with tomato sauce. A nice gesture, though he could have done it in a less guilt-inducing way (“Poor Giovanni will go hungry this flight, but for you, here.”) Hey, I figure Johnny boy ended up with the chicken or fish I didn’t eat, so he came out all right. But when it came time for the pre-landing snack, I was offered nothing. Another negative — the check-in procedure could have been better in New York, and on both legs, we sat on the tarmac for a while (an hour at JFK!) before takeoff. The Milan pilot at least kept us posted. In New York, silence. Still, as I noted, we touched down on time in Milan.

So would I fly Alitalia again? If I got the rate we did for this trip, yes. If they had some good competition on a route to Italy…maybe not. But the flights this time could have been worse.

A lot worse.

A Vegan in Italy

I was introduced to the Italians’ love of good food at an early age. Not by my mother, god knows; with a few exceptions, she was of the Campbell’s Soup/Minute Rice School of Casserole cuisine. But I grew up next to my Italian grandparents, heard the stories of my grandfather and his brother’s working as chefs for years in hotels, and ate the simple-yet-tasty home cooking of my grandmother.

The fields of Monferrato, a part of Piedmont where grains, grapes, rice, and hazelnuts grow

Her raviolis were always a holiday treat, with the homemade noodles a close second. (Only years later did I learn venison was one of the secret ingredients in the ravioli stuffing). I missed out on other foods that my mother remembered eating as a kid, the bagna cauda (warm sauce with olive oil and anchovies) and fresh rabbit, which, along with polenta and a few other dishes, are common in Piedmont, the family’s  home region in Italy.  My mother did do a variation of my grandmother’s risotto, complete with chicken livers, though with the ubiquitous Minute Rice replacing the real thing.

From what I knew of my grandmother’s cooking and the region’s specialties, I suspected  that it would be hard to eat a strictly vegan diet. Not that I’m pure here, as I’ve mentioned at the Crisis before. But before we left, when I couldn’t find a real vegetarian restaurant even in a city the size of Milan, I knew dining was going to be tough in the rural area around Fubine.

Our cute little kitchen

The trip started well; the Indian-style vegan curry on the plane was actually pretty good, and the morning snack had roasted veggies on bread. And I knew I would be able to cook vegan meals in our apartment’s kitchen. I just didn’t know those would be about the only vegan meals I would have. The northern Italians slip dairy products or meat broths into many dishes, and I wasn’t going to be an ingredient Nazi. I would just order as close to vegan as possible and let the butter fall where it may. But our first meal in a restaurant, in the town of Valenza, showed that the task would be even harder than I thought.

For that first lunch, I ordered a pasta dish with pesto. From what I’d read, most pesto in the region was just basil, oil, garlic, and pine nuts, with none of the cheese that gets into some pesto here. I had even seen a bowl of pesto at the deli counter of local grocery. It burst bright green with basil, with nary a hint of cheese in sight. But my pesto meal – well…just a few flecks of green in a predominantly dairy (cream?) sauce. But it did taste good.

Over the next few days, we were invited into the homes of distant cousins and their friends, and all made a show of bringing out goodies for the visiting Americans. And how could I say no to this generosity, try to explain my vegan ways? I did say I was vegetarian, and even that seemed to raise a few eyebrows. No, I just ate the leftover Easter chocolates and the cookies and the cheese-topped treats and thanked them profusely.

Outside a rustic restaurant in Vignale...

...and what was inside

And twice, one cousin took us to remote village restaurants where she knew the owners. They brought us food without our ordering off a menu, and so I ended up with cheese-filled pastries and homemade pasta, which of course meant eggs, and sauces surely flavored with butter. The strictly vegetable dishes included a local favorite, fritto misto, deep-fried veggies (another variation includes meat). I know zucchini flowers were among the breaded beauties, and they did taste good, but it was not exactly healthy eating. Another veggie dish: sadly over-boiled green beans, asparagus (in a region known for them) and carrots.

We didn’t have any of Piedmont’s true delicacy – truffles – but hazelnuts are another abundant local product, and they did turn up in a dessert or two. My cousin also made an incredible artichoke tart, with produce from her own garden (and of course, cheese and eggs). We also sampled the local wine, with Barbera my favorite. With cheese being practically inescapable, I had a couple of pizzas, and one covered in fresh veggies was a real treat. One of the best meals came on the last day: In Asti, I had a salad with arugula, radicchio, greens, and grilled veggies. It also had a dressing that I assume had dairy, but it was sparse. On top were thin shavings of parmigiano. They were large enough to remove, but at that point, I had given in to the temptress formaggio, and I devoured them with the rest of the salad.

So, in six days I ate more dairy than I had the last five years. No physical problems, and only slight moral pangs about abandoning the vegan ways.  (I even sampled some of my mother’s gelato; it was, I must say, heavenly.) I recalled some things I had read about the Buddhists: when they begged for food, they took meat that was offered them, even if they normally didn’t eat it. (Buddhists, though, are not required to be vegetarian, and the Enlightened One only said his followers should not eat animals killed specifically for them; later schools seemed to put more emphasis on a vegetarian diet.) In the homes and small restaurants we visited, it just seemed more polite – if also practical – to go with the flow and eat what was offered, meat and fish excluded. Does that make me a bad vegan? Yeah, I guess so. But I think the Buddha would have approved.

A food/Fubine aside: This was taken outside the home of Laura Maioglio, whose family has been in the town for centuries. Their claim to fame: they opened, and Laura still owns, Barbetta, the first Italian restaurant in the US. More info at their website: http://www.barbettarestaurant.com/home.html

When I got home, my first meal was a wonderful veggie burger. I also made an Asian-style peanut sauce that I slather on falafels. I have tried to eat as healthy as I can since, and I am craving some roasted chickpeas and lentils in tomato sauce and have been eating lots of greens sautéed in mounds of garlic. But part of me is glad I was open to experiencing the true cuisine of the ancestral homeland, rabbits and anchovies aside.

The Italians

Gotta love ‘em.

Or not.

Fubine

The province of Alessandria, within Piedmont (Piemonte)

I am predisposed to, of course, given my ethnic roots, and the trip to Fubine and environs confirmed the best of “my people” — a love of la dolce vita, good food, good wine, good conversations. We experienced extreme, heart-warming generosity from distant relatives we had never met and from strangers on the street. Add the physical beauty of Alessandria, the base of our exploration in Piedmont, and you have the ingredients for a memorable vacation. As my mother said more than once, “I feel like I’m in a dream.”

Still, there are some maddening, contradictory qualities to Italy, the people, their society, as opposed to the folks we  met. These observations are generalities, subjective of course, and perhaps not much different than the ones visitors to the US could make about us. The details might differ, but the contradictions are here as well. In any event, here are a few of the things that struck me after our brief visit.

The love of long, lingering meals endures, even at lunchtime, though breakfast can be as lightning-paced as any fast-food feeding frenzy here. From the first day, I saw groups of people – co-workers, friends, perhaps relatives – gathering in the restaurants for their leisurely midday meals. Imagine stores, banks, government offices here closing for a couple of hours every afternoon so most people can enjoy a civil meal with loved ones, share company and conversation, at the expense of someone else’s convenience. Why, how utterly selfish. And ultimately civilized, showing that the pursuit of commerce is not more important than physical sustenance and inner rejuvenation. Besides, it’s not selfish when everyone does it.

Asti

Even on a Saturday afternoon, as we walked the streets of Asti, we saw the previously bustling main drag turn strangely quiet as most folks took that siesta break. It might have originated in the desire to get out of the hot midday son, but it endures, I think, as a cultural tradition that stokes inner calm while cooling the body.

And yet, despite that leisurely pace at lunchtime, and the slow strolls of evening around the local piazza, speed is not totally foreign to the Italian way. On the road, the drivers were  as maniacal as I was warned they would be, even on the hilly, twisty narrow strips of asphalt that cut through the Piedmontese countryside. No scrapes for us, but one accident detoured us from our planned route after one car forced another to take evasive action, flipping the latter onto its roof. No fatalities, thankfully, but I saw plenty of those roadside crosses that mark the spots where others were less fortunate.

Speed also marks the Italians’ speech. Not that I understand more than a dozen words of the language, but I think the rapid-fire delivery of most people we met would have left me in the dust even if I were semi-fluent. Yet there’s a beauty to the tongue, in both its fluidity and speed, that made me yearn to study it. Maybe before the next trip…

We were of course surrounded by the language, though in a few places, some people did speak English, and Milan and Asti had multilingual help in the restaurants. French popped up a few times too, and I managed to use some of my distant high-school vocabulary to communicate on at least one occasion. As we walked the streets or sat in restaurants I was struck by this: Italian conversations are just so, well, Italian. The stereotypes ring true, with the swooping of hands to punctuate the words, the simultaneous conversations erupting around a crowded tables, voices and emotions rising as points are made. But the eruptions weren’t fueled by anger; it’s just an accepted way of communicating, a stimulating burst of words that brings people closer, instead of stirring alienation. (And I could not stop thinking of Vinnie Vedecci, Bill Hader’s Italian talk show host on SNL. It’s parody, but it’s not. And the smoking, too — man, the Italians still love to smoke.)

Yeah, the Italians love to talk so much, whether seeing friends on the street or while asking for help at an info desk, that we often wondered — when do these people work? OK, some of the older guys we saw in the  klatches  standing all over the sidewalks and street corners might have been retired, but the number of people of all ages strolling, talking, having coffee during normal work hours seemed strange, especially in the small towns. How do things get done? (Some might say, well, they don’t). And this is in the industrialized, fast-paced (relatively speaking) northern part of the country; I can only imagine what the Mezzogiorno is like. But as I found myself saying often, hey, nice work if you can get it.

The church in Fubine - dedicated to Santa Maria Assunta

Some other quick observations: I mentioned the generosity of strangers. On two occasions, old ladies we stopped on street for directions insisted on taking us to our destinations (of course, one took us to the local church, where a funeral was going on, and not the cemetery, which is where we really wanted to be. Though to be fair, if we had stuck through the ceremony, I guess we could have followed the hearse there). Then, in the next moment, you might see some fat middle-aged guy elbow an old lady out of line at a deli counter. The kindness and rudeness juxtaposed so easily, and left me baffled.

Another puzzlement: the green movement seems to have taken hold in a big way. At one small train station, receptacles for four kinds of recyclable garbage dotted the platforms, and seemingly every other street in even the smallest town has even larger bins, including one for organic matter. But then head into a public restroom, and you’re just as likely to confront a hole in the floor or a toilet missing its seat, like an old Caddy stripped of its hub caps, than a toilet we would recognize. (Oddly enough, the best one my mother used was in a cemetery, perhaps out of consideration for grieving family members who shouldn’t be forced to squat in such a time of sorrow.) There seems like a disconnect in this disposing of waste, but evidently not to the Italians.

So, some first observations from our little trip, none meant with any condescension. And as I said, I know visitors here would be struck by even more contrasts and contradictions. More notes on the Italian adventure in future posts.

Homes, Sweet Homes

Running on fumes after the trip to Italy, but wanted to make contact again with all the fans of C?WC? Many posts to follow on the trip, once the Minneapolis excursion to see the Sox is done. What hit me today is that I’ve had about ten days of different homes. Started the trip with a quick visit to the childhood home, saw the new-home-to-be (fingers crossed) in West Haven on the way to JFK, had the home-away-from-home in Valenza, and then came back to Sweet Home Chicago.

Copped this from the little woman's blog...

Cascina Nuova: Dig those solar panels! My guess--some fairly rich city types decided to pull a Green Acres and put a lot of money into this place.

No thoughts about the family homestead; I’ve talked about that briefly before. The possible new home? Looks good, needs some work (nobody besides me noticed that the fridge blocks about ¼ of the doorway into the kitchen? At least the current owners are die-hard Red Sox fans; we won’t have to perform any exorcisms if the deal goes through). Valenza, or more specifically, the Cascina Nuova, was perfect: the space I needed to keep my sanity, a very modern little kitchen, balconies, easy access to everywhere we wanted to be. My mother moaned about the lack of fresh towels every day, but I was OK with that (the towels, not the moaning). The cleanliness factor could have been taken up a notch, but I’ve stayed at stateside B&B’s just as dusty/cobwebby, if not worse.

No words necessary...

Then there was coming back to Chicago. I really am accepting of the move back east, on most levels. I think there could be some cool things about the new town/area. But when I stood in a store at Midway after returning this morning, and I saw a panorama of the city skyline adorning the walls, I sighed. “This is home,” I thought. “But not for long.” Then there was the arrival at the real home, with the crying cat greeting me at the door. Just a few more weeks to go. Weeks of craziness, with packing and work and moving and worrying over the last details of everything surrounding all that.

It will be good to sleep in my own bed tonight, as it always is after a trip, even the best of trips. And it won’t take long for me to feel at home in our new place; for me, it never does. But I will never see that skyline again and feel the sense of familiarity, ownership even, that I have now. I’m not sure I can ever return, once the move is done. Too many longings would be stirred that could never be met. But I’ve had these five years of calling Chicago home, and I will always cherish that.