In this house we celebrate the Saturnalia!

Frair Aguousto: Italians take the month of August off. I’m sorry, I meant to write ‘ Italians take the MONTH of August OFF’. They don’t ‘take it easy’. Or ‘go on vacation’. OFF! The trash will pile up in the streets! If there is a gas leak, lord help us all! The fire department takes the month off! I’m sorry, I meant ‘ THE FIRE DEPARTMENT TAKES THE MONTH OFF!”. Trash in the streets! Gas leaks! No Fire Department! It would be mass hysteria in America, but here? A languid and enviable calm.  My new goal in life is to be able to do this. And I’m making my own holiday.                                                                         A bit of history: to make Christianity go down smoother with the Romans, a popular Roman holiday was tweaked and Christmas was born. If you read the bible, Jesus was actually born in Spring… something about lambs suckling and sheep grazing, anyways. The holiday was the incredibly popular feast of Saturn (Saturnalia), a mid-winter festival of drinking, debauchery and foodstuffs held around the first two weeks of December.  December 25^th was a date chosen out of ecumenical politics. So, my new goal in life is to be happily married with a few kids and then just friggin’ opt out for two months of the year. Ideally, December 1^st I will wake up, put on a toga, crash on the couch and watch Star Trek while my kids figure out how to make their own lunches and get to school. IF they want to go. We celebrate the Saturnalia in this household! Do what you feel! And as for driving them to soccer practice in August? Listen, if I’m not worried about the gas leak, I’m certainly not worried about you practicing your side-pass kid!

Life in Italy

It’s the little things that remind me I live in Italy.


The base grocery store also sells furniture which they set outside under the awning with big yellow price tags affixed. Local Italian nationals take advantage of the luxurious free outdoor seating and have their coffee while acting as living advertisements for a plush new sectional couch. The management doesn’t particularly like them breaking in the furniture, but what are they going to do?

I will be running specimens to the Hospitals lab and walk over the glass-topped excavation of a Roman well. Sometimes (if Cancer results aren’t on the line) I’ll just stand on top of the glass and look down at something older than Jesus. This happens roughly once a week.

The Neapolitan dialect is said to notoriously different from regular Italian. I have a theory: Naples actually pre-dates the Roman Empire as a bustling metropolis. Naples here in Italy is called “Napoli”, which is derived from “Neopolis” or “New City”, which is what the Greeks called it when they founded it. I think chunks of Greek are leftover in Neapolitan and that’s why it’s peculiar. Point: To say ‘half’ in Italian is ‘metta’. In Neapolitan it is ‘messa’. “Half” or “between”/”middle” in Greek is ‘mes’ (see: ‘Mesopotamia’= ‘the place between the rivers’). Not that I can speak one friggin’ word of either of these fine languages.

I wake up every morning to Mount Vesuvius outside my window. Ominous? Only if you dwell on the thought of Pompeii.

We all need a lesson in Italian self-esteem. Is an item of clothing tight? Is it shiny? Is said item an offensive color (Neon Yellow? Screaming Eggplant?)? Is it sheer enough to see one’s undergarments through it? Yes? They will wear it. Their belly paunches will stick out. Every cellulite ridge will clear its throat and demand attention. And they walk out the door thinking (insert big smile and double finger-snap here) ‘I look goooood!’. Sun-blotched décolletage will be flaunted. Cracked, dry feet will be on display in precarious open toed heels. And you can see bras and underwear quite clearly. A true story/lesson: At my favorite outdoor market, there are heaps of random clothes piled high on tables you can pick through under a sign that says “1 for 1 Euro”. In an attempt to dress more “flashy” (re: Italian) I picked up an offensive Neon Yellow, stretchy, sheer (yes you can see my underwear through it), and revealing dress that looked about 2 sized too small. Whatever. It’s ONE Euro! Why not? I bought it as a joke. Took it home. Washed it. Tried it on for the first time. FELT LIKE A SUPERMODEL. Maybe confidence is something they weave into the fabric here? 60% Cotton, 30% Rayon, 10% Girl, You Look Good!

Italians, or at least Neapolitans, LOVE fireworks. I cannot overemphasize the Italian zeal for colorful shit that explodes high in the air. There were fireworks my first night here and I won’t lie, I felt like they were for me. The ones two nights later were still for me. And the ones a week after that. Around Labor Day is when I realized that this was a trend before I arrived here and not dependant on my mood (they seemed timed to punctuate my emotional state… sheer coincidence… or IS it, hmmmm?). The fireworks that “kicked off Labor Day” (more on the quotations in a minute) were spectacular! A 40 minute display of the largest, highest, loudest, brightest fireworks I’d ever seen! 3,000 years ago, the Chinese invented fireworks for the sole purpose of exquisite culmination on this night in Italy: the beginning of the American holiday of Labor Day! Now, about those corkers actually being for “Labor Day”? Nope. I live in Italy, they don’t know or care what the hell Labor Day is and if they did know they would celebrate the Italian way by taking the month off. Another coincidence. Fireworks here are used for everything from celebrating a sweet-16, to blessing a harbor to forever have bountiful clams (not kidding), to various pillars of the community (Mafia crime lords) getting released from jail (again, not kidding). So every time I stood on my balcony and enjoyed the show, someone was either coming of age, ensuring a good haul for next year, or getting out of prison. As I write this, there are fireworks outside my window. Not kidding.