Ten Years After: Day 4

Today is the Feast of the Epiphany, also call the Befana in Italy. Today an ugly old witch is the symbol of the day. I still don't understand the meaning behind the old witch, so my task today is to research the history of the befana and post to my blog.

I took the Christmas tree down today and he's resting peacefully on my balcony with fresh water and cold, fresh air. I think he's going to be fine as long as I can keep him healthy throughout the hot summer  and hopefully, we'll have a good live tree again next year.

Equally as important, my little dog, Suzy, is happy and seems to be resting peacefully too. I suppose her antibiotics and the anti-inflammatory meds are doing their jobs and she looks happier.

Now, getting back to the history of the Befana.  By doing a simple search on the web, I found a couple of explanations.  While I'm not a big Wikipedia fan I will admit that it had a pretty comprehensive explanation.  You can find it at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Befana

Another really interesting explanation and my personal favorite can be found at:  http://www.amoretravelguides.com/blog/la-befana-an-italian-christmas-legend.php

Enjoy!

So, Ten Years After, has now become Twelve Years After and my clever play on words is lost. However, my intentions were good, I just never took the time to sit and begin the writing process. I just don't feel like I have much of anything worthwhile to say, frankly. I mean, who am I to think that anyone would want to read what I write?

Well, I will say that in the twelve years since I moved to Italy a lot has happened that has changed my life in various ways. Some great, some good, some bad, and some horrible. Our apartment wasn't ready when we moved here so we lived with my brother-in-law for a few fun months. My brother-in-law was great but, I couldn't wait to get into our new place. I thought we'd done such a fabulous job choosing the granite for the bathrooms and the floors, the interiors doors and furnishings..., that I knew it was going to be awesome, and it was. It still is and, happily, my son lives there now.

I got a job not long after we moved into the new place after posting my CV on the American Chamber of Commerce in Milan website and I was thrilled to be teaching again. The first quarter was great and the pay was outstanding, the second quarter was great too but students were complaining that the work was too hard and they were angry because they were failing and that wasn't right because they were paying me. It was months later that I figured out what that statement meant. Finally by the third quarter I realized that it was a "phoney" university that didn't carry accreditations and typically only takes in rich kids that want to say they have a university degree but lack the skills, patience, and possibly even the intelligence to obtain one, but they do have the money to buy one. I had no idea that places like that even existed, but they do, and as an instructor your job is to pass students, not fail them. Who knew? It's true that you never stop learning new things.

It was shocking, frustrating and demoralizing that I didn't see I was being scammed. It took me years to get over that, and it was really a defining moment in my life. I decided that I was just going to leave the work world completely and for good. Besides, I've worked my whole life. I've often worked more than one job, worked and gone to night school, worked and tried to properly care for a family (which is NOT really possible), so "screw it" I said and much to my surprise my husband was thrilled.

Ever since then, I've been focused on taking care of my family, which has been great. And, it's a BIG job, especially here in Italy where an entire morning can be spent just doing the shopping required to prepare a descent lunch. But, I love the Italian life style. I love the specialty shops, fresh fruits and vegetables, cheese shops, bread shops, oh and the shoes! Oh the shoes, that's another blog for another day though.

So, this is where I'll begin then. Here, twelve years after, living in my beautiful but barely furnished villa, waiting for electricians, painters, gardeners, and furniture to arrive and loving every minute of it.