Day 41 Lockdown Codiponte...

Unofficial Day 65, a Saturday: cloudy, overcast and cool. NO RAIN.

A typical Lockdown Day in Codiponte…

Get up feed the dog Make a caffe Look at the news on BBC Look at pictures of muscle-men on instagram sporting body bragging…. their bosoms are mouth-watering… custom made T-shirts for 70 euros Take a shower Get dressed Make the bed Fix the pillows on the sofa Sweep downstairs of dog hairs pieces of wood chewed off the dog’s special stick and bread crumbs Grab keys and emergency sacks for the dog’s bio donations Go out and start watering before going on that walk with same dog to a place behind my house where there is the madonnina meditation sanctuary I cannot because I must watch to make sure the dog doesn’t pee on the Virgin Mary and instead encourage said dog to go find sticks Take photographs of trees Look at funny coronavirus videos people have sent me overnight Call Dottore You but no answer He calls me back Asks if I am all right? I am Call for the dog to stop terrorising the Mother Nature… she’s stressed enough… go back home make a late morning caffe Open windows in la Casa Grande and turn on wi-fi Walk up to to do the same nel Appartamento Azzurro Come back down and sit at the table on the loggia wearing a sweater and a scarf Open the laptop to work on my Your Italian Concierge website Entails considerable time to do the desired adjustments Driven absolutely batty with how nit-picking squarespace can be with their market orientated templates for millenials…. which I am not… to the point that I have to call my IT fellow and have him take a peek remotely I make another caffe this time a decaffeinated one as I am already berserk When the nagging issue has been eliminated by my IT fellow I get up and change the water again This goes on until 6PM since we have had NO RAIN for the last four months Come back and continue to labor with the website Go down and fix lunch which is usually a grilled cheese and hotdog sandwich on this terrifically good whole wheat bread The dog gets a treat too of a piece of hotdog from my sandwich slathered with cheese goo We both climb back to the loggia and I eat my lunch while the dog stares at me for a possible hand-out… which he ain’t going to get… and I look at the news on the BBC off my laptop I take a nap on a chaise in the sun with a hat on to protect my bold head and fall asleep after reading the same paragraph of my book I wake up dazed and confused and hungry but I seek to resist by making a caffe I continue to work on the website cross-eyed Change the water once again and so throughout the day about every hour on the hour The dog gets rambunctious Means he’s hungry too and yet he cannot resist He bothers me starting around 3PM and continues until I get up and go down to la Casetta to feed him I make him suffer until his traditional feeding time of 4PM Once he has sucked up what was served… Pedigree for Dogs beef with a veggie slop… we come back to the loggia for the dog to digest his meal resting on his mattress and for me to continue with the website An hour later I grab the SUV keys and the dog goes wild with happiness and joy He knows we’re going in the dirty SUV to drive to the dog’s special spot to run wild run free for an hour In the meantime I take a French Lesson off an app on my iPhone I gave up on Russian There’s more a chance of going to Frawnce with You than to Roooissia J’ai appris a’ dire que je comprends le francais and other beginner’s sparing with the French language Pardonne madmoiselle… are there any still left in Frawnce?… es-que vous etes francaise? Ate up the entire 30 minute lesson I take some nature photos for instagram thinking I am an amazing photographer but even I am weary now of nature pics and hanker to shoot something else But what since I am in lockdown And I have not seen Dottore You for 7+ weeks though I do get many telephone calls from him, videos and even selfies in his Coronavirus protection gear I call the dog back off Mother Nature and we hop back into the SUV and drive back home to change the water and for me to pour myself a tall glass of white wine I sit up with the dog on the loggia admiring the golden light of late afternoon streaming across the hilly landscape of Codiponte and over our aia mulling over what’s for dinner And I have to say there have been some culinary masterpieces of late I made a delicious risotto with dead lettuce…. lots of dead lettuce I had over-bought during my once-a-week foray to the D’Oro supermarket in Pallerone which is outside my legal confines… and some dead spinach too, sauteeing them with pancetta in a large frying pan I opened a can of sgombero grigliata… smoked mackerel dumping the pieces in with the arborio rice, white wine and borth 20 minutes later I sat down on the sofa upstairs had enjoyed a tasty feast Normally on Mondays I do something to last a few days This week I made a tomato sauce for pasta open face sandwiches on that terrifically good whole wheat bread with pecorino on top and put the slices into the broiler to brown the pecorino to a golden crust One night I steamed zucchini & carrots and let them sit in the refrigerator for a half an hour and then tossed in salmon strips and olive oil to make a salad This is an attempt to eat more veggies than foraging stuff to put on that terrifically good whole wheat bread I have gorged myself on for the last seven weeks of myself and government induced quarantine Once dinner is over with I try to find something to entertaining to watch on Netflix but there never is So I end up watching for the umpteenth time The Crown Sense and Sensibility or The King’s Speech The other offerings are too violent too psychotic too mean or too stupid or demeaning Stuff for american tastes And because I watched a South Korean TV show 3/4’s of what the recalcitrant Netflix feels I now should enjoy for an evening’s Feature Presentation are other South Korean TV shows Disappointed and/or exhausted I go to bed with my book and fall asleep in mid-paragraph to a slumber of lockdown nightmares… about the Future. Day after day after day after day after day after day after day after day after day after day.