Day 25 Lockdown Codiponte...
I am not at the end of my rope… yet. Many are though, but not me. I’m made of sterner stuff.
As is the Tradition, let me say, and before I dive into a lecture on Freedom, the lack thereof or, what we all are doing in the meantime, it’s absolutely gorgeous here in Codiponte: bright, sunny, cloudless days from Day 19 through to Day 25 of Lockdown Codiponte. By the way…
I must interject: my term of captivity is actually longer than the Official Lockdown. You…. Dr. You, that is, knowing full well my career as an ardent smoker long before I ever laid drunken eyes on him, and thus, understands my vulnerability to the threats of bronchitis, pneumonia, and not must unwillingly add the menace of Coronavirus to the list, suggested, highly suggested, I remove myself from circulation and remain within the confines of il Poggiolo. Whew! What a sentence. My confinement, in fact, is from the middle of February. As the count stands, I am, personally, in Day 49, from the 15th of February. I am not alone in this. My 90 year old mother, my English friends here in Codiponte, and others around I am sure.
To finish with the current weather report…
however, possibly for contrast or, for plain mean spirited-ness, it is also unseasonably beeg freezing cold too. During the night and, is especially felt in the morning. 37F degrees this morning. That’s cold for these parts and in April. The Croesus-person would not budge from off my bed until 10AM. Thermometer showed only 40F degrees at that hour. The Dog has an uncanny nose for only two… nope, sorry, three things: food, a savoury stick… you may substitute icky for savoury… and the cold. And this morning, with a light wind from Frawnce, the Chill Factor knocked the temp down to a feels-like 32F degrees. I can attest: there’s nothing colder in this World than standing in one’s skivvies risking disease… though holding a warm glass with a freshly made espresso… observing a crazed Weimaraner run up to his anointed spot to unleash his pent-up bio-donations. I refuse to do this daily ceremony with said Dog on a leash though I am under orders to do so. Enough of our Freedoms have already been taken away…
not that I am complaining.
Freedom? A New Freedom. I don’t want to get deep here but, I looked up the old meaning on Wikipedia. Merriam-Webster took too long to load. It states Freedom as: generally, having the ability to act or change without constraint. Easy. I am constrained. We all our constrained. Some of us more than others. I won’t name the name of the countries who seem reluctant to constrain their Peoples to stem the spread of Coronavirus. We’re all in this together. Get with it.
Nor do I want to be overly reflective yet, I find myself in a quandary with regards to this Coronavirus constraint: An adverse reaction. I have tons, literally tons, of stuff to do, to knock off the Task List, take these unexpected circumstances to achieve, accomplish, master, since I am prohibited BY DECREE!!! to hop in my SUV and go anywhere fun… like visit friends, go out to dinner, hang out at Luca’s Bar at Happy Hour. Nope. Instead, what I really want to do is NOT TO DO any of them. There, the New Freedom. However, when I try to goof off, I can’t…
relax, lull on a chaise and read a book in the sun though bundled-up in a sweater, throw blanket and scarf… GOT NO BOOKS, thanks to the spectacularly prompt delivery service at amazon.com. Odd because the only airplanes flying overhead are for cargo.
watch something on Netflix only to discover there is nothing palatable to watch. Sorry… I DO NOT WATCH MOVIES with a 23% Approval Rating from Rotten Tomatoes. I have Standards.
learn a language. How about Russian? I booked Pimsleur. Great outfit. Putting the written language aside, the Russian words and their pronunciation are…? Are…? ARE TONGUE TWISTERS. An example: Wouldn’t you like something to drink? comes to be and written phonetically as: Nee katill-beh bweh vweh stoney-bootz vweebitz? After that, I need some more white wine becomes… Mehnee new-zhnoh yesh-sh-ey nimnogoh belogo vinah. I have to go downstairs to pour me some to unravel my tongue and lips.
take on the challenge of learning how to use a digital mirror-less camera to shoot my new found passion for chestnut trees left to rot & decay on the hills around Codiponte. The Croesus-person is of no help as an assistant. Nevertheless, he does have the concession for collecting firewood down pat. Bravo cagnolino!
So, I struggle with all of the above. What I have managed to do and at my complete Freedom, is YARD WORK in il Poggiolo’s maturing-nicely-thank-you garden. Let me provide a List AND a photo-medley:
Pruned every fruit and non-fruit tree on our property
Clipped about 350 feet of assorted hedges and won the battle after much gymnastics
Cleaned the entire 25,000 ft. terraced garden of leaves, twigs, trash and an occasional stealth bio-donation
Planted 15+ plants in various empty spots needing greenery or flowers
Fertilised every fruit and non fruit tree, bush and plant with roots in Mother Earth and those flora managing to survive in pots
Put in order our courtyard, carrying away leaves, twigs and trash and pulled weeds out of every potted plant on the premises
Mowed the lawn twice
Weed-whacked twice
Burned three times the mighty efforts of my pruning & cleaning. Yes, we can burn
Cut wood to burn since I went through the entire consignment of this Winter’s firewood
And, finally, stopped to admire and sniff the flowers!
P-p-progress...
A bright, brilliantly crip & cold morning in Codiponte last Wednesday. Come on, Dog, let’s hit the road. The Dog might have bashed down the door to la Casetta with his Weimaraner excitement had I not beaten him to such destruction by opening the way… to his Freedom. This semi-deranged canine, one of God’s adored creatures, shot out the open door and down the ramp to il Poggiolo, one of my shoes in his mouth. Have to say, the boy’s fast. Nipped it before I could nip him! Puppy did a dance asking by way of wiggling his Weimaraner butt if, yes, we were really heading to da riva’ and my dirty SUV parked close by. No… Darling Dog, the other way. And up the stone trail he blasted, shoe still gripped in his mouth. I followed with a ready roll of green bio-degradable Emergency Sacks. Unfortunately, the area outside the gate belonging to the neighbor of the ugly-yellow-house, a widening in the trail of stone & weeds leading up to the Borgo of Codiponte and its Castle, seems to have all the necessary ingredients for inspiring donations of bio-waste manufactured by My Dear Dog. I go and retrieve them. A civic duty. And, yes, there’s always more than one pile. Once collected… Scendeee, scendee! And The Croesus-person obeys the order by disappearing down the cut-through to the SUV. Good boy! Done without a leash too.
In my dirty SUV, I turned the corner from da’ riva’ to weave my way up & onwards to Freedom, but found Freedom blocked. The work-guys were unloading a TIR of stone pavers, a ditch-digger sat perched on the flat-bed of another truck with nowhere to go and several white vans were parked behind the flat-bed truck to reinforce the halt towards our eventual w-a-l-k. It was about 9:30AM. Construction Rush-hour. Any earlier though and it’s too darn cold for The Croesus-person to stay outside, even with a lined felted coat on or, allowed to run crazily around nude, so to speak, to generate some h-e-a-t. Oddly enough, the Dog was in idle on his fur on the back seat. I needed to let the ol’ SUV rumble a little longer to warm the engine, hoping it would stop screeching its mechanical aches & pains. So, I got out and walked up to see what was what with Codiponte’s ongoing infrastructure renewal project. What a mess.
One of the work-guys, a big burly & friendly fellow, and perhaps the foreman, came over to chat. He has a later model of my dirty SUV. His was a shiny silver one and clean too. Told me of his pride with a big smile. Having garnered his attention, I sought the latest news. First off, he was part of a new crew. The sixth!!! I feel badly for Crew Numero Cinque. Do not know though I do suspect the previous crew were sent elsewhere for their Big Ooops. Hard to fire folk in Italy. I would have fired the puff-jacketed jeans-cladded Culture-police fellows. They do not know how to manage, much less manage a construction project. Probably because it’s not on a computer screen in an office in grim Massa-Carrara, HQ for our Italian province. All they know how to do, and I have seen this first hand… I like to spy from il Poggiolo’s innumerable & elevated views… is to arrive, point a lot, and then leave. Pointing is not management. It’s only fingering.
My new found friend confirmed what I had heard from a neighbour days before about the problem of building a proper slope for water run-off but, and again explained with a smile of pride, the new crew faced the difficulty with the old water & drainage pipes not laid deep enough to allow the new paver’s height to clear the thresholds of the houses and ex-stores on Codiponte’s piazzetta. By the looks of the herd of trucks & vans, and the comings & goings of the other four work-guys, Progress was being made and with new techniques & construction methods. All the old cement dug up, new gravel cushion was spread and iron lattices placed on top to create a new concrete base to be poured followed by the new pavers. Somewhere underneath all that were new drainage & water tubes. Enough Progress to calm the agitated citizens of Codiponte. Yet, what with the nice weather, most are in their orti, vignetti e frutteti occupied with Spring pruning & clearance. Might be a good idea for me to start that assault.
Doesn’t the via Comunale look spiffy? And, yes, does seem to be a cloudy day outside but, the sun had not risen above the hills behind Codiponte at that hour of the morning.
Kat Killer or, how do you like our leash law?...
Archive post October 2, 2018…
A brief Dog History…
You and I were spoiled by our first dog. His name was Moses, a splendid Weimaraner, and nearly perfect in every way. He could do no wrong. Well, almost no wrong. He wanted to be with us when we sat down to dinner. Automatically plopping down in the Dining Room as I would put steaming plates of pasta with sausages & broccoli on the table, You would likewise automatically command the dog to vacate the premises post haste. The strong tone & loud voice of the dog’s Supreme Commander would send Moses to the Siberia of the hallway beyond. Moses would skulk off and lay down to stare at us and our plates of pasta. Slowly, minute by minute, the dog would creep back into the Dining Room. His fatal mistake was, once inside… he thought so stealth-like… he’d dash to his preferred spot next to me, His Supreme Master, erring in thinking his re-entry was a success. The process would repeat itself to exhaustion. Might be why You and I now eat in front of the TV where no animal is ever allowed to be near. 15 and 1/2 years later, Moses passed away, God Bless, him.
And there is our adored and adopted gem of a Weimaraner, Nina-beena. Another near perfect canine except for her annoying flaw of scappating to sniff the surrounding environment of cogent country smells. Nina has her spots to inspect and then comes home to roost with our new entry, a year and a 1/2 old Weimaraner puppy. Boy, what a difference he’s been.
Croesus, a name practically no one can pronounce, much less understand, has been more than a handful. I believe we took him too early from the warm nurturing of his amazon of a mother-dog. You thinks I over-did the attempt to substitute warm nurturing, spoiling him into bad behaviors. The consequence of my actions… spoiling to be loved, I suppose… Croesus has a nearly maniacal desire to be physically attached to me at all times AND when not, does just what he pleases. Danger written all over him. He can do no right. Woo-woo and wee-wee throughout the apt. in Genoa… oh, he’d manage to hit the newspapers carefully placed in strategic spots, but then, well, he’d make another bio-donation on one of our innumerable Oriental rugs immediately afterwards. From there he branched into a paper, book, pillow, basket shredder par excellence, if we so dared to leave the house without him.
Then, at our home, il Poggiolo, Croesus expanded his field of operations. Deforestation of our garden, clawing the pristine finishes off all our doors… to ge to me… and a nifty predilection to cause a shoddily made old door down in the cantina open to his brand of Run Wild, Run Free. The local Codiponte populace shudder in fear when he’s in sight. I would too if a 66 lb. fritz-out Weimaraner gased from his freshly gained Freedom were to come rushing down a lane at top speed with his tongue wagging from the lust of it all. To forestall such escapes, leashing the dog has became de rigor and an unfortunate exercise in imminent back surgery. Short leads are not the trick. Croesus lunges and my back has to surrender to the force of the dog’s 66 lbs of Weimaraner take-off power. I told You that if the dog persisted to pull on his leash, I would be crippled in less than two years. I am well on my way and despite You’s admonitions to train the darn dog not to instead. Yeah, right.
Things got dramatically worse. Croesus killed a neighbor’s kat. The wrong neighbors too. Ones I had already had words with over a water infiltration issue which, in the end, was not even remotely our fault or responsibility. Turned out is was and still is the neighbor’s cousin, who lives between us.
And aside… everything which goes wrong in Codiponte is ALWAYS my fault: pooh-pooh, trash, car in a non-scantioned parking spot, fire burning off hours, more pooh-pooh, dogs off their leashes, still more pooh-pooh, etc. Never is You accused ‘cause he’s un dottore.
However, I can admit to the fault regarding the kat’s sad demise. I was irresponsible. Croesus was off his lead and I was wrong to allow it. You was furious with me about it. Did not speak to me for over a week. His silence was deadly and made my trials all the more burdensome.
The tragic story…
In the selfish interest to preserve some semblance of vertebral structure to my 220 lb. demeanor, I accompanied dinner guests to their car parked at the village’s Medieval bridge with both dogs senza guinzagli. A catastrophic tactical error.
An aside, Nina-beena does try to lend a bark or two pointed at and in the hope of corralling said the recalcitrant Croesus to follow her example by trotting happily next to me… leash-less…but, alas, not on this particular evening.
Kiss-kiss, Buona Notte to the guests and us… two dogs and a 220 lb. guy… headed for home. Well, two of us did. The thug dog had dashed off before us. I mused that he probably scappated to enjoy the night’s fresh air and its breeze rushing past his flapping Weimaraner ears. Or was drawn to the irresistible scent of food perhaps left on some door-step for the village’s array of felines to feast upon. Suddenly disappeared, suddenly re-appeared… with a bloody scratch across his muzzle. Ah, I said to myself, an unexpected kat encounter. Little did I know.
24 hours later, gory photos of a kat with horrifying wounds were sent to me through Whatsapp. What made the consignments worse was the cryptic and, I would also like to say, nastily sarcastic messages, such as… Have you not even remotely thought to keep your dog on a leash? The double disaster quickly tripled when the neighbors chose not to answer their door chime or responded to my Whatsapp message of concern. I sought consolation with a tranquilizer. I wanted to sleep. I would need re-vitalization to resume attempts to mediate the situation as much a possible in the coming days.
The neighbors were devastated. Their poor kitty-kat dead. I was devastated. A Kat Killer sleeps under my covers at night. Yet, Peace was re-installed and financial restitution made, our previous controversies put behind us too.
Word got around the community. Branded as the owner of a Kat Killer, I had to have the dogs under konstant kontrol, ie. leashes throttling our dogs necks with every exit from the konfines of il Poggiolo. So long to my back. The community would be safe. No Comment.
Croesus was impervious to the political klimate. And not enjoying the konfinement, he took to occasionally prying open the shoddy cantina door to scappate once-in-a-while. The vigili… guys in uniform but carrying NO GUNS promptly came a-knocking on my gate. The towns-people had alerted them to the marauding Kat Killer. The vigile I know said… Konfine your dog or else. Leashes attached without variation. Your dog is a Killer. Yes, sir.
This coming Saturday, two men will come and begin the construction of a concrete re-enforced post and wire fencing around the entire perimeter of il Poggiolo’s garden. Croesus will have to konfine his Run Wild, Run Free within its 25,000 square feet of grassy terraces. I hope he doesn’t develop an inclination to dig.