Ciao, Tuscany

Tuscany, Italy

My Mayes Marathon is almost complete. Just of few pages more and I am finished with Tuscany - Under the Tuscan Sun, Bella Tuscany, and Every Day in Tuscany. I hate to say this but I am almost put off Italy by this last in the series. Way too many perfect friends, perfect homes, perfect outdoor meals and the perfect wines to go with all. Not to mention a perfect grandson. And, lest I forget, way too many Italian terms splattered across the pages. Even though she translates, it slows down the enjoyment for me. Frances, you are beginning to bore me but I will carry on to the end.

I did finish The Enchanted April. It was a very sweet book. I think I came to like Lady Caroline the best. And I certainly couldn't see anyone else but Joan Plowright as Mrs. Fisher. Perfect casting there. I have heard good things about another of Elizabeth von Arnim's books - Elizabeth and her German Garden. Another one for the long, long list of Books to Be Read that I keep on my computer.

It seems I have finished three books all at once. Isn't that the way, though. But, oh joy, that just means I will be starting at least three new books from my list.

Pink and white and green all over

It seems as if it should already be summer. But, after our hyper-Spring the last two weeks - very warm - it looks as if this next week will be glorious. The pink and white dogwoods on the street are blooming as are the lush purple irises in my neighbor's yard. And I cut some lilacs today to add fragrance in the house.

As immersed as I am in Italy - its food, flowers, and festivals - I am already thinking about spending long summer evenings on the front porch with a book. That is until the mosquitoes arrive. And the humidity. Bah.

Headed to the local fruit and vegetable market to stock up for the week: broccoli, potatoes, red pepper, cabbage, mushrooms, onion, and garlic. Also small tender carrots with their feathery green tops still on. No plastic wrap here. I laughed as I set them on the counter and said, "I feel just like Peter Rabbit."

Frances Mayes is really inspiring me to think about my garden and my dinner plate. I don't know why her second book, Bella Tuscany which I am reading now, got such tepid reviews. She writes about other towns in Italy and a trip to Sicily. And then Venice. One of the reviewers said he wished just once Mayes would have a bad fave bean. I don't think there is one to be found in Italy.

Mayes writes about her longing to travel since her first solo trip at the age of 6. Her mother sent her off on the train to visit her grandmother. Looking at the farmhouses along the way she wondered what the inhabitants' lives were like. She is still wondering today. That is what impels her journeys.

My Friend Flicker

Yesterday I took my laptop to the repair guy because the screen kept flickering. Annoying. I figured the screen was going out. Of course, just like when you take your car to the mechanic to investigate the rattling noise and all is quiet, or you take yourself to the doctor because you are not feeling well and immediately feel better as you sit in the waiting room, the flicker refused to flick. I left the computer with him as he said he would check for viruses and updates and maybe it would start its jumping jacks.

It never did. I picked it up today and he said the screen stayed motionless. OK. I brought it home, hooked it up and of course it started to flicker.

I turned it off and turned my mind to what the problem could be. Over a slice of 2-day-old pizza I decided maybe my Internet connection was loose. I approached the U-verse box with caution and wiggled the two wires. I turned on the computer. No flicker. Sigh. I hope it is fixed. The box must have gotten jiggled when my housekeeper swept the floor.

Darn. There is still a bit of a flicker. Oh dear. And here I thought I had solved the problem. So now I have disabled the wireless connection to see if that will stop the jumping about.

I was disappointed that I didn't get to post yesterday. I did try to post via my Nook Color, but I could only get a keyboard on the screen to type the headline. When I tried to write text, the keyboard disappeared.

Another disappointment is that my faithful DVD store does not have a copy of Under the Tuscan Sun. Neither does my library. I have a shout out to friends in case someone has the movie on her DVD shelf.

Have begun Bella Tuscany and am just as immersed in Italian life as I was with Under the Tuscan Sun.

Bella Tuscany

Am within 20 pages of finishing Under the Tuscan Sun. I decided I would read the other two by Mayes about her home in Italy in quick succession. Sped to the library to pick up Bella Tuscany so that the end of one Tuscany saga and the start of the other will be seamless. This second book got very mixed reviews, but once in Tuscany I think it is best to stay there.

"My Literary Paris" by Lily Tuck in Paris was Ours is a very short account of the author's stay in Paris in the 1970s as a student at the Sorbonne. She was in her thirties, the oldest student in her classes, working toward her master's degree in American literature. Apparently her bachelor's degree from an American school didn't suit the French and she had to take eight additional courses before she could enroll in the advanced degree program.

But enroll she did. She analyzed and diagrammed and categorized As I Lay Dying, Wise Blood, The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, The Great Gatsby, A Streetcar Named Desire.  She was astonished at first that she was forced to tear apart such wonders of American literature, but admitted that by the end she had learned that the technical reading of a novel didn't spoil it but enhanced it. She fell in love with M. Le Vot, her instructor in the tweed jackets and cashmere sweaters. But most of all, she writes, she fell in love with American literature.