Stew, Author at See You in Italy

Italian weather report: April Showers

Went out in the pouring rain to Angela’s garden shop near Chiusi and got a few flowers, some sage advice, and ordered some verbena to replace the ones that got caught out in an extra cold February.

UMBRIA, Italy— We are here! Yesterday was arrival day and gorgeous, blue skys, warm temps. I gardened before even unpacking. What fun, then coffee and and gelato in sun and hugs around the village. Hundreds. Oh Joy.

Then came back and went out to dinner. More joy. How good was dinner at Masolino’s? Teenage girls raving about it. Artichoke on fresh handmade pasta, fresh leeks of the season on tagliatelli. Stefi remembered that I usually rave on her panacotta with fresh fruit. and did again. Have we truly died and gone to heaven? Close enough.

Today we have rain for the garden and all of Italy is green green green. Almost neon fields of new baby crops coming up. Our garden is ready to explode in bowers of yellow roses. Can’t wait. Went out in the pouring rain to Angela’s garden shop near Chiusi and got a few flowers, some sage advice, and ordered some verbena to replace the ones that got caught out in an extra cold February. The daisies? The Italian word for daisy is Margherita. So our Margherita Daisies are a fine bit of redundancy. Anyway, my wife is Midge but really Mary Margaret (Margherita) so they are in her honor. Our house is on Piazza Regina Margherita (Queen Daisy) and we call our house Casa Margherita.

Having fun deli lunch with the girls and a fire in the new woodstove and later dinner with friends. Take that jet lag! All is fine. More news as it comes in.

See you in Italy,

Stew

Look out Umbria, here we come

We are leaving for our old Panicale, Umbrian home tomorrow, Thursday and are counting the minutes. What we should be doing is Packing instead of Counting Minutes.

If you go to the This just in! page of our web site you will see the amazing list of new Italian properties we will be checking out for you on the trip. Looks like that section will be filling right up but quick. That is our section where we try to put our first quick photos before we do the full blown pages on the site. Those take a lot more sorting as you can imagine.

The color picture there is a new painting our friend Kiki gave my wife for her birthday. It is the view of our house and Panicale as you drive up to it. The same as above here on this page but in dramatic oil pastels. Our big Welcome Home view. Our life has been so crazy here (way too long a story) that we forgot to tell friends in our Umbrian town exactly when we were coming. You know, the date. Woke straight up thinking OH NO, coming home to a stone cold stone house. Made many panicked emails, phone calls and finally connected with our friend Anna. Her daughter Eric answered Hi Stew before I could even say who I was (accent) and her mom said Oh Yes, Heat is ON. she already knew from other friends (Paulette of San Francisco?) that we were on our way, so Anna and her cousin in law Bruno took action, house is polished inside and out, garden the same.

Another cousin of Anna’s, our friend Diletta (isn’t everyone in Italy a cousin, at some level?) emailed us to “stai tranquilla, tutto a posto” and not to worry but hurry over – as they were saving us theater seats for Friday night – as soon as we arrive. I’m starting to tear up a bit thinking how blessed we are to be tiny part of the daily fabric of life in Italy. It truly is the little things that mean the most. And we are covered with little things, little moments of magic rain down on us every minute of every day and night there in Umbria. Moments of heartbreaking happiness that sneak up on us when we least expect or deserve it.

You can see why one of our favorite thing to say is:

See you in Italy!

Saluti a tutti,

Stew and Midge

ALERT: STRANGE SEGUE AHEAD!

Bear with us. We know this isn’t Italy. Going there in a very few days. Giancarlo tells me he has a huge list of new houses to see and report on.

In the meantime we are using that Iowa mention from the previous bit as a transition out of the Pacific Time zone and into Central. This time next week we will be on Italian Time!

Ok, the correct answer is the house on the right is in Sausalito on the other side of the Golden Gate Bridge and the one on the left is in Vinton, Iowa. We saw Vinton’s Victorians while visiting my sister Mary in her new home there. The town was very nice, her home and all the Victorian homes were great, but the high point of the afternoon had to be when the high school across the street let out at two thirty. We are so not in Umbria or San Francisco here friends and I can tell because here in Vinton’s Washington High it was the final day of Ag Week and therefore Bring Your Tractor to School Day. Take that Sausalito. You may think I am kidding but that is specifically why I carry a camera with me. What parents trust their sixteen year olds to take their behemoth rubber tired tanks to school? Yike. I’m from an Iowa farm background but I didn’t remember tractors following us to school. Or tractors THIS big. Maybe they look bigger when there are packs of them roaming up and down Main Street in the rain, smoke billowing from stacks and kids with seed corn hats waving from the cabs. So glad our timing worked out for all this. I put this in the pantheon of wonders with Day after Easter Cheese Rollthru the streets of Panicale in Umbria.

ITALIAN DOVE FLIES IN FROM FRISCO
This bird took the long way to its final destination. We bought an Italian Easter Cake called Colomba (nominally shaped like a dove) at Ferry Plaza on the Embarcadero. And brought it to Iowa to share with the family on St Paddy’s Day. The Cowgirl Creamery Red Hawk Cheese didn’t go over as well as we hoped but that Italian cake was crumbs in a heart beat.

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There was something kind of nice and completing the circle in this trip that made me especially glad we stopped in Iowa. 68 years ago my then teenage dad made the Iowa-California-Iowa trip with a bunch of guys in a 1930 Model A Ford coupe with rumble seat. They shot gophers and tin cans with a pistol from the open rumble seat going across the Nebraska and those other wild and wooly states.

They were in San Francisco when the Golden Gate Bridge had just opened and was in its first coat of Golden paint. Dad said they had no money and just kept getting closer and closer to bridge but did not want to spend the money and pay the toll to actually go over it. At a certain point they got a bit too close, could no get back out of the on ramp and tried to explain their way out of it to the toll booth guard. But any explaining that was going to happen was done by the guard holding out his hand for their money saying Oh, yeah, you ARE going to see the Bridge. And pay the toll, too boys. They were glad they saw it and so were we.

That is all for the moment folks. We are headed off going east to Bella Italia and our home in Umbria during school vacation in mid April – so watch this space. Until next time

See you in Italy,

Stew

No, really. Where ARE we?

Rome, Italy this is not – as maybe the license plate gives away. Strangely enough this is a hundred year old exhibition grounds in San Francisco. Where? Hmmm. I’m turned around again, but think it is near the big park south of the bridge.

WHERE ARE WE? NUMERO UNO.
Is this the Golden Gate Bridge? Holland West? Well I don’t know if you trust me now after the previous bridge debacle, but yes this windmill is in sight of a big rock carved with the inscription: Golden Gate Park. The good wooden shoe wearing folks had a spare wind mill years ago and sent it to San Francisco. Did you know there was a windmill at the gate to the Golden Gate park? Well, neither did I. Let alone two of them. There is this one, The Dutch Windmill and evidently The Murphy Windmill at another gate. Did not see that one. Was it folded back into a wall like a Murphy Bed mayhaps?

WHERE ARE WE? NUMERO DUE.
We all know ‘There is No Place Like Rome’. But Rome, Italy this is not – as maybe the license plate gives away. Strangely enough this is a hundred year old exhibition grounds in San Francisco. Where? Hmmm. I’m turned around again, but think it is near the big park south of the bridge. OK, just Googled it. Palace of Fine Arts on Richardson Street at the end of North Point. In my mind it is not too far from the jaw dropping Pacific Heights. I thought I’d seen everything till I saw Pacific Heights with its extreme hillside stacked straight up to the sky with gazillion dollar mansions bigger than embassies – one on top of the other. Never ever seen such amazing opulence go on and on. Miles and miles of million and billionaires I suspect because really tiny bungalows in Berkley seem to routinely sell way over their half a million dollars asking price, so who on earth knows what these beauties run here in Pacific Heights. Yes, we did look in real estate offices windows. No, we’re not moving unless that Power Ball thing kicks in. All I could think was ‘Shaazaam would you look at those buildings, Sarge?’

WHERE ARE WE? NUMERO TRE.
San Francisco is also justly famous for its streets of Victorian ‘Painted Ladies’ and we saw boodles of them in every part of town I could just sit and look at them for ages but we were flying by and most of my shooting was drive by. OK, but this is a test. Which one of these random houses was in San Francisco and which one was in Iowa? Answer in next issue.

ATTENTION CONE HEADS: BEWARE BERKLEY SCOOP

The idea of sitting in the warm California sun and getting in a few licks had certain appeal, so one afternoon when we saw a nice looking Gelateria on Fourth Ave in Berkley we thought Italian Ice Cream! and went for it. I’m going to be kind here and not use the name of the place. This being California they had esoteric flavors like Green Tea and maybe that should have been a warning but we pressed on. Now, I have to digress for a minute and make sure you know I really like California and California people. I think they are all fun and cool. Well, all except the boyfriend girlfriend running this wannbe chic but sketchy place. I’ve blanked out what flavor I ordered (not Green Tea) but the young man asked me which size cup I wanted, pointing at an assortment of plastic cups. I’m not a cup kind of guy so I said “Cone”. And that’s when he got up on his back legs, looked down his nose and said “This IS a cone-free zone”. He really truly said that. I have witnesses. And he said it like eating a cone was akin to eating live baby harp seals on a stick. “Wait” I said “You’d rather have me throw away plastic than eat a cone?” Blank look back at me, so I took another tact, pointing at a handy visual aid with pictures of ice cream posing in a variety of tasty ways “What is this? ” “Oh, that is a crepe. We can give you the ice cream in a crepe. Which we present in a conical delivery system”

So we waited for Babs and Chip to deliver said conical delivery system (their names were on the tip jar which was Babs and Chips Honeymoon Tip Jar according to the sign). I do not actually remember their actual monikers. Anyway, while we were waiting, Paulette took a picture of a row of ice cream scoops they had mounted on a blank white wall. Oh, no. No picture taking. “For our protection” Dear God in Heaven if anyone on planet earth was ever closer to, or more deserving of, a wedgie. With optional swirly. I stepped back onto the public sidewalk and took another picture. So there.