eurobimbo's journey to enlightenment - the tuscany files

There are some vines growing all along the city wall that edges our street, Via Santa Margherita. They are very green and have green balls before bursting into flowers. I have come to find that these are capers just growing wildly on the side of the road! I feel like I have found this crazy discovery, everywhere you look there is some kind of natural life that seems to exist on it's own just waiting to be discovered.

Well now the capers have been discovered and for a couple days you would see ladies, many old ones, bending way over the side of the wall to pick as many capers as they could. Alessandra told me that once you pick them you let them dry, then you can put some salt on them and add them to dishes.

The crazy neighbor lady rang our bell a couple days after we got back. She doesn't just ring it, she holds it down for a while several times in a row. I always imagine she is arrabiata (angry) over some imagined infraction and this time I was ready to rumble, so I let Keith answer the door. He didn't know much of what she said but he said she wasn't angry and actually seemed nice ( I could hear her yelling from upstairs and it didn't sound nice). She caught him a couple more times and was always nice, according to Keith. Finally, I was walking Porter and saw her, she put her bags down and rushed up to me and told me thank you for the flowers! I had forgotten that before we left for California, I had some roses our landlady Silvia had brought over when they had dinner here, and since they were still perfect I left them on the doorstep of the crazy neighbor lady along with some veggies I needed to get out of my fridge. Apparently this meant quite a bit too her, even though I honestly did it out of convenience, and she told me if I have a need of anything to let her know. I was really floored, and amazed at what a tiny bit of kindness can do for someone who probably doesn't get anything but mad stares most of the time since they are always yelling or complaining about something.

It really taught me an important lesson that I have to remember that small acts of kindness to strangers can go such a long way.

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Last Updated ( Wednesday, 05 April 2006 )

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