Olney's Growing!

Olney has gained almost 5 lbs since joining our family on May 4! He's now 35.3 lbs! It's only 7:30 in the morning and he's already been playing with all his toys and found a large, dead rodent under a rosebush in the garden. Isn't puppy life great?

I don't work on Fridays. Whoot whoot! So after laundry and cleaning, Olney and I are going to Ruffia to sit by (and hopefully swim in) the pool. Then Fabri will join us after work. But I think it's better to tell you about my weekend AFTER it happens!

From Olney Puppy

Weekend in the Country

Fabri tries to convince me (and himself) that he's not a country person and we're not living in the country, but then there comes a weekend like this one. First of all, the roads around here are often clogged with tractors, and I've seen a big farm tractor parked out in front of someone's house in Savigliano! Country people.

Saturday we spent the entire afternoon & evening at Fabri's parents' country house in Ruffia. There's a link to the website with a lot of photos on the right side. They turned the house into a bed and breakfast called La Ruffianella. They were hosting a party for Fabri's cousin's wife, Sylvia. She wrote a book and this was a party presenting it. It was a pretty full house of mostly family and friends of Sylvia. We brought the puppy who behaved very well despite all the strange people. We hung out all night and eventually had pasta with Maria Pia, Antonio, Gaetano & Detta.

Cows - No Panning from Jessica Goldstein on Vimeo.

When we got home around 11 or so the field next to our house was full of cows! The cows come to Saluzzo and spend the night next to our house before they march through the town and up to the Alps for the summer. Then they do it again on the way back. So we spent the night next to a field full of cows! There was one little catch though, they were all wearing HUGE alpine cowbells. So the bells were ringing very loudly all night. It was crazy. Make sure to watch these videos with your sound up so you can hear how loud the bells are! We slept ok though, and the next morning we took Olney out and walked around to see the cows. For a smelly farm pup, he was pretty unsure about all the cows. Check out the cow pics at my Picasa album (link to the right).



After that we took Olney to Savigliano where they were having a fair/event. There were a lot of booths set up around the historical center with flowers, herbs, spices, and local food. We bought cookies, salami & some veggie plants. Olney was just about perfect and let a VERY little boy pet him with out a problem. Then we had aperitivo with Pac and his father and Olney just slept underneath our chairs. Afterwards we went to La Ruffianella for lunch with Giovanna, Maria Pia & Antonio. We had yummy grilled eggplant & peppers and then hung out outside for a bit. Fabri, Olney & I all took a little nap together. So sweet. Then other family & friends started arriving and we hung out, planted sweet corn, and then made pizza for dinner in the outside pizza oven.

The weekend was great because Fabri and I spent the whole time together and almost the entire time with Olney as well (except for one brief errand where we bought the puppy a bed). Now it's all back to work...can't wait until next weekend!

Puppy Days

No pictures this time unfortunately, we've been sooooo busy with the puppy. And I started 4 new English classes a week. I've also taken on a private student for an hour of conversation once a week. I don't really enjoy teaching English, but I'm happy to be making some money and keeping busy. The only problem is that my schedule changes every day and things can change very last minute because students can cancel until 9 pm the night before the lesson. Oh well, it's not forever.

So Olney is doing very well. He is practically house trained (knock on wood) and hasn't had an accident since he was sick on Monday from too much food at a family dinner. We have been taking him all over with us, so he's getting used to people AND he let a couple kids in the center of Saluzzo pet him this weekend. That was a big deal as he is still terrified of kids; kids & bikes. We're working on that. We want him to be very well socialized. He has been to Ruffia several times and loves to run around the big yard. He's interested in the pool, but hasn't been in yet. If it is sunny at all this weekend (outlook doubtful), we're gonna throw him in.

We need to pick up Olney's training. He jumps way too much on us and also on the furniture. It's not bad now because he's still little, but he's going to be big and that won't be good. Also I don't like it when the dog gets up on the couch next to you, so Olney's gonna have to learn. When he wants somethign and jumping up doesn't work, he's learned to sit. We're also learning wait, down, come here, go to bed & heel. The best would be if he understood "off" & "stop biting." But he's been with us for less than 2 weeks, so I think we're doing pretty good.

On Wednesday we brought him to an outdoor party for Antonio's political party. He's running for Vice Mayor of Savigliano or something like that. Fabri & I didn't know most of the people at the party, but they all thought Olney was cute and he hardly barked at all, and he let lots of people pet (and especially feed) him.

Anyway, our lives for the past 2 weeks have been all about the puppy and work, so I don't have anything that exciting to say. Today is a good day to be a duck, so we're going to be staying dry inside mostly. Tonight we'll probably go to the Irish pub I love with Danny & Anna. Tomorrow we're going to a book presentation at Ruffia for Sylvia (Fabri's cousin's wife). She wrote a book of short stories. Then Sunday we're going to the 5 Senses Festival in Savigliano. I've been told there will be a lot of herbs and spices and fun stuff.

Take care and have a good weekend all!

Bundle of Joy

Amy & Vicki are back in the US, but things are not getting back to normal in our house because we adopted a puppy on Monday! He's a 3 month old mutt with a lot of lab and maybe some type of sight hound. We named him Olney. We got him from a farm not far from here. Our friend, a horse vet, found him because she looks after the family's donkeys. He is a big sweetie and we are very happy with his behavior considering he's only been with us for 3 days. At first he freaked out about the leash, now he walks pretty well on it. He's getting closer to being house trained too. He hasn't chewed on anything yet either! He's just a super sweetie that follows us around when we're home.

Both Fabri and I had a lot of fun with Amy & Vicki. We ate a LOT and celebrated our birthdays. I drove us to Nice for my first time which was both scary and exciting. The road through the Alps has a lot of hair pin curves and not a lot of guard rails, so I was nervous about driving it, but it was no problem and everyone was impressed. You should look at all the photos with Amy & Vicki on my Picasa albums (link to the right---->).

On Sunday the girls went to Turin to see some museums/galleries and Fabri was working, so I went to a flea market in Savigliano. Maria Pia came with me for a little while before she went to a lunch and we bought a bunch of stuff including some gifts for Amy & Vicki. Now I have all sorts of new glassware that we got for next to nothing. Presents are fun. Also, Maria Pia offered to pay for a cooking class for me for my birthday which was nice.

Anyway, I have to get ready for my classes this evening. Now there will be puppy stories in addition to cooking & gardening stories!

The best part about living in Italy

First, check out pictures from our trip to the US on my Picassa Web Albums. The link is to the right of this page. Second, don't forget to leave comments or send me your stories. It's hard to keep writing these with out any feedback!

Living in Italy has it's good points and it's bad ones. My least favorite is that practically everything is closed on Sundays and Mondays. It's getting a little better with grocery stores and some stores in Genola (Cuneo's version of Rockville Pike) being on Sunday and at least a few pizzerias being open on Mondays. But my favorite is on a beautiful day you don't have to go far to sight see and wander around beautiful medieval streets. Last Wednesday Fabri and I spent the afternoon exploring three small towns around Saluzzo.

Our first stop was Revello. We walked around the historic center and checked out a couple churches there. Then we set our TomTom to Barge, and passed through Envie along the way. We stopped in Envie when we saw a castle that interested us. Unforunately it looked as though it's a private residence and therefore unvisitable. I really have to go to the Cuneo Office of Tourism and get the Open Castles listing for 2009. That is a tourist pamphlet with information on all of the visitable castles in the area. Then we continued on to Barge. All of these cities are at the foot of the alps like Saluzzo. Envie was interesting because the whole city was terraced. The hilly portion of Saluzzo is not. Barge is the largest of the cities we visited. The Barge church featured in the slide show below was covered with square holes and every single one was fenced over to prevent pigeons from nesting there. The most spectaicular site was by far in Barge where 3 rivers come together. That's what I'm posing in front of in the last photos.



Also, we've had our first harvest from the balcony garden: baby greens! We had them with store bought lettuce for a delicious lunch out on the balcony the other day. We're really going to enjoy having this extra room.

From Blogger Pictures

Earthquake

I should have written this when it first happened. Fabri and I were unaffected by the earthquake in L'Aquila, Italy as were our friends and family here. That region is very far from Saluzzo and nothing was felt up here. It was incredibly devestating and upsetting even more so because that is a poor region of Italy whose people will have trouble rebuilding. I think the Italian government is doing a good job though, much better than how the US government handled Katrina.

I heard on the news that about 50% of Italy is in an "earthquake danger zone" and only about 14% of Italy's buildings are up to US earthquake safety standards. That's because a LOT of Italy's buildings were built hundreds & even thousands of years ago. And what are they supposed to do, tear down Roman farmhouses and medieval churches to build something earthquake proof (which doesn't really exist anyway)?

I just wanted to mention that we are not in that 50% earthquake danger zone, and though we do occasionally get very small tremors, there's never any damage. Ok, I should have written that earlier, but better late than never.

Agrilus goldsteini

Fabri and I are in the US! He's being a bit unrealistic about his ability to stay awake. We arrived on Friday at 1:15 in the afternoon. That was about 40 minutes late. The flight was fine, but we waited for a half hour on the plane for additional passengers whose connecting flight was late. Anyway, we're here now and having fun and doing lots & lots of shopping!

I didn't get a chance to write about some of the museum-related events that occured before we came to the US. On Wednesday I went to the museum and while there I overheard Giovanni, the head of the museum and an ornithologist talking on the phone to someone about me. I usually tune out the Italian when someone's on the phone, but "entomologa americana" makes my ears perk up. He was reccomending me for a job. The museum had a project on the dragonflies of the national parks of Piemonte that began last year. The gentleman who did the project last year is now employed full time, but they are happy to have a replacement ready to go! The only hitch is that they have to verify the funding is still available. I am not sure what exactly I will be doing, how much it will pay or how much travelling I will be doing, but I'm happy that they love me at the museum.

Speaking of the museum loving me, Gian, the entomologist who I work with, named a new species of metallic wood-boring beetle after me! Introducing Agrilus goldsteini!! It's a very small beetle (approximately 1/4 of an inch). It's from the rainforest of Nicaragua. The larvae bore into trees and feed just under the bark. When they become adults, they leave the trees and fly around the forest looking for a mate. Anyway, I have a beetle named after me, s there! Also Gian thanks me twice in his manuscript describing this and about 11 other new species. Once for my work curating the butterfly and moth collection of the museum and again for helping him write in English. I spent about 6 hours correcting Gian's English. But I'm happy to do it to make a name for myself and hopefully get more paid work in biology/entomology!