Sunday, December 16, 2018

Sunday Lessons in Village PR

We finally had some time to get stuff done around the house today so Cristian was out in the driveway cutting wood this morning. See, we have this woodburning stove we use to supplement the regular gas heat (and having fires in winter rocks). Since there are other people at his work with fireplaces and woodburning stoves, they order their firewood together. You can load it up and take it home when you want (company perk, Triestine style). The wood is cheap but you have to cut it to fireplace size yourself, which is a great excuse to buy a chainsaw.

Which brings me to the lessons I learned today.

Lesson 1.
My husband really loves his chainsaw.

Lesson 2.
Chainsaws are Man Magnets.

Within about 10 minutes there was a 3-man fanclub out there talking wood: where to find it, how to cut it, the best ways to burn it.

And in this neighborhood, when men come over to talk anything, you better offer them something to drink. This is met with, "Oh no, I couldn't. You are so busy..." followed by "Oh, alright. Let me bring home the hound and I will be right back."

When they come back, they bring a bottle of wine and you know it's going to be good because it has no label, which means that it is "Domace" and if they didn't make it themselves, someone close by did. This is a precious gift and a gesture of friendship.

Of course, you will not open it (now) because you also have a bottle waiting. It also has no label and is "Domace," fresh from the cantina of someone in the village up the hill. In this case, it is Emil's, the one with the twin boys who just graduated from College. Uncle Boris gets his wine from him, too.

The neighbors stay for two drinks and in that time they talk about what the village looked like 40 years ago, when our house was a small grocery store and the yellow house on the corner was a bar, and the house behind ours was the bakery.

Oops. Look at the time, they drink up, and say their goodbyes. They, too, have a lunch to get to. We call the mother-in-law and explain that we lost track of time. We were cutting wood, the neighbors stopped by and Cicole Ciacole, an hour has passed. In the meantime the washing machine finished its cycle and we still have to hang out the clothes (in our village you hang clothes outside even in winter), then we will be right over. Of course, she says, that's life in a village.


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