A couple of weeks ago I took the advice of a fellow expat and registered online as a member of "Democrats Abroad," a pretty self-explanatory sort of organisation. A few days later I received an email invitation to a dinner and conference call with U.S. House Representative Nancy Pelosi at the home of a Democrat living in Milan, and I thought that's be a sweet event to attend so I got the day off from au pairing, found a host for Friday night (coincidentally another graduate of Colorado College, 1978 - thirty years before me), and took the 90 minute train from Turin to Milan.
The dinner party was held in one of the nicest houses in the entire city, a 500-square-meter flat with high ceilings, marble floors, and four Filipino maids in grey and white uniforms. Yikes. I arrived an hour and a half too early, in boots and jeans, and was mildly alarmed to find two thin, tan, stressed PTA-mom types setting up the wine glasses... but then everyone else started arriving, namely a dashing theatre actor who reminded me of the bad hot guy from "The Devil Wears Prada" and kept replacing my glass of wine, and I felt more comfortable. The 50ish of us crowded around the laptop to listen in on Nancy Pelosi's international phone call - broadcast also to American Democrats in Bologna, Florence, Naples, and Rome - during which she urged us to continue supporting Obama and Biden, encourage other Americans to vote for members of the SENATE (or Congress? Oh, dear...) so the Democratic candidate wins by a landslide rather than a margin, and thanked us for our involvement from overseas. We do indeed have a unique perspective on this election, and as there are not just hundreds but thousands of us in Italy alone, we do have an impact on the final result. After the phone call, we mixed, mingled and milled about two long banquet tables laden with a variety of gourmet catered lasagnas, fresh bread, an exquisite salad, and who knows how many bottles of alcohol. Someone commented to me over a cigarette on the balcony that it was ironic that our Democratic meeting should take place in the home that looked most like it was owned by a Republican.
It was interesting to rub shoulders with other expatriates and to swap explanations as to why and for how long we are (or have been) in Italy. Made me think a lot about what it would be like to live here instead of the United States... no definitive answers yet.
Another event that revealed some of the finer cultural differences between Americans and Italians took place in our living room, the assembly of twin IKEA dressers for my bedroom. We'd had the parts lying about boxes for two days, awaiting an evening when A--- was available to help me put it together. Or so I thought. Wednesday night, he's home, I'm home, and I mentioned the dressers. I told them I've had much experience assembling IKEA furniture by myself, and will probably just need him to help me move it once it's done. He, however, has already called his 19-year-old nephew to come over and help us. But why do we need him?, I asked. I know how to do it. No, he shakes his head, last time it took us three hours to put a piece of furniture together. We need him.
Three turned out to be a crowd, of course, and I ended up being the one to turn this piece over in the right direction, to exchange this screw for that peg, because they seemed to have no idea what they were doing. I was surprised to find that A--'s metal toolbox contained only the barest essentials: three small screwdrivers, one somewhat odd wrench, a hammer that was more like a mallet. I thought about my dad's toolbox at home, the one I began to sift through with curious interest as early as 3 or 4 years old, exuding the smell of metal and oil, stuffed to capacity with wrenches of all sizes, drill bits, big hammers and little hammers, several pairs of pliers, wirecutters, and sprinkled with countless, mismatched pieces of hardware. This toolbox, however sounds hollow upon closure, its contents rolling around the empty space when carried. I don't think the boys know the difference between a socket wrench and an open-ended wrench like I do. I also know (from an art class, actually, go figure) that it's faster and more effective to hold a hammer low down on the handle, letting the weight of the head drive the nail, rather than holding it close to the head and keeping all the tension in your wrist; but no one else - not even the adult men - seemed familiar with that rule.
Construction experience aside, however, I found that my attempts to help were gently refused. I was allowed to hammer some tiny nails into the backboard, and press pegs into pre-drilled holes. Screwing and lifting were out of the question. At one point I stood up and put my hands on my hips, knowing for sure hat I could do this work much more quickly if I were working alone. P-- mistook my sigh of exasperation for something else, and said with great sympathy, "Good thing he's here to help [the nephew]. Mens' muscles are just stronger than ours!" I suppressed a humorless laugh. Conclusion: A girl who knows her way around a toolbox = very, very American.
Lastly, I received my absentee ballot in the mail, to my great delight! They were fascinated by the little check-boxes and bold, official headings, "President of the United States Of America" having not only two but six candidates. Who are these other people?, they wondered, and so did I... no one really cares about them, I replied, the tiniest bit ashamed that I hadn't heard of most of them. I need to read up on some of my local issues so I can make decisions about Berkeley and Alameda. For the first time in my life I'm beginning to actually feel my own nationality, and, to my great surprise, I like it.
Post Script: some excerpts from an email to a friend (because I'm pressed for time and find cutting and pasting easier than rephrasing the same ol' thangs):
"Kids: They started the academic year on Monday, so now we have a schedule. Yahoo! The littlest one has just begun school, so this week he got out at 12,30 each day, while his brother is in school until 4,30-- long days! Next week they'll both get out at 1 on Mondays and Fridays, then at 4.30 each other day. They'll also begin tennis (Fil), maybe judo (Ruggi), and maybe soccer (Ruggi), and I'll be in charge of trucking them around via bus/walking to their various activities. What a glamorous life I lead, with juice boxes and boogery tissues floating around the bottom of my purse. They've begun to settle down energywise, thank the gods above, and I think it's going to be an awesome time from here on out.
Life: Generally good. Today I had a quick walk around the city center with a 24-yr-old guy named Patrick who just moved here from Sweden and hopes to work in a ski lodge this winter. Good luck, dude. And I met two other American au pairs today, one from Colorado (!) and another from... one of the states we often forget about completely... Indiana, maybe? They're really sweet, and we're all venturing out tomorrow morning to a free Italian lesson through the visa office. If it's good, I might go to that a couple times a week. I'm also on the hunt for a dance class, but not much is offered in the mornings (my only free time). I managed to locate a salsa class that starts in October... but salsa doesn't strike me as a morning kind of dance, at least not in the same way as modern or, say, yoga... whatever. Beggars can't be choosers, right? Anywho, things are going well. I need to make more time to write for this blog site, so I can make more MOOOONNNEEEYYYYYY.
Crazy adventures: Lately, none, just playing. I was "in prison" today for close to two hours, under the care of Sheriff R---, for the alleged offense of "stealing eleven cows." It was pretty rough. I got snacks, though (crackers), as well as some sunglasses (for when the sun came out in the prison), a snowglobe (for winter) (????), a cell phone (walkie talkie without batteries) "to call my mother," a mirror and a brush "to fix my hair," a pen and paper for drawing, some Scotch tape "to put my drawings up on the walls," and a blanket. Apparently prison is not unlike a two-star hotel, or elementary school."
* post-script
Speaking of American, a Smithsonian writer says of Frank Lloyd Wright, "In his unshakable optimism, messianic zeal and pragmatic resilience, Wright was quintessentially American. A central theme that pervades his architecture is a recurrent question in American culture: How do you balance the need for individual privacy with the attraction of community activity? Everyone craves periods of solitude, but in Wright's view, a human being develops fully only as a social creature."
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