09 Poggio, September 2003
Monday 1 September
Finally I’ve purchased a monthly train ticket, making me feel I’m finally part of the commuting world. This month feels like a dud, because my very sweet boss seems unable to delegate, which isn’t good for his health or home life.
I find my neighbour Paul on the train, asleep. I’d like to be asleep myself, but I find I can sleep on the train, but only going homewards. Even better, if I’m slightly windswept and damp, I fall asleep in the warmth and all the steamed up windows of the carriage.
At work I see that the young man Andrea has a music playing gadget. He listens to music all day as he works at the computer. Good idea. I think about purchasing something like this myself. However, I realise I am still not caught up with the present and the new devices have yet to become familiar to me. Maybe it would help to own one.
The situation in
Porgy was walking around this morning. I hope he’ll be on his feet when I return. I suppose that two days of antibiotics will be enough. Last night I had to feed the poor dog by hand. One lump of meat from his favourite can of dog food at a time. He must be feeling very sick.
Vincenzo was here. When he heard that I wanted to lock the gate from the main field onto the road he wanted to bring his own lock. This is the fake lock. It looks locked from the outside but it is only a hook on a chain with the closed padlock showing on the outside. I try to explain that we are not living in the same world he was born into. Where people probably respected property, and a lock on a chain meant, “We would rather you didn’t enter here, thank you.”
He shows me the extra gate along the lane. How many other people know about it? Not very secure to have locked gates onto the road and a locked gate from the house onto the lane, and then just along the fence there is another unlocked gate to come in and out as you please. Where is the sense in that? Of course, if people want to come onto the land they have only to bend themselves in two and squeeze through the rungs of the rotting wooden gate.
I’m glad that Vincenzo told me about the little gate at the corner of the property. It saves me the embarrassment of having to tell him that he must call before he comes so that I can make sure the car gate is open.
In the evening when I return Matisse is still missing. I walk around calling him. Then do a final walk around and go to lock the gate onto the lane. I hear a meow and then he comes galloping up from the bottom of the garden. As I write this he is zonked out on the ironing board. Must have been a great cat day.
Dear Pat. I told her I wasn’t going to fix the kitchen, only buying a new stove. “I know what this means,” she says all bristling disapproval. “You’re going to buy a new horse. A Tiger stallion.” Well, I had talked about it. These Tiger horses are spotted like the Appaloosa leopards, but they have a gait. Meaning that when trotting, or walking, the left legs then the right legs move together. I’ve never ridden a horse like this. Some say it takes getting used to and then it is very comfortable. So, I’d talked about buying one of these horses and bringing it to
Something else about the Tiger horses is that they accept “no colour” horses. The Appaloosa folks register them putting an N in front of the number, meaning they have no markings. Fact is I know that you need a no colour and a colour to get a colour. There may even be a higher probability that you get an Appaloosa with spectacular markings from a no colour mare or stallion, as in when you outcross to a Quarter Horse or Arab, the foal may be highly coloured.
As I understand from the reading I’ve been doing, on the subject of the genetics of Appaloosa coat colour, it is the lp gene that gives the white coat pattern over colour. The other thing I have read is that the “ghost” or “few spot” leopards also produce coloured foals. The lp gene is supposed to be the dominant gene – but it has not yet proved to be with my foals.
Tuesday 2 September
My contract has been extended and I’m not sure how this makes me feel. I was cheered up somewhat when I found Cherry on the train, she’d been on holiday. Where did she go? “
I’d been thinking of an early night when I returned yesterday. No such luck. Porgy had a huge hole in him. The vet said it was another dog bite, but I wonder if it was Porgy himself licking, licking all day long. Then the vet showed me the bite marks. He sewed everything up again, as he whistled. A woman wanted to talk to him and he told her that he had a dog under anaesthetic, not true at that point, and it would be twenty minutes. It was longer. The woman turned out to be a blond, chunky girl in a very expensive car. I would be nervous of her too. She seemed more male than female, even though she was blond and dressed in a floating white dress that resembled a night gown. She seemed to be wanting to invite the veterinarian somewhere. He seems quite young; maybe in his 30s.
Which reminds me. Tina at work thought I was 35. I didn’t say anything. I think I may decide to become like my Grandmother Eva and stop telling folks my age.
Both Navaho and Porgy went missing. Then Porgy turned up suddenly and silently like a spirit dog. I immediately let him into the house and put a paper bag on his head to prevent him licking or biting at the stitches, it was off his head in exactly 12 seconds. So I taped the plastic reflector, usually used to reflect sunlight out of a car in the summer. I hope he survives this. I tell him he is a good dog and he wags his tail. He looks completely ridiculous with the long tube shape of the blue plastic on his head. This is only until I can buy him a proper plastic collar for wounded dogs.
Wednesday 3 September
In the morning little cat was let out. Poor Porgy is tied up to the table leg with his head wrapped up in the plastic window shield so he can’t bite himself or get into trouble. I bought a plastic collar for him, but found it needed to be attached to a dog collar. I think a muzzle might work better.
I’d dreamed that I took some of Judith’s family to a big sports event. I was with a large number of people. Some of the dream felt threatening to me because there were Africans dressed in traditional beads and grass skirts. However, one African turned out to be an old man sitting on a box who smiled kindly. So I knew the Africans were guardians, not aggressive. In the dream, Judith called to tell me she was ill and would not be able to make it. “What about my daughter Sophie?” she says. I could not hear what was being said. “I will come and get her”. I told her. It was something about the Olympics, trials, trials and trials of trials. Trials for teenagers and children who were Olympic material.
So, I was thinking of this child who was not allowed to fulfil her potential. I spoke out loud – in my dream – “She always does this”. I said, “She always gets sick when her children have to do something.” I felt angry and frustrated with Judith (myself, if we remember that we are everyone in the dream and everyone in the dream is us). So I know I am not fulfilling my own potential with my dream; with my life.
Matisse has disappeared. Last time I saw him he was galloping about expressing great joy that I was taking things to the cosmic dump. He came back to eat. Now I hear cat sounds of claws being sharpened against wood, but no sign of cat.
There is a history to the woods I’m living beside. They now all belong to the Odescalchi family. Maybe they once belonged to the Orsini who were the first owners of the castle. Then they went bankrupt in the 1500s (?) and sold it on with all the land to the Odescalchi. Poggio is a group of a few houses. Some of them date back to Mediaeval times. Where I live was built 30 years ago. Fairly modern but no thought of heat conservation in the winter.
Thursday 4
No entry.
Friday 5 September
Did not manage to write anything yesterday because for the past few days it seems I’ve been running to catch up with myself. I raced home yesterday. Was on the train when a colleague came and sat next to me. Then Cherry showed up. I’m no longer surprised at these coincidences. The colleague was yawning a lot. Interesting to note that when I told him to go to sleep and I’d wake him up near his stop; he stopped yawning.
At Poggio, Claudio came to hammer the piece of wood above the windows into the wall properly. He messed up my new paint job. At least I know where the paint is to fix it. I asked him to look at the gate, which he tells me has been forced. I mentioned this to Vincenzo who was floating around at the time. He said he didn’t think so. The fence hadn’t been fixed, said Vincenzo, because Rosanno had found the ground too hard to put the fence posts in. Maybe Rosanno didn’t want to do the job because he knows he won’t be paid. I’ll ask him.
As I left for work the big dogs were barking. I saw what I think is the dog that bit Porgy. A huge dark coloured dog with a white chest. He has a big square head and a docked tail. He has a big enough head and jaws that he could have been responsible for the big hole in Porgy’s behind.
Saturday 6 September
I was awakened from a deep sleep by a dreadful sound coming from the kitchen. Porgy with the tunnel of plastic attached to his head had climbed the step ladder to get onto the top of the kitchen cabinet. Why I don’t know. Maybe he felt if the cats went there must be a good tasty reason for him to try it too.
Mess. I tied him up outside while I cleaned up. Then I heard a frightened whine. I opened the door. Navaho was there, probably wondering what all the fuss was about. Porgy was brought in again.
At work people come into the office to count spaces and people. I said that about six more could fit in there. I was joking. It didn’t look like these people would know a joke or have a sense of humour. They look like the furniture police.
Sunday 7 September
I went for a walk looking for Porgy. I’d let him out with the plastic collar and thought he wouldn’t be able to get through the fence with such a hat on his head. A nice man with a nice dog and a nice basket of mushrooms was in the woods. He had seen a black dog with a white Elizabethan collar running around. He told me where to look. While I was out there I saw my old cooker, the one the house owners had told me they would take to the dump. It gleamed at me in the woods. I don’t know why finding the old gas cooker in the woods makes me feel there’s some kind of hole in the day.
Then there were three rifle shots, and I imagined that Porgy had been surprised trespassing into someone’s chicken coop. Then a hunting horn sounded. I think of life without Porgy. I liked this dog, but there was always something strange about his eyes. Then again, he never came when I called his name. Annie tells me that if a dog misbehaves, ignoring a dog will bring it back into line. She said her husband thought she was crazy. Anyway, I don’t think this will work with Porgy. Annie’s Yorkshire Terrier is very intelligent and probably picks up on the subtleties of a human ignoring him and possibly puts two and two together. Porgy wouldn’t give a damn.
Monday 8 September
Anger gets me up in the morning. Anger gives me the energy to feed the horses, take the dog for a walk, drive to the train, get on the train, get to work.
Matisse wanted to go out today until I took him out in my arms in the pouring rain, lightening and thunder and he decided against it. There was. He goes back inside and settles down in the new favourite spot on the bed in the studio. He watches me fly around the house and seems to understand, in his cat way, that he is stuck inside all day. When I come back inside to make sure the burner is unplugged Porgy gets up. It is his way of telling me he would now like to pee. I’ve already taken him out on an unproductive tour of the wet field. Porgy doesn’t like the rain and seems to be able to hold his pee for a very long time on wet days.
It was on Saturday, when I was taking an after lunch nap, that the Africans showed up. I know it was them by the music playing in their car with the roof the size of a football field. I heard banging. At the time I thought it was the neighbours, but it was raining. As I looked out the window I saw the African’s car backing slowly up the lane, a car was entering. Later, coming back from doing my shopping, I saw an African sitting at the side of the road by the fountain outside the gym with all his plastic bags around him. The car, an unmistakable dead berry colour, was parked by the rubbish bins, at the side under the trees.
I spoke to Penny, who’d left two messages for me. I’d called her back. She was in a rush. Had to go to the school chapel. Bryn, her youngest son, was furious. Later she called me back. I was in the middle of painting, badly. What I like about painting is that I can work to pull a bad painting together, make it interesting, fill it with colour and life. Clean up the edges, make things right, put the colours down. Sometimes I spend a whole day thinking about my painting, thinking about where I will put certain colours. I do a lot of painting in my head, a necessity since I am often on a train or in an office in front of a quietly blinking computer screen.
It is raining. What a joy! I like the rain because I spent three years of my life in
Tuesday 9 September
The cat Matisse, stays in again. I can’t spend time waiting for the cat to come back. He has his own world in the big woods. However this means crossing the road with sometimes very fast cars and some days I can’t bear thinking about it. It seems to me he spends too much time hanging out on the road. Sometimes he even lies down in the middle. Is it warm? Is it comfortable? He blinks at me from there, me with my hair standing straight up on my head.
Wednesday 10 September
Matisse was where he should not have been. On the ground, on the road outside the gate. I tried to catch him and he climbed a tree. Everything a big game. Judith passed. Did she slow down? She was on her way to drop Paul off at the station. I didn’t see him on the train. While waiting for the train in the rain Cherry arrived and I went into
An Italian colleague at work spends a lot of time talking to me about the difference between efficacy and efficiency. I admit, I had to look efficacy up. It means the link between cost and action. He tells me about the previous English language editor. “That girl….” he says, “she would tell me a word did not exist in the English language”. He pauses, “I looked it up and it did.” I had met this English language editor, so I knew what he was talking about. He goes on to tell me that the words they argued about were from Latin or Greek.
She also changed things. This I know from having watched her edit. She would start at the beginning of the document and just re-write. You can’t do this as an editor. You have to read everything first. I was taught to read through without a pen in the hand, which is almost impossible to do. After you know what you are dealing with, and are sure that you understand the content, then pick up the red pen and mark up the hard copy.
The Economist style guide advises doing one editing job at a time. Meaning if you are doing a complicated edit with tables, figures and graphs to do tables, then figures, then graphs. One similar job after the other. I have always had to read through a document at least five times. Some of the documents I get must be turned into some kind of English first, then I print out to read and to edit.
At last I’ve been given a real editing job to do. Two volumes on Hydrogeology in
All day I worried about my cat. Strangely, I don’t worry if I don’t see him before I leave. I do worry if I catch sight of him. Odd. Once he was in the big wood. He gets a different expression in the wild, while he goes around marking his territory. He turns (frighteningly) down the road towards the big dog’s house. Where he goes from there I don’t know. Once I caught him on the same route with Trusty trailing behind him and Houdini sitting by the gate at the bottom of the garden.
I’m sitting on the train. I find that the girl sitting across from me is behaving aggressively with her foot. There is a ledge, and I have set my foot on it, as I always do. Maybe she thinks I am taking up too much room with my pointy-toed cowboy boots. I must be invading her personal space.
Thursday 11 September
No rain today.
Matisse did not seem to want to go out. He woke me up at
Saw Paul, one of my neighbours, on the platform, dressed in his outdoor coat. He was standing beside a couple. The man was wearing a t-shirt, the woman was also lightly dressed. Perhaps they are husband and wife, Paul’s relatives. Obviously English, being so lightly dressed in the gathering cold. I had already decided not to sit with anyone I knew on the train because I was feeling so tired and needed a nap.
I had to go to the bank at FAO to get my money, which had arrived. Unfortunately the woman I knew was not there and was sent out for further pieces of identification. When I returned there was a man I recognized ahead of me in the line. I asked him if he was an American, because of his accent. He turned out to be one of the more hostile Canadians who get prickly when you make this kind of mistake. I’ve met a number of them both inside and outside
Later, I came to understand that I’d probably suffered from SAD or Seasonal Adjustment Deficiency, or whatever it is called. My friend Liza has special lights she turns on when the weather gets bleak and grey for days on end and she feels herself dipping into a depression. She says they help. I must admit that my bright halogen light, which I use when painting has the same effect. However, I don’t know if it is because I’m painting that I feel better or that the frequency of the light coming from the halogen lamp has this affect. Colours are brighter under the lamp. This also affects the way I paint.
Some chatty woman has been paid to go around the building to teach people how they should sit at their computers. Well, I suppose if she comes and tells you how to sit up properly and what kind of eye glasses you should be wearing (without frames) and you don’t do what she says, then you can’t turn around and sue the organization because they’ve not given you the right chair to sit on.
Friday 12 September
No entry.
Saturday 13 September
I bumped into Paul and a colleague from
I paid a deposit on the cooker I’m buying. At the shop they call it a cucina, they also call the room you cook in a cucina. Claudio calls this particular type of equipment a macchina al gas. I suppose it all depends on which area of Bracciano you come from.
I have seen a pretty heifer, maybe more, in the woods across the road. Well, if someone puts their cows in the woods I could put my horses in the woods. I don’t know how long they would last there.
I would love to know why my black and white cat Matisse disappears and I’m always left with the two orange cats that don’t have anything to do with me, except that I now feed them every day. Pat says it is because Matisse is younger and is still exploring new territory, whereas the older orange cats have already been there and done that.
We, cat and me, did not wake until
Sunday 14 September to Friday 19 September
No entry.
Saturday 20 September
I’ve not been writing my diary because I’ve been forgetting it on the bedroom floor, along with my cell phone, when I rush out to work.
Little cat was batting me on the nose to wake me up early this morning. If I’d let him out he’d probably have returned already. As usual it is Houdini and Trusty who keep me company. I’ve called the other cat Trusty in the hopes his character will change. This is an experiment.
It is nippy out. While I was out riding, I saw that they’ve cleared land for building. There are huge trucks going up and down the road. This means more traffic. This is happening out of sight of Luigi and Anthea’s house. I wonder if they even know about it. I know Luigi rides, but I don’t know if he rides along the paths I do. I don’t think even Flora goes into that part of the woods. It used to be one of my short rides when I had Rais.
When I left work on Friday, the unbearable Dutch colleague said he didn’t know when work started or ended. I said neither did I. I should have told him that I did know the train schedule. As always I am very much aware that folks pick up points if they are seen at their computers late into the night. “You don’t care;” he tells me. About what? I should have asked, but the train was about to pass. The metro passes at
I seem to owe a lot of money at the bank and have no idea how this has happened.
Sunday 21 September
I am up at
Matisse joined Porgy and me for a walk. He skips and jumps and races up trees; skips sideways at Porgy who, I see, has not poohed for days. I put him in the car and took him down to visit Merry, who seems disoriented. She did not recognise me. All the stallions called to her and she lifted her tail; she’s on heat. I’m glad to hear Remo won’t begin to train her until Monday. I lead her down the lane and she makes a chewing motion licking her lips. Maybe she thinks I’ve abandoned her or that she won’t be coming back to Poggio. I hope she does return, but then nothing is written in stone.
Dogs are barking in the woods and Matisse is nowhere to be seen. I heard someone shout. It’s difficult to tell how far away sounds are; since it is so quiet. Surely Matisse would not allow himself to get caught by a dog. But if there is more than one dog, this makes it more difficult for a cat to escape. In the morning I notice that Matisse disappears when he sees that Houdini is being fed. These cats have some kind of friendship.
Liza also dropped by with her friend Jill who I notice shakes. I wonder if she has Parkinson’s, like my grandmother did. She was very quiet. She had a glass of wine at four in the afternoon. I joined her. Liza drank a Pepsi and then a glass of wine. I shared my new store-bought cake with them and they agreed that it was very tasty.
Monday 22 September to Friday 26 September
No entry.
Saturday 27 September
Again I’ve not written for a while. I’ve been working in combative situations with the colleagues at work. The Dutch man and the woman from
Today I go to see Merry and carry her a heap of fallen apples. I need to buy dog food, horse feed, cat food, me food. I must give Lele the money for the hay. I also need to find the number for the hay man, which I had been keeping on the back of an envelope and in a diary, which has gone on vacation without telling me.
The beautiful Serb consultant has gone away. I’ve been doing some work on his books and was struck by how polite this giant of a man is. I approached him one day while he was working at the computer and he leapt to his feet as though I was the Queen of England herself. There is no need, I told him, you will just make me nervous. When he leaves he shakes my hand and I am amazed at the firmness and gentleness of this tall man.
I must put the definitely summer clothes away and look for heavy fabric for curtains. I really want to clean the house so I will buy some rubber gloves, which I think are really plastic. They never last very long and my fingers go through them too quickly. I had started on the bathroom floor with a sponge and bleach, on my knees. The two bathrooms are not large so it is actually easier to get into the corners crawling around on all fours. I have an Austrian friend who is horrified that I use a mop. She is in her 70s and still crawls around on her wooden floors cleaning and waxing.
The electricians came. I don’t know why I felt like Pinocchio being visited by the cat and the fox. I like these two young men. I don’t think they are dishonest. However, I know that one knows my landlords and has no respect for them. He wants to do a good job making the electricity safe for me. He hopes that I will not have to pay him and that the landlords will pay.
Sunday 28 September
I have no electricity. I hope this is something affecting the area and not only me. Having lived in
I only discovered the brown out was only affecting me when I saw my neighbours outside lights gleaming across the valley. We had no telephone then, so finding out such details usually meant waiting until daylight to go across to the neighbour to ask if they had electricity. This may have meant having to stay for coffee, tea or a drink before leaving. Nothing was simply drive up and ask and get your answer and drive away again.
A friend has called to ask if I want her old ladder. I’m beginning to be tired of people calling to ask if I want their old things. I may have been able to use a ladder. Now I have two that suit me quite well. One is aluminium and fairly tall and the other is a short, pretty wooden ladder that is set up in the kitchen near the window so Matisse can see out in comfort. A neighbour called to ask if I wanted all her old newspapers to build a fire. I told her that I read bulky newspapers myself and that I don’t need any more, thank you.
Went down to see Merry who may have wanted to be taken out for a walk to eat grass. Remo did not have time to talk because he was involved in buying a tiny wedge of land from his uncle. His father, Donato, has not been well, but the two days of influenza seem to have done him good. He looked well, maybe because of the forced rest; although there was no laughter in him and his voice had gone.
In the end I did take Merry down the lane to the lake. I’ve put her head collar and lead rope in the car so I don’t spend time looking for one once down at Remo’s. She has put more spots on. Remo tells me she will. He finishes my sentences for me. I say, “I have not separated the foal yet..” and he says, “because there is barbed wire.” I say, “I need to,” he says, “do the vaccinations”. Does he do this because he is a trainer and has developed a sixth sense or all horse folks talk about the same things year in and year out?
Tequila, friends laugh when I say this, is my medicine. I find it knocks a cold out in record time. I don’t know if it’s the tequila or the masses of lime or lemon I squeeze into it that is the cure. I don’t actually feel like drinking tequila until the summer. So if I do drink it in the winter it is for this reason, cold medicine. What is even better is hot buttered rum. Or tea with rum poured into it. I’m no drinker (anymore) so I put my liquor into other liquids and avoid drinking them straight.
A cat is looking through the window. It looks more like Trusty. I see that Houdini is darker and has been limping. His leg is swollen, he may have been stung, or bitten. I see that he eats and purrs when I go to look at his foot. I saw him go out to the barn. I told him he was staying in, but I think he would go mad if I shut him inside.
Monday 29 and 30 Tuesday September. No entries.
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