Pushing Hilary White Around

Heh, heh. I enjoyed writing that post title. Anyway, I will give you a brief sketch of our Thursday:

Hilary is already awake at 7:30. She wants to go to the doctor, so no characteristically Italian breakfast in the corner 'bar' (cafe) for me. Off we go. I push her in the chair down the steep and pot-holed street. Then I push her along the pavement. I am happy to say I have learned to do this more gently and less rapidly than I did on Wednesday, when the poor woman got an awful bumping.

Doctors' offices. There is a queue of elderly people sitting and waiting. They look at us with friendly but rabid curiosity. When I timidly ask in pidgin Italian where the receptionist is, they all begin shouting information and instructions. La donna is to arrive at the 9:15. Va bene. I go across the street to discover which days the blood test lab will be closed this August holiday season. More pidgin from me, and more information, this time from a very dignified and severe woman in a lab coat. To the beach side "bar" to get espresso and iced tea. The price tag is a shocker.

"Non ci crede!" I blurt. This is not from a textbook but from an old advanced Italian tape of mine, and it springs spontaneously from the heart.

90 Euro cents for espresso, fine. But 3 Euros for a bottle of iced tea? Come? Che? Che cosa? Ma perche? Allora, I know perche. E perche la spiaggia e li.

Back to the office. People are taking numbers, so we take a number, and our audience shouts that that doctor is already in. So we go to see the doctor. The doctor's English is on a level with my Italian. But mostly he fills in forms, which is what Hilary wanted.

Then we go to the farmacia, and then we go to a beach-side ice-cream pavilion. Ah....

Then we roll home. We drink ginger tea with lemon and honey on the veranda.

Then Hilary has a nap.

Then we have lunch.

Then I have a nap.

Then Hilary has another nap.

I memorize 21 more Italian words.

Then we take out the wheelchair in case Hilary needs it and go to the beach. (It is after 7 PM, so we deem ourselves relatively safe from the wicked, carniverous sun.) Hilary sits on the beach and reads my Italian picture dictionary. I swim. Around us skinny mahogany modern-style Italian mothers in bikinis scream and their children run about shouting "Guarda! Guarda! Ho preparato un'altro!" and other such beach-appropriate expressions.

Then we go home and have supper.

Next I call up B.A. on Hilary's Skype and he tells me about his big trip to IKEA. I loathe IKEA and its universality frightens me. You can stand in the Edinburgh IKEA and not know if you are in Edinburgh or Toronto or Stockholm or Mars. In IKEA I feel like the hero of Brave New World contemplating a mass of identical Deltas: nauseous. At any rate, B.A. must love IKEA because he hurried there almost as soon as my plane took off. I admit, however, that his purchases were very practical and necessary for household flourishing.

Then I help Hilary change her scary, scary bandage. There is no blood, fortunately.

Then we sleep.

***

This morning I got up at 7 and went to the corner bar and pretended I was Italian. Hilary says I didn't fool anyone. (How does she know? She wasn't there!) Then I went to the beach where the sun was blinding even though it was only 7:30 AM. I was addressed by two ladies in navy skirt-suits and white blouse who certainly looked like nuns and indeed were. They wanted to know if they could swim there (si), and then all the information Italian textbooks tell you Italians want to know, e.g. how old you are, how many children you have, where you are from. They were not Italian, however, but Mexican. They were very nice. Most nuns are poppets, really.

Now I must give Hilary back her computer.