Milan, Italy
One of my favorite museums in Milan is La Triennale di Milano. (If a place features contemporary art, I’m there.) Hours pass like minutes while Husband and I drank in furniture, clothing, household objects, ceramics, architecture models, etc.
After swimming in the deep end, it’s time to play in the shallows. Told Husband we were off to see some Italian friends of mine. It wasn’t until we were on the sidewalk in front of La Rinascente, Milan’s nine-story premiere shopping Mecca, that he figured out what was up.
Husband: “These friends of yours wouldn’t be named Miuccia* and Roberto**, would they?”
“Don’t forget my BFF, Giorgio***,” I said. “And I hope we see the Pratesis****, too.”
Husband: “I still can’t figure out how something without a head can call your name so loudly.”
*Prada
**Cavalli
***Armani
****Italian bed linen-makers
That said, here are my fave Italian shoes:
Yes, they are chocolate!
***
I’m a decent parallel parker; in Milan, though, my skills fail me. (Apparently, I am not the only one.)
I use at least a quarter of a tank of gas going around the block “just one more time” looking for a bigger space. I never find one.
Instead, I eventually admit defeat, pull into an empty spot beside a fire hydrant, Husband and I switch places, and he parks the car in the first empty slot he finds on the first try.
Other than that, he’s the least annoying person I know.
***
I dictate my novels and stories. Occasionally the program is so far off the mark transcribing my speech, I am reduced to swearing (which it then obligingly turns into “God ram pizza ship”).
Word’s transcription errors pale in comparison, though, to the bloopers by the cell phone camera app that is supposed to translate a foreign word or phrase into English. In fairness, usually it works pretty well. “Il parcheggio residente solo,” for example, becomes “Resident parking only.”
Menus, though, are among the class of things that often defeat it. Husband has ordered “wooden pitchforks with dentists and tail of toad,” while I have dined on “brooding roe deer and wild-caught cobra,” both off the vegetarian menu. God ram pizza ship.
This menu entry, however, was NOT a mistake: For two euros, the restaurant staff will not only give you utensils and bread, they will also like you as well. Now that’s a deal.
