July 31...Sunflowers!

Only 10 a.m. and it has already been an action packed day. In fact I am ready for a nap. We got up at 6:00 because a certain friend said that he was going to pick us up sometime between 6 - 7 to go take pictures of sunflowers. At 7 we gave up and started walking. I finally after five years took a picture of this bench. One half is “E” for uninhabitable and the other half is “A” for completely undamaged by the earthquake. 

Some gnomes were having fun in a wood fried pizza oven. I hope they move before their goose is cooked. 

These are the bows people put on their doors if a baby boy or girl has been born in the family. The girl one is hanging on the cloth covering that is hung over a wooden door to keep it from weathering in the sun.

We passed a few fierce dogs. The biggest danger was to our ears and we sawone cute kitty.

false advertising

The sunflowers were spectacular and I was glad we were forced to go do it. 

Castelvecchio

Sirentes

Sirentes

Sirentes

Castelvecchio

Sirentes

Castelvecchio

Castelvecchio

Sirentes

Sirentes

Castel d'Iire

Photographer

playground on way home

If you buy an expresso to go, you will get a tiny styrofoam cup. If you buy a cappochino to go you will get a bigger styrofoam cup. 

This is how you want your chips:  crunchy and brave.

Then it was on to market. I remembered my camera and there were hardly any t-shirts worthy of photos. I also had a painting that I thought this woman wanted me to give her, but she did not want THAT painting. She wanted me to do one of her house. Fortunately for me, her house is directly across from a bench and I was feeling sad about giving up the painting that I thought she wanted.  

"Only in the dark you can see the stars"

I think the end of this says, "whats up?"

10 Euro dress section

Unexpected purse

The vegetables were photo worthy. Today people were buying trunk loads of tomatoes and a guy was selling 100 pound bags of potatoes. He had a hand truck so I think people would buy them and he would deliver them later. 

Finally I went to the Tobbacci to buy some bus tickets to Sulmona. 

This is one of the weirdest things I have ever seen for sale. 

As we were walking home there were a few drops of rain and it is cloudy now, but so far the rain was nothing. 

I do like this scene of the bicycle on the balcony. 

The next event in this day is our neighbours coming for dinner. 

Onion rings AGAIN. Sigh, when will this ever stop.

July 30

I did not talk about how lovely the weather was for five days. It was cool at night and the days were reasonable. We had some rain three out of the five days and a day of spectacular clouds. Now it is back to hot. Jim says that fish are dying in the Adriatico because they are too hot. I feel sorry for all the people here that have to work on their farms or on the roads. It is the hottest summer for one hundred years or possibly one hundred and fifty years. There is a breeze so it is not bad on our terrace. If we went down to street level we would be boiling hot. 

Yesterday afternoon we went to Introdaqua to get our paintings back from a woman who had a little gallery there. She didn’t sell any of ours and she said that she has only sold two of hers since last summer. I think she is giving up on this idea. We went with Vittorio who works at the Introdaqua Commune. We had about three hours to hang out and do watercolors before we met the gallery owner. 

It was pleasant enough as long as we sat in the shade and didn’t move. I learned a valuable perspective lesson. It doesn’t really matter if you make a mistake in perspective as long as you keep consistency in your mistakes. If you should happen to look up and draw a line the correct way, but inconsistent with your painting it will look terrible. So the lesson is be consistently wrong or put another way, once you make a bad mistake that you can’t fix just keep on making more mistakes to match it. 

Last night at 9:30 we went up to the piazza. The whole town seemed to be there. We were talking to friends and having a great time. I decided I was going to go in the bar and get a gelato, but on the way I decided to go for the cold glass of rossata. I get my glass and the bartender says ottanto. Not unreasonably by American standards, I think she has said eight euros. I pull out all my one and two euro coins, horrified that I might not really have eight euros. My brain shuts down and I stare at the waitress like a beached fish gasping for air. No, she means 80c. Yes, 80c for a glass of wine. Surprising. I am going back to the bar tonight!

Image for representational use only.

This morning I was working on my painting that I started on the road leading up to the piazza. A woman came and talked to us. It was the funniest thing ever. She continually addressed Jim and I am the one who answered. She even asked him how much my painting would cost. Ok I hated this painting. It has given me so much grief and made me feel so unhappy, but now that I gave it away I am in mourning. Turns out she is a woman who gave me some croqueted thingies a few years ago so it is payback time. And she almost started crying about her brother who just died. I jumped up and gave her a kiss. Her cheek was so soft. So tomorrow she gets this painting. Really what is the point of keeping them anyway? 

Last night on the phone my mom asked me if we had been shopping. MA NO!! (but, no!!) The only shopping opportunities here beside the market are the grocery store, the tobacco store and the hardware store. We have spent so much time in the hardware store looking at suff and buying hardly anything, but I have not taken any pictures of it. So today we went to get some screen material to replace the broken glass in our door. It was broken when we got the house. They have an amazing product here that you can use to make a screen without a frame. You just use a strip of velcro that has a sticky back to out line where you want your screen. Then you cut the screen to fit and stick it to the velcro. Amazing. Lastly you are supposed to trim it with a box cutter knife but that did not work at all. Even scissors did not make a nice edge. So I left it uncut. 

Dad, who doesn't speak English

Gifts and kitchen stuff

Art Supplies

Real hardware store stuff

More real hardware stuff

On with my diy projects. The Danes gave us two more plastic “rattan” chairs. The only place they are worn out is the top. Some year I had bought a cotton canvas bed spread. I was able to use it to cover three of the chairs. I didn’t even have to sew, but I might just to look a little more respectable. 

Jim entering the piazza. As usual several cars parked in the no parking zone.

This morning in the piazza at the busiest traffic intersection around the produce guy was standing on a ramp with his but sticking out into traffic. I tried to sneak a photo but he caught me. 

Is this really the best place to park?

These are listings of the events of the weekend for San Francesco. It is not the REAL San Francesco festa. I don't know why there are two. It started a couple of years ago. People are working hard on the San Francesco gift shop so maybe that has something to do with it.