Baur B&B Interviewed on My Bella Vita

The lovely Cherrye (pictured here with her husband Peppe) who writes the blog My Bella Vita and owns the Il Cedro B&B in beautiful Calabria, interviewed me for her series on expats doing business in Italy series. You can read the interview here, and check out Il Cedro B&B on my blogroll under Professional Women in the Italian Travel Business section.

Grazie mille, Cherrye!

Gratitude Friday: The Permesso

The last guests arrived yesterday. They will be with us for five nights, and then the season for us will close.However, no rest for the wicked! We have a pre-construction tomorrow meeting for the renovation which will start in a couple of weeks - the project we wanted to do last spring but for which we could not get the permission in time.

With a little luck and a prayer, we will be taking the roof off of this structure, rotating it 90 degrees and putting it back on. In order to do that, we need to build the walls. Once the walls are built and the roof is on, we can take a bit of a break, but we need to take advantage of (hopefully) the decent weather and get that baby on there. So I was very grateful today when I went to the Commune with our project engineer and they verbally green lighted the new roof. Just in time, I would say. It might seem like a little thing, but we have been working on it since last winter. Don't try rotating a roof design in this country. It can be hazardous to your health.

Jumping from the fire (the season) into the frying pan (renovation) then back into the fire (next season) has been an act we have been playing for five years now. If you asked me this minute what I want to do right now, I would say I WANNA LAY ON THE BEACH. but then again, maybe I don't. As tough and challenging as this lifestyle can be, I don't forget for a minute that I am blessed to be living it.

Liz Kinder Pottery

I have to admit, it takes a pretty awesome potter to impress me these days. The other day, I was on the Philadelphia Restaurateur Marc Vetri's Osteria sight looking at gift cards. In the "Gift" section of the website were some pretty cool bowls. I liked them; I thought they had a personality. So I clicked through to the artist's website and found Liz Kinder.

Using a variety of glazing and decorating techniques, Liz produces stoneware and earthenware which is at once interesting and lively. I find it so interesting and inspiring to see that someone is doing this kind of work. She is a production potter with lots of places nationally to buy her things. Go visit her website and check out all of her creations.

E' Così

This is a country which can thrill and delight. It is also a country which can frustrate, aggravate, and test one's patience to the point where a small thing, a very small thing, can throw a person (usually with a non-Italian passport) into a philosophical tailspin that always ends with the same words.

E' così.

That's the way it is.

Take this morning. To understand what actually happened this morning, one has to go back about two weeks ago, when I called our pool people to make an appointment, two weeks in advance, to close our pool. Two weeks in advance. I wanted to give myself and them sufficient time to arrange things. This was my first mistake. I was thinking like a person who lives, maybe, in Connecticut or New York and not on a hill in Italy. When, oh, when will I learn?

The lady at the pool company said va bene. I will get the guys to call and confirm. Ci vediamo allora. She is a very nice lady.

No one called, and as the date drew near, I thought to call them, but could not catch anyone in the office. This is their busy time, and often the nice lady goes out on pool closures with one of the teams.

Then, on Friday, before the Saturday of the appointment, I got a call. Saturday was ok, said the nice lady, but Monday, Tuesday, or Wednesday would be better. I knew from her tone that Saturday was not going to work out at all. Va bene, I said, but felt my molars grinding and a sharp pain go thru my jaw. It was my inner Type A girl screaming to get out and kill someone. I had called two weeks in advance. Why could they not just do what they have had on the schedule for two weeks? Calmati, I thought, calm yourself down. It's just the way it is. Sure, we have been clients for what, five years now? These are the people who built our pool. We have been writing check after check to them forever.

Calmati, I thought again.

I still had no clue which day they would be coming: Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday. Apparently this is not usually a problem in the countryside in Italy. Apparently there is always a nonna or a zia at home to let people to do work in on normal work days without any advanced warning whatsoever. I thought this, but I didn't really believe it. How is this supposed to work?

This morning, I woke up with a full blown head and chest cold. I was so ugly that the mirror almost cracked in the bathroom when I passed it. I had just inhaled my homeopathic herbs which don't really work when the phone rang.

It was the nice pool lady. Do you want us to come this morning or this afternoon?

Just my luck. I did not want to tell her I DON'T WANT YOU TO COME AT ALL because it might mean another two weeks just like the last two weeks. For God's sake, I wanted to get the thing closed before the first snow fall. I looked at Micha, who was not looking all that healthy himself and coughed into the phone, questo pommerigio, per favore. This afternoon, please.

This would give me a few sweaty, pain filled minutes outside to clear the lawn chairs and umbrellas out of the way, pass out and then take a shower before the pool dudes arrived after lunch, presumably around three.

The phone rang again about three minutes later. It was the nice lady again.

They're going to be there in ten minutes.

I thought my head was going to explode all over the living room walls.

I'm sorry, there was no excusing the nice pool lady, the pool dudes, or Italian society as a whole at that precise moment. I let out a mucus-filled groan and asked "e perchè?" WHY?

But I knew the answer before it came out of her mouth.

E' così, she said.

I dove into the shower, threw foundation on my face, and got outside to move the furniture. Micha was not far behind. Expletives were flying. Why do we let these people do this to us? Will we ever be able to control our lives? Our time? EVER?

A few minutes later, the pool dudes drove up, big smiles on their faces, and with a great deal of good cheer, closed our pool. They were so nice that we could not be grouchy. They never would have understood why. We gave them two bottles of house wine like we do every year, they thanked us profusely and drove away about an hour ago.

So the pool is closed for another season, but not without going through the full gamut of emotions usually saved for a much more significant event. Or a crisis. I gotta exorcize my inner Type A girl and deport her. The rest of me is really happy with the wine and the food and the scenery and the big smiles of the pool dudes. It's complicated sometimes, living in this country. Why?

Come on. You know the answer by now.

Gratitude Friday 2: What It Is All About For Me

Just an Observation

From the Passing Thoughts Department (courtesy of the Doctorate Program of the Over Thinkers University located on a hill in Piemonte, Italy):

The older I get (and this year I got ALOT older as evidenced by more greys than browns on my head!), the more I become aware of what is important to me in relationships with others.

Kindness. Kindness to me is defined as the cross between being nice and being sincere.

Empathy. Accepting other people's situations, being able to put yourself in other people's shoes.

Communicativeness. Having an open enough heart to keep the lines of communication open, even if there are differences of opinions. A relationship is like a house. You should be able to rearrange the furniture without the walls caving in.

Respect. Arethra Franklin had this one right. Without respect for the opinions, situation, and circumstance of another person- in short, if there is not equality between two people-- there can be no true relationship.

Trust. It's not a very good basis for a relationship if you fear that a person is going to pull the rug out from under your feet while you are not looking! Trust is essential to a good, honest relationship.

Pretty simple stuff. What do you think? What is important to you in your relationships? I would love to hear from you.

Proceed with Caution

If we don't take risk, we never know what we can reach. Some risks can catapult us forward, and some cost us dearly. The problem is that we don't know until we are in the middle of it all how things will go. But all we can do is proceed with caution, love the people we were meant to love, tread carefully when we can, but continue to move.

Stiamo Preparando per L'Inverno

This morning's sunrise was as exquisite as it was cold. White blanketed the fields, winshields were frozen.

In preparation for the upcoming winter, Micha has been busy with the chain saw and ax, preparing several cords of wood for the ovens. In a few days, Franco will hitch the trailer to his tractor and bring it up to the house for us so Micha can continue cutting.

The Season's Palate

These colors are inspiring me to take on a couple of painting projects when the B&B closes in a few weeks. Two different ivy types have gotten tangled up and I have no intention of separating them. I love the fall bloom of the hydrangeas, and the persimmons are ripening early this year. The savoy cabbage from my garden will make it into the kitchen this week...

And, oh, that firey magenta. What is that flower in the first picture? I bought the plant this summer and love it, but have no idea what it is.

We are installing a wood burning stove in one guest room and seriously considering it for the other. I think people would like wood burning stoves in the rooms, don't you? As a back up heating system of course, as there are already radiators in the rooms.

But just have access to a wood fire in a hotel room seems so cozy to me this time of year.

Guest Post Part Two

Part Two of my guest post about change in mid-life is available to read on Middle-Aged Diva

Thanks again for taking time to go over and visit Carol's blog. Have a great weekend, everyone!

Gratitude Friday: Franco

Anyone who has spent time here has met or seen Franco Parodi. He is our neighbor and our friend. Franco is the kind of person who would do anything to help anyone. From our first day in this house, he made it clear that if we need anything, we can come and talk to him, even if we didn't speak the same language, which we didn't at the time.

Franco, who lives with this brother, sister in law, their kids and grandkids in a house across the road, plowed our fields, harvested our wheat and corn, planted our sunflowers. He plowed the snow and taught Micha how to use a chain saw. He organized a team to move my kiln -- several times. He would stop by after a long day's work and watch the sunset with us, drinking a white vermouth.

Franco does this kind of thing for just about everyone in the valley. He is an institution here. Two years ago, Franco was out of commission for while with major stomach surgery. It took a long time heal, and we thought then how lucky we were to have him as a friend and how valuable his guidance had always been.

This past June, Franco was diagnosed with a brain tumor. His niece Simone stopped on the road one evening while we were walking Max to break the horrible news. The family was in shatters. We were too. We knew that life had changed for everyone on the road in a flash. Forever.

We went through our summer, but nothing was the same. The normal rhythm of Franco's plowing was gone. His friends helped him and did the work as they could. There were none of the visits to the guests, the stop by's, the little things that had made life so pleasant and special. In the mean time, Franco was operated on and received radiation. They believe they got all of the mass, and he came out of surgery asking his nephew how the math test was which he had had on the previous day. He had not missed the step.

In the last few weeks, Franco has been back on the tractor on a regular basis, preparing for the winter wheat planting. Just having that rhythm back is a comfort to me. We don't know how long things will go well.

But right now, we are very grateful for every day with Franco in our lives.

Guest Post

Today, over at my friend Middle Aged Diva 's blog, I guest posted about changing things up at mid-life. Today was part one, and tomorrow she will post the second part of the story.

Carol has a great blog, with very interesting life observations at mid-life. Go over and take a look around! Thanks, Carol for asking me to write a guest blog.

Letizia Does Eggplant

My very good friend Letizia from  Madonna del Piatto  has done this very nice little tutorial on preparing fried eggplant the right way.

Visit Letizia's blog for more authentic Italian cooking ideas. Better yet, go visit her in person at her beautiful agriturismo in  Umbria -- her website is on my blogroll of women doing business in Italy.

Buon Appetito!

Sound Advice, That.

Sometimes this is absolutely the best thing a person can do.  After a day yesterday that pushed every one of my highly sensitized buttons, it is this advice that I am putting in to practice today. 

This and trying not to take myself and everyone else too seriously.  

Oh, and realizing how far we have come, even though we still have a long way to go. 

Does this sound all too familiar?  We all are in the same boat on this one, aren't we? It hits us in waves; we can be humming along, perfectly content with the  way things are going, and then something will happen to throw you off your tracks and reshuffle all of your ideas about how things really are.  In mid-life, it seems more the rule than the exception to have your paradigms challenged.  

Set paradigms and ideas about life and other people are a luxury which my lifestyle has never allowed me.  You cannot move and change things up as often as I have and still hold on to tightly bound frames of reference.  I have spent more time recalculating and refocusing my own ideas than most people I know.  My life has never been one that could be validated by neighbors or friends living the same way, doing the same things.  I have always chosen the path less traveled.  It has been a very interesting way to live, but sometimes it's lonely.  While the constant change keeps a person's thinking flexible, some days you just don't know what to believe  or how to feel -- you just want some solid posts in the ground to grab on to so that the scary unknown waters do not carry you away.  

Planning, in any true sense, with the lifestyle we have, is nebulous at best.  One can try to stay on a path, but so many factors out of our control:  cultural misunderstandings, language confusion, bureaucratic complications, people not doing what they have committed to do, the occasional lapse in self-confidence that comes with standing completely outside one's own comfort zone for years on end.

This juxtapositions against bucolic scenery, the sense of paradise which is truly present here, the deep commitment we have in every way to this life we have built, and the incredible moments which we have been only able to experience by seeing a such a wonderful project through.  Not to mention the wine and the food we get to consume.

Sometimes it feels a little schizophrenic.

But one's personal situation is  only a small part of the picture.  The reality is that we can all get thrown, on occasion, into the unknown, no matter how stable and securely anchored and seemingly risk-free our lives have been.  Things can occur and energy can shift and it feels like we don't know anybody or anything any more, including ourselves.  Nothing seems as it was.   But I think that when things happen to make us question our beliefs and paradigms, we have to find a way to welcome and embrace these events as part of the soul's growing process.  If we let only the hurt and fear of events dominate, we miss every opportunity to learn and grow and thrive.  This is something I refuse to do, even if it's difficult.  

It is absolutely and completely up to us as individuals to choose how to react to events that occur.

As far as I am concerned, I choose, today, to stay calm and carry on.  

And to smile.

The Shepherd

I took this photo in 1997 just outside of Marrakech.  It has been on display in one form or another in my home ever since.  No matter what I am going thru, it calms me to look at the shepherd.  He was laughing because he tried to get the sheep to face the camera but they kept showing only their backsides.  He was wonderful, with a beauty that came from within.  I wish I could tell him how much real joy he has brought to my life over the years.  One single moment which only travel can bring a person,  one single moment I will never forget.

Carnivore Heaven

Carpaccio di Vitello (veal carpaccio) served with fresh, thinly sliced Porcini, a drizzle of olive oil, and coarse salt.  

Viva Piemonte!

Gratitude Friday: Former Guests and the 2009 Season

Our Pizza Oven

It's been a week since my last post -- a busy week, which ended yesterday with my first breakfast free day since the summer.  I had been moving pretty slowly the last two weeks, and yesterday I felt all the aches and pains which I had sort of pushed away for a long time, while things had to get done.   It's funny how that happens -- as soon as we allow ourselves the luxury or relaxing after a very long stretch of hard work, everything hurts-especially at this age.   But it was only one free day, and today we have arrivals from the north and that will continue until the beginning of November.

Back in the spring, I never thought we would book out this season.  Inquiries were scarce and reservations were scarcer.  I was worried -- that had never happened before, and I did not know what to do.  We had shortened our season because of ongoing renovation work, work that had not gone well and could not get finished in time and was more complex than anyone had realized.    The change in dates on the website caused people to not really know what was going on with us.  The economic crisis did not help my sense of foreboding.  I was definitely in a panic.

Well intentioned people came up with all kinds of suggestions when they sensed my anxiety:  half the room rates, cut out the brunch style breakfast and the service levels.  We knew as experienced business people this would essentially ruin our business forever- we might gain reservations, but we would lose our target customer, and would never really be able to get that customer back.  We had worked four long seasons to establish a quality product with good value for our guests.  We did not want to lose that base. 

I finally turned to the people that I knew and understood the best -- former guests whose visits had shown that we were on the right track with our concept.  I explained our dilemma to them.  They rallied, got fresh reviews on to Trip Advisor and Slow Travel for us. Positive reviews on those kinds of websites really help tiny places like ours which are otherwise very difficult to find. Our former guests made it clear that they wanted Baur B&B to be around for a long time.  The new reviews gave us new life; unbelievably, the second half of the 2009 season was our most heavily booked ever, at almost 100%, give or take a night here or there, like yesterday.

So while I have a sore back, it is because we have been fully booked.  That is something I am so grateful for.  Thank you, my dear guests, for helping us out with the 2009 season, for doing so with so much positive energy and for helping to really give me the emotional boost I needed when things seemed so bleak.  

I am fielding lots of requests for 2010, which is a much different story than what happened so far in advance of the 2009 season.  I feel really positive about the future, and that is in no short part due to my wonderful, wonderful guests. 

 Thank you, from the bottom of my heart.

Gratitude Friday: Creating

photo www.juliarussell.com

Today I am very grateful that I have been given the chance to explore my own sense of creativity.  Creativity is real refuge for me, a space within myself to which I can retreat when I need to think things through.  Often, I find that during my most inspired moments, my mind is completely blank, and I am completely focused on what I am doing.  It means for me that that elusive saying "live in the moment" really comes to be.  It is like channeling an energy which runs through me.  

Often I will repeat a mantra when carving or throwing on the wheel.  It turns the whole process into a meditation.

This is a photo of my hands carving a tile.  I love this photo, because my essence is there without my complete physical presence.  It is often how I experience creativity.  I see my hands making something, almost separated from myself, the concentration is so great.

Such a gift, being given the chance to explore one's creativity.