Bella Italia

By the time I get back to the apartment Janet has squeezed me a glass of fresh orange juice that tastes 100% better than bottled or canned. We still have some butter left for our rolls and marmalade that Germana told us was home made. We turn on the television only to find another American crisis. As I wrote earlier, the first time we spent a month in Riva Trigoso, 9/11/01 occurred. Now, it seems the financial markets, and banks around the world are also being affected by this crisis. Hurricane Ike, one of the largest and widest hurricanes has hit Texas and large parts of the United States and devastated Galveston. It seems uncanny. I realize how much I have become addicted to the instant news in the United States, the blow-by-blow descriptions, detail-by-detail of monetary occurrences, on-the-spot interviews with those caught up in these events. Police car chases almost daily televised from California with helicopters hovering overhead following the culprits as they swerve from lane-to-lane hitting speeds of almost 100 miles per hour. In Riva Trigoso, and probably in Rome, Venice and Milan, life goes on. Here at the beach on the Ligurian Sea, tanned bodies lie soaking up the sun’s rays. The blue-green sea continues to send gentle waves onto the beach depositing tiny stones to challenge the tenuous footsteps of unsteady bathers. Ragazzi (little boys and girls) run headlong into the waves, and handsome muscular men bat and kick a soccer ball back and forth through the air, careful to keep it from being taken out to sea on the next wave. Janet and I sit on our beach towels, held down by big rocks and watch the ships out on the sea and the fishing boats. Countless dark-skinned vendors from another land walk the beaches carrying armloads of purses, jewelry and umbrellas trying to entice the few sunbathers to buy their wares. They are not dressed in beach attire, but in long robes, or pants, and wide-brimmed hats. We motion them on because we do not want to buy anything today. Our thoughts are on America. Life goes on here, and that is consoling. I realize the world events are beyond my control, and my desire to know the unpleasant details are born of an addiction fostered by over-zealous newscasters---also selling their wares---as the beach vendors are doing here in Riva. Still, I want to know, to feed this need for the state of the world---mainly the United States.