Italy's very warm embrace

We are back in Fidenza, and discovering another extreme of Po Valley weather.

Some of our biggest fans. The cactus has survived, unlike most of our other plants.

Danny and I arrived in Italy yesterday from New York, where I'd been for almost four weeks. Dot, my mom, found herself in the hospital with double pneumonia on July 4, and she was so sick that I flew in from California to help out and just be there. A week or so later Dot was back home and in the hands of a team of wonderful caregivers, but I stuck around to make sure things were going smoothly and to feel useful and because once you start worrying about an aged parent it's very hard to stop.

Danny and I had originally planned to fly to Italy from San Francisco on July 21. When it became clear that I wasn't going to get home in time to make that flight, we canceled the tickets. Then Danny heroically agreed to pack up not only his own things, but all of the clothes and other necessities that I'd been planning to bring to Italy, guided by me yelling instructions over the phone. About two weeks ago he hauled all of it, in two big suitcases, to New York.

Not long after he arrived he had a terrible toothache and had to have the tooth pulled, then go on antibiotics for a week, which always makes him feel lousy. But he probably suffered more from the hot and humid New York summer weather. Back when we lived in the city, in the 1970s, he complained about the weather every single day. No surprise, he hates it just as much now as he did then.

At least there was plenty of air-conditioning. Danny and I stayed in my cousin Cathy's beautiful apartment, which was an oasis of civilization--not only cool air, but lots of conversation, great wine, excellent food, high-class shampoo, and a very effective washer and dryer. The hospital was meat-locker chilly, because evidently that impedes the spread of germs, and my mother's apartment, once she came home, was also kept comfortably cool. We experienced the heat only when going from one place to another.

After a few weeks Dot was doing so well that I couldn't think of any reason for staying and mooching off my hospitable cousin any longer. Meanwhile the heat and the extended exposure to his in-laws was making Danny increasingly crabby. We realized it was time to decamp to Italy, and on Thursday, Aug. 2, we did.

We discovered on arrival that Fidenza is in the midst of a heat wave. As we struggled to drag our 160 pounds of luggage from the railway station to our apartment, the steamy warmth enclosed us in a big welcoming hug, while cicadas serenaded us at top volume from the trees in the piazza.

The last time we arrived here, at the beginning of March, there was a freak snowfall, and even after the snow melted temperatures were in the low 30s for several weeks. We particularly noticed since our apartment had no heat for the first ten or twelve days we lived in it.

Now we're seeing the other extreme, and we're very aware of it because our apartment, though it now has heat, has never had air conditioning. So we are doing what the Italians do: keeping the blinds closed, running fans, and thinking cool thoughts.

Pam and Romano very kindly prepared our place before we arrived by cracking the windows and giving us a couple of their extra fans.  As soon as we'd had a restorative nap, they took us to our favorite appliance store, where we bought three more fans. We looked at air conditioners, too, but they were all indoor units with tubes that you have to hang out an open window, which would seem to defeat the purpose. And they cost ten times more than a fan. So we are going to see if we can get by with 1950s technology. As we stumble around the dimly lit rooms an aria from The Messiah comes insistently to mind, "The people that walkéd in darkness..."

I feel very much as I did the last time we visited Cambodia: flattened by the heat and loath to do anything that requires more effort than sitting upright. Pam says that this kind of hot spell happens here every year, usually in June or July--a few days of very high heat and humidity before the weather subsides to more normal summer conditions, which I guess means a bit less oppressively hot and damp. I hope we notice the difference.