Sleepless in Treviso

It’s 2:48 AM and it’s official. I have completely given up on trying to sleep. Too tired to read or study, too wired to melt into my pillow, I’m on the couch and...I’m blogging. Rather sad that blogging is something you can do even without your mind. Sadder still if you can read it. You might say the whole day has gone that sort of way. Wait a minute, I just unintentionally created a rhyme. Let me try that again:

You might say

The whole day

Has gone that sort of way

Anyway, I like it. Now, please allow me to recap the many radicchio-lous (yes, that’s intentional, just go with it) events of daily life in Treviso today...

Got up rather early, and beat, after an unnecessarily glutenous Sunday afternoon of grazing with friends on leftovers from our...ehem...second Thanksgiving Day feast. 

Left the house about 8:15 to go teach a 3.5 hour class in what amounted to be an auditorium-sized freezer. Kept my jacket on the entire time and still froze. Could have really used my gloves but who would have thought I’d need them...indoors? Oh well, turning the pages of my notes would have been a hassle with oversized leather fingers.

Came home to defrost while eating lunch. Rested for a little and then made really strong coffee by mistake and poured myself too much (Italian espresso in a drip-pot machine). Hating waste, I felt obligated to drink it all. This made my heart race, which also raised my blood pressure, which then reduced my patience to about .001%.

Fortunately, this was counteracted by the joy of taking the family shoe shopping. Kids grow quickly, and their feet grow even quicker! That exciting event, once we got to the store, was fairly quick and painless, until I gave the cashier my credit card and reality set in. Why is it that kids shoes require about 30% of the material needed to produce adult shoes yet cost 30% more?

Treviso television has  been warning us that as of tomorrow, November 30, all programming will be broadcast in digital. That translates into our 9-year-old Daewoo needing another tin box with a remote control, and another swipe of my credit card. Fortunately, Euronics (not a music group) the electronic store was just a quick stroll from the shoes. Got it, and headed for home.

Upon our return we encountered exactly what we had expected. One R-E-A-L-L-Y long line of cars backed up from road construction being done in two key exit points... at...rush-hour! Way to go Treviso road crew. But we were smart enough to be preemptive. Got off at the earliest possible exit (Treviso hospital for those who know) and completely avoided it all by volunteering for a different line of cars that actually moved even slower. So much slower that my wife said, “I’ll see you at home, I’m going to start dinner.” She then got out of the car (we weren’t moving anyway) and walked home, beating me and the kids by about...10 minutes or more. 

I entered the house and checked email. Why? I don’t know, but I know now that I shouldn't have. Waiting to mug me in my inbox were two oversized emails dressed in black. The perfect bearers of bad news.

Ate dinner, set up the new tin box which doesn’t get the channels the lady said it would, put the kids to bed, and wrote another post on The Language Station. Went to bed myself but couldn’t sleep until about 12:30 AM, then woke up at 1:45 AM, fought it all I could and now...here I am. Soon, it’ll be time for some more of that coffee. Need to be sharp for my 9:00 AM English lesson. Two new students coming you know....