Christmas time

Just a few pictures of my Xmas:



It has been snowing quite a lot in the past few weeks, with temperature swinging around - 15°C (5°F, if you're more comfortable with Farenheit degrees).
Streets have been impassable for days, and the whole north Italy had been covered by a thick white layer; but, unfortunately, yestarday a hot wind melted the most part of it.
Our Christmas has been a very windy, hot, bright yellow-lighted day - some African wind brought us a sand rain, that gave the landscape a funny sepia shade - with not even a hint of snow.


My older brother, as a (new) member of the citizen band, had to dress up ("Mum, I will never go out like that!", he said) with the band uniform (black suit, green vest and blue tie - I would have felt ashamed, too) to play the flute in our church, for the usual Xmas concert.
At some point he had to perform a solo, and he was tomato-red with embarrassment - just to complete the chromatic whole!
When we got out of the church (that was actually a lot colder than the outside), we had to psychologically prepare ourselves for The Christmas Lunch (with capital letters).

We're a pretty big family, when we are all reunited; so, every time we share some festivity, we have to go to my uncle's restaurant - closed for the occasion - and put all the tables together to achieve this gigantic dining-table.
My mom and her sisters-in-law, supervised by my granny, used the restaurant kitchen to put together two first courses (tortellini and vegetable lasagne), and five - yep, five - second courses (including pig's trotter, osso buco, rabbit stew and two or three kinds of roasted meat, coming with all sorts of handmade, delicious sauces) with plenty of side dishes (roasted potatoes, stew runner beans, mixed salad) and quite a lot of excellent wine. And say nothing about desserts!
I've made a cheesecake and a chocolate cake, my granny a fig jam-and-macaroon pie, one of my aunts a pumpkin pie, and forgetting panettone, marron glacés and chocolates!

Those kind of things are often a tour de force that can wear the sturdiest man out, but when the company is good and the occasion is - thank God - an una tantum, it becomes quite enjoyable.

At the eleventh hour (literally!) I was told I had to decorate the table: somehow, with what I could find turning drawers over and ransacking the restaurant warehouse (I hooked some angel hair from a window, too), I managed to do...

those little luminaries...

... and this centre-piece.
Lots of use of tangerines there, I fear - at least it smelled good!

(Why I look so old?)

Here I am wearing my mom's Xmas present - an adorable vintage pied-de-poule coat (mid-1960s, I think) with funny astrakan trimming around the neck and sleeves. By my side you can see my brothers - the older one being only 14-year-old, but quite a lot taller than me.
I tried to match the coat with a 1960s hairdo, inspired by superkawaiimama (I would have loved to try a 'flip' like the one showed by Aya, aka StrawberryKoiVintage, but unfortunately my hair is far too long for it to look good).
I used a home-made hair rat (made with my own hair wrapped into a hairnet) to achieve some volume at the top - if you think it's gross, you should talk with my mum, who raised her eyebrow and asked me, why the hell I put a dead mouse on my head?

My dad gave me an amazing vintage garnet ring as a gift, as I adore garnets. This gift caused a little misunderstanding, because my pack and my mum's were wrapped with the same paper, and my dad mixed them up.
When he gave my mum her present, and she opened it, she found my ring and tried to wear it - but she noticed that it was way too small for her fingers. At the same time, I thought I would have loved it, if it was my own gift, and wondered why my dad didn't give it to me.
He saw mum struggling with the ring, and said "Whoops, I must have made a mistake".
Both me and mom thought he was referring to the size of the ring, but he rapidly replaced my mum's gift with mine, and vice versa. My mom started laughing and told me, "Sorry, I spoiled you the surprise!"

Inside my gift was also a note from dad, saying (more or less):
Giulia,
With all the silly geese around the world, why a smart daughter happened just to me?
Anyway, I won't change you for anything else in the world - not even a pack of chewing gums.
Merry Xmas, Cocca.

When I asked him, "What if it was two packs of chewing gums?", he answered, as I knew he would have, "Well, in this case I would look on the exchange."

My brothers had a note into their presents, too.
Enrico's one said
Enrico,
you're a donkey! [And I can confirm it's true, nda], but among all donkeys you're my favourite one.
Merry Xmas, Gibus

Andrea's one said
Andrea,
you're a good kid, and a bit of a mama's boy.
If you were obedient, too, you would be perfect... Too perfect!
Merry Xmas, Chicchi.*


*Now, don't ask me why Giulia is became "Cocca", Enrico "Gibus" and Andrea "Chicchi", because nobody remembers it, and my dad remembers it less than anyone.
Considering that he often calls my mom "Wife" ("Wife, come here just a moment, please" "What time is it, Wife?"), and she calls him by surname, you shouldn't be surprised of those kind of nicknames! :-)

Another farewell

That is not much of a tribute, I know. But I felt like doing it, anyway.


It seems that November is time for me to lose my dearest.
After crashing my car, that, after all, is quite a little trouble, today I had to face a more important, more painful and more definitive loss.

I used to have four cats.

The first one - named Sheila years ago, now known by everyone as "The Nasty Old One" - is an old, fat, mischievous, slightly paranoic Siamese.

An extremely sweet (and adorably goofy) white-and-grey boy with a pink nose, named Toby, is the loveliest cat you can imagine.

His brother Tigre (the obvious Italian for "Tiger"), a pearl grey tabby cat, is the funniest, fattest and cutest little sluggard in the world.

The last one, Mimi (nickname for Mississippi) was our lap cat.
Literally.
She was five years old: completely black, with round golden eyes, a funny plump face; and she was as sweet as you can imagine a cat to be.
She spent her life purring on our knees when we were sitting; and, everytime we went to sleep, she jumped on my bed, or my brothers'.
When nobody was sitting or laying on a bed, or doing anything that allowed her to be held in our arms, she used to rub against our legs or to jovially chat with us, bottom-up, with her husky, low, funny "Barry White" voice.
She was not a clever cat, as the Siamese one is - or nearly as elegant as the Old One; nor funny as Tigre, our little clown.
She had never been as good as Toby in catching mice or lizards.
But she was the one always purring on your knees when you were studying; the black shadow following you everywhere in the house; the pair of round, golden eyes that blinked to you under the table, the head pressed against our hand to say she wanted to be cuddled. The furry black ball always glad to be petted (actually, I think no cat have been cuddled as much as Mimi had been. Even my father, who's not fond of cats at all, liked her - our little, dumpy, awkward, super sweet black cat).
She was the little girl who was afraid of the vacuum cleaner; the one who hid under your bed in the night and, when you were comfortably wrapped into your sheets and nearly falling asleep, jumped so silently and softly on your bed, that you lacked the courage to chase her away.

Mimi died today, in my arms.
A few days ago she began to rapidly - and painlessly - lose weigh; on Monday we learned she suffered from FeLV (Feline Leukaemia Virus). The vet told us she was going to leave us in a month - at best.
This evening, just three days later - three days! -, when I got home from work, Mimi looked, for the first time, sick; she looked at me with watery, suffering eyes, and began to cry out of fear.
I understood that the veterinary had been optimist.
I wrapped Mimi into an old sweatshirt, held her and tried to comfort her, for over two hours; she was barely able to move, breathed with great difficulty and was clearly scared, but as long as I was by her side, she was quite calm, and didn't whine at all; at some point she closed her eyes and even managed to purr - just to reassure me, I believe... because I can't think about any other reason why the poor thing should have purred in such a painful situation.
My little, brave cat.
At some point, I - stupidly, stupidly - tried to sedate her, to spare her more pain: but to my dismay that made her feel even worse; and I think I'll never forgive myself for doing it - for causing her further pain, when I could have just let her in peace.
In a couple of hours, anyway, she slipped in a sort of haze, and I think she didn't understand what happened next. At least, I wish so. She died after a brief, unconscious struggle.

I spent the next two hours crying like a baby.
I hope to God Toby, Tigre and The Old One had not contracted FeLV, too: I really couldn't stand another day like this. I never thought I could ever be that fond of an animal, and suffer as much as I do because of it.

* * *

EDIT [November 26]: We buried Mimi this morning - a windy, cold, clear morning - in the backyard, and planted colorful tulips on her pit. They should flower in the early spring.
Tigre, as curious as only a cat can be, came to see what we were doing; but soon, amused by the leaf fall caused by the windy weather, he began to run up and down the garden, jumping into the leaf piles like a kid, to make leaves fly.
That made us all chuckle.

I don't have many photos of her.
Those are the only ones in which she looked pretty good.

1. A six-months-old Mimi, half-sleeping into my mum's Chanel purse - classy cat!
2. Little Mimi exploring the house
3. Mimi looking down her chair - what did you see, kitty?
4. Mimi sleeping on my bed.

"Sometimes I wish that I could freeze the picture

and save it from the funny tricks of time

Slipping through my fingers
Slipping through my fingers all the time"

Halloween by proxy

Not being able to do the 1930s murder mystery party I would
have liked to stage with my friends, because of a flu - not the swine one, just an uninteresting, regular flu - I decided to dress up my eleven-year-old brother, so at least one member of the family (my older brother, Enrico, who is fourteen, had flu like me) would have had some fun.
After some argy-bargy - I leaned towards the Mad Hatter, he was more inclined towards Freddy Krueger - we finally agreed upon the nineteenth-century barber Sweeney Todd, lately performed by a pale, and more-than-ever disquieting, Johnny Depp.
We made it in less than three hours, using only a few safety pins, some glue and quite a lot of food coloring.
Here's the result.

Gossamer shirt (mine): Stefanel
Vest: mum
Greatcoat: an old coat of mine
Belt: mum
Half-finger gloves: mine
Bloody handkerchief: made with an old piece of fabric and some red food colouring. In doing this, I succeeded in staining with permament red spots my hands, my arms, my chin, my nose and even, don't know how, my teeth.
Shavers: made by me and my bro using some nail files covered in aluminium foil
Leather tie: dad (don't ask me *why* my dad should own a leather tie, because I really don't know; and I probably wouldn't want to)
White "Sweeney" wisp: made cutting some locks from a white Marie Antoinette-like wig and sticking them onto a hairgrip. Actually, I sticked it onto my fingers, firstly, and only after a good team work I succeeded in pasting it on the hairpin - but that's irrelevant into the economy of this post.

Makeup

White greasepaint: theatre wear shop
Eye shadows: Maybelline? (not sure of that, the case has lost its label)
White concealer (for lips and eyebrows): GOTbeauty

My brother received loads of compliments from his friends ("How can you be that cool?!" being the most common comment)
The hardest part (and I mean, really hard) was cleaning the makeup out, when he came home after his "trick or treat" walk!

The Lost Brigade

A little bit of history, today, dear readers of mine.
My family's one, actually.
But Italian history, too.

Let's start from that ring there: I wear it most of the time, wedging another ring into it to make it the right size - I have ridiculously small fingers, and it's way too big for me.
The ring in point was my grand-grandfather's, Anchise Cioni (The 'C' and 'A' in the front), who died in Greece during the WWII, lefting her wife Elena a widow and his two little daughters, Alberta (my granny) and Vanda, two orphans when they were babies, not even school-age.
Elena was sort of an unusual woman: born in the 1890s in a tiny village in North Italy (population oscillating between 50 souls when the times were florid, to a dozen when times became hard); daughter of farmers, she went to school - quite an eccentricity for a country where, at the time, 90% of people, and nearly 100% of women, were illiterate, - and learned to write and read; then she worked as a maiden for an influent family, whose members, for some funny unknown reason, used to call her "Lena".
She was no beauty, but she managed to marry Anchise, who was more than a handsome man, hiring him away from her much prettier sister; Anchise was named "The English" by friends because of his fair hair and eyes (uncommon in a country where 90% of people have a dark complexion) and tall height.
I inherited no height from him, but people say I have his hair and skin, freckles included.
Nothing is left of him (Even Elena's wedding ring, the only golden thing she'd ever had, was confiscated by the Fascist army to fund the war) except from some books, a blurry photography or two, and this ring - the only thing that won't become dust in a couple of decades.

The medal below has a more interesting story.
It was coined in Vienna in 1863, for the circa 3000 men who were part of the Brigata Estense, that is to say, the private army of Francesco V D'Este, Duke of Modena.
That name does not ring any bell?
Of course not.
It was a damn hard work to find out what the hell this "Brigata Estense" was.
Well, I finally found out that, in 1859, the Brigata Estense gave Garibaldi hell, and made the Italian Unity stagger for a while.
But, as we all know, history is written by the winner - and Garibaldi won, after all.
So, the Brigata fell into oblivion, and not many people even know it existed.
But this is its story.

June 11, 1859.
Sun has yet to rise when Francesco V, last Duke of Modena, jumps on his horse, hardly restraining emotion - a solemn departure that fits his romantic soul.
He has just been defeated by the Piedmontese army, and he has to abandon the city imediately, and for ever.
But he does not flee alone. He is the only sovereign who is followed by his army into exile.
Those soldiers follow him in Mantua for nothing else but devotion - the Duke is unable to pay them, luck is bad, and their future, more than precarious.
In addition to that, Garibaldi tries everything to convince them to come back: they're making a fool of him in front of his men, and in front of Austria. If the Duke is still in charge, the Italian Unity is in danger.
He tries to buy them, then to threaten them. But, for the following four years, those young men stay by Francesco's side.
He himself tries to convince them to go back home, not wanting them to be punished, or their families threatened.
He discharged the troops, but only 172 people, out of 3000, choose to go back. The others stay.
Meanwhile, about 1000 people come from Modena and ask to join the Brigata. The story of its courage and loyalty is spreading fastly through Italy.

But the destiny of the Brigata is doomed. In 1863 Francesco and his wife, Aldegonda - whose eyes are tear-filled, and who burst into tears before the ceremony is over - decorate every man with a medal, whose back beared a sentence.

Fidelitati et costantie in adversis.
Loyalty and constancy in adversity.
1863

And there I come into play.

About one year ago, I was ransacking my grandmother's attic looking for a mourning veil that was my grand-grandmother's, when I run into this little dusty metal disc. There and then, I though it was some old tin cork or something. When I found out it was a medal, and that old, I was sure it was some worthless modern reproduction. What a surprise when I asked an antique dealer for information, and he said that, being a fan of the Brigata story, he had been looking for a copy of it for nearly 20 years, and he offered to buy it from me!

I never found out who was the brave relative of me who followed his prince that morning of June 1859, but I have a feeling that he was Sante Cioni, my grand-grand-grand-grand-father, born in 1840, dead in 1927.
But, whoever he was, he had to be nearly my age when he left his home, his family and friends and maybe his fiancè, and everything he had, to go far and away for who knows how much time.

Once I made researches to build my family tree: I found out that four generations of people was born, and died, in the same mycroscopic village, Camatta; population: about 300 people in the 1850s (Wiki).

We, modern people, used as we are to travel here and there everytime we like to, probably don't understand what it was like, in 1859, to leave one's house for a place, Mantua, that was 70 km (44 miles) far: at the time, when everybody born and die in the same town, in the same house, and never see another place, in a whole life, it looked as distant as the moon.
But Sante, or whoever he was, left everything behind and followed his leader, on his feet, for 70 kilometers, and remained where his leader was - a foreign country, where everybody spoke German and stared at them as they were a crowd of country bumpkins - for more than four years. I wonder if anyone, now, would even think about doing something like that.