The Glamorous Life

A month in Petrognano seems like quite a luxury. We thought you should know what "the glamorous life" in Petrognano is all about.

Our summer stay started with a trip to the accountant to assure that our tax payments were in order and there were not nasty surprises. Fortunately, nothing life shattering or posing a huge drain on the checking account. However, the news that our bank had merged with another bank and that our account number had changed was a bit of a surprise. Did that mean wire transfers we sent to the old account number ended up in the ether some place? Were the automatic debit payments to keep the electricity, water and other utility services flowing with out interruption disrupted? [That would be a shame after the two-plus years it took to get them all transferred into our names, addresses corrected and automatic debit payments established!]

We had ten short minutes to get from the accountant's office to the bank, more than enough time to prepared ourselves for the worst. Which made the discovery that modern times had reached Italy's banking system was cause for subsequent celebration. Who would have thought the account transfers necessitated by the bank merger and our account change were all handled automatically -- in Italy of all places? True, the bank had yet to get the address change on our account correct, but at least they have proven to be open to our repeated requests to work at getting it right without serving any attitude back in our direction.

How nice to have these parts of our glamorous life in Italy working smoothly.

We also spent a couple days getting house cleaning and maintenance affairs in order. Part of the task was to line up responsibilities for house cleaning, repairs and keeping an eye on the place when we are not there to Kadri and Vede Krusa, with the added support of their terrific daughters Suela, Arianna and Guilia.

We met the Krusa's in December 2008 through some friends when we needed to have some emergency roof repair work completed. They have turned out to be a great resource, as well as valued friends. But getting the cleaning schedule confirmed, arranging to have Kadri check in on the house routinely, and lining up the task of installing three new thermal pane windows to replace some old sieves took a good deal of time. Business meetings tended to have the potential to turn into hours of conversation -- a little English, Italian and some Albanian, to boot, a fair amount of laughter, food, more socializing with Kadri, Vide, their daughters and lots of googling over their newborn son.

We are certain that house cleaning and maintenance will be well handled in the coming months, we are just not absolutely clear about how often guests will be seeing one or more of the Krusa's. Vide does excellent work that the short, same day change over time between guests doesn't necessarily accommodate. She may be showing up on occasion after the initial cleaning to finish up washing sheets and towels. It seems Kadri will also be an occasional drop in guest, just checking to confirm that all is fine with the house. Both Kadri and Vide understand a wee bit of English and a whole lot of international sign language [i.e. gestures]. They are good hearted, good workers and just plain goo people, so whatever the encounter, we think it will be a welcome addition to the stay of our Petrognano visitors.

Our glamorous life in Petrognao was also highlighted with the [seemingly] never-ending task of home maintenance. We needed to change some light fixtures: one because it simply was not working, one because the looks of it would probably send fear the fear of an impending fire hazard into the thoughts of the visitor who would have to stare at it from bed-prone comfort, and one because it tended to bonk anyone over five-seven in the head.

We also painted two bedrooms, which brought the end to our three year task of painting every room in the house, and had to start the process of repainting spaces that had already been painted to put the [re]finishing touches on some plastering work.

After the painting, we took to reconfiguring the "summer kitchen" on the lower level. A couple years ago we ripped out the old kitchen and put in a new, more open work area centered around an old, old slab of marble that had been in the cantina for who knows how long. It was an idea that came to us during a drive back from Venice.

Rather than have the slab resting up against a wall on its simple, custom-made frame, we shifted it to form an island work space. More of a task than it might seem, since is required essentially re-building the base. Once that done, we added a new light fixture to make sure all of the prep, cooking and clean-up spaces had the light needed to get the job done.

Another part of our glamorous life in Petrognano seems to include an unending battle with the dust, dirt and other "special qualities" that characterize living in a little, stone-filled village on the side of a sweet little mountain. We have such an intimate relationship with all of the terrazzo and terra cotto tile in the house; worshipping it on hands and knees [with a bucket of floor cleanser in tow].

Then there are those summer visitors -- the wasp. The good news is after five full-scale assaults on their hive, we seemed to have convinced this little community of wasps that their plans for a home attached to the frame of the window in our den is just not as secure and ideal as they hoped. Sadly, it took several brutal attacks, the loss of wasp lives, and the rain of window cleaner to get the message across to them that they should move along.

There's more to the glamorous life of Petrognano -- the hunt for new address numbers to replace the old ones that were made obsolete by a surprise notice earlier this year from the powers-that-be of the commune of Capannori that our house number and the street name had been changed. When we bought the house in 2005 the address was via della Chiesa, 111. Now it's via di Petrognano, 45. It took some effort, but we found the ceramic artist who makes house address tiles so visitors will be able to find the house.

There's also the unending task of attempting to kill the weeds that still find a way to survive in the gravel pit of a courtyard along the side of the house, treating the wood deck flooring on the terrace so it can continue to soak up the sun, wind, rain, heat and cold that come with each changing season, and then just doing that twice a year "deep cleaning exercise" that the house needs but can't get from the quick cleanings between guests.

So, there you have it, our glamorous life of one month in Petrognano. . . . The secret is out.