Friday, July 15, 2011

Che Settimana!

What a week! 

It started out on Monday with an uncomfortable twinge in my lower back that seemed to get worse as the day progressed.

On Tuesday, as I was taking my kids to swimming lessons, Julian noticed a huge poster outside the pool advertising up to 70% off, "everything must go", etc. at a lanificio in a nearby town.  I asked him what a lanificio was.  He said it's where they sell wool.  Makes sense since lana is the word for wool in Italian.  So I snapped a photo of the poster with my i-pod so I could look it up on the internet when I got home.

After the lesson, I entered the name of the store in Google, it came up with pictures of balls of yarn...wow!  It even said they spoke English there.  I looked up the address on Google Maps, saw it was at a shopping center I'd been to a few times before, but had never noticed a yarn store there .  The next day, I took a wad of cash, a list of yarn needs for future projects and a couple of bus tickets and went in search of fantastic deals.

When I got there, I saw that the store I wanted was all the way to the back.  Maybe that explained why I'd never seen the yarn--maybe I'd just never gotten that far in my previous explorations.  As I entered the store,  it was obvious from my first step over the threshold that, once again, there was a huge breakdown in my Italian skills.  There had never been one single ball of yarn for sale in that store ever.  It was all about t-shirts, pyjamas, underpants, casual wear, etc.  Since I was there, I had a look around but even with up to 70% off, it was still either too expensive, or just plain not my style.  At least, since I wasn't stressing for hours over which yarn to buy, I was able to get back home on the same bus ticket.  It always seems like a bonus to me if I can complete my business and only use one bus ticket (they're good for 60 minutes).  AND I saved 100% of my money, not just "up to 70%".

I need to look up this place's website again and see what, exactly, I didn't understand.

My back wasn't feeling too bad by then, by the way, but the weather was horrendous!  Cold and rainy...in July...in Italy!

Thursday evening I took my kids back for their penultimate swimming lesson.  I think they've learned to swim a little, at any rate.  Anyway, Veronica was so naughty during the lesson, she was kicked out of the pool for a spell.  From what I understand, the instructor told them to swim 4 lengths and after a while, he told them if they didn't finish, he'd kick them out of the pool.  My poison-tongued little princess told him she'd kick him out of the window.  Unfortunately, the scary-looking pool boss was there when she said that and he made her sit on the sidelines for a while and he told me what a little naughty she'd been after the lesson.

When we got home, as I was getting out of the car to open the garage, my back, which hadn't been bothering me too much, gave out on me.  It took my all to get the garage door open, get back into the car, maneuver myself out of it in the few spare inches there are between the car and the wall, get the garage door back down, and hobble up two flights of stairs.  I spent most of the rest of the night flat on my back since that was the only position that didn't hurt.  I've never had anything like this happen to me before and I can't guess what caused it, which is kind of worrying.

This morning I went to the doctor's office.  My doctor is away, but I was able to see another one in my medical group.  She said my health care paper had expired.  That was true, but I had gotten a new one months ago.  No idea why it wasn't showing up on her computer and I don't carry it around with me so as not to lose it.  (My regular dr. entered it into his computer so who knew I'd ever need it again.)  Since I didn't have it, she'd only give me a recommendation for some pain reliever.  She said if it's not better in a few days, to come back with my health care paper and she'll give me a prescription for an x-ray.  Whee!  At least the meds (with codeine) are helping.

It's supposed to rain all weekend.

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