Cleaning day sognando di Capri

Ah Sunday, the day of pulizie (cleaning the house), which unfortunately was very necessary this week as the Turkish girl has apparently never learned to use detergents- leaving the house nothing less than GROSS since last Sunday. But now that I’m in my clean kitchen with a lovely bottle of Brunello breathing for lunch, I can write and think clearly.
This was a decisively stressful week as a broker with whom I bound a Directors and Officers Insurance policy in December decided to call up and argue about terms of coverage (but- isn’t it the middle of March? Yes, oh faithful readers of Experience.com, it is the middle of March). Anyway, I had, in the quote letter, binder (confirmation of coverage before policy issuance for those not in insurance) made very clear that companies with negative net worth or in fallimento (financial failure) were excluded from coverage. This is both smart from an Underwriting point of view and fairly standard at the price we closed the deal at. Despite my abundance of disclosure, the broker decided to call up demanding that we take the exclusion out of the policy after 3 months, citing the fact that the same client just bought an 80,000 euro pollution policy with us as well. The whole request was absurd- and I informed him that we will be happy to review everything at the policy renewal in December and that if the 2 companies in question were financially fine now, the exclusion isn’t active anyway. Either way, he pursued the issue for 2 days taking up about half my day with nonsense.
Anyway, I’ve spent the large part of the day so far reflecting, as per usual. I decided this morning to watch a great old movie with Clark Gable and Sofia Loren called “It Started In Naples”, which is about an American man who goes to Naples to settle his brother’s estate, only to find that his brother has an 8 year old son. Of course, he falls in love with the child’s Aunt (Sofia Loren) and the island of Capri (a place that puts my island- Long Island- to shame).
Outside of it being a fabulous movie, it made me think about the few trips I’ve taken there. The first time, I was 17 and going into my senior year of high school. Capri is one of those magical places that creeps into your soul when you’re not paying attention, and makes everyone want to be Italian- figurati (great phrase- the Italian version of New York’s Fuggetaboutit) those of us who are Italian-American. I was ready to drop out of school and become a grape picker!
Anyway, one morning, I woke up early to go running and wound up taking a sunrise walk with my mother to go see the Faraglioni (rock fragments the jet out of the sea, very well known on Capri). It was calm, peaceful, and beautiful combined with the sun that rose over the sea illuminating first the water and then the whole island. Some Italians in the area stopped and asked us for directions- seeing my mother and assuming that she too was Italian. Then surprised to find her decisively un-Italian looking daughter spoke back while she stood there and smiled. Although it was only a few short moments, it is one of my favorite moments in life and one of the most special memories I think I will ever have with my mother.
A few years later I went with my grandmother and Aunts to the island one day. We wound up on the opposite side near the Marina Piccola (Small marina) and found the most amazing place on earth to eat lunch- right on the water. Again- nothing short of a magical experience, especially watching my Grandmother who was raised in Rome, rediscover the beauty of a place she left about 60 years earlier.
Finally, about two weeks after my excursion with Grandma, my best friend Sammy came over to visit and of course, we wound up on Capri. The last night we were on the island, we decided to take it easy and have a coffee in the Piazza. Sam had a rough night the evening before, when, after a delicious meal and a few hours in a terrible club, some hooligans in the hostel we were staying in, decided to bust into our “dorm” in the middle of the night and dump a plastic bag of freezing water on her. This, by the way, is probably not the best way to be woken up at 3 in the morning.
So, back to the Piazza, we sat down and were having a nice little aperitif when I noticed that there was some activity on a stage set up in the middle of the square. We had unknowingly stumbled upon the town’s patron saint celebration- which meant dancing in tradition garb, singing Neapolitan folk tunes and apparently dragging a few American girls on stage to help with the music on instruments that I had never seen before, and never seen since. Not to put too fine a point on it- but again, magical!
So that’s what I’ve been thinking about on cleaning day!