June 3rd, 2006

Party chez Anna

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As we discovered with a sudden evening call from Massi of their plans to move to the US (actually the first voices had already began circulating, and when he rang me, I was on another phone with a friend discussing the gossip, so that when I greeted him with a warm "I was just talking about you!" he immediately fired back "and I know what you were saying!") we immediately decided that we had to throw them a party to wish them good luck, and show them all our support.

A week earlier than the due date we had bought a present for them (a nice digital camera, to allow them to send us some images of their new life - with the slogan "we want visible proof your're ok!") and painted a banner to hang at the party (on the right.... "a regà" is a reference to the other banner we made them, which used this "romanesque" way of saying "ehi guys", and "in bocca al topo" -lit. "in the mouth of the mouse" is a toponiglio-influenced variation of "in bocca al lupo" - lit: in the mouth of the wolf - a way of wishing good luck without exactly saying "good luck" as this supposedly brings bad luck! LOL, to which we added "but don't forget about us!) ... then we organized food, decorations, more presents, etc. Then things took a turn for the worse, as several of us fell ill... me, Melly, Katia... even Sissi and Fra were not at the top...

Anyway, early morning on Saturday Silvia arrived at my place, we packed the car and we set off for Gattico... we were afraid of arriving with not enough time to put up the decorations, but in fact
a) we arrived even earlier than expected, forcing us upon a poor Anna still in her pajama doing some hoovering
b) there was a very bad wind, so we excluded all our plans of exterior decorations, and stuck to the living room.. so there was less to do...
c)we would later find that all the others had met a lot later than we had been told, so we actually had to wait for them for a while...

In fact I was feeling quite bad, the driving had taken its toll and I mostly sat down giving Silvia instructions on how to put up some things, helping with the measurements, and blowing up some balloons.... but in the end the house looked really nice!
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it was a satisfaction when everyone arrived!! Everyone complimented on the look of the house, and Fede was running around spotting all the customized details... the images that Katia had prepared, the new summer-look of Toponiglio ... After a tour of the house, we sat around for a while, chatting, looking at photos and magazines, sharing news, playing with all the cats and dogs in Anna's home... It's a bit of a paradise for anyone who loves animals!! There are so many of them, and all beautiful and lovely.
Everyone had brought food and things, we had a lot more than we needed (as usual!)... after a bit of chatting, we started to set up the table and prepare the platters....