Mama Said There’d Be Days Like This

• By Johanna Nuding+
• Posted in Personal Stories
• On February 13, 2013
• 2 Comments.

I woke up Monday morning bright-eyed and bushy tailed.  I’d just had an amazing night’s sleep after spending Sunday in Venice for Carnevale.  Evan would be arriving in Bologna around 11pm and I had plenty to do in preparation – clean house, address cell phone issues I’d discovered the day before, hit the grocery store, bake Evan a birthday cake and get some work done.

I made coffee, sat down in front of my laptop and logged into my Wind.it account.  There’s no English version of this website so I relied on Google Chrome’s handy translation feature to help me navigate things.  When I got my phone a month ago, I’d signed up to have my credit card debited once per month.  But, after getting separated from part of our group in a sea of people in Venice, I found out the hard way that my service was temporarily suspended.  I had zero credit.  The monthly debit situation wasn’t activated. So, I was reviewing my account online and trying to avoid a trip to the Wind store.  It was snowing quite heavily and the idea of getting out in the cold, wet weather was less than appealing.

The problem with Google Chrome’s translate feature on this occasion is that it didn’t go deeper than the main page of each category.  Therefore, any sort of instructions, alerts or notifications required me to copy/paste into Google Translate to understand the technical situation and next steps.  After multiple attempts to master the Italian online bill pay feature, I was defeated.  It wasn’t working and I needed to just get up and walk away with what was left of my sanity.  I glanced over at my cell phone and realized two hours had passed.  Something that takes me less than three minutes back home to complete had just kicked my ass and stole two hours of my life.  Son of a bitch.

I moved on to making my grocery list.  I kept it short and sweet.  I have to, my refrigerator is the size of the average, college dorm room fridge.  Thankfully the 30 degree temps allow me to use one of my window sills as an ice box annex. I keep my juice, water, wine and beer out there….it’s sort of like your garage fridge where you keep the good stuff.  (Note: I don’t know what I’ll do in the summer!)

I bundled up, grabbed my reusable shopping bags and umbrella and hit the street.  I quickly grabbed the things I needed at the Coop and began the check out process.  Italians are interesting.  They like to live slow and savor the moment, except at the bar and the grocery store. I’ve told you how they shoot their caffe bellied up to the bar and are gone as quick as they came.  The Italian grocery store cashiers sit in cushioned chairs and perform their duties like they’re trying to qualify for some national scanning team in hopes the sport will be added in the next Olympic Games.

You sack your own groceries here.  If you aren’t quick enough to keep up with the speedy cashier then the next person’s groceries are going to start mixing in with yours generating frantic confusion.  I purchased enough groceries to need two bags – I brought three.  As I was reaching for my second, my favorite purple bag fell into the next check-out person’s empty chair.  I went ahead and tossed my umbrella in the chair with it and grabbed the remaining bag and quickly slung my groceries inside.  I then scooped up my umbrella and scurried outside.

I took five steps before it dawned on me that I’d left my favorite bag in that chair.  I turned around, walked back inside to find the chair was now occupied.  In fact, three checkout lines were now occupied with multiple people in each line.   Mind you, this nylon bag is my favorite because it folds up into a small square and fits into a pouch that I can carry in my back pocket.  It’s compact and durable (it can carry 50 pounds worth of heavy shit).  It was a very practical going away gift when I first came to Italy in June and I wanted it back!

I walked over to the register I’d left just moments before and looked on the counter and the ground.  My electric purple Baggu was nowhere to be found.  It became clear to me that the new lady must be sitting on my bag.  In Italian, my cashier asked if she could help me.  At that moment I realized there were eight sets of eyes on me and I panicked.  I looked up at her with two shopping bags already in my hands and said the only word that came to mind, “Sacchetta.”  She got a puzzled look on her face and said something that either I didn’t understand or just tuned out – I don’t remember anything but that my face was flushed from my embarrassing use (or lack thereof) of Italian.  Everyone stood in silence staring at me.  I couldn’t make myself say another word.  I lowered my head in defeat and walked away.  I crossed the street and then said out loud, “Mia sacchetta è in quella sedia.”  That was followed by, “Way to go you f*cking idiot.”  My pride and the snow prevented me from walking back across the street  into the supermarket again. Damn it!

I got home aggravated at myself on multiple levels. I put up the groceries and started cleaning the apartment trying to clear my head.  When that was complete I began working on Evan’s chocolate cake.  I pre-heated the oven and a few minutes later noticed a strange smell.  I opened the oven to see if I’d perhaps spilled something in it during prior usage.  Niente.  I popped the cake pan inside, set my iPhone timer for 30 minutes and walked away.

Thirty minutes later the “old car horn” alerted me that the cake was ready.  That’s strange.  It sure doesn’t smell like yummy cake in here.  I walked over to the oven and felt the front.  It was sort-of hot.  I opened the oven door and noticed cake batter still lining the pan.  What the deuce?  I touched the pan with my hand and it was cool enough for me to pull out of the oven with no oven mitts.

I picked up the phone to call Marco, my landlord, but the call wouldn’t go through.  Shit.  Of course, it wouldn’t.  My phone still doesn’t work.  I got out my computer and emailed Kristy asking her to please contact Marco on my behalf and explained the situation.  I thought about leaving the cake as-is and just explaining my unfortunate bout of luck to Evan.  But, it was his 30th birthday.  I had three 30th birthday parties – two surprise parties and one regular one.  He was traveling to see ME on his birthday, at the very least, he deserved a cake.

I emailed my friend Monica and asked if I could borrow her oven.  She set it to preheat while I packed up the partially cooked cake and headed out in the heavy snow once again.  On the short eight minute walk to her place I reminded myself that Evan was worth it, but I was worried that this less-than-ideal-baking situation might affect the final product which I wouldn’t want to serve the son of a culinary arts teacher.  I was going to have to play this by ear.

While the cake was baking Monica called Wind customer service for me to see if my payments had gone through.  She verified what I already knew…they hadn’t.  I’d have to make a trip to the Wind store tomorrow.  We began smelling the chocolate cake and peaked in at it’s progress.  It was looking done so I poked a tooth pick into the right side.  It needed a few more minutes.  Monica took toothpick duty the next time while I prepared the chocolate hazelnut icing and realized that one side was cooked while the other was very much underdone.  We flipped the pan around to try to even things out.  A few minutes later, I could smell that it was burning on the bottom.  Mother scratcher.

I pulled the chocolate cake out of the oven and devised a plan to trim the sides and bottom off the cake and create a smaller, less burned version.  I began smearing the creamy, delicious icing on the cake to hide the ugliness.  Once that was complete I had a new problem – how was I going to cover and get it home in the snow without causing further damage?  It was already looking like an orphan torta.  I placed a few toothpicks along the top, borrowed a plate from Monica and loosely covered it with foil.  I took off out in the snow again, this time, though it was falling even heavier and the wind was blowing it sideways.  I carried the cake in my right hand and the umbrella in my left, shielding the cake from the elements.  As I rounded the corner, the foil blew off.  In order to completely block the cake, I had to have the umbrella directly in front of me which blinded me to oncoming pedestrian traffic.  The remainder of the walk home was interesting to say the least.

By the time I made it home, the cake had suffered some more minor damage that I tried to southern engineer with toothpicks.  I can’t lie.  It was so ugly I refused to take a picture of it.  It looked like a giant turd with a bright red glittery “30” candle on top.  Maybe I’d make Evan eat the first slice with his eyes closed while I shared the story of my adventures in baking.  He needed to tell me the cake was delicious before I let him take a look at the monstrosity.

Kristi dropped by after work to chat with me about the stove situation.  Moments later Marco arrived and began pulling apart the kitchen and trouble-shooting the oven, even though he has absolutely no experience with electronics, appliances, etc.  At this point it was close to 9pm and I just wanted him to leave so I could figure out what I would do for dinner and finish getting ready for Evan’s arrival.  I’d had a pretty shitty day.  The saving grace was that Evan would be arriving at 10:20pm.

Marco left and I opened my email to find a message from Evan titled “Bad News”.  His flight from Munich, Germany, was delayed due to the poor weather conditions in Bologna and the airline wasn’t sure if they’d be able to take off at all.  Of f*cking course.  I picked up the phone to order a pizza and once again was reminded that I didn’t have service.  I cussed the whole time I bundled back up and went out into the snow to get dinner.

I returned, ate pizza, monitored Evan’s flight online and watched my Sex and the City DVD’s until he rang the doorbell around 2am.

Thank you, Universe, for finally throwing me a bone.

P.S. The cake rocked, if I do say so myself, but I didn’t let Evan look at it until he’d heard my perfectly dramatized story of trudging in the snow, up hill, both ways…