Yesterday I went to lunch in Orvieto with my friend Susan
Morgan, who writes a wonderful
blog about her life in Italy. I told her in advance that I didn’t care
about the quality of the food, so long as we found a place that had
air-conditioning.
We stopped at one restaurant that we thought was a sure bet,
but the front doors were flung open – a sure sign of no a/c, or at least that
the owners were too miserly to turn on the a/c.
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| Today's weather map for Italy. Notice the great range of weather, from hot to hotter to really, really hot. Courtesy ilmeteo.it |
Still, I went in to check it out. The dining room was not
quite sweltering, but nowhere near the level of comfort I was looking for. “We have a
garden terrace,” the host said. “Is it cool out there?” I questioned. “It’s a little
cool,” he said, weakly, clearly squirming under the screws of my interrogation.
I checked it out. Ha! A sun baked terrace surrounded by four
high walls, with a few tables and umbrellas and not enough breeze to flutter a
leaf. “We’ll come back on a cool evening,” I told him as we exited.
Our next stop was Taverna
del Etrusco, a reliable restaurant that seems to draw more tourists than
locals, but does have pretty good food. Best of all, when we approached, the
doors were closed – a great sign.
We went in, and while it was kind of cool, it wasn’t really,
really cool. So when the waiter motioned us to a table, I asked if it was fresca (cool). “Yes,” he said, “and we
can turn the air conditioner on if you’d like.”
I nearly wept with joy when I saw the a/c unit on the wall
next to our table. It soon began humming along, and by the time our meal was
done, I was nearly chilly in my sleeveless dress. Beautifully, blissfully
chilly. It is a rare pleasure during summertime in Italy.
When I first moved to Italy, Paolo, at my urging, had
air-conditioning installed in his small apartment. (Oh, I remember those days,
back when he would do almost anything to please his new American bride-to-be…)
We were definitely in the minority in Italy, as air-conditioning in homes,
stores, and public buildings – and even in hospitals, is rare.
When I’d exit the apartment, our neighbor, who sits on his
balcony every afternoon, binoculars in hand (he uses them to check out women’s
asses as they walk down the street, but that’s a story for another blog) would always
wave to me and offer a rhetorical, one word weather report. “Caldo” (hot), “piove”
(rain), “freddo” (cold), as if this would somehow enlighten me.
We’ve since moved to a home just outside town, so I see that
neighbor less often, and when I do, it’s usually to wave from the car as I
pass. But if he were to offer his one-word weather report this week, it would
be caldo. Really, really fucking
caldo, like so caldo you can hardly talk about it caldo.
I moved to Italy from Southwest Florida, where summertime
feels like sauna-time. I should be used to caldo, right? Except that in Florida,
as I so often explain to my Italians, everything
is air-conditioned. Cars, stores, houses, banks, doctor’s offices, malls. And as much as I know the evils
of carbon footprints and freon admissions and all those decidedly un-green
things, God do I miss it.
We don’t have air-conditioning in our new home. We moved in
during the winter, so we put off having it installed. Then we put it off some
more. Now, summer has arrived with a sweaty roar, and we don’t have the several
thousand euro lying around that we need to install a/c. Next year, we say.
We do have air conditioning in the car, but with the price
of diesel, I can hardly justify driving around the Umbrian countryside aimlessly,
just so I can cool off.
Besides, air conditioning is a battle in our marriage.
Italians have an aversion to air conditioning, breezes, fans, and ice. They
also fear sweating, but mostly because they’re afraid of sweating and then
getting caught in a breeze, which will of course give them a sore throat, a
cough, a cold, influenza or the Black Plague. So you will see Italians, male
and female, old and young, wearing neck scarves as they work out in sweltering
gyms, ride their bikes, or walk across sun-parched piazzas, all to keep from a
breeze touching their necks. About the only place they won’t wear scarves is to
the swimming pool, and I’m sure, if there were a waterproof scarf available,
they’d wear it.
So if Paolo and I get into the hot car, I blast the air conditioning
at full tilt, and let its sweet breeze blow back my hair. But as soon as I turn
up the fan and turn the air to the full “blue” zone, he inevitably turns down
the fan and moves the temperature dial to somewhere between hot and cold, and
punches the precious “AC” button off so that we are cooling the car with
outside air. He says that he immediately feels a sore throat coming on if too
much cold air blasts on him.
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| Daisy and her new best friend. |
I try to be polite and understanding, but it’s hard to yell “What
the fuck do you think you're doing?!” while waving my armpits in front of car’s the a/c
vents, and do it with a smile on my face. My argument that germs and viruses, and not a cool breeze, are the cause of colds and sore throats and flu and Black Plague falls on deaf ears.
After witnessing how much poor little Naomi is suffering in
the heat, Paolo has finally relented a bit. We dug our electric fan out of
storage, and positioned it so it was blowing steadily on all three of us – her
crib is still in our bedroom – last night. We all slept better last night, and
even Paolo allowed that it was due to the fan.
Next year, before the caldo arrives – it comes earlier each
year and stays later – thanks, global warming – we’re investing in air conditioning
in the house. And until then, Susan and I have decided to hang a framed photo
of ourselves over that table at Taverna del Etrusco, so that we might seem like
VIPs and always be guaranteed the same spot when we return, which we’ve vowed
to do weekly. At least until the caldo breaks…
