Happy Thanksgiving

Despite my best intentions I DID NOT get any photos taken of our Thanksgiving Day feast. I stayed pretty busy in the kitchen and holding a dear sweet 3.5 month old baby. We had some hiccups but otherwise it was a great day with lots of food and fellowship.

So for the hiccups we had a clogged sink in the kitchen. Not a good time to have a clogged sink. We were expecting a total of about 23 people to be participating in our dinner. I really needed to be able to rinse dishes, etc. Not going to happen. On Wednesday we noticed the sink running slow or not draining at all. James took the pipes apart twice and snaked it out to about 15 feet. We also used drano twice and vinegar and baking soda once. It would seem like it was working but anytime I dumped out something that had quite a bit of water in it the sink would fill up again.

This was a bit of a problem as I was still cooking some items and needing to wash dishes. We couldn't even run the dishwasher because we were afraid the sink would fill up. I asked the boys to print up a sign to put on the sink saying "Please do not use". Then we just proceeded to prepare our foods and hope for the best. Fortunately, I do have a HUGE utility sink in the taverna bathroom. After some of our guests arrived I went downstairs to wash some of the dishes and left them on the washing machine to dry.

In the meantime, I made up a plate of goodies for our landlords. They are two little old ladies, sisters, that live next door for part of the week (they also have a home in Vicenza where they spend time.) The house next door also has a hair studio where they take care of their clients by giving perms and washing and setting hair. ~ a never ending stream of little old ladies going in and out of their place ~

Last week I took a plate of pot roast and veggies over to them for dinner. Lucia, the shorter one had come over while our dishwasher was finally being installed (the other dishwasher was completely broken and we never even got to use it). While she was supervising the installation she was also VERY carefully watching me prepare our dinner. I was putting the meat, potatoes and carrots in the crockpot. She seemed very interested and also started looking through a cooking magazine I had sitting out. This was the reason I took over the plate of food. The reason I made a plate of goodies for them was the delight and surprise on their face when I took over the pot roast. The plate had pumpkin cream cheese roll up, cranberry bread made with fresh cranberries and cranberry swirl coffee cake made with cranberry sauce.

I tell you this because it was my intention to send the plate of goodies over with James and Titus (our American missionary friend that speaks Italian fluently because he grew up here) and explain to them the plate was full of tradional American Thanksgiving treats. I figured if James took the plate over they would love him as much as they seem to love me for the pot roast. AND since the sink was clogged I asked Titus to explain to them what was happening and how James had tried to repair it. (Whether the sink was clogged or NOT I had already planned on sending the plate of goodies over with James & Titus) It just also happened to be a fortuitous time to bring up the problem we were having. (very thankful actually that it did happen at this time because of how things ended up - normally we have to call Housing, then they call the landlords, then they call us, back and forth and it can take a week or more to get things done at times). Bianca & Lucia (the landlords) were very delighted by the plate of goodies and asked James and Titus to come back in an hour. They said they would try and get someone to come out that day.

Meanwhile guests continued to arrive, kitchen getting filled with people, dishes piling up (one of our guests had to prepare homemade pie crusts for her pumpkin pies in my tiny, messy kitchen without being able to use the sink to rinse, etc. - she did a good job though of making it work). James & Titus go back to the landlords house an hour later and Bianca & Lucia let them know that a plumber would be coming out sometime soon AND that the pot roast last week was exquisite and the goodies were excellent - particularly my pumpkin cream cheese roll up.

The plumber finally arrives sometime after everyone starts eating but before anyone gets seconds or dessert. Apparently our grease trap was full. I didn't know we even had a grease trap. When the water drains from the sink there is a little tank sunk into our yard where the oil is separated from the water and kept. Once it is full the sink starts to drain very slowly and/or clog which is what was happening to us. So the plumber gets out the very long hose and starts assembling it and then unwinds a very thin cable and puts them both into the back yard and then climbs the fence (instead of walking all the way around - this is amazing to me as he is a pretty short older gentleman around 60 years of age I think) and the fence is the kind with metal posts every 4 inches or so. The big hose is a vacuum of sorts for sucking up the grossness in the tank and the thin cable is a very high powered water hose for washing out the tank. On a belt around his waist he is wearing the electronic controls for both devices (all of the men watching this thought that was very cool). In less than a half an hour he has the taken emptied and clean and my sink drains again. Yeah! For this I am very thankful - here in Italy it usually takes a long time to get things done because nothing is an emergency and everything can be done DOMANI (tomorrow) - talk about procrastination.

So please keep in mind next time you have a problem that needs to be taken care of - if 2 little Italian ladies are in charge you can grease the wheels with pot roast and a plate of sweets. LOL

Happy Thanksgiving to all my friends and family around the world.