My husband has many talents (e.g. making risotto, doing mental math, assembling IKEA furniture), but teaching me his native tongue is not one of them.
“What I did today and yesterday is not arrogant, it’s just proactive,” Domenico explains.
I’m looking forward to the day when I don’t feel like a 10-year-old only daughter whose adoption papers were just finalized.
“Why did you let me come in then but not out?! Are you going to keep me here as a prisoner?” my father-in-law demands.
Remember the signora with the URGENTISSIMO sarcasm stamp? I was completely wrong about her.
“You and your husband have the exact same birth date?” the Milan city hall employee asks me. "No, no, we don't," I say, showing her my passport while a nice cup of anxiety brews in my belly.
We head to Agenzia delle Entrate to get my codice fiscale (more or less an Italian social security number) and tessera sanitaria, a card that will allow me to enroll in the public health system in Italy (suck it, Paul Ryan).
In Italy, of all places, of course government work would be an art form. You see the Statue of David, I see a misshapen gargoyle that will delay the legal process by fourteen months.
If I can operate this espresso machine, I tell myself, I can do anything (or at least lots of things).
We plowed over women and children in our rush to make the connection from New York to Milan, arriving an hour late from MSP. It was a good crash course in shedding my passive-aggressive Minnesotan skin to become an aggressive-aggressive Italian, but karma bit us in the culo.
