Stuff I don’t normally get around to writing about…

Since I’m up (at 5:18 am), I guess it’s a good time to describe a few things I keep forgetting about. One such topic could be the cause of my being awake. Although I believe I may be the first to write about this as a syndrome, it was first identified by Judith, so I will henceforth refer to it as:

The Branzburg Effect
The Branzburg effect is a neurological condition caused when a mosquito approaches within six inches of the auditory canal of its intended, sleeping host. The high-frequency sound waves generated by the beating of the mosquito’s wings result in a state of immediate consciousness from which the host requires several hours (or, often, an entire 24-hour period) to recover from. The long-term effects of chronic exposure to the Branzburg effect are not known, but are thought to include gradual deterioration of the host’s emotional state, general malaise, and in rare cases, insanity.

Mental Housecleaning
Other items I should include here are things I’ve forgotten to address in other blogs. Of note is one contributing factor to the situation at the bus station last Saturday. As my readers (whomever they might be) should recall, I took a stroll down to the Laundromat earlier that day to dry towels, and we were going to head for the airport shortly thereafter. After getting moderately-to-hopelessly lost, our leisurely trip via the bus became a mad scramble for any means of transport to our destination. Anyhow, the thing I neglected to mention was that this situation was exacerbated by the fact that the streets here in Florence were temporarily—but seriously—gridlocked by a parade of what must have been about a thousand Harley-Davidsons. Apparently here for a meet of some sort, they descended upon the community like a swarm of B-17s, managing first to keep me from arriving home on time with my freshly-dried towels, and then to keep us from arriving on time to the Santa Maria Novella stazione. Although I was intrigued by the obvious popularity of motorcycles with engines larger than those of many cars here in Europe, the chaos it caused in the streets could not have come at a more frustrating time. Still, it was interesting to watch as the riders were a Harley owners’ group in full biker garb, and we saw chapters that hailed from all over Italy, Switzerland, a few from the U.S., and one particularly dedicated gent from Malaysia. Counterculture lives!

And now for something completely different…
I have to preface this story with the disclaimer that what I’m about to describe is easily one of the most juvenile things I’ve done in—I dunno—at least a week or so.

Anyhow… it seems there’s quite an elaborate little ecosystem in our corner of the Arno River. In some sections, there are soil banks within the brick and concrete walls, and they support a surprising variety of wildlife. I’ve mentioned the nutria and the bats, but at various times we’ve also seen herons, ducks, turtles, rats, the ubiquitous pigeons, and whatever fish live in the shallow areas.

Now, on a seemingly-unrelated note, we’ve also noted that the bread we buy here, although some of the best I’ve eaten anywhere in the world, has an astonishingly short shelf life because it lacks all those preservatives that poison us in the bread at home. Simply put, it turns to granite in about two days, and since our mothers impressed upon us all those years ago that it was a sin to waste food, we’ve had these rocks that resemble bread sitting around in the apartment. At some point it was suggested that a hammer might render these edible to the local birds, but we just hadn’t gotten around to finding a hardware store in order to procure the necessary implements. So…

The other morning, Donna and I trekked out to Mario’s café for a breakfast panini. Since Donna is gluten-intolerant (I forgot how she described it in technical terms, but apparently gluten is an enzyme or whatever that’s found in wheat flour, and in certain folks it acts sort of like a flesh-eating bacteria—something that can’t be a whole lot of fun), she avoids bread and ended up with a leftover roll from her panini, which we tore up and tossed to the birds and ducks down in the Arno on our way home. This gave me the idea—evil as it might be—to take one of the bread-flavored rocks from home and give it to the river fauna. Except that instead of breaking it up (remember, I don’t have a hammer), I’d just toss it out there whole and see what happened.

What can I say? It was a slow morning, and I had until at least lunchtime before I was expected to meet with Judith and begin behaving like an adult.

So I stopped by home, grabbed a large rock—I mean, roll, and took it out to the Arno. By this time the ducks had moved to the center of the river, but there were still pigeons hanging around and a few rats were running about in the grass. I tossed the roll out, whole, and we leaned over the railing like spectators at a gladiator bout to see what happened. The toss, apparently, was spotted by all the critters, and as the ducks made their way toward the bank across the current, the pigeons and rats moved in. This was gonna be good. :-)

One end of the roll broke off in the drop, and it was one of the rats that spotted it first. Like lightning, he grabbed the piece of bread and disappeared into a hole under the brush. The rest of the roll remained intact, and while the pigeons scoped out the situation and made a few attempts to get to the prize, two more rats chased them away. The rodents then jumped on the bread, ending up in a hilarious tug-of-war with each rat trying to drag the roll toward its respective hideout. After settling down for a moment and munching at opposite ends, greed overcame them and they leveled their sights on one another. The result was a spectacular rat-fight that kept the combatants preoccupied for probably thirty seconds, until one or the other realized that the pigeons and ducks were about to snatch up the spoils. Abandoning the tussle, the larger of the two rats decided to try and outrun the competition. So he grabbed the roll (which was about as big as he was) and bounded away through the grass in a jumping motion, looking every bit like an inebriated jackrabbit and leaving the human spectators of this bout helpless with laughter.

On that note, I’ve noticed it’s getting light outside, so I’ll go get dressed. We’re off to Pisa this morning, and it’s time to go get lost again at Santa Maria Novella.

More as it happens…
-Leanne