Essay | Rick Bailey

Alien Pleasures

December 31, 2019 by Rick Bailey

This morning at 5:00 a.m., when I sit down next to her on the couch and hand her a cappuccino, my wife detects something foul on my breath. She takes the coffee, turns her head, and gently pushes me away. “What did you eat?” We stayed with the kids last night at our daughter’s house, while she and her husband went out. Later today I’m driving up to visit the county clerk for marriage and birth certificates. She’s making a […]

Categories: Eating, Essay, Uncategorized • Tags: che schifo, fano, hot dogs, Italian language, leftovers, pagnotta, romagna, San Marino, slang

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Into the Mix

November 20, 2019 by Rick Bailey

One of the delights in eating in Romagna (and I hazard to guess all over Italy) is the “misto.” The mix. Where I come from, eating fish you usually get one thing. Your appetizer is one thing–a tartar, half a dozen oysters, a bowl of mussels. And your main course is usually one thing–fillet of whitefish, fillets of perch, a chunk of salmon or tuna or swordfish, some crab legs or a lobster tail. Want to taste something besides what’s […]

Categories: Eating, Essay, Life in Italy, travel • Tags: La Marianna, Pesce, Rimini, romagna, San Marino

But Why Florida?

November 18, 2019 by Rick Bailey

I read on a Kindle in bed at night. Lately I have not lasted very long. I wake up early, at 4:00 a.m., rested and eager to await and face the day. Through the morning and afternoon we walk a lot, in weather that has been partly cold and occasionally rainy. At lunch the wine pours have been generous. By evening, approaching 10:00 p.m., it stands to reason that I’m running on empty. A page or two into whatever I’m […]

Categories: Essay, travel • Tags: global warmng, venice

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Romagna Food Notes, Part IV

November 15, 2019 by Rick Bailey

This post is not exactly Romagna food notes. Tizi’s family on her mother’s side is from le Marches, a contiguous region known for white truffles. There are truffles in Romagna, too, any Romagnolo will tell you. We’ve been to eat, for example, in Sant’Agata in Feltria, which, as far as I can tell, is a truffle capital in Romagna. Truffles are on the menu in all restaurants we like around here. But we save ourselves for days like yesterday. Because […]

Categories: Eating, Essay, Life in Italy, travel • Tags: acqualagna, Lampino, Le Marches, porcini, ravioli, romagna, tagliatelle, Tartufo

Don’t Want No Ugly Jesus

November 14, 2019 by Rick Bailey

So Tizi has it in for Burt Bacharach. We’re driving down to Rimini this morning, where we’ll visit the Grand Hotel, have some lunch, then go to the newly restored Fulgor movie theater to buy tickets to see the newly restored version of Fellini’s “Amarcord.” And we’re going to stock up on Jesuses at the Catholic shop today. At the moment we’re sitting at one of the many stop lights between San Marino and Rimini. I tell her I have […]

Categories: Essay, Life in Italy, travel • Tags: Grand Hotel, music, Rimini, San Marino, Semprini

Take the Money and Run

November 9, 2019 by Rick Bailey

In Italy, ATM. Always. They call it Bancomat over here. It’s fast. There’s no talking involved. You take the money and run. Yesterday I had to go to the bank in San Marino. In the bank. It’s difficult to get in there. And even harder to get out. Just push the button, you think. No, it’s not that easy. You’re standing outside the Cassa di Risparmio, in front of a security system that’s been in place, not just in San Marino […]

Categories: Essay, travel • Tags: italy, money matters, San Marino

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Clean Up Your Act

November 7, 2019 by Rick Bailey

“I love this thing,” I tell my daughter. I’m washing dishes at her house. My wife and I are staying here while the bathrooms at our place are remodeled. She’s home from China for ten days, for our son’s wedding. And it’s 3:00 a.m. Her husband and one of the boys are upstairs sleeping. The little one, still on Shanghai time, a twelve hour time difference, is wide awake. He’s two years old. He’s just eaten a plate of eggs. […]

Categories: Essay • Tags: dishwashing, germs, hippies, hygiene

You’re Not Going to Eat That, Are You?

October 15, 2019 by Rick Bailey

I’m smarter than squirrels. But not by much. When they raided my bird feeder I took action. The feeder hung from one of our apple trees. It looked like a little cabin with top-to-bottom windows on two sides, through which you could see the seed. It had a spacious wrap-around porch-perch-platform. The slightest agitation, a blue jay coming in for a landing, a pair of nuthatches shoveling through the mix with their pointer beaks, caused a gentle cascade of seed […]

Categories: Eating, Essay • Tags: Rabbit, Squirrel

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Don’t Wait

October 6, 2019 by Rick Bailey

My wife and I are having breakfast one morning in northwest Detroit. It’s a bar/restaurant. On a couple big screen tv’s, highlights from last night’s baseball games play. Sawing on a piece of avocado toast, for which they have given me a steak knife, I look up and admire assorted junk and portraiture on the walls–a few famous locals (Madonna, Robin Williams) and a few famous not locals (Winston Churchill, Albert Einstein). Above the photos and hanging bric-a-brac and do-dads […]

Categories: Essay, Uncategorized • Tags: Dermatology, Grammar, health, Hearing aids, Hearing deficits, is is, it is what it is, Marriage, Plantar wart, was was, what it is