Funny

All morning I have been smiling. Don't know why, can't explain it, it's just like that. So, Sofia and I sprint to her school, late as always, I drop her off and head to the bar for a cappuccino expecting to see the morning coffee group-nowhere to be found. I had my cappuccino and croissant with jelly alone, smiling. I paid and went outside to sit on the bench outside the bar for my morning cigarette (Dad, please no comment). I sit on the bench, look up and eleven people are standing about ten feet away, staring at me. I swear, every single person standing there looked at me and continued looking. No embarrassment. No looking away, just staring. I stared back and smiled. Maybe it was my bright purple hat, don't know. It was funny.

We continue staring until their bus arrives, every now and then, I smile, and they go merrily on their way to the center of Grosseto. Like something out of a horror film. Then, I casually look up and see the stone medieval walls of the town where I live with white sheets hanging from the clotheslines strategically lined window to window. I started laughing hysterically. Every now and then I get a reality check of my surroundings- that was one of them.

Across the street from the bench where I am sitting there is a laundramat with driers. This morning it was packed with women struggling to dry their clothes, see, it's humid here today and had they hung the clothes on the clotheslines outside, it would have taken forever to dry them. As I've said before, my self-imposed requirement for membership in this backwards ass country was a drier, so seeing everyone huddled in that laundramat to dry their clothes was funny. And cultural, so add cute.

I smiled on my way to the car and all the way back here to my computer where Brie greeted me with jumps and licks only to resume running around the house with my underpants. So adorable.

The greatest gift any person could ever give me would be laughter.

And...Life is funny when we are able to laugh at ourselves.