Tag: Motherhood

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Italy Motherhood parenting

How far will you go to teach your daughter to lead?

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Photo: Lorri Lang on Pixabay

And there I was, simply her mom letting her be brave so she could develop this thing called courage.

When it comes to teaching our daughters to lead, how do we do that? How far should we go? Encourage good grades? Encourage career over all else? Do we teach them to forge ahead first? To seek and take advantage of each and every opportunity that comes along?

How about if we teach our daughters this: to have courage. “Courage, fortunately, is a teachable and learnable skill,” according to Bill Treasurer, Kimberly Adelman, and Laura Cohn of Giant Leap Consulting in their article, “The Power of Courage for Women Leaders.”

“The trick to building courage competency is to purposefully move outside of your comfort zone on a regular basis. Don’t move so far out as to become petrified with fear, but enough that your body starts to give you the physiological cues that you’ve become uncomfortable,” write the authors.

My daughter knows these physiological cues. Two years ago, she was completing a three-month internship in Venice, Italy at the Peggy Guggenheim Collection, a well-known modern art museum located on the Grand Canal. At first, her foray to the floating city caused much stress and worry, especially in the early days of her time there. She experienced stomach aches, anxiety, and a lack of appetite.

She also experienced environmental and social challenges: Venice’s maze-like corridors, the language barrier, new colleagues and workplace. And then there was the peeping Tom.

However, as her internship continued, she became accustomed to her experience there, and she was able to enjoy it completely. It was good to feel courageous despite the difficulties. I remember my daughter saying this about her day-to-day experience alone in Italy: “I became comfortable being uncomfortable.” She even said one day about a month after she returned home that she missed the feeling of discomfort she had become so accustomed to.

“Moving into your discomfort zone is how you learn and grow,” writes Treasurer. Believe it or not, true discomfort will build courage. And courage is at least part of the solution to overcoming the organizational biases that “inadvertently favor men” for leadership roles, writes Treasurer, Adelman, and Cohn.

Well, guess what? My daughter recently returned to Venice for two months for another internship… to help staff the U.S. Pavilion at the Venice Biennale, the renowned international exhibition of contemporary art from countries across the globe.

In the weeks prior to her departure, my friends and co-workers asked me how I felt about her return to Italy. They asked me:

“It’s so far away. That doesn’t bother you?”

“How are you handling it?”

“Aren’t you worried about her?”

I told them that I was fine with it. I told them that I encouraged her to apply for the opportunity.

And then I doubted myself and wondered…

Should I feel this unfazed?

Am I being careful enough?

Should I be so willing to let her go so far?

This was followed by a confident second or two when I asked myself, “Aren’t I just doing what mothers should do with their daughters?”

Shouldn’t I let my daughter be brave? Let her travel? Let her get so far outside her comfort zone that being uncomfortable feels comfortable? Isn’t this what the authors of The Power of Courage for Women Leaders are getting at? After all, aren’t I just allowing my daughter to grow in ways I was never encouraged to? Independently? Without commitments?

Don’t we encourage our sons this way?

And yes, I get it, she’s an adult and completely able to navigate across time zones, oceans, and mountain ranges. And yes, she did eventually meet up with a roommate. But until then, she was simply my daughter venturing forth alone in a big, big world. And there I was, simply her mom letting her be brave so she could develop this thing called courage.

So, is this the price I must pay—this apprehension and fear that comes and goes when I imagine her navigating Venice, alone, head down, leaning into the misty winds of early May? Is this the price I must pay to demonstrate to my daughter that she deserves to be brave and to venture forth into the world?

Is this the price I will pay to teach her to lead with courage? Will I go farther or have I gone far enough?

These are the wonderings of an anxious mother’s heart. Feel free to leave a comment to share your thoughts. Have you ever watched your child venture forth into the world, yet had your own reservations about watching them do just that? Follow my blog for more posts on parenting, travel, and education.

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Italy

A dull ache for a sharp object left in Italy

When Mom’s pocket knife gets confiscated

 

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Photo: Paul Felberbauer on Unsplash

When the security employee at the gate asked me to step aside, I remembered. My pocket knife. Oh no, my pocket knife, I thought, realizing I had left it earlier in the little cosmetic bag inside my purse. I had forgotten to check it with my luggage and now I was at the gate and my knife was going away.

The uniformed employee explained in her thick Venetian accent, “We must take this from you. If it’s you really need, you go downstairs, fill out the form, and it be sent to you.”

Standing there, I knew we wouldn’t have time to make those arrangements. And besides, it wasn’t a valuable possession. But then again, it was.

For twenty-five years, I had carried that pocket knife.

Back in 1990, I had chosen it from a mound of identical ones heaped in a small cardboard box next to a cash register in the sporting goods department at a Kmart in Topeka, Kansas. It had cost my boyfriend (now my husband) an entire dollar. It featured a steel blade, a wooden casing, and bronze hardware that over the years, had polished to a golden shine from being nestled in my purse for so long.

Similar to how candy bars are placed at checkout stands to captivate small children, that box of $1 knives held equal allure for the fishermen and hunters who visited that department. Not that I was one of them. We had gone to the store to use the restrooms tucked away behind the restaurant at the back of the store. As he waited on me, he spotted the knives and bought one for me.

“Keep it in your purse. It’ll come in handy,” he told me. He was right.

That little knife had been many places… all over Missouri and Kansas, Nashville, Asheville, several cities in Maine and Vermont, Columbus, Atlanta, Sarasota, Highland Park, Phoenix and other Arizona locals, multiple sights in the Los Angeles area, Oregon and Washington State, Cape Town and other South African cities, DC, New York City, Taos, Breckenridge, Crested Butte, Dallas, New Orleans. Over the years, we had journeyed across the country to attend annual family reunions, exhibit my husband’s ceramic art at festivals, and accompany him as he served artist residencies.

And now, its final destination would be Venice, Italy, where it would be left behind, a hindrance to a quick departure, discarded inside a gray plastic tub under the counter.

I regret leaving that silly little knife because it wasn’t just a pocket knife. It was a symbol of family life and motherhood and had been more often used for non-cutting tasks. That knife spread peanut butter on sandwiches many more times that it ever cut into a fish or snipped a cord on a tent or tarp. It was this mother’s indispensable tool. As such, it was always easy to locate.

My son and daughter both knew I carried a pocket knife and I passed it back to them at least once or twice on every road trip we took over the years. Need to break open a family-sized plastic bag of M&Ms? Get Mom’s knife. Opening a DVD? Get Mom’s knife. Got a stray thread hanging from your hem? Ask Mom to hand back her pocket knife.

Just prior to leaving Venice, as I buckled up inside the plane, regretting my decision to leave my knife, I recalled how six years earlier, I had flown from Johannesburg to Atlanta with a knife my son had purchased as a souvenir. Despite its massive four-inch blade, he had somehow forgotten to pack it in a checked bag. I offered to stow it inside my purse, warning him it would likely be confiscated at our first departure.

Nope. X-rays and inspections by hand never discovered it. Of course, that would happen to a brand new knife without any peanut butter experience. And of course, that knife has since been long forgotten, I might add.

As for my knife, I have since replaced it, but the blade on my new one is narrower and not quite as functional as the one left in Venice. I mean, you can spread peanut butter on a slice of bread if you really want to, but it’s the not the same as my Kmart special.

I’m one of those people who feels sorry for the last Christmas tree on the lot. So it’s no surprise that I’m still feeling nostalgic for my lost pocket knife… a year and a half later.

Somewhere in Italy, it’s languishing in a gray bin of confiscated sharp objects. Maybe it’s been recycled by now. Maybe it’s been donated to a charity. Hopefully, it’s performing some mother’s mundane tasks, making her life a little easier, and definitely more memorable.

Had an experience similar to mine? Like this post, follow my blog, and feel to leave a comment about any precious object that’s drifted out of your life. Thanks for reading!

 

 

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Italy

Vicenza, Italy: where the art is the city itself

And other observations made on a daytrip from Venice to the City of Palladio

My daughter spent three months living in Venice in 2017 as an intern at the Peggy Guggenheim Collection, a small, yet world-renowned modern art museum located on the Grand Canal. Her time there was magical, challenging, beautiful, and life-changing. On four occasions, she day-tripped with her friends away from the 124 islands that compose Venice to visit these cities: Bologna, Padua, Verona, and Vicenza. 

Since her return, we’ve enjoyed many conversations about her time in Italy. In this and future posts, I’ll be relaying the details of each of these short excursions. This post is about her daytrip to Vicenza, a city with an approximate population of 113,000 full of architectural gems that was designated a World Heritage Site in 1994.

The interview answers are just the two of us talking; see the photo captions for more detailed notes and facts about her trip.

How far is Vicenza from Venice? It’s only a 45-minute train ride that goes through Mestre, which is near Venice on the mainland and then Padua before arriving in Vicenza.

What did you do first? We first walked from the train a few minutes to the city walls. Then we made our way to the Palladio Museum. It’s a large museum situated within the Palazzo Barbarano. The museum showcases Andrea Palladio, the Italian architect who designed tons of buildings all around the city. Palladio lived in the early 1500s, so he can be considered a High Renaissance artist.

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The city walls of Vicenza. At this location, pedestrians enter beneath the arch in the darker portion of the wall. Photo: K. Yung

The museum has old and rare sketchbooks and drawings by Palladio. Those were so interesting. It was amazing to see how well-preserved the papers were.

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The museum is also famous for all of the dioramas they have of Palladio’s designs. These aren’t old, but they are really valuable, so anyone—and especially art historians and architects—can understand more about how the buildings were designed. You can get a sense of the effects that Palladio achieved with his symmetry, like the long views down corridors.

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Dioramas attract many to the Palladio Museum. Here, architecture and art history scholars can see up close the Palladian features that created this ubiquitous architectural style. Photo: K. Yung
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Photo: K. Yung

Was symmetry his trademark? Well, one of them, along with columns. He’s why columns are popular in homes and public buildings. Basically, his work was about highlighting classical Roman architecture, and symmetry was one characteristic. His designs influenced architecture around the world. It eventually became called Palladianism. Palladio’s work is easy to recognize because he had a very distinct style that totally revolutionized the architecture game. And lots of people are familiar with Palladianism, even if they don’t realize it. The White House and the U.S. Capitol—and thousands more examples around the world—are good examples. So is Thomas Jefferson’s home, Monticello.

Did you have a tour of the Palladio Museum? Yes, we had a guide who spent 2 ½ – 3 hours showing us the museum, which was our main goal in visiting Vicenza. There was an exhibition being shown there called “The Mysteries of Palladio’s Face.” It was all about portraits of Palladio—or the fact that there aren’t portraits of him. No one really knows for sure what he looked like. Even drawings of him are different. However, there was a drawing we saw where he had actually sketched his hand onto the paper. Kinda cool because at least we know it’s his hand, y’know?

You were there such a short time. Did you miss anything? The Villa Rotonda was closed when we were there and that’s one of Palladio’s most famous and influential works. It’s a square building with four entrances, one on each side. It’s one of the most recognizable structures of the Renaissance.

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The Villa Rotonda contains four identical facades, which add balance to the complete design. Photo: Stefan Bauer, http://www.ferras.at [CC BY-SA 2.5 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5)%5D, from Wikimedia Commons

What did you do after the Palladio Museum? After that, we walked around downtown to see some of the other buildings. There’s a whole street in Vicenza called Corso Andrea Palladio… it’s lined with multiple palaces and buildings that were at least designed by Palladio if they were constructed during his lifetime.

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In this photo, you see the Teatro Olimpico on the right. Built from 1580-1585, the theater appears deceptively rustic on the exterior, but on the inside, the design does an “about face” and High Renaissance style takes center stage. The plaque that declares the theater’s designation at a UNESCO World Heritage Site is displayed at right. Photo: K. Yung

Then we went to the Teatro Olimpico. It’s a performing arts theater that Palladio designed. Today, the theater does live theater productions. You can go inside the actual theater and sit and look at the paintings. You can also see the façade that Palladio designed and the illusion of the set itself.

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This photo does not show the theater’s majestic interior in its entirety. Visit here for fabulous photos and a full explanation of how optically revolutionary this theater is. Photo: juliacasado1 on Pixabay.

On the interior, parts of it plays tricks on your mind due to optical techniques. For example, it appears that the set is very deep based on the perspective you see through the entrance with the blue sky beyond. The ceiling of the theater is painted like the sky and it’s encircled by large-scale Olympic figures.

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The theater hosts dance and theater productions today. Photo: K. Yung

What else did you see on such a short trip? We went and saw the Basilica Palladiana. It’s a building downtown that you can easily identify because of its copper roof. They issued a contract to Palladio in 1549 to renovate the building because of structural problems that occurred over the years. Today, there are restaurants and shops around it, plus exhibition spaces for art and architecture shows. One thing that makes the basilica significant is that it shows the first example of the Palladian window. Palladian windows have a center window with a semi-circular top and then one rectangular identical window on each side.

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Vincenza’s Piazza dei Signori, where the Basilica Palladiana is located to the right of the dark brick tower in the photo above. The distinctive copper roof is visible behind the statues that line the upper edge. Photo: cusarina on Pixabay.

After going to the basilica, we decided we wanted to have lunch outside on the plaza, the Piazza dei Signori. We found a quaint café in the sun and… wait for it… had some pizza that was altogether forgettable. It was more like American pan pizza. I’m sure some people liked it, but I was disappointed. I didn’t even make a note of the name of the place. Oh, well. That was literally the only downside to the whole day. I would love to go back!

How would you sum up Vicenza? It’s a quiet city with an off-the-beaten-path feel to it. It’s very beautiful and important. It’s like a giant art museum, but the art is the city itself.

I make no apologies. As a writer and parent, I feel perfectly entitled to take full advantage of my daughter’s experiences in Italy by wringing every possible story idea from it! Yes, our family did visit her in Venice for a week, and while we saw so much in that time, we envied the luxury of time her three-month internship allowed. Check out my profile on Medium.com and find more stories about my daughter’s other daytrips around northern Italy.

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Italy

Padua, Italy: The bluest blue I’ve ever seen

And other observations my daughter made during a quick morning trip to Padua from Venice

My daughter spent three months living in Venice in 2017 as an intern at the Peggy Guggenheim Collection, a small, yet world-renowned modern art museum located on the Grand Canal. Her time there was magical, challenging, beautiful, and life-changing. On four occasions, she day-tripped with her friends away from the 124 islands that compose Venice to visit these cities: Bologna, Padua, Verona, and Vicenza. One day, she travelled to Ravenna with my husband, our son and me when we visited over spring break.

Since her return, we’ve enjoyed many conversations about her time in Italy. In this and future posts, I’ll be relaying the details of each of these short excursions. This post is about her morning trip to Padua, a city that claims to be the oldest city in northern Italy. It’s a short 26 miles from Venice.

The interview answers are just the two of us talking; see the photo captions for more detailed notes and facts about her trip.

How did you travel to Padua? We left from the Venice train station at 9 a.m. It took barely thirth minutes to get there.

What was the most important thing you saw in Padua? Our goal in going to Padua—of Padova, as the Italians say—was to see the Scrovegni Chapel. It’s covered on the inside with many famous frescoes by Giotto. He was a painter during the Middle Ages. He was known for the expressions he painted on people. The frescoes in the chapel are literally in every art history textbook I’ve ever seen. The chapel is extremely small and floor to ceiling it’s jammed with frescoes.

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Another view of the floor-to-ceiling frescoes painted by Giotto at the Scrovegni Chapel. Giotto is considered pre-Renaissance; his work takes a step away from the Medieval style. Photo: K. Yung

Did the chapel meet your expectations? Yes! It was exactly what I hoped it would be. Giotto was known for using blue and the frescoes there were way more intensely vibrant than I expected them to be. The color was the bluest blue I’ve ever seen.

Before you even enter the chapel, it must be readied by the staff. They adjust the humidity level in order to control the air quality inside and they also regulate your entrance time because the air quality must be adjusted to protect the frescoes. Many of them are fragile. Some are entirely gone. Some are faded and chipping away. They were completed in 1305, so that explains the deterioration.

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This photo shows the most famous fresco (center) in the Scrovegni Chapel entitled “Lamentation of Christ.” The anguish in the facial expressions of the figures is one characteristic that makes this fresco so well-known. Photo: K. Yung
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The gardens and grounds that surrounded the Scrovegni Chapel were lush with the spring season in Padua. Photo: K. Yung

Where did you go after the Scrovegni? We went to Chiesa degli Eremitani, literally the Church of the Hermits, which was a religious order under St. Augustine. It’s a very tall church with a woven, wooded lattice roof. There area frescoed bricks on the wall. At the front where the altar is, there are two or three little chapels. There are interesting frescoes that go up into the domes, but only to a point.

The church was bombed in World War II and they were almost totally destroyed. Over the years, the building has been renovated. There are fragmented frescoes where black paint has been applied showing what the image would have been had it not been bombed.

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Inside the Chiesa degli Eremitani, the frescoes show scenes from the life of St. Augustine. The damage done to this church is considered by art historians to be Italy’s “greatest artistic wartime loss.” Photo: K. Yung
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This photo shows the devastation of the bombing from 1944. Fragments from the destroyed frescoes have been found over the years and inserted onto the plaster in the precise spots where they were believed to have been placed originally. Photo: K. Yung

Did you grab a meal while you were there? Yes, after the Chiesa, we ran to get pizza somewhere on the way to the train station. We also managed to find an American coffee shop and I ordered a chai tea latte for the first time while I was in Italy. Chai tea is not a thing in Italy, by the way.

That was also about the time we realized we had bought the wrong returning ticket to Venice. We made our way onto the next train back, but didn’t have time to purchase tickets. It was a confusing ordeal. We planned to pay while we were onboard the train, but no one ever checked our tickets.

We made it back to Venice by 2 in the afternoon, which was around the time we were scheduled to get ready to tour Damien Hirst’s mammoth exhibition, which is totally another story.

Would you like to go back to Padua since you were only there for a few hours? Yes, of course, it would be great to go back. There are so many things I know we just didn’t have time for. One would be the Basilica of Saint Anthony. Someday… someday.

Featured Photo: The Scrovegni Chapel was commissioned by Enrico degli Scrovegni, a Paduan lender. It is considered one of the masterpieces of Western art. Giotto di Bondone, considered the first of the Italian masters, painted the frescoes in the intimate space. Giotto, (1276-1337), is considered the most important Italian painter of the 14th century.“His works point to the innovations of the Renaissance style, which developed a century later,” according to Encyclopedia Britannica. Photo: K. Yung

I make no apologies. As a writer and parent, I feel perfectly entitled to take full advantage of my daughter’s experiences in Italy by wringing every possible story idea from it! Yes, our family did visit her there for a week, and while we saw so much in that time, we envied the luxury of time her three-month internship allowed. Check out my profile on Medium.com and find more stories about my daughter’s daytrips around northern Italy.

Categories
Life lessons Memoir & Narratives

The day I flipped out at the social security office

Sometimes my students become really angry. I can relate.

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Photo: Kyle Glenn on Unsplash

Teaching middle school is a tough gig. Kids in grades sixth through eighth grade can be loud, impulsive, and frenetic. It’s enough on some days to make me consider finding another vocation. So at the end of a long day when I’m telling myself that there is no way I’m teaching middle schoolers another year, it helps to recall that I, too, can be loud, impulsive, and frenetic.

In fact, I once was so loud, impulsive, and frenetic that someone should have reported me. Someone probably would today.  What makes my story even worse is that my meltdown occurred when I was 26, twice the age of my seventh-graders. It’s embarrassing to recall how immature and idiotic I behaved. But, hey, at least I can empathize with my students when they have their own moments of anger.

Here’s my story. It was 1992, around 4:28 on a hot Thursday afternoon a few months after my wedding day the previous April. I was at the social security office located in a Phoenix office building to fill out a form update my social security account to my new last name.

I turned the knob to open the maple hardwood door. It didn’t turn. Didn’t even budge. So I knocked. No reply. I turned the knob again. Yes, it was definitely locked. I heard the shuffling of papers inside the office. The lights were on. There were people still there and they weren’t letting me in.

I reflected on the situation. I had taken off from work early to arrive before the 4:30 closing time. If the taxpayer-supported personnel on the other side of the door didn’t answer, I grumbled, I would have to do this all over again another day.

I was incensed. I felt cheated. I made a scene. I knocked again. I asked, “Can someone let me in?” I knocked again, this time more loudly. I asked, this time a little louder, “Is anyone there? Could you please just take this form?” It was just a silly form. A piddly piece of paper. Someone just needed to take it from my hand, I thought in desperation.

And so I pounded on the door. I couldn’t think. I was out of control and I didn’t care who saw me. I got down on my hands and knees—in my dress and heels—to look under the door. I could see feet moving around inside. There were whispers. It was now 4:31, a measly minute past closing time. No response. The hairs on the back of my neck prickled. I would be heard.

I stood back up and continued to pound the door. The adjacent window, conveniently crafted of obscured glass, revealed shapes and shadows within.

“I know you’re in there!” I yelled, continuing to pound. “I can see you moving back and forth! Take this form so I can leave!”

But they didn’t. No one ever answered the door. So I left, angry, red-faced, and embarrassed, knowing with disgust that I would have to return to this hallway within the week.

I came back a few days later well before the closing time and quietly and politely conducted my business. I didn’t even complain about the poor service of a few days earlier, which was probably a mistake in retrospect. Then again, they would have figured out I was the loud, impulsive, and frenetic woman from earlier in the week and might have called security.

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Photo: Matthew Henry on Unsplash

Looking back now at my social security office fiasco demonstrates that anger can get the best of us… even those of us who know better than to throw a tantrum at age 26.

My past experience with such intense anger helps me to empathize with my students today.

And honestly, I’ve only witnessed one to two student meltdowns in my classroom during my years of teaching. I can usually ward off an angry episode with a quickly whispered conversation, or, for another example, an invitation to the student to leave the room to get a drink to literally cool off. Tactics such as these help to diminish the anger.

But anger does happen once in a great while and I totally understand where it comes from.

  • Sometimes students feel powerless. Been there. That’s exactly how I felt that day in that office.
  • Sometimes students feel they’re at the mercy of someone else’s priorities. Done that. At the social security office, my priority did not align with the office personnel’s at that particular moment.
  • Sometimes students yell. Check. It’s just a natural reaction when it seems no one is listening to you.
  • Sometimes they argue. Me, too. We all have ideas we want to communicate.

Yes, I can relate to the frustrations my students feel and how they express those feelings of helplessness and lack of control. In the environment of school–or any other setting where people with different priorities meet up–tensions arise and play themselves out in myriad ways… even so far as taking to the floor in your dress and heels to yell through the crack. Wait—at least my students haven’t tried that yet. Gotta give ’em credit for that.

Thanks for reading! If you found this interesting, please click “like” and feel free to leave a comment. I also write on my teaching blog called elabraveandtrue.com and Medium.com. Check out both sites for more writing. 

Categories
Italy (Venice) Motherhood

My daughter and the peeping tom of Venice, Italy

It was scary to think how much time and effort this man had put into his actions that night.

Imagine being 22, female, and in Venice, Italy for a three-month internship at the Peggy Guggenheim Collection, a small, yet world-renowned modern art museum located on the Grand Canal. At 2 a.m. on the day your father plans to leave after helping you get settled for a week, you notice that the motion sensor outside your door is lighting up frequently. Too frequently, in fact, for this time of night. In addition, some of the lights are brighter than others. That’s odd.

You also hear strange noises outside. You ask your father to check the exterior heating/AC unit that you assume must be malfunctioning. He discovers not a malfunctioning appliance, but a rickety lawn chair that someone has been using to stand on so they can peek inside your apartment.

Read more about my daughter’s internship experience here.

The peeping tom had made his first appearance earlier that evening, after dark around 7:30. My daughter’s landlord–let’s call her Maria–had come over to help with the t.v. reception and while they were making adjustments, my husband and daughter had both noticed someone outside the apartment loitering in the walkway. They discussed the strange loiterer, but Maria eventually dismissed him, explaining that he was likely just someone from the neighborhood who was curious with the activity in the apartment since it had been vacant for quite some time.

So, in the middle of the night, when my husband ventured outside to check on the furnace and instead found a rickety chair, and a man with frizzy, shoulder-length hair rounding the corner about thirty feet down the corridor, real concern set in. Trying to assess the situation, my husband walked further down the corridor and noticed another lawn chair that had been stepped through around the corner. My husband immediately called Maria, who then immediately called the polizei.

While they waited for Maria and the police to arrive, both my husband and daughter tried to make sense of it all. Upon reflection, they both figured the peeping tom had ruined his first chair while peering in the window, and gone to retrieve another. My daughter also realized that the brighter lights from the motion sensor were more than likely flashes from a camera. Did he deliberately walk back and forth often enough to cause the motion sensor light to camouflage the camera flashes? It was scary to think about how much time and effort this man had put into his actions that night.

Fifteen minutes later, three uniformed police officers were there assessing the situation. Then, unbelievably, the frizzy-haired man sauntered by. Actually, because of the way the walkway turned, there was no way for him to avoid the small gathering without looking suspicious. He tried to play it cool, his camera hanging from his neck.

When my husband recognized the man, he nodded to the police officers who stopped the man and asked what he was doing out so late at night. He replied that he was a photographer taking night shots of the city.

Maria didn’t stand for it. Her Italian temper flared and her arms waved in anger. She accused him of spying and told him to leave the neighborhood and never return. She informed him that a police report was being filed at that moment and if anything happened later, he would be sorry. He was never seen again.

Although this was incredibly scary for me to hear about back in Missouri, it was good to know that, in general, Venice is a quiet municipality known to be “one of Italy’s safest cities.” The full-time resident population in the historic city center has declined dramatically in recent years, and today rests at about 55,000. We had researched the city’s crime statistics before our daughter left on her trip and were reassured. What causes the most trouble for the millions of tourists who visit each year? Pickpockets. What about violent crime? According to Frommers, it’s considered rare.

The next day, my daughter actually considered returning home; maybe this adventure was too much to take on and this incident was a sign that it just wasn’t meant to be. After an anxious day of pondering her options, she decided to stay; however, she did want to find a different apartment.

After attempting and failing to find an alternative rental with the help of my husband (who postponed his return flight for three days), my daughter returned to her original apartment, where Maria assured her she would be safe.

Still, my husband and my daughter took a few precautions. Before leaving, my husband helped her cover the windows with white paper. They figured that if a peeping tom had no view, there would be no temptation. They also made a point to meet the older woman, a Venetian native, living just across the passageway.

Over the next weeks, my daughter got on with her new Italian life. She began working a routine schedule at the museum and truly felt comfortable and at home there. She made many international friends. She became more brave and confident in her new surroundings.

Gradually, her strange experience became a distant memory. Most importantly, she didn’t let the peeping tom’s bad behavior define or detract from one of the most valuable experiences of her life so far. It had been a rough start, but she was determined to thrive.

Thanks for reading! If you found this post interesting, click like so others may more easily find it. Also, feel free to leave a comment on your own strange travel experiences.

Categories
Life lessons Memoir & Narratives Motherhood parenting

The Toy I Trashed: The Hot Wheels Slimecano

With lots of pieces and lots of slime, I should have known better.

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Photo: Christopher Harris | Unsplash

 

Every parent has been there. You buy that cool toy your child yearns for and within minutes you realize: BIG MISTAKE.

So, in the spirit of Christmas, I thought I would relate my own such experience with the Hot Wheels Slimecano Playset… y’know, to relive the “joy” once again and possibly save another parent from buying this behemoth. After all, even though some cursory online searching indicates this toy has been discontinued, one or two units could still be lurking out there on a dusty store shelf or in an online retailer’s inventory.

In a word, the Hot Wheels Slimecano was formidable. Introduced in 2004, this apparatus was composed of an armload of plastic pieces that snapped or otherwise fit together. My eight-year-old son had seen it advertised on TV and wanted it desperately.

All those plastic pieces were accompanied by directions that explained which parts attached to which other parts, which combined to form race tracks, slime reservoirs, ramps, and other components that, when completely assembled, resulted in an ominous and wobbly gray, brown and orange tripod-like structure down which my son could send his cars. So awesome, Mom.

Also, there was somehow a skull or dragon head involved in the design of the thing, although I don’t remember the significance of that, other than maybe it was there to advise parents in “Jolly Roger”-style of the gooey mess that was about to be made.

An unsettling slime concoction was key to the Slimecano. I don’t remember if it was a slime we made ourselves from ingredients supplied in the box, or if it was included in the package already prepared in packets, but it was there, a thick, gloppy translucent orange goop dotted with dark specks. This slime provided the magic of the toy.

For a fleeting five minutes, my son played with the Slimecano. He was mesmerized watching his car careen down the plastic track… until it hit the slime and needed to be pushed through an oozing river of the stuff and then guided around a puddle at the bottom of the track. This all happened to the same unfortunate car. After all,  the wheels on a car can only move when they are not embedded with slime. My son soon figured out that this was a toy that required him to sacrifice his least favorite car. Send that car down the Slimecano once, clog up the wheels, tire treads, and undercarriage, and voila! auto salvage in miniature.

Then came the very unmagical clean-up time. While snapping apart the Slimecano, my son discovered the entire apparatus was encrusted with the orange goo. So was the floor. And his mom’s patience. As he dismantled the game, washed off each piece, and shoved the plastic collection back into the box, we knew that the Slimecano may have just had its one and only use. The game was over and disappointment was the victor. Thanks, Hot Wheels.

So there you have it, my gift to you: a cautionary tale of the toy I trashed. Have a similar toy story in your family? Tell me about it in the comments. We can laugh about it now, can’t we?!

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