Desperate House Cleaners

While recovering from surgery, the house got progressively dirtier. F only did so much and I couldn't do anything on crutches, so I placed an ad on a local internet site for help cleaning the house: 2 hours once a week. Just enough to do some basic cleaning like vacuuming and cleaning the bathroom.

To my surprise, I got over 80 responses. The calls kept coming at all hours from early morning to evening and weekends, too. My mobile phone's battery was completely drained at the end of everyday by the sheer volume of telephone calls. The emails popped up in my box, one after another. Foreigners, Italians, women, men and girls. I got printable CVs! They were willing to drive 30 minutes to get to our house to clean for just 2 hours. They wanted to be interviewed immediately. I was absolutely shocked. Even the 45-year-old daughter of the family that lives door happened to mention that she saw the announcement, figured out that it was me, and asked for the job.

If anyone tells you that the economy is just fine here, they're wrong. There are thousands of people who are trying to make ends meet by cleaning. Young girls doing poorly-paid internships who need a little extra money. Women out of work. Mothers who wanted to do a little extra work when the kids are at school. Men who lost their jobs.

I am lucky that F and I have a job.

Pazienza amico mio

Patience my friend

I have so much I would like to write about but too little access to Internet to do so. Between the move to the new house which happened this past weekend, hundreds of odds and ends to attend to, a surprise freelance translation this week and no phone line (or ADSL) at the new house at the moment, I cannot write new posts.

Thank you for understanding.

If the phone service keeps their word, we should have Internet at the house next week, but who knows, considering this is Italy. In their favor, Idl did receive a text message 2 days ago saying I would be contacted by their technician for the phone line installation soon. I hope "soon" is in a few days.

By the way, it's starting to sink in that I am a house owner.

iPhone Mecca

If you would like to join the throngs of iPhone lovers, move to New York! The city supposedly has the highest concentration of users in the world. In fact I heard a story about someone who wanted to purchase one this month and the phone dealer informed her that she had to wait a month because of a problem with provider number availability due to city saturation. There are so many people using Sprint, iPhone's service provider, in the City that the service is often overloaded and not very good.

I have noticed some behavioral changes in Americans in this city. Everyone is ALWAYS looking or talking on their phone--mostly because it is a multi-purpose iPhone. If I ask a local where a street or café is, they quickly check on their phone. Anytime on the subway is filled with iPhone consultations or internet use. People are uploading their constant whereabouts via Facebook, using guess what--their iPhone. Yesterday I saw 3 girls walking down Broadway, not interacting with each other in laughter or conversation, but absorbed in their individual phones dressed in the colors white, hot pink and black. The same girls were wearing Ugg boots in beige, hot pink and black.

Italians used to have the Americans beat when it comes to cell phone use when it involved sheer talk-time but the New Yorkers have surpassed the Italians with the new wave of technology. The combinations of phone, texting, internet, Google maps, Facebook and other applications have made the idea of using a phone a seemingly 24/7 affair stateside.

Meanwhile I am using my mother's borrowed cell phone in the USA and can't even access the voice mail because we don't know the phone's password. I'm living old-style in hip iPhone heaven, NYC.

By the way, there are people using the free wi-fi on their iPhones from the bus service I am taking from New York to my home town, as I write this post from a classic laptop.