Let the adventures begin, for real this time.

8:53PM GST 2.19.2008

I just finished cooking myself “dinner” for the first time in Italy, and let me just say that the internet issue is not the only problem with the apartment. In fact, the whole cooking experience was so frustrating that by the time I actually finished cooking a meal of prefab ravioli, polenta, and some little sausages I was so frustrated that even though I was extremely hungry (and still am right now) I could only eat about three bites before I could go no further. It wasn’t because the food tasted bad, either. Under a different set of circumstances that meal could have been considered a great success – edible food cooked in a country where I don’t speak the language well (as is becoming increasingly clear – more on this below), where I am totally unfamiliar with the staples of the cooking, and (this was really the kicker) in an apartment that lacks all but the most rudimentary of rudiments for cooking. My options for making myself dinner include:

pot #1, pot #2 (slightly deeper than 1), pot #3 (large-ish pot), basic knife/fork/spoon, three Ikea kitchen knives of various sizes, strainer, ladle, pasta scooper, plates, bowls, dishtowel, cheese grater, and a skillet

This might sound like a lot. But how much does it sound like when you take into account the fact that my options for making dinner do not include a spatula, scissors, tongs, a wooden spoon of the slot or non-slot variety, a non-warped skillet that doesn’t threaten to fall off the stove at any given moment, oven mitts, and pretty much everything else not covered above. The skillet, in fact, did more than threaten to fall of the stove. It did fall off the stove, spilling all the polenta I was frying, itself only 1/3 of the total amount I cooked because the fry pan can’t be any bigger than the smallest one available at home in S.F.

After talking with Tom for a while, (human contact! huzzah!) it has become slightly clearer what kind of apartment this is. For example, the lights in the living room – necessary if you’re going to sit in there during the evening because it is dark as all get out in the building after dark – are all out. Two weeks ago he asked Caterina to fix them, which explains (sort of) why she tried turning on the lights in the living room when she first arrived, and then said ‘Oh, they still don’t work.’ What else did she think would happen? The lights would magically un-burn themselves out? This is starting to make me nervous in re apartment internet, which has not functioned the entire time that he has been here (over a month).

I guess this is what you get then you try to live on the cheap, but I don’t know that I had really thought this through effectively. Who would have thought that the one who would get spoiled living on Katina’s lawyer money would be me? Well, I don’t mean to say I expected it to be her. But I sure didn’t expect it to be me.

Yet, is it really spoiled to want basic kitchen items in a kitchen or working internet when you’re promised internet? I’m not really sure. I understand that back in the day people sat on crates covered with cloth as a substitute for the chairs they couldn’t afford and I totally respect that. Look – if there were crates I could turn into decent kitchen items or a working internet connection, you have to know I would jump at the chance.

Instead, I’m stuck in a halfway house for foreigners that isn’t especially well kept up (it seems) and I’m extremely reluctant to invest any significant time or effort in keeping it up because it’s 100% clear that no one else is doing more than the bare minimum either. It’s not just the money issue either – if I had all the money in the world I doubt I’d want to spend any of it on keeping this place up. I’d just as soon spend it on a better apartment. No doubt everyone else that stays here feels the same way, which his how it got where it is. The logic of the tragedy of the commons is inescapable.