Later that day....

I still harbored the hope of being "productive."

I digress, for a moment, to consider that desire. I really enjoy accomplishing things. I recognize the list of things "to do" is ever-changing and ever-growing, but I still like to get things done. I have been known to add an already-accomplished task to the list, only so I can check it off. I mean, it "counts." There have been times when I have been a slave to the list. Children and living in Italy have taught me a powerful, shocking and slightly painful lesson. NOTHING bad happens if I just ignore the list!

There are some days, I wake up to face a long list of things to do. As I sip my coffee, my mind starts to clear and, slowly, a realization dawns on me. I really don't want to do any of my list tasks. Next comes both a feeling of relief and despair, as I realize I don't actually HAVE to do anything today! It's freeing and scarey at the same time. Such is the life of the casalinga!

Having already told you the beginning of my day, I will continue. We went to the grocery store to pick up some sandwiches for lunch. As we munched happily, I was still being nagged by the feeling of wanting to accomplish something. I decided we would make our way to Pordenone to apply for our Codice fiscale. After lunch, we set off, following the directions into the city. The directions were very specific, yet somehow I managed to park in the wrong lot- that's just how savvy I am with directions.

We made our way to the correct building (the second revolving door)and found the waiting area. We took a number and took several seats. I got out suckers for the girls and we commenced the waiting process. We waited and waited and waited. Then, a woman dressed in black with her midriff showing and wearing plastic white glasses made an announcement. Even though my Italian has come a long way, I wasn't sure I understood what she was saying, because it sounded like the computers were down indefinitely. I leaned over and tapped the woman sitting next to H and asked her for clarification- yes, I had it right. There was going to be no "business" transactions for the day, they could only provide information.......

Lucky for us, we hadn't waited too long....maybe 20 minutes, plus the time it took us to get here. In my mind, I was evening out the long wait at the housing office with this one...trying to make it seem like the other one was shorter, because if I divided the waiting time by 2.....but my fuzzy math didn't account for the fact that I still hadn't accomplished a thing yet....well, we had lunch at least...that counts.

Dazed, we headed out into the light of the day. There's one more thing that's been on my list for a long time....maybe we should head to the bank in Maniago to check on H's school lunch account from last year. Yes, surely I could make some progress there! You see, we started an account with a bank in Maniago to pay for H's lunches when she went to the asilo in Campagna. I have never received a statement or a single shred of paper with regards to this account. The school year is long-over and I still have yet to get an update. I have no idea if there is any money left on this account- or maybe we owe for her lunches. It's a mystery. I had visited the bank several times- three to be exact. Each time, the teller would pull out a large book of dot matrix printed-lists. He would look down the columns of lightly printed (practically illegible) names and eventually look up at me and inform me that they don't have any information and if I haven't heard from the bank, all is well.

At this point, all isn't well, and I know they would never let me know if we had a refund coming, so, I needed to try again. Yes, that's what we would do! Pile back into the car kids! Off we went.