CARNEVALE

Today is the day before Lent starts, the time for the last indulgences before 40 days of deprivation in preparation for Easter. If' you're Catholic, you know the drill. Traditionally this was the day for the Mardi Gras ("fat Tuesday") parade in New Orleans, the grand spectacle of Carnevale in Venice, or the craziness in Rio. Of course over the years these events have had less to do with the church and more to do with attracting tourists and making money.

Here in Italy many cities have multiple celebrations over the weekends preceding Ash Wednesday, but in our area we just have parades and parties on the final weekend, which was this past weekend. I know that Marsciano has a parade, and I'm guessing it's a little larger than ours here in San Venanzo, but it's so much fun to see your friends and neighbors dressed up in silly costumes, spraying silly string and tossing handfuls of confetti, riding by in the back of a large truck that's been decorated to look like a pirate ship, so we've never ventured beyond San Venanzo for the festivities.

Yesterday's parade, scheduled to start at 2:00, began, in true Italian tradition, around 3:30. We heard them before we saw them, honking horns and playing music. The 'floats' were preceded by a group of clowns - cute clowns, clowns that were seemingly harmless - but no! In the past the cans of silly string have been a big hit, but this year there was a new addition: spray foam. Bubbles in a can.

In the past I haven't minded being covered with silly sting, but being hit in the face with spray foam was much less pleasant. First of all, not surprisingly, it tastes like soap! Yuck! Secondly if it hits your glasses you can't see. When the seemingly innocent clowns began spraying everyone in our general vicinity with spray foam it didn't seem that bad. I was expecting the spray string, not foamy bubbles, so when I got hit in the face it covered my sunglasses, my mouth, and my camera. I was definitely NOT amused. Bad enough to spray me in the face, but really bad to ruin my camera. So that was when I turned around and walked back home. Sorry, no pictures of cute kids in cute costumes this year. Right now those cute kids don't seem quite so cute.