Bella Italia
This-a is-a Roma, you know-a!
Sunday night. The last night with my parents in town. I wanted to give my dad, in particular, a great last meal. So my friend lives at this apartment in Prati where everyday this group of sixty and seventy year old men hang out in the afternoons, play cards, and drink wine. My friend says one of the guys owns the restaurant so I figured it had to be good. On to Prati we go.
As we walk up to the place, there is no one outside but a short and pudgy gray haired man shouting, "Buona sera" at us. He's not just any old man; he must be wearing his 1980's nylon track suit that's bright turquoise with a thick, eighties hot pink stripe on each of the arms. Beautiful! We agree to sit down since my Italian friend who lives upstairs has never said anything negative about this establishment. No one is outside. We realize later that all the Italians are too cold to sit outside since it's in the low sixties.
Enter big boy. This old fella could be the brother or hybrid of Paul Sorvino and Tuddy from Goodfellas. He is dressed in a tight, white undershirt, gold chain around his neck, white cooking pants and a white half apron wrapped tightly around his waist.
He comes out to take our wine order with a friendly but "Whadda ya want from me?" attitude. My dad and I both agree to get a half bottle each. Good choice, we'll need it. He returns shortly after with napkins, forks and knives that he haphazardly throws on the table at us one at a time. He sees my mom's utensils sort of fall on top of each other and has a look on his face like, "whateva."
We order and he convinces my mom that she should have the same noodle I'm having saying in Italian that it's, better or meglio but we both know this old man doesn't want to have to cook two kinds of noodles when we're both getting the carbonara sauce. I take our old man's attitude and look at my mom like, "whateva." The food was delicious even though we wondered where my dad's artichoke was. (It arrived well after we finished our dinners on a sad plate all by itself.)
And then the comedy show started. There was a small parking space in front of the restaurant where a motorino (Vespa) was parked earlier. My favorite car, my dream, the Fiat Cinquecento (500) begins to pull into this tiny spot. It doesn't look good, not going to happen At this point we had a French couple dining behind us and they are equally mesmerized with what we are watching.
As clear as it appears that this car is not going to fit there, the French man begins giving the effortlessly beautiful Italian woman driving the car directions to get the car into the space. She's gorgeous, animated and amused by her parking skills. I can hear my mom's frightened, "Oh no!" as the driver's side rearview mirror begins to clank the parked car next to her. Little miss driver is not intimidated - she continues and her mirror forces its way through and claims victory over the parked car. She puts the car in park but then realizes she can't get out of the car. The doors have no room to open.
Little miss driver begins to back up, but we have the mirror problem again. She laughs; this is funny. She stops the car and you'll never guess it...Takes a cat, that wasn't in sight at all until now, off her lap and throws the long white haired cutie on the dashboard. She pulls her mirror in this time and backs up.
At this point, I figured that she would figure out that this parking spot is a bad idea. The French couple and my family are hysterically laughing WITH HER at the ridiculousness of this parking extravaganza!
Soon she stops the car. The cat sits relaxed and unamused on the dashboard. How on earth is she going to get out of this car??????? She's shouting things and laughing in the car but I can't hear or understand well enough what she was saying.
Just when I think she has given up, she reaches over and opens the passenger side door. I think her lips move in the form of brava! but I can't be sure. She turns the car off and begins climbing out of her seat and over the to passenger side. The cozy dashboard cat just watches. She twists and turns and removes herself from the cinquecento with two purses on her arm, knee high boots, short skirt, and an elegant, black long coat. She retreats just enough to fetch the cat. Outside the car, she has the glorious look of victory written all over her face. She reaches back into the car with cat, snuggles and kisses the cat and returns to the street.
We spectators are as proud and amused as she is by this endeavor. She waves her one catless arm up and does a little curtsy while shouting, "Merci" to the French man and continues to laugh. She then says, "This-a is-a Roma, you know-a!"
I can't take this anymore. After the entire performance she ends with "This-a is-a Roma, you know-a!" I'm crying at this point and my abs have had a better workout than even Abs of Steel could have given them. My dad is doing that silent laugh/crying thing and my mom looks like she could fall off her chair any second. It was a wonderful last night together in Rome for us.
As she entered the residential building, I realized she lives in my friends' building. I went home with the lingering question of, "How can I become friends with a goof ball woman like that?"