Rosso di sera, bel tempo si spera

Red sky in the evening, hopefully good weather the next day. This italian proverb always comes to mind on evenings like these, especially if bad weather has been keeping us indoors. Well so far being stuck at home is the least likely thing to happen, and bad weather my hinie. January has been extraordinarily serene from day one. No snow, 99.9% sunny days, and a spurt of spring-like temps (55°F) that has tricked the trees into budding new tips. We should be hiking atleast every other weekend but we haven't, so for trail enthusiasts I'm mentioning Richard's blog Pranzo di Lavoro. Given his location, I'd say that we're practically neighbors, and the title refers to the lunch menu created specifically for those during a work week. Read the About page for details - he has an interesting blog.

At the carwash...actually it wouldn't hurt to have some rain

It's a superstitious notion that doesn't always work, and while we weren't intentionally trying to invoke heaven's floodgates to suddenly burst open on Sunday, seeing rainclouds on the horizon wouldn't have been such a bad thing. The next water bill is going to be astronomical if these dry conditions keep up (our fruit trees are already pushing new buds), so it's either more car washes or doing a rain dance.

Self-service car washes - atleast from what I see around here - are big business. It seems that they're all over in Lombardy and get pretty busy on the weekends. They're definitely a man thing as I rarely see a woman wielding the soap brush wand and water nozzle (maybe they're just cruising through tunnel washes, who knows). Many, if not all, self-service places open 24 hours every day of the week. It comes to about 1.50€ if you do the whole prewash, soap, rinse, wax, tire rims and final rinse but we end up paying double since the suv needs twice the amount of work. You have about 30 seconds for each "phase" of the washing routine, and there is no pause button in the event the cellphone starts ringing. I am not ashamed to admit that our set of wheels is a poster child for auto care neglect. We have better things to do, uhm, like going to sagra events and hiking. It smells like dog most of the time, but the worst part is the stuff that falls into the little nooks and crannies.

The one place where the size of the parking space trumps those at the shopping centers.

Lavatappeti (lah-vah-tah-PEH-tee)/carpet washer and aspiratore/vacuum sign that looks like it gushes water instead. Insert carpet in top slot, step on pedal to initiate. Carpet slides out at the bottom. Repeat until clean. I've never seen these in Hawaii!

The air freshener machine was another service that I had never seen before either. They should have scratch-n-sniff decals so you could test a scent first. It was dispersed via nozzle in a fine mist (30 seconds of misting seems like forever when you're waving that wand around like the fairy godmother and also breathing in that stuff). Citrus cologne, Orient breeze or Flower garden. As for the dogs, they don't know it yet, but they'll get their turn at the groomer's this coming weekend.