Pavia is green and lush, and humid and sweaty. The rice fields have been planted and are in various stages of harvest. On my train ride I see thousands of fields, some flooded, some overturned, some already sprouting with rice shoots.
Rice is coming and that means mosquito season is about to kick into full-swing, and this is when we again offer homage to the “Window Screen God” which is present in our current apartment, and wasn’t in our previous one. I remember laying on the bed, a hot July afternoon in the old apartment. We had the windows thrown open, the metal Venetian blinds completely down and covering the windows externally, the precious 1cm holes letting in little air and seemed to suck out what was remaining. We dared not raise the window and even lit a few mosquito repellent coils I remember using while in Fiji.
The mosquitoes entered our room anyway, and at one point we counted about twenty hovering near the ceiling light, and who knows how many had already used our bodies as blood transfusion stations.
So we’re glad to have some screens this year.
I have mentioned rice in Pavia before, but I found some additional information out – the fields have been in use for over 300 years! And Pavia is actually the “rice capital” of Italy with its “78,000 hectares of paddy fields.” Well done!
Finally, I’m not really considered a food blog (though I love the subject above all others) but I thought I would participate with other Food Bloggers in the world (led by Chez Pim) today, “No Food Blogging Day” and spread the word about the Network Neutrality push that’s going on in the States. You can get some more information about it at the site: Save the Internet.com or Don’t Regulate.org or Don’t Mess with the Net.
Basically, right now all data transferred over the Internet is considered equal, from Bill Gates’ 2007 budget email to your e-card to your cute little pug dog. A bill in Congress wants to give precedence to some organizations (paid, obviously) to have bandwidth over other, private users (you and me).
What does that mean? Your You-Tube video will suck. This blog will load after the advertisements on your CNN page load. And who knows when that email asking that cute girl out for this weekend when you have an extra ticket for the concert will get delivered?
Inform yourself, then act.
Don’t Regulate.org is actually a front by telecommunications companies to stop net neutrality. They’ve been very sneaky at creating fake grassroots organizations to confuse people. Read more about it here.
You’re right!! Oops. I saw the flash start with “Save the Internet” and thought it was similar.
yay for window screens! i suggested it to my husband the other day–“wouldn’t it be nice to have screens?”–and he responded by having no clue what i was referring to. Ugh.
thanks for the Network Neutrality info.
-Jackie