Attack of the Pregnant Woman

So one of our teachers walks into a public school today and is told that she has to leave. Her crime? Being pregnant. According to the school, pregnant people cannot set foot in the place within two months before their due date and three months after the birth. Apparently this is a "legal" issue. Of course no one bothered to call her and tell her yesterday and the poor, helpless, pregnant woman had to drive (the horror!) all the way to the school, only to be turned away.

Um. OK. I can understand if you're on a PLANE close to your due date, but in a SCHOOL? It's not even that far from the hospital. So what are they REALLY worried about?

Pregnancy isn't catching.

But it's a great demonstration of how Italy sees pregnancy on all levels: sickness, risk. By the way, I was working at the same school up until the week before my baby was born last year and went back (with the baby in a marsupial) soon after. This was brought up (in a positive way) over the course of the conversation, by the school, to highlight a certain understanding that we American breeders are a little different. It didn't help our friend's case, though.

She is a libera professionista, by the way. She just opened her tax code a few months ago, she has no maternity benefits at all. She doesn't work, she doesn't get paid. So she gets none of the benefits but is penalized for two months before and three months after the birth, even if she feels perfectly fine, is healthy and WANTS to work.

That's what you get for getting yourself pregnant I suppose.* .

*Ironic statement. Sneer.

How Many Americans Live without a Dryer?

It's uncommon to have a dryer in Italy. They exist but they're not common. In fact they are famous for: using too much electricity, making colors fade, wearing clothes out before their time.

At my apartment we hang them on a clothes stand thing and put it outside in the sun during the day and in the bathroom with a dehumidifier at night (especially during the in-between season). They dry in about a day.

By the way

The apartment I was telling you about? The one that was donated? Well, it's still there, and it's still empty.

Don't buy an apartment in Italy that was donated

So here is the latest thing to worry about when buying a property in Italy: donated property. This happened to a friend of mine very recently. She was interested in buying the small apartment next to her own small apartment to join them and make a bigger space. No problem. She knew her neighbor, he had already moved and the apartment was empty. He was happy to sell it.

So they go through all of the checks and appointments and everything and just before making the final deal, the notary (they actually do work sometimes, I hear) uncovered the fact that this apartment had been donated. This is a clever way of having your apartment go under someone else's name so you can pay less tax on it than if you were to actually sell it. This works well in two situations: 1. you are so rich that you have a gazillion apartments and therefore a big enough percentage of your estate goes to your heirs that this apartment can go to whomever you want, or 2. You plan to live in the apartment you receive until you die. Then it will just pass on to your heirs and you don't have a thing to worry about.

Italian law protects the inheritance that should go to your heirs. There's no cutting your kids out of your will either. Two-thirds of your estate MUST go to them. If you try to donate your house to someone else in order to give them less, forget it. Your kids have up to 20 years after your death to get that house back, and they will. They have a right to it, especially if they didn't get that famous two-thirds (see, you can decide what you want to do with that other third, leave it to your guinea pig, but the other two are not your choice). This means that if you buy a donated house (it has happened and happened again and not come to light sometimes until the third owner after the donor gets the place taken away from him or her by the protesting heir or heiress, even after paying market price. GULP! Big loss, people).

So, don't buy a donated apartment, but if you are absolutely convinced that you must, don't pay market price. It's a high risk investment that could (probably) get taken away from you somewhere down the line.

If you have received a donated property you are not interested in, why not rent it out? You only pay 20 percent tax on the rent you recieve. Find a small place, live the simple life, and sock money away until you can buy the place you really want.

Just a thought.

As if our taxes weren't high enough

Now the aliquota for inps is going up to 28% on Friday (from 27%). Need I remind you that a regular salaried worker pays 9%?

Thanks to our friend, Eddie, for the news. He is closing his free-lance business the day the new percentage goes into effect.

Now, the government, which is already eliminating the simple tax numbers for those of using making less than 30,000 per year because there are "too many" of us, is making it even more appealing to evade taxes.

This comes on the heels of the dread I have been feeling all morning that SOMETHING must be done to change my situation. I am already trying to think of another investment plan since I will probably never be able to retire and get anything decent from either the American system or the Italian system, both of which I have consistently paid into but by the time my bones are too brittle to do anything it will have been too few years on either side of the pond.

This is a problem. I am thinking in lots of directions and I need to put it into action within the next two to three years. Here are some of my options.

1. Try to get a job in a company (ugh, but a steady paycheck would have its own reward).
2. Open a company with some other people doing similar work so we can save on accounting and go for bigger contracts).
3. Close my Partita Iva and opt for a Co.Co.Pro contract from clients (if they agree).
4. Close my Partita Iva and make less than 5,000 euros per year (ritenuta d'acconto)
5. Move back to America and try to get a job there (but what would husband do? This would also depend on what kind of contract he has two years from now. If he has a lifetime contract by then this won't make much sense unless I get lots of money).
6. Do something to try to up my income so that I can live decently in spite of high taxes. This would mean trying to quadruple my current income.
7. Buy up apartments I can rent out or start a B&B (you can have up to 5 properties you rent out without having to open a tax number and the tax is 20%).

Some combination of these could work as well. I need to think, plan, and act. The future feels scarey and a little depressing to me right now. I need to find a solution.

The other reason I didn't care about my phone

The phone I have is this one here, only black. It cost 30 euros. No, it was free, since my grandma bought it for my husband and then he gave it to me when we got a coupon for 10 euros off the same phone (hence, that one was 20 euros). Sure, it's low-tech so I would have had to re-insert those important numbers, but really, changing phones gives me a chance to purge numbers I don't use.

Plus, I knew I could keep my old phone number. So, no biggy. I would have probably cried if I had an expensive phone like an iphone (which in Europe means you pay full price for it-- we don't have those special deals for 2-year contracts and neat phones).

By the way, I get to look (not so) cool using my hand-me-down ipod touch (it was my mom's free with her computer, she gave it to my brother, who got an iphone and gave it to me, so I'm the third owner), which I use to check my email when I can find wifi (which in Trieste is not easy. We have it at our Association even though the Italian government wouldn't let us do a hot spot because of "security reasons" effectively keeping Italy in the stone age, while in Slovenia, even restaurants owned by old people have wi-fi free for anyone). Anyway just having it balances out my loser factor of the phone pictured here and makes me look somewhat up-to-date (in an out-of-date way).

Our cousin Paolo was still in the hotel when they found it so he's got it and is on his way back to Trieste on the train with it. Yeah!

Left my phone in Rome

and, surprisingly, life has gone on all the same. In fact, maybe just a fraction of a bit better since I haven't had to hear that annoying ring (perhaps I should change it?) since I was outside of Saint Peter's on Sunday (the one free day at the Vatican museum if you can stomach the wait. I couldn't). After that I apparently put it back in my pocket in just a way that it could fall out easily as soon as I sat down on a couch at the hotel (it was found and is on its way back to Trieste).

I didn't miss it at all. Not one bit. Although I felt quite GUILTY without it. As if my not being reachable at any time of day by anyone at all in the world was some kind of sin.