I'M a cat??

With regular studying, my Italian is coming along swimmingly.  Swimmingly enough to order food like a pro and purchase vegetables and even meat at the markets, but not enough to really communicate well with the neighbors.  Therefore, I have wizened up enough to tuck the iPad (equipped with its translator app) under my arm each time I head out to interact with the neighbors.  Jessica, our young neighbor girl, loves the iPad.  She has readily accepted this tool as our way of communicating, and therefore there are now no holds barred when she wants to talk to me. 

The other day, she saw me outside on the patio shaking out a rug and hollered over to me.   (Our villa is up on a hill, our front yard shoots steeply downhill, the road is at the bottom, and on the other side of the road, Jessica’s third floor balcony is at the same height as our porch, albeit 200 yards away.  The girl can yell loudly.)  Since I was already outside, I trekked on down our long driveway empty handed.  Once through our gate, Jessica began rattling to me in Italian, and the only word I could pick out was “gatto” (cat).  Jessica had seen Fat Cat the day before, when I’d borrowed her mother’s iron and she came over to help me set it up.  So I assumed that she was referring to Fat Cat.  Concentrating as hard as I could, and trying not to be distracted by Jessica’s adorable habit of talking progressively louder and more animatedly the longer I fail to understand, I thought I picked up that she was saying she saw a cat.  Which worried me because Fat Cat is an old, pudgy, slow, docile cat that spends his days inside and would not cut it in an interaction with a scrappy Italian alley cat.  Did he wander outside while I was cleaning, and is Jessica saying she saw him?

I asked her in Italian, “You see a cat?” 
“Si!” 
“My cat??”

At this, she squealed with laughter while shaking her head, and I realized I had just said, “I’m a cat??”  So I figure, ah hell, I’d better run all the way back up the hill to the house and grab the iPad.  I did this, and in the house, I was relieved to see Fat Cat lounging in his usual spot on the couch, so then I was especially curious about what Jessica wanted to tell me.  

That, however, will remain a mystery to us all.  I returned to Jessica with the iPad open to the translator app, but the thing about the translator app is that it cannot guess at what you’re trying to translate.  If the spelling and grammar are not spot on, both parties attempting communication are still left in the dark.  And a young school-age girl who most likely speaks the Sicilian dialect at home with her family cannot be expected to flawlessly type out her thoughts in Italian onto a magic iPad machine precariously balanced in one hand while she is standing in the middle of a street.  

So.  It was time to forget the iPad and instead play the game of “put myself in her shoes.”  Why would Jessica call me over and talk about seeing a cat if my cat was inside the whole time?  Maybe she wants to come over and pet my cat!  I typed “would you like to come see my cat?” into the iPad, and while it seemed that this was a new idea to her (and not originally what she had in mind), she enthusiastically agreed.  Together we hiked up the steep driveway, into the villa, where Fat Cat eyed us curiously.  Jessica exclaimed, as most people do, how incredibly large Fat Cat is.  I laughed and agreed; Fat Cat is at least double the size of any Italian street cat Jessica’s probably ever seen.  I walked right up to Fat Cat and petted him, inviting Jessica closer, but Jessica stayed back, looking wary.  Uh-oh, I thought.  I typed in the iPad, asking if she’s allergic to cats.  She typed back, no, but she’s scared that the cat will scratch her.  (Fat Cat, during all this, hasn’t so much as lifted his head.)  Well, I thought to myself, if Jessica is afraid of cats, then coming up to see him certainly isn’t what she originally wanted.  So now what?  This poor young girl and I stood awkwardly in my dining room for a few seconds, and I started to feel like the creepy neighbor who coerces children into her home.  Must.fix.the.situation!  I decided that in the least, the best thing to do was go back outside.  Once there, I realized that our vast yard, lush with vegetation, is probably pretty cool to a kid, so I invited Jessica to come with me to see our orange trees.  I mentally congratulated myself on my quick thinking in defusing the awkward moment, and we began to chatter to each other, somewhat conversing, as she complimented me on our large, beautiful yard, and I attempted to let her know that she can come over and pick oranges when they’re ripe.

As we walked back toward the front yard, she said that she’d go now, and I bid her goodbye, still somewhat curious about her original intentions, but feeling confident about her visit and our strengthened neighborly bond.  

I got back to my cleaning, but about thirty minutes later, our bell rang, and I headed down to the gate.  Jessica and her older brother, who is probably 14 or 15, were standing there.  Jessica said something, and the only words I caught were “brother” and “cat.”  Maybe I have an insecurity complex about my grotesque cat, but I immediately assumed that Jessica had gone home and told her brother that our cat is the biggest, fattest cat that she’s ever seen ever, and that he absolutely has to see it.  Which is fine with me.  I guess there are worse things the neighbor kids could associate us with than a circus-freak humungous cat.  So, chuckling to myself, I warmly invited them up to the house.  

When we were all inside, I gestured toward Fat Cat (who had not moved from his original location), and Jessica’s brother reacted with the usual shocked response of raised eyebrows and exclamations of Fat Cat’s size.  But then he gestured toward the iPad, and after he typed, I read that he came over to apologize for Jessica bothering me earlier.  Oh no!  I type, she wasn’t bothering me at all!  You guys can come over and visit me any time.  He thanked me, and they left.  I’m left scratching my head, thinking back on the events of the afternoon and how they must have seemed to the other parties involved:

Jessica sees me outside and calls me down to talk to her. 
I don’t understand her, but I invite her up to my house.
Rather than offer her something to eat or drink, I immediately invite her to pet my cat.
She is afraid of cats, and probably regrets coming up to my house.
I show her my yard, and maybe her visit is redeemed.
Upon return to her house, her brother probably scolded her for bothering the American woman, and made her come with him to apologize to me.
This American woman greets them with a big, clueless smile and invites them up to her house.
Once again, as soon as the two are through the door, the American woman rushes over to her cat and enthusiastically invites them to do the same.
The brother acknowledges the cat, and apologizes to the American woman for his sister – mission accomplished, time to go home.

Oh my.  We’re the crazy American cat-obsessed neighbors.  I’m not sure any amount of orange-picking parties can fully erase that memorable first impression.  I can hear it now – for the next three years, any time a neighbor comes up to our house for any reason, Jessica and her brother will laugh and ask them, “I bet she showed you her cat, didn’t she??”