The May Day celebrations are in full swing here. I can hear them.

I wish I couldn't, but I can.

When I say we live in the center, I mean it. Smack dab between the castle and the cathedral. It's a nice place to live, usually. On Sundays, for example, when everything in other parts of the city is closed, there are always caf�s and restaurants open, sometimes even shops. We live close to Messagarie Musicale (with the best selection of books and mags), FNAC and Virgin Records. All of which are open when other shops are not, and later as well. The same with the flagship store of La Rinascente, the best department store in Italy. We can watch the fireworks over the castle from our bedroom window.

We're near La Scala opera house and the Galleria. THE Galleria, after which all others are named. Not a good place to shop, unless you're willing to spend vast sums for a dinky handbag at Prada. Which I'm not, but if I were there's another, better Prada store on Via Montenapoleone. Not that that doesn't stop the Japanese tourists from taking each other's picture in front of the Galleria branch, proudly displaying the Prada labels on their shopping bags. Aside from that, these days the Galleria contains only a few bookstores, a few jewelry stores, a travel agent, a record store (with another entrance on the Piazza Duomo), a Telefono Italia outlet containing a bank of payphones, a Levi store that no one ever goes into, McDonald's (quel suprise!)and a handful of criminally overpriced caf�s with the best floor show in town.

What the Galleria is is the living room of Milan. I go through there at least once a day, almost always on my way to somewhere else. I never cease to be amazed at how many people I run into, and never fail to see a slew of people running into a slew of other people that they know. Oh, and the Japanese tourists armed with cameras outside of Prada, and tourists of all description spinning around three times, heel firmly planted on the balls of the bull in the middle of the floor. For luck, you know. (I've done it, too: sometimes you just have to be silly. It's good for you.)

I love the Galleria, despite the pigeons and the pushy poeple collecting for "charity".

There are drawbacks, of course, to living where we do. There are no grocery stores close by, or cobblers. The one dry cleaner in my neighborhood charges prices so high for service so bad, I suspect he is going directly to Hell. Everytime one of the local football (ie. soccer) teams plays a foreign team, the streets teem with drunken, obnoxious, loud fans. There are tourists everywhere, which generally isn't too bad, but can get annoying-- depending on the toursist in question. There is a hotel in our building, and the guests invariably fail to close the elevator door. (When the elevator door is not closed, that elevator stays put. We live on the top floor.) When they have street parties or demonstrations, we hear them.

Hoo boy, do we ever.

This year, they have a band with some serious amplifiers and no discernible talent.

Woe are we.

They started off with reggae. Not bad. Then some sort of dance music. Bad. What was worse is that they kept edging up the volume. Some rap, reminding us all that Italians really shouldn't rap, for the simple reason that they are unable to do so. And then, the coup de grace: "I Feel Looo-ooo-ooo-ooove, I feel looo-ooo-ooo-ooove, I feel love." I can't remember who does this song, but I know it well. You do to, I'll bet: that was the chorus. I'm not sure there are any verses. If there are, they're certainly incidental. I really should know who sings it (besides these bozos), but I suspect my failure to recall is an act of mercy of some sort. In any case, it physically hurts. I winced, Elvis winced, Calliope ran and hid under the bed.

I feel pain.

Speaking of Calliope, I've gotten better at foaming the cat.

She's not gotten any better at being foamed, but I'll take what I can get.

She's slowed down on the hair loss, which makes it easier for me to hold on to her. Previously, she'd squirm a lot and I'd be left with a large tuft of hair and a hand full of foam. Mind you, there are still an awful lot of tufts of hair, rolling along the tiled floor of our apartment like tumbleweeds. Oh, I vacuum, but they drift off.

It's nothing new. This apartment is covered with hair, cat and human. Elvis sheds as well, which is something they never warn you about when you marry a hirsute man.

Speaking of Elvis, he's discovered my swiffing habit. Not that he thinks I should be using a broom and whistle while I do it. I have RSI, and my wrists can't really stand up to much sweeping action. Swiffers, on the other hand, are just the ticket for yours truly. Wrap a swiffer-cloth around the wide eraser like head of the swiffer mop, scoot it around the floor, throw it away when finished. More expensive than a broom, but a godsend nevertheless and not the reason why Elvis is unhappy.

No, this is something else.

Swiffers were unleashed on the consuming public while we were living in Germany. And the marketing geniuses (geniui?) at Swifferco decided that the best way to promote their life-changing product was to pay the German transport agencies money so that they could stick Swiffer Stickers all over everything. They were brightly colored, quite large, and absolutely everywhere. All over the walls. All over the kiosks. All over the floors of the train stations, the steps and stairs, and the train platforms. All over the trains. Those damn annoying stickers became ubiquitous. There was no escape.

After a while, of course, they got dirty. Perhaps the Swifferco people were supposed to remove them, but they never did. So they stayed around forever, grimy and ugly and nasty. Not the best advertisement for a cleaning product, don't you think?

"You are not to buy Swiffers," said Elvis. "Ever."

I agreed. They annoyed the hell out of me, too.

We had carpet, then.

Time passed, we moved to Italy, and I forgot all about Swiffers and their idiot Swiffer-Stickers.

Not Elvis, and he has decreed No More Swiffers. So, No More Swiffers.

I went out and bought a rival, anti-swiffer, instead.

Pronto.

But what am I going to call it, if I can swiff no more? Pronto-ing, or even pront-ing, just doesn't have the same ring. "Dusting the floor" sounds like something my grandmother would have said, or my mother. My mother will clean, dust, polish, sweep, sand-blast or acid-bath anything and absolutely everything. The woman has white curtains in her garage. Lacy ones, and No, it's not a converted garage. It's a garage used to park cars and garbage cans and the lawnmower. She is obsessed, but I am certainly not.

I'll have to think about this. I do not like to perform a task that I cannot name.

Suggestions?