Aspetta un attimo. Te ne preparo un po'.

[barcarolle]

English Translation

Wait for a while. I’ll make you some.

I’ll make . Preparerò?

[sindaco]

I made a bit of a mess of the formatting, please see the post below, since I don’t seem to be able to delete this post, sorry.

[sindaco]

In Italian the present tense can also be used for events in the (near) future.

Not sure about the credibility of these sources, but just to give some idea about this, a quick search on this turned up the following:

Here:

In the spoken language, the futuro semplice is often replaced with the present tense to:

• refer to the future:

Il corso intensivo di italiano comincia domani - The intensive Italian course starts tomorrow|
Mi sposo tra due settimane - I am getting married in two weeks|

• say what you are about to do:

Pago io! - I’ll pay!

• ask for suggestions:

Cosa facciamo? - What shall we do?

Here:

The Present Tense: * IL PRESENTE

The Italian Present Tense is used to render the following scenarios:

• Generic statement: I speak
• Continuous action in the present: I am speaking
• Future action: I will speak
• Intentional action: I am going to speak

In all these cases we would simply say:
IO PARLO

And a very interesting one with little diagrams showing timelines of past, present, and future and how the correspond to the various Italian tenses, here:

1. MODO INDICATIVO PRESENTE

The present indicative expresses a fact, tells what usually happens, what is happening now, and general truths.

In addition, the Italian present tense is often used to refer to the immediate future and also refers to the past, which is called the historic present.

[barcarolle]

Sindaco! Thank you for posting your reply. It is always good to see the grammar material from other sources. I should do this work myself. For some reason , going ahead through the questions, I feel like a kid back in school with the ton of questions needing the immediate answers from the teacher. Non ci sono cure per il carattere.