As I was getting into the car today, my youngest daughter looked up at me and said in her still undeveloped manner, “Why rain?” I looked up at the sky and saw blue. There were no drops on the ground. But she was right, it sounded like rain. And so […]
Yearly Archives: 2012
Considering the fact that I’ve lived outside of the US continually since 1998, I missed moment of great cultural importance when Americans started calling the guy who pours your coffee a “barista” and the sweet creamy stuff that you eat out of a cone “gelato.” Where I come from (the […]
Though I have lived in Italy for over 11 years, I have never stopped to really ask myself what this holiday Ferragosto is all about. For those of you who don’t know, Ferragosto, which falls on the 15th of August, is a national Italian holiday on which it is canonical to […]
Here in Italy during the Olympics, between one Italian exploit and the next (the Italians have been particularly strong in events involving arms, including shotguns, rifles, sabers, foils, fists, and kicks – all quite strange for such a non-aggressive nation) Apple and Samsung have been running an intense race themselves, […]
I remember four years ago watching the 100 meter final and thinking “No F-ing Way, no man can win the finals that easily.” I remember then waiting around with intense anticipation for the 200 meters and for the relay, which had at that point, for me and everyone else, become […]
My grandmother Penny, born 1900, was an instructor at a women’s college in Michigan in the 1920s. Her subject? Home economics. Back then, this really meant something more than the classes that I and so many others had to sit through for a quarter credit in Junior High. It meant […]
We were out on a traditional fishing boat recently checking out a fabulous tour of the Cinque Terre, when we got to talking fish with the boat captain, Angelo. He’s the latest in a long line of fishermen that goes back ten generations in Monterosso, so he ought to know […]
This year’s Festa del Mare in Levanto is upon us. Though there have been a few related happenings in the preceding days, the real action gets started tomorrow, Tuesday July 24, and has it’s big finish on Wednesday July 25. Those of you who have seen video of Italian Sea […]
I don’t remember the last time I was out on a pedalò, but I suspect I was just a kid, and the location was some kind of artificial lake in Connecticut or Texas or in Central Park for all I know. But I’ll admit, I wasn’t exactly bursting with […]
We spend a lot of time promoting boat tours of the Cinque Terre, but the truth is that we personally don’t do any of them. (Would you really trust the guy on the left to drive your boat?) We are neither mariners, nor navigators, nor nostromo. But we have a […]