April 1
Felice has much to say about the lemon tree. First, he told us the pot was too small. He was right. It overwhelmed the terra cotta pot that held it for the winter in the sheltered space behind the house under the bathroom. Now that it is in a new bigger pot, he tells us we should feed it sapone (soapy water). Today, after we tell him that our neighbor thinks we should graft it, he thinks we should give it a major haircut. There are no blossoms but plenty of leaves. So I agree and Roy hands him the thin Japanese saw. Felice knows just where to cut. Now the tree is much shorter, but he assures us this will work. The leaves are relegated to the compost pile.

I am so proud of the tomato seeds that have sprouted in the guest bedroom window, that I take one of the containers out to show him. He laughs his gravelly laugh and his eyes light up. We promise him two plants, from two different varieties. In one or two weeks, after the last danger of frost has passed, they will be ready to plant outside. This morning, Felice slowly walks to the compost area, nearby the spot against a new tufa wall where the tomatoes will grow, and prepares their bed. He weeds, turns the soil, and I stand and imagine fifteen or so heirloom tomato plants - our very first vegetables ever! .

April 2
Today we went to our first funeral in the village. Village funerals are very important in Italy. Everyone, yes everyone, in the village attends. Those who live in the village part time, former residents, everyone attends. It is an important aspect of Italian culture. .

The man was the father in law of our Vigili Urbani (local policeman). We did not even know his first name, nor could we have recognized him on the street. Young by Mugnano standards, the man was 78 and had been ill for ten years. We heard of him from Lore and Alberto, who told us that he had been a very good muratore and was the first friend they had when they arrived in the village 25 years ago. .

The sun was hot at 1:45 pm when the bell of the main church began to peal. We walked down Via Mameli slowly, our feet touching the pavement in time with the mourn of the bell. Half way down the block, a neighbor descended her staircase while stretching the jacket of her knit suit over her head and shoulders like a descending parachute on its way to earth. Usually she wears bright red. Today, she was dressed in a claret color. She looked over at us and asked solemnly if we were going to the funeral. We agreed and walked slowly with her. .

Up in the village square, we could not help noticing an eerie silence. Hushed tones and hugs, glassy-eyed stares at invisible distant points, people were anxious. It was obvious to us wherever we looked. They are always there for each other, just as upon their death these same people will be there for them. Five minutes before three pm, Don Luca drove up in his black station wagon, followed by the hearse and then another station wagon with the family of the deceased. .

We stood by the fountain next to the tiny church in the main square, allowing friends and relatives room inside. We stood and talked with Lore and Alberto during the service, and afterward followed near the end of the procession to the cemetery. We ended our involvement near our house, along with a few others. A few minutes later, as we stood on the street talking with Maria, shiny lights shone through the trees on the edge of the road going up to the cemetery. The lights were the reflections of cellophane covered flower arrangements in the arms of family after family, who walked to the final resting place of the deceased. They appeared like jewels in a moving necklace behind the trees, silent but purposefully paced in time with the drone of the voices of the villagers in loud prayer. .

Alessandro is our insurance broker in the next town. There has been much gossip about him, but then Attigliano is a gossipy town. He tells us about his partner and partner's wife, who have divorced. She worked in the office and we liked her very much. Evidently the people in the town talked about her behind her back and for over a year she was very unhappy. She has gone back to a nearby town to live with her family and we wish her well. .

In Attigliano on a day or two before or meeting with Alessandro, a man of 72 shot two women and then committed suicide. I will have to get the story from Michelle, who keeps close to all the news of the town. When we drove home from Attigliano later in the afternoon, we drove by scores of people in the street, just standing around, talking and staring. A few minutes later, as we passed by the entrance to the cemetery, we saw three hearses followed by hundreds of people descending the path from the hill of Attigliano. Everyone turns out for a funeral, no matter the cause of death or closeness to the deceased. .

Alessandro tells us a story of the new young woman in his office, who he thinks is quite "clever". We would never think of describing a person as "clever" unless they were particularly resourceful. .

The Italians like to use the word "clever". It makes sense. Many, many Italians are clever. An Italian makes a hobby of skirting around the Italian "system" and finding a way to get what he wants. He tells us of the difference between working for the state and working for a small company. In a small company, the owner watches over your shoulder. "What are you DOING?" .

When working for the state, he describes your job as follows: 8:30 AM - buy two papers, the pink sports paper and the regular news paper. Put one under each arm. Go to the office and get a cup of espresso. You must digest your coffee, so sit down and open a paper. Read one until 10 AM and it is time for your coffee break. After the break, digest your espresso by reading the other paper. At about eleven AM, do a little work. At twelve, look at your watch and it is almost time for pranzo. At quarter to one get ready to leave. At one leave for lunch and so on and so on. .

Alessandro also tells us that employees of the state take anything that is not nailed down. Well, sometimes they take things that are nailed down, too. Every two years, offices are re-outfitted with new desks. If you like your desk, it can somehow disappear from the inventory. Also, staplers, paper, pencils, every kind of supply you can mention winds up in the homes of the employees. They are all very "clever". .

Before going home, we cross the street to the jeweler, who has taken our new brass ID marker that goes below the doorbell on the pillar to be inscribed with our names. She calls it a "banana" because it is curved...like a banana. It will be at least two weeks before we can mount the "banana", because the front gate has to be installed and the electricity finished first. We are still hoping to be done with the project by May 3rd, the start of the weekend of our village festa. We will see....

April 3
Stefano and Luca prepare the fiorieras (tufa planters) and set them on top of the tiles looking down upon the parking area. They are quite wonderful. It starts to rain, so we will plant the roses and rosemary in them in a few days. We hope Stefano will return on Monday to finish the rest of the work. It should take about another month. .

April 4
Mario arrives with a special shovel. It has a metal rod on the right side that he can put his foot onto, pushing the shovel into the earth firmly. Roy is covetous and impressed. Roy and Mario work the soil on the terrace until it is at the right level for the boxwood and gravel. He plants the roses and rosemary in the fiorieras. Then he asks us if we will plant grass on the terrace. He hopes so. Roy tells him, "We will have gravel." Mario puts his index finger into his cheek with a sign of disdain. "You can think grass, but it will be gravel." Mario shakes his head in agreement, a little downcast. After he leaves, we put the climbing roses in the ground where we will later plant them: two by the rose arch and four below on the path. Stefano needs to finish the pointing of the wall before we plant below, and Virgilio must install the iron fencing before the rose arch is finished. .

April 5
The satellite dish stopped working last night, but luckily we had an appointment this AM with someone to move the dish, so they came and fixed whatever was not working. The dish is now almost totally obscured from view behind the laurel tree, which seems to have grown enormously this past winter. This wonderful tree will give us lots of lovely shade in the heat of the summer. Duccio arrives for pranzo with guests from America. We give them a proper Italian pranzo and the n walk through the village. It is a beautiful day. And then an afternoon wind whips up from the west and tells us a change is in the air. .

April 6
It is overcast in late afternoon, after a day of clear blue sky. The clouds come quickly in Italia, so quickly that a sunny day can turn into a whirling windswept storm scene followed by claps of thunder and rain in less than half an hour. Today the clouds are delicate, except for one hovering dirty grey mass. After church and watering and feeding all the roses, we drive to Giove to see a little dog who turns out to be not so little and visit with new friends. From there we drive to Montecchio. Why, you say? Well, we have never been there. .

Home late afternoon and now that it is daylight savings time we have until about seven PM to garden. We take the square handmade screen, bound in long tiny branches from the plum tree, which was used to dry the nocciole (hazelnuts) from the fall harvest, to the new property. Roy moves a wheelbarrow left by the previous owners next to our raised planting bed, and we begin a joint project to sift through the soil and rocks and weeds that tumbled down from the tufa wall cleaning last week. .

April 7
The day is beautiful, cool and clear. Roy goes to Terni to have the car serviced and I sleep in a little. I turn on CNN to hear what has happened in Iraq overnight, eating a delicious cherry youghurt while leaning against the marble sink. Are we liberating or conquering Iraq? After some young soldiers get a dressing down by their officers for raising American flags from their tanks upon entering Baghdad, the situation calms down a little. .

After taking some fresh wash out of the loggia to dry, I come upon Felice, who appears at the top of the stairs. Startled, I almost drop the laundry and then we both laugh. He tells me tomorrow late afternoon we will plant the tomatoes in the ground, and goes to get his hoe from one of the tufa caves to ready the holes to plant. I can hardly contain myself I am so excited to show him our terra buona. He laughs his Felice laugh as we bend down to take a handful each of our prized soil. "Buona!" He is very impressed. I then show him the sifter I have made and motion what we have done. He laughs again, but I can see him beam with pride. His students are doing good work. When I ask him what he thought about last night's rain, he smiles and says it was not really much rain. He shrugs his shoulders, in that way Italian men do so well. .

Roy comes home around noon, not very happy. Because of the rain, Stefano will not be back to work on our project until possibly next Monday. Even more bad news. Virgilio will not be ready with our fence and gate until the second week of May, after the festa. He has hurt his back and has much work backlogged. It is a disappointment, but we are so used to the property in turmoil that a few more weeks are not a really big deal. I feel badly for Roy. He so wanted to have the project done for the festa. .

I have made a fresh red peper and fennel sauce this morning for the polenta that I cooked a few days before. Roy grills the polenta with a brush of olive oil and adds some grated Parmegiano after it is turned. Just as we sit down with the polenta and a green salad, there is a knock on the door. .

It is Don Luca, the priest, with Livio. They have come to bless the house! I can hardly believe it. I have heard such things happen in Italy, but only upon request. I don't really know what to do, so I just swim along with the tide. They come into the kitchen and I offer them pranzo, which they decline. I am so glad that I made a real Italian meal for pranzo. Don Luca puts his head over Roy's dish and smiles. "Polenta, eh? Buon pranzo!" Of course we do not eat, but follow him around the house as he blesses it room by room. When he is upstairs, Roy brings him back again into the guest bedroom to show him the tomatoes growing in the window. It is only later that Roy tells me that he wanted to make sure that Don Luca did not think we were growing marijuana! In fact, Don Luca blessed the tomatoes, after we told him we would plant them domani. .

They smile, shake our hands and leave. It all happened so quickly. Then Roy sits down to eat and says, "Where were we?" It is a truly great meal. All the while, My head spins thinking about Don Luca here in our house. Our house is now blessed! .

April 8
Everything is bursting with blooms here. It is all quite amazing. We are at a time before all the mildew and black spot and spider mites appear, so everything is fresh and beautiful. All the birds are back. I cannot imagine not being here at this time of year. All the fruit trees that bloom in the Bay Area in February have just bloomed (pear and peach and plum wherever we look). And the iris is in full flower on the path below. We replanted most of the iris that was in the garden when we moved here in a windy row along the edge of the path facing the street, and it is quite a remarkable site. .

Felice just arrived to tell us that we will not plant tonight. We had frost last night and we will try again in four days. .

I call Alberto in Rome. He is sleeping, because it is after pranzo. Si certo! I tell Lore I have called because it is the feast day of Saint Alberto. She is so amazed that I know. "You are so Italian! How did you know?" I admit the name appeared on my planting calendar. Italian people take their saints very seriously. After a morning of phone calls, Alberto has had enough and has retired to his room. He will surely reappear in time for some celebratory spumante. .

April 10
School was cancelled for the day. We decided to drive to a town north of Perugia, to look at some marble sinks and outdoor tables and furniture. We are now sourcing antique garden statuary, mantels, old wood beams and floors, antiques, etc. for Jim Bolen, an Interior Designer in San Francisco, so took advantage of the bad weather. Jim's site is www.bolendesign.com. When you enter the site, click on Vintage Gardens and you'll find photos of things we've found for Jim. Spread the word. People can buy the things they find on the site and Jim and we will arrange the delivery. We'll write more about it as time goes on. Let us know what you think. .

We returned through Chiusi, and went to Vivai Margheriti, one of the largest Vivaio's in Northern Italy. We had been looking for boxwood, and were unable to find it from Michelini in Viterbo. This vivaio has 150 hectares of land. It is an amazing place. We found the 12 boxus sempervirins we needed, and had just enough room in the trunk. When we arrived home, however, we realized we purchased the wrong boxwood. There are a few kinds of boxus sempervirins, and we needed "linearfolia". So tomorrow we will return them and hope they have what we need. .

Roy is in heaven. We went to a huge store called Gran Casa, also north of Perugia, and he found the metal piece to attach to his shovel, similar to Mario's. It is a guy thing but he is very happy. I am happy. .

We had a great lunch at Il Restoro, a trattoria on a back road on the way to Chiusi, where we were served tiny gnocci al sugo and frito di mare on plastic bowls and plates. What a wonderful meal. To order, we stepped into a little room to tell them what we wanted, but to eat we sat under a huge heated canopy, closed on the sides. Almost every table was taken. The rain pounded on the roof of the room, but everyone seemed happy inside. The rain was so loud we could almost hear, "I'll huff and I'll puff and I'll blow your house down!" We left as the rain took a breath. Dark, dark clouds followed us all the way home. .

We took another detour to look at a run down farmhouse in Chiusi, which new friends David and Alexandra are in the midst of buying. They asked for our opinion. Looking up to it from the main road is very impressive. It is three stories tall, on a high hill. Once there, however, all the windows and doors were open. It is an enormous project. Once finished, it will be a great place for people to stay, with lovely views and close proximity to the train station and all of Tuscany and Umbria close by. Chiusi is at a crossroads at the bottom of Tuscany. They intend to rent it out (There will be three apartments and they will live in one and rent out the other two.) It is a good thing they are young and adventurous. We look forward to bringing them picnic lunches and giving them advice and hugs. We are not so sure we will be able to do any of the hard labor they will need. .

April 11
Back to Chiusi. We returned the boxwood, but were not able to find the size of the kind we needed. So we bought dinky little ones, which will take a year or two to amount to anything. We have time. Hopefully at least 30 years. So waiting and clipping for a year or two is not a big deal. .

It is SO COLD here. On two different nights, we had a cold, hard frost that did some damage to buds and leaves on both caki trees and a hydrangea bush, as well as a few new boxwood. The tomatoes are definitely staying inside. I feel like an over-protective mother who is demanding her children go out in Michelin-man winter jumpsuits with long woolen mittens that clip right inside the sleeves. No way are those tomatoes going to be subjected to frost. .

It is time I give credit where credit is due, to our dear pal, Peggy Murphy. On Saturday, September 8, 2001, Peggy joined us to go to the Kendall-Jackson Heirloom Tomato Festival in Napa County, CA. The day was gorgeous, the sun as ripe and full as a tomato ready to burst it's skin. By the time we were ready to go home, we had tasted at least 25 varieties of tomatoes and had bought seeds of those varieties we liked the best. We also snuck a few seeds from particularly delicious tastings in napkins, and Peggy labeled them secretly in her purse. Three days later, tragedy struck in New York. The seeds, which we have begun to plant here in Italy, are all called "Innocence". That weekend, we believe, was our country's collective loss of innocence. We hope to preserve even a little of that day, and that time, in the growing of these wonderful heirloom tomatoes. Right now they move to and fro on the table in the guest bedroom, depending on the sun. The tallest ones are at least 6 inches tall. Watch for photos soon. .

April 13
It is Palm Sunday, and we go to church to see how the local Italians celebrate the mass. Inside, no one is in the church, except for two women who don't go to church often. After a few minutes, someone comes in and tells us we need to go to the other church in the village for the procession. The other women each have olive branches. We did not know, and feel silly that we did not bring ours. .

We walk down the narrow street to the bigger church, which has been closed for some time because it needs restoration, including a new roof. Our village is a poor one, and has not been able to raise the €50,000 for the roof. Its front steps are covered with beautiful plants, as though the people are saying to the derelict building, "We love you anyway". .

All of a sudden, dozens of people arrive, including Don Luca and the new priest. Some have olive branches, but there are plenty of branches on a table next to the steps of the church. These are passed around by the six men in red and blue cloaks who are special members of the church, called the confraternity. They are called upon on special occasions for manly kinds of things, like carrying the life-size statue San Liberato through the streets. Roy and I each are given an olive branch, prayers are said and we walk in two lines to our church. Religious events are about the only ones where Italians agree willingly to fall in line. .

We are two of the last people to enter the tiny church, and are sure that we will need to stand. An amazing thing has happened. Our two seats on the aisle remain empty! Every day we have more and more to be thankful for. This sign of our acceptance by the villagers thrills us. .

After the service, we walk home and get into our gardening gear. There are many things to do. We are reminded that days follow one upon another, each one the same except for Sunday, when we begin our day with mass. So we are back to sifting the dirt. After church Felice tells us that he is sure that Monday night we will plant the tomatoes at 5 P M. It is a long but rewarding day of gardening, and we plop down on the couch in the kitchen just before 7 P M, thankful that we have a pot of lentils and sausage from Friday that we can heat up with a salad. .

April 14
Felice showed up at 5 P M with long bamboo poles and a huge piece of nursery cloth to protect our precious baby tomatoes. He looked "way cool"...His white long underwear shirt showed under his cobalt blue pin down collar shirt, rolled up at the sleeves, and slacks. Italian men of a certain age always wear slacks, no matter how old, whether there is or has ever been a crease in them. He had no idea he could have been right out of an ad for Ralph Lauren. Felice is the last man on earth you would suspect to be stylish, or concerned with style. But he has a personal style all his own. .

He got right to work while Roy and I ran upstairs to get the three pots of plants. Fashioning a border of bamboo about six inches above the ground on the lower side, he laid long bamboo poles at angles to reach the top of the wall above the compost area, where the tomatoes will grow. We call it the compost area, but really there is lots of room. A few days earlier he weeded and dug holes for the tomatoes, instructing Roy to water the holes the day of the planting. He attached the bamboo poles with string, making knots in just the right places. He had done this before. .

The actual planting of the tomatoes was easy. He was so gentle with them. Roy brought bucketfuls of our terra buona, fresh from our sifting piles. A big green watering can stood nearby, full of cool water. We called Felice our "insegnante" (teacher) and he teased me about being nervous. Then he gingerly scooped each tender shoot and put it in its place, adding terra buona and tamping down the soil just so. I wrote the type of tomato on a yellow stake and pressed it down into the cool earth in front of each row of plants. Altogether there are about a dozen, with two more for Felice, one for Michelle and one for Catherine. Others I thought were budding tomatoes were just weeds. Almost every seed "took". .

Felice had woven strong string all around the piece of cloth he had brought, folded neatly nearby until it was time. He showed me how he looped a carefully folded bunch of string through the cloth and around the bottom-most bamboo pole, weaving in and out. When he was done, Roy stood above and fastened the cloth to the top of the short wall with pieces of terra cotta tiles to weight the fabric down. .

Instructions were to lower the cloth down each morning, and let the tomatoes get full sun. At night, we need to put the cloth up again in its original spot. In a week, the danger of frost will be over, and the cloth will have done its job. Then it goes back to Felice. .

We kept two plants for him in a pot, just under the cloth, until tomorrow morning when he goes to his "contadina" to plant them. He wants to bring us two tomatoes of his own. Si certo! We will love this. There is room for about four or six more plants. Perhaps we will grow something else there. .

When he left, Foce was standing in the alley between our property and his garage doing the most amazing thing. He had a single metal bed, leaning against his garage at a strange angle. The mesh in the bed was small, but not small enough for the job he was doing...sifting dirt to get terra buona! His system was to throw a shovel-ful of dirt onto the top of the bed, watch it either go through or fall down to the bottom. Then he'd take the earth again and throw it up again. What he had on the inside of the bed against the garage wall was pretty good looking soil. A strange process, but then again, people who work the land have their own ways of doing things. I will say that at that moment the new round metal strainer we bought a few hours earlier with handles, and a mesh shaped like a funnel, looked awfully sophisticated. The mesh was smaller in diameter than my handmade strainer, but much sturdier. .

April 16
A day in Rome. We had not gone to Rome for at least six months. It was time to go to the dentist and do some shopping for fabric and a Catholic missal in English. W need to compare the English and Italian language missals side by side to figure out what is going on in church. We must conquer this language thing. This will help. The teeth cleaning is easy. €65 each. The round trip and day pass with all busses and subways is €8 each. One bag of brown sugar at Castroni. A birthday gift for Loredana. We are done shopping early. Pranzo and then a train home. We drive up to our house to find the pavement cement starting. The workers finish as it gets dark, with Roy's work light hanging down over a fioriera to help. Tomorrow the tiles will be laid. .

April 17
We are on the path in front of the house, watching Giovanni do a masterful job paving with the terra cotta roti in the parking area. We still do not know the name of our neighbor who loves to wear red. She is coming down the hill with a box tied with string. She holds it in her right hand. I ask her if they are potatoes to plant and she opens the top of the box to take out one of about four chickens! It is so beautiful, a grey-white with black spots. My mouth just hangs out. I realize she is taking them down to her contadina to wring their necks. She laughs sweetly at my horrified expression and we let her go on her way. .

Roy has an epiphany. He tells me he knows why there are so many clothes-pins on our property near the tufa wall. Every time someone walks by and looks up at Maria hanging out her wash above us, they talk to her and, being a friendly sort, she answers, dropping the clothes-pins from her mouth. Or so Roy thinks. He is so busy figuring out all these things. .

Magari (ma-GAR-i) is a word I have heard Stefano say for weeks. I finally think to ask Roy about it. We look it up and the meaning does not translate. We ask friends, who tells us it translates most closely to "if only that were so". The word fits as a response for so many things. Try it and see....

April 18
The electricians were here this morning to finish their installation work on the project. Just as Luca was about to hammer a big hole in our beautiful tufa wall right next to the stairway, Roy hollered "Attenti!" Evidently they wanted to put a huge plastic box right at eye level as a safety gauge for the septic system. Those of you who know me know just how I would respond. I stood at the top of the wall with my arms crossed in full battle formation, and moved the index finger of my right hand like a metronome, left and right. That is the Italian signal for "no". It is a movement that looks more to me like a silent "bad boy". After a few minutes of haggling, the box was put away. Roy is now assigned to watch their every movement. .

We planted the four climbing roses on the path, in mezzo-lune planters. The flowers are quite large, about 3-4" across, a pale yellow with dark green stems and leaves touched in red. The contrast is remarkable. We will string wire to guide the roses across the wall in a few hours. I learned how to do this in one of my rose books. Instead of letting a climbing rose just grow up and up, I clip off the plastic guards on each plant, letting the branches shake themselves out. Then I find which way each branch wants to follow and guide the branches low and out across. It makes so much sense. One strong branch stays erect, at least for now. We will see if it works. .

I leave Roy to do some shopping and secretly to buy him a bocce ball set for his birthday, which is on Sunday. On the road over the hill to Uno Piu, I am slowed down by a tiny cinque cento, the old model Fiat 500. I could practically hear its engine rasping, "I think I can. I think I can", as it worked its way up the Bomarzo hill in front of me. .

Instead of speeding up and passing him, I turned on the music (soundtrack for The Pianist) and glided up the hill behind him, imagining that I was watching an old Italian film, with the little car as its star. The piano keys tinkled, the Fiat puttered, the birds sang away and my hands relaxed their grip on the steering wheel. Around a corner in front of the farmacia, a car darted out without looking. The driver in front of me threw his hands up in the air. No words were necessary. Then we moved forward, down a road lined with huge elm-like trees, their branches reaching out to greet each other way above our heads. I could now make out the shape of the driver's head. He had more ears than head. I knew this because his ears stuck out on either side of his head-rest. The hair on his head appeared like peach fuzz. At the turn to Viterbo, he took a left and I imagined him enjoying the rest of his trip in his lovely little car with the old ROMA license plate. .

Later in the day the electricians try to finish hooking up all the lights. It is 7 P M and they are still working. I stand over the sink to shell and clean the gamberoni (shrimp) for a quick pasta sauce with fresh asparagus. The electricity is turned off and on, off and on, and we all finish our projects as the sky dims. Then up the street to church and the solemn Good Friday mass. Smudge pots light our way on this silent walk. .

A statue of Jesus is laid out before the altar, with his feet facing us on a large bier. The confraternity of about a dozen men, dressed in their crimson and blue long robes, stand just in front. A friar from Vitorchiano joins Don Luca in the mass. Young Tiziano does most of the readings. After the main part of the mass, we are led out the church in a procession in two lines, led by four of the confraternity. First the women, then the priests, then Jesus on a bier held by the remaining confraternity, then the men. .

The priests lead us in prayer and voice down the hill toward Giustino's house. At the top of the rise just above our property, we follow back around and return to the church for communion and the end of the mass. The friar cautions us to return to our homes in silence, but this is too much for Roy, who thanks Tiziano for doing such a wonderful reading. We walk home under a bright oval moon past the smudge pots, thankful for living in this little village where the traditions of hundreds of years ago still remain. .

April 19
It seems like a holiday today, except that the electricians and Stefano were here again. The electricians finished their work, including stubbing off for a future fountain outside the living room window and putting lights in Roy's office, which was the former gardener's cottage. Roy is a lover of tools and puttering. Later today we strung guide wire for the roses nearby and he had just the perfect tools for each job, almost right at his fingertips...One day last week Stefano needed a tool for something he was doing and Roy had it right at hand. Stefano called him MacIver...That was so funny that Italians actually watch American television programs. MacIver, I'm told, is a man who always had lots of tools, or at least knew how to patch things together. Stefano may not speak a word of English, but he still knows American TV. .

I attended a yoga class this morning in the next town. Catherine Lombard is the yoga instructor, and I have always wanted to take yoga but was always intimidated to try it before. The classes are small, spoken in both Italian and English, and I am learning names of parts of the body in Italian as she gives her instructions. Every muscle aches these days, from bending and moving undisturbed muscles during garden projects. Soon I hope to feel more limber. I look forward to these Saturday morning sessions, and don't even want to look at my watch. The sessions are over before I know it. Catharine teaches joyously, and I am constantly amazed that after stretching one leg in these exercises, that leg seems longer than the other. .

We were invited for Michelle's birthday lunch today. Spending time at their house is always a wonderful way to pass an afternoon. Everything is so relaxed, no matter whether they entertain two or twenty-two people it always appears easy to do. .

April 20
Roy's birthday, Loredana's birthday, and Easter, all rolled into one. It is starting to rain, so we drive to church. I wear a pale blue hat like a boater. An Easter bonnet. An American tradition I am not ready to relinquish. I am the only woman in the church wearing a hat. Oh well. Everyone else is dressed in winter garb, for the weather is not friendly. .

Later we drive Lore and Alberto to NonniPappa, our favorite restaurant, for a birthday celebration. The sun clears. The restaurant is small, with big windows overlooking a campo sportivo, or man-made fishing lake. At first the restaurant is very noisy. It is difficult to talk over the din. Later, many people go outside to smoke, the children outside to play, and we can relax. A strange and wonderful philosophy exists in Italy regarding restaurants. There is one seating per meal. A bill is never brought to the table unless the customer asks for it. That would be considered rude. Lore tells us that she can cook every bit as well as a cook in a restaurant, so the reason to go out is that she will not have to cook and clean and serve and she can relax. We are told that waiters are paid more in Italy than in America. No wonder. It is a wonder restaurants can stay in business. .

Tonight Michelle and Claudio, their two sons and Claudio's two sisters arrive to bring Roy a birthday present and sing to him. The gift is two cd's of Italian folk music, chosen by Giordano, their son, who has downloaded them. It is wonderful to have them here. We open an Easter Colomba (special Easter cake, shaped like a dove) with tea. After they leave, we watch the opera Tosca on TV. It has been a good day. .

April 21
It is rainy again today. Too bad. Today, Pasquetta (the day after Easter), is traditionally a day of picnics for the Italians. Last night Roy covered the tomatoes, with after a warning by Claudio. This morning they all look fine, including the two that were not doing so well. We have been invited for pranzo at Lore and Alberto's, and bring a Tre Marie Colomba for dessert. .

One of the dishes is capreto, and a discussion about these baby lambs ensues. We discuss that we are eating "Spring lamb", so this delicacy is, of course, only offered in the Spring. "The capretti do not have much to look forward to", says Lore with a little laugh. I am confused. Does that mean that all lambs are born in the Spring? Roy says that the mothers cross their legs at other times of the year. I ask if there is a moment that all the adults do "baci, baci" and we determine that the date must be around Valentine's Day. Since St. Valentine was from Terni, a city near us, Alberto nods his head that that must be so. This is a very strange conversation. "So how old is a lamb when it becomes a sheep? "asks Roy. "Five months, I think," responds Lore. .

"So if you are a lamb and you hide for five months, then you are safe?" Lore: "Yes, the sheep have important jobs to do. They have wool that we shear from them, milk that we squeeze from them for cheese, to say nothing about their merde, which is used to fertilize the roses". .

For me, it still does not make sense. So if anyone knows the answer, please fill me in. This is all enough to make one a vegetarian, no? .

April 23
Stefano and Luca only work until pranzo, because this afternoon is the rehearsal for the Palio in Bomarzo. They both live in Bomarzo. (Duccio calls the people who live in Bomarzo "Bomartians" and we laugh. We don't think the people of Bomarzo would understand his little humor, even though he is one of them. He has such a dry wit.) Bomarzo is like a big sister to Mugnano, three kilometers up the hill toward Viterbo. .

Tomorrow is the Feast Day of St. Anselmo, the patron saint of Bomarzo, and April 25th is Liberation Day (the anniversary of the day in 1945 that WWII ended in Italy. If we were ever to fly an American flag at L'Avventura, April 25th would be the day. Roy wonders if people will thank us on Friday. .

April 25th is also the day of the Palio in Bomarzo. So the workers will not return to our project until Monday, April 28th. Do you remember that May 1 is also a holiday? Many Italian workers take what they call a ponte or "bridge" and so from Easter through the beginning of May they don't work. Well, if our workers won't work this afternoon, neither will we! We get ready to go to the rehearsal of the Palio, because we want a good parking space. We decide to get to the track where it is being held 30 minutes early. We arrive at the track, which has been engineered and graded specifically for this annual event. The location looks like a ghost town. No one is in sight. Are we in the right place? .

There are two sets of bleachers and one raised area with the ubiquitous white plastic chairs. Shelly told us that this event is one of the "practice" events before the real Palio in Sienna. The winning horses go on to compete in Sienna in July. We stand at the rail and wonder where they got the red dirt until it dawns on us that we are talking about the Sienna Palio, so of course the track is the color of Sienna, a brownish terra-cotta. .

We have no idea where we should sit, and are reminded of the time we went to the Duomo in Bomarzo for the festa for the Italian cosmonaut. We arrived early, sat in front and were thrown out just before the event because the important people of the town were going to sit there. The sweep that took place at that time made us think of a television drug raid. This time I thought, "We won't go near those chairs until more people come." .

Roy wants to sit down. He thinks it is safe to sit there, because although he looked up and saw numbers on the chairs, at closer glance the numbers were not in sequence. Happily sitting in seats 4 and 87 in the first row a few minutes later, we are reassured by the emergence of our new friend and mayor, Stefano (not the same Stefano who is our muratore). He greets us and tells us the permit for our work will come next week. Or at least that is what Roy thinks. This is the same Mayor Stefano who is willing to go to jail if something goes wrong with the original permit. Ah, Italia. .

People start to arrive, and it is now 3PM. Francesco, the Vigili Urbani, arrives, greets the mayor, "Salve, Sindaco!" and Roy tells him, "It's Salve, Signore Sindaco." Both men laugh. The mayor leaves and I ask Francesco in my quivering Italian, "A que ora...".

"Preciso, NO! Non preciso in Italia." He has no idea what time it will begin. At around 3:30, you guessed it. We are thrown out of our seats for the dignitaries. By now, the stands are half full. We find good seats in the regular stands on the aisle, and Roy goes to get peanuts in their shell, to give us something to do. Italian snack food is not like snack food in the U.S. Dried fruits, nuts, even olives! .

Two hours after the stated time of the Palio, the contest begins. This event is similar to events all over Italy during this season. The reason for the "practice" is to determine pole position for Friday's race. There are four mini races, each with four horses. Some of the riders ride in more than one race, but there are sixteen horses. All horses are ridden bareback, just as in the famous Palio in Siena. .

The Palio in Siena is held twice a year, once in July and once in August. In Sienna, 100,000 people crowd into a center oval while around them horses and their riders race to a hair-raising finish. Each rider rides for a neighborhood, or quartiere. .

Today, the "Pro Loco" (local chamber of commerce) volunteers, in their yellow vests, ready the track. A tractor pulling a strange contraption with four huge rectangular stones weighing down what looks like wrapped up wires and hay, drives across the track into the center area. This is Bomarzo's answer to an American Zamboni machine, cleaning the ice between periods of a hockey game. Between every race, the driver makes an entrance and drives his rig around the track three times, each time moving farther across until he has completely cleaned the track. .

For each race, the riders of the horses, who have chalk numbers on their rumps (not the riders, the horses), are told which horse gets the "pole" position, and the next two in sequence. The fourth rider and horse are held back, until the first three are lined up. When this happens, the fourth dashes across a rope and the rope in front of the other three horses is dropped. A shot is fired and they are OFF! .

For the first race, a rider is thrown and his horse continues the race without him, keeping up and almost winning. .

For the second race, a horse is disqualified. He is spooked by something, and won't line up. .

All the while, the people in the stands are relatively quiet. No "hoo-hoo-ing", no yelling out of any kind. But the excitement is real. There is a hush over the crowd each time a race begins. .

Once the last race is over, people get up and leave. It is all very civil. Let's see what happens on Friday...We have invited Tia, since Bruce is in the U.S., and she will bring her brother and sister in law, who are visiting from Finland. .

April 24
We have no idea when the road tax for the car is due. We think it is some time in April. Roy drives to Viterbo today to the nearest ACI (Automobile Club of Rome), where we have a membership. The women there behind the desk are all beautiful, dressed so well that he is sure they compete with each other as if a daily prize is offered for the most beautiful and stylish donna. .

Bella figura (to make a good impression) is very important in Italy, especially in the cities. Lore tells us a story of a woman who wakes up from a dream and is so horrified she has to tell her best girl friend. "Tell me! " her friend demands, leaning forward to hold her by the shoulder. .

"Well, I was walking down the street naked." .

"How terrible!" her friend responded. .

"Not that! I was wearing a hat that was last year's fashion!" .

We are lucky that in Mugnano there is no fashion to worry about. No competition, unless it is for the best homemade wine. .

Back to Viterbo, Roy pays the tax with no problem, but when he returns home we discuss the women. We also remind each other that the women behind the counter at Salute (the place where we pay our medical fee each January and get our annual blood tests), dress fashionably and are impeccably groomed, even at 7:30 in the morning. Bella figura counts at work, we surmise. Not being working sorts any more, this kind of competition escapes us. .

Roy drives to Continente/Pianeta/Le Clerk (every year the name is changed) to buy his favorite scotch. Standing in the line for "less than ten" items, he is reminded by the check-out woman that he is the last in line before the line is cut off. The light above him turns to red. I am reminded of those lights at the Bay Bridge Toll Plaza in California, telling the driver which lanes are open. .

A woman comes to stand behind Roy. He is not paying attention. He turns around to see her, and tells her in his best Italian that he is the last in line. This is an important duty, and Roy has the power to dismiss anyone who thinks they can stand behind him. .

She answers, "Si" as though, "Poor slob, he must be demented." She stands firm. Roy cannot dissuade her. A few minutes later, the check out girl clues her in. "Via, via!" Why is it that even when we speak Italian, strangers know we don't have a clue? Or even when we do, they just can't believe it? .

Later in the day, Roy works on the new screens. Pull-down screens come in kits, for the equivalent of $45 per window. This is a great price, until Roy realizes he will have to hacksaw off a piece, and get through the convoluted directions. An hour later, a screen is up in the bedroom window. I am thrilled. No more two-part screens. The vista is now what it should be. And tonight at 11:30 we will watch the fireworks from Bomarzo from our bed. It doesn't get much better than this....

April 25
Liberation Day in Italia. It is a grand day, with tractors in parades and the Italian flag proudly displayed. The Italian flag is almost never displayed as the American flag is in the U.S. To be safe, we only fly the bandiera of the festa during one week of the year. Blue and a reddish-rose, we will take our three bandieras out in a few days. The first weekend in May is our first of two village festas each year. .

Last night we had an incredible view of the fireworks. A warning bang! went off around 11:45. The actual fireworks started sometime after midnight. With one eye open each, we watched the spettacolo from our pillows. How incredibly decadent. .

This morning, we drove to Montecastrilli, to attend an hour or two of their festa. Thanks to Roy's great parking karma, we parked next to the tent where the little animals were displayed. This is the most popular part of the mercato. From one end of the tent to the other are stacked peacocks, roosters, hens, chickens, baby chicks, rabbits, song birds, tropical birds and feed. .

People with box after box leave the tent, with poke-holes that remind me of our neighbor's chickens. I wrote a few days ago that they took their last ride when Luigina(Felice told me today that is her name) passed by our house a few days ago on her way to her contadina. The lipstick red of these cock-combs, the wide range of colors and textures of the chickens and hens and roosters, made for a great show. It was only when I looked at the frightened eyes of the rabbits that I realized how macabre this tent is. One lovely fawn colored rabbit struck me as being particularly beautiful, his eyes staring straight ahead, seemingly resigned to his fate. .

We left the tent, across an area filled with a tractor driver's dream. Wall to wall tractors and farm machinery in red and yellow and green. One truck bed was angled back, almost two stories tall. Dozens of men strolled by, kicking tires, I suspect. .

About a block further on we found the flowers and plants we had heard so much about. Tia had told us to come here to buy the tiny plants for our verdura garden. We bought two kinds of thyme, 6 zucchini (we will probably only plant one), 5 spring onions, 6 lettuce of a type I hope is capuccia (butter lettuce), presemelo, 6 red peperoni, and a hydrangea plant. There was no rughetta (a sweet tasting arugula). We will look for that in Viterbo. .

Driving back through the back roads of Umbria, we stayed on the road all the way to Bomarzo to get porchetta sandwiches for lunch. .

Tia arrived with her brother at 3PM to look over the garden, and then we drove to Bomarzo to attend the official Palio di San Anselmo. It was a mob scene, but Roy dropped us off on the end of the road to the stadium. We bought reserved seats and after Roy arrived went to a vendor for peanuts and dried apricots to eat in the stands while we waited. The parade was due to start, back at the Duomo, and would finish in the stands. Since we had reserved seats now, we left to go to watch the parade on the main street. Having reserved seats reminded me of working at the performances of the Mountain Play...It all seemed so long ago. .

The town band played, but the stars of the event were the citizens of the five neighborhoods of Bomarzo, all dressed in medieval costume. Velvets, brocades, silks...boys and men wearing tights and floppy hats, looking macho as can be. The people of Italy take these festivities very seriously. I cannot imagine a teenage boy in America so dressed. This is a serious procession, a kind of theatre, and it is customary to look straight ahead, without paying attention to the people watching. .

Many bandiera (special flag) bearers appeared throughout the parade, and those from Viterbo and Orte put on a show at the stadium after the end of the parade. Strangely, there were no horses in the parade. They were all pacing "backstage", behind a huge door where they would take their entrance. .

We thought it was strange to see so many Carabinieri (state police), all dressed in their best uniforms). Later we would understand why. .

There were five horses, one representing each contrada or neighborhood in Bomarzo. The trials a few days before determined which horses would race. We thought, well, this won't be much of a contest. And were we ever surprised. .

A gun shot off around 6pm, as a warning that the contest would soon begin. The horses and their riders took a few laps around the stadium, each rider in the colors of his contrada. As before, it was predetermined who would get "pole position" (as Roy calls it). The announcer told us what sequence the horses wouldline up behind the rope. .

There was much neighing and bucking. Remember that these riders are riding bareback, and need strong control of their horses. The horses are very spirited, and do not want to get into line. .

Three different times, the horses and riders are told to line up. Three times the first two horses refuse to stay in their starting spots. The horses go round and round. Each time the announcer tells them to start over, and they take a minute or two to get reorganized. .

The way it is supposed to work, four horses line up, and the fifth horse stays back until the others are lined up in the same direction. The announcer lets him go forward, and as soon as he steps over the back rope on the ground, the front rope is dropped and they're off. .

Unfortunately, there were two false starts. And then, the announcer called the start of the race before the fifth horse had crossed the back rope. People were screaming, "Via, via!" The man on the fifth horse stopped in front of the announcer, thinking it was a false start. It was not. He went wild with anger, shaking his crop at the announcer. He took a ride around the track, but it was no use. .

The rider in front was an Ichobod Crane type of rider. He rocked back and forth as though he was riding a mechanical horse, pulling the reigns and leaning back as though he was going to lie down, then bouncing forward again and again. His lurching gate was effective, if not much to look at. The other two riders could not get around him. .

There were four laps, and for each lap the same rider kept up the pace. He won easily. At the end, the man riding the last horse jumped down, let his horse go, and charged into the stand where the announcer was in his box. .

The rider flailed his arms, all the while his horse ran around and around the track, as if he wanted to show us all that he could have won. He was stopped half way around the track and led back to the other horses. .

Here is where the Carabinieri did their work. Our friend (who took our stolen stereo report months before), who is the Commandant, was first to grab the rider. He was telling him to take it easy. He and two or three other Carabinieri had the rider in their arms. They were very gentle but firm with him, and let him go after a few minutes. This race was all about honor, and to protect his honor the rider had to do SOMETHING. He chose to attack. He wanted the race called. To no avail. .

Three of his friends from his contrada took over and told him everything was ok, that he did a good job. Everyone left the stands. We ran into Felice on the way out. He thought the race was terrific. Tia and her brother loved the race, but we all missed Bruce, who was traveling in the U.S. .

April 26
Roy got up early to spread compost over the planting beds before Felice arrived at 9 A M. Roy then took some of our terra cotta pavers and placed them as steps crossing the length of the planting bed. We decided to plant roses and columbine against the tufa wall, place mattone pavers loosely in front in a kind of path, and our vedura garden in the front. The herbs and some of the flowers would be planted in front of the loggia. .

Felice arrived right on time. He brought a pail of baby lattuga to add to our planting, as well as a big bunch for us to eat. We showed him what we had ready to plant, and he took on his "insegnante"(teaching) role right away. .

First we had to dig the holes. Earlier I had watered and the earth was wet. Roy and Felice marked off where each plant would go. He instructed us that the measuring had to be very precise. Roy used a metal rod to measure and there was enough space for everything we wanted to plant, including leaving space for the rughetta and radicchio. Everything fit just right. .

Roy then got up into the planting bed, I held the containers of plants, and Felice took them out one by one to hand them to Roy. The peperoni wound up going behind the steps at the edge, in front of my planting shed, but they fit well there. .

On to the front of the loggia. We planted a white hydrangea, two white flowering bacopa, one thyme, one lemon thyme, a salvia given to us by Signora Fosci, twelve tiny basilico, two kinds of parsley, an Herba di San Pietro, and a violet plant given us from David and Alex's Giove garden. .

Roy did a masterful job. Felice is proud of his ragazzi (students). Perhaps Roy will start to eat his veggies....

April 27
We went to Viterbo to buy rughetta and radicchio to plant, and then on to Vetralla to buy another screen kit. In the afternoon, Roy put a new screen on the kitchen window. It is amazing how wonderful the new screens look, without that cross piece which had cut our view in two. We also bought some old boards of castagno wood, that will serve as a counter over the low freezer and refrigerator(frigo) in the loggia. We will use the wide blue and cream striped material we bought in Rome to make curtains to cover the front of the appliances and go under the sink. These are all projects we enjoy. .

April 28
Church this AM. With both the Italian and English Missals, we are learning what is going on. Because it looked like rain, we drove up and I read the gospel out loud in the car as we sat waiting to go in. Roy read the same in Italian. During the mass, we used both missals and are starting to understand what is going on. Today, Livio passed out little blue booklets, with the weekly hymns. This time, there was much singing in the mass. We really like to sing the hymns, and are starting to understand what they mean. .

After church, Valerio stood on a low balcony across from Ernesta's Tabacci and read off the winners of the lottery. Loredana won a bowl and a box of papparadelli noodles. As each winner was announced, everyone in the crowd roared with laughter. No big gifts this time, but it was fun. .

I am reminded of the festa last year, when the Montibove man who lives with his mother won a delicate gold necklace. Everyone laughed out loud and someone put the necklace on him. He was a good sport. Who knows what happened when he got home and his mother saw what he was wearing....

Lore and Alberto came to see what we planted on their way back to Rome. She likes it that we planted flowers and herbs together. I suppose that is not Italian, but it surely is pretty. .

The sun decided to come out, and we spent the rest of the day on projects around the house. I made curtains to go under the sink in the loggia and can't wait to put them in. .

Cocktails in the loggia, with the borders of the room framing the view. This is called a "cornice"(pronounced cor-NEE-sha). It is interesting that having a "frame" so changes the view. We take delight in the smallest pleasures. .

The days just fly by. Joyous days and nights. A flash of sun is heavenly. The birds sing nonstop, and their singing is like a cornice, framing the sounds of the valley. .

I silently sing myself awake, as I do most mornings. The birds outside make such a noise that it is impossible to sleep. Instead, I lie there singing to myself and thinking of the garden or neighbors or laughter at one of Roy's musings. .

It is easy to get up to go out into the garden. I water the lavender garden side this morning, including the tomatoes. While I am readying the hose, Luca shows up for work and I warn him about the roses on the path. I know that today he will put the final cement on the tiles on the top of the wall. The new roses are hugging the wall just below. Roy has warned me that we should not plant yet, but I have seen the aphids and black spot spreading on all the roses and knew last week that we had to get the roses planted and shoots joined to the wires right away. .

Luca tells me not to worry. I know better. An hour later, while I am spraying the roses near the lavender with soapy water to get rid of the aphids, I go down to the path and am really sad. The farthest rose on the path is covered with cement. I spray and spray and am able to get almost all of the cement out. I wash the leaves one by one. I think the plant has been saved. .

Mario shows up a day early, and Roy gives him instructions on what to do. We want him to cut the grass on the land next to the church, and prepare the land above the lavender for more planting...zucchini and onions and tomatoes and perhaps an eggplant or two. There is plenty of room, and we are told the zucchini takes lots of space. Mario thinks the new peach tree should have been given a haircut, for its branches are too long. He thinks we should leave the caki trees alone, that they will come back after their frost bite. .

He refuses to move the boxwood back to the front terrace. I sigh a big sigh. This is primary growing season, and he thinks they will not survive a move. I agree that we will wait until fall to move them. In the meantime, what do we do about the terrace? We agree to return to Chiusi to buy 28 tiny boxwood, to match the 12 that we bought ten days ago. At the end of the day, Mario plants most of them. Roy measures the spaces precisely. .

We are now accustomed to to the farmers' insistence on "preciso". Felice this morning finished his little house of bamboo for our tomatoes. I asked him if we could cut the bamboo a little shorter so that the view would still be wonderful looking across the valley. He agreed, pointing to the spot where he should cut. When I nodded "Yes", he clipped off the end of bamboo, and used it as a precise guide to cut every other piece of bamboo. The farmers are so proud of their craft. And he is a wonderful teacher. .

We drove to Chiusi for the boxwood, and took the long way home, through the Tuscan towns of Cetona and San Casciano di Bagni. These are two wonderful towns, worth going back to. Coming down a windy hill, we just missed a flock of sheep and their shepherd, who had crossed the road about fifteen seconds before we arrived. I read the other night that if you come upon a flock of sheep in the road before you, you should drive into the center of them slowly and then they will separate for you. Do not wait for them to pass. .

Roy tells me that the other day on one of his jaunts, he came across a flock of sheep crossing the road. Directly traversing the white line was a huge Maremenna dog, guarding the road so that cars would not disturb the sheeps' journey. So we have no idea whether we should have the right of way or the sheep should. Say "sheep should sheep should sheep should" three times. .

We stopped for a little foccacia and glass of beer at San Casciano di Bagni before returning home to plant. An incredible vista is across the street in front of the parked cars, with restored and unrestored farm houses and scores of cypress trees lining strada bianca (white roads not paved but covered with gravel or local stone). Funny that often the parked cars have a better view than people sitting outside in the cafés. Perhaps this is their reward for waiting for us. Below, field after field of grass. It is so green now at the end of April. In another few weeks it will all become a Tuscan brown. Right now the landscape looks more like Umbria. Lovely. .

On the way back, we stopped in Viterbo to pick up the low copper pyramids we had designed for the tops of the four pillars. We also asked for some copper wire. The owner had never heard of using copper wire to keep snails out of a garden. We had read this in one of our garden books. Instead, he gave us a science lesson. He said that all copper is "positive" and other metal is "negative", and if you put one piece of metal wire and one piece of copper wire in water, you will get electricity, or the ability to electrocute the snails. We will see. .

We arrived home to a whirling cloud of smoke. Mario had set the brush on fire that he cut and the wind was blowing it wildly across our property toward the village. Two neighbors walked by as we got out of our car and I apologized. And then I saw the rose on the other side of the front walk covered with cement. Luca had finished for the day, and I spent the next half hour or so feeling sorry for myself and washing the rose, leaf by leaf, with a sponge and pail of water. Some days are more perfect than others. .

April 29
We met again early this morning with Alessandro, our insurance man, in the next town. We are buying supplemental medical insurance, so that we can have a choice of where to go if we are really sick. The state picks up most everything here, but there is a long, long wait if you need to go to the hospital. Most important of all, we will now have insurance when we travel back to the U.S. .

We hear more each time from Alessandro about "the Italians" and they way they try to get around "the system". We think it is a national pastime. He tells us that no Italian will buy insurance until they want to use it. In Italy, each car is insured separately. He tells us that that is because the Italians think they can only drive one car at a time so why pay for insuring more than one car? I think he is telling us that Italians take license plates off one car and put them on another. Don't shoot the messenger. I am only telling you what he told me. In Italy you buy insurance for a car, and cannot buy insurance for more than one at one time on one policy. Go figure. .

We return to Mugnano to see Giuseppi on his tractor and we wave to each other. Giuseppe works for the comune of Bomarzo (public works) and is clearing the road of overgrown weeds to prepare for the village festa this weekend. Yesterday, lights were strung over the street to welcome San Liberato. We told him that we missed not seeing him at the Bomarzo parade. He plays the drums as part of the Polymartium Band of Bomarzo, but that day he had to work. .

Roy cuts down some bushes hanging over the street below our house, and it is timely, because tomorrow trucks will come to sweep up and take all the brush away. We are all getting dressed for San Liberato. .

It is too bad that our project will not be finished for this weekend, but that is fine. Today I checked out all the roses and there are hundreds of buds ready to explode. A few more hot days and we will be ready. I will feed them on Thursday again, and see if I can encourage them to pop out early. .

April 30
The sky is cloudy and the sun is in a bad mood. It is warm, 25 degrees, and feels oppressive. This morning Stefano cemented the numbers on our pilasters (columns) and attached the "banana" nameplate below the doorbell. Felice was walking by and we laughed that there are three "Numero Uno's" on the street...San Rocco, L'Avventura, and a strange modern looking little number just before Giustino's building. This last one has the number painted next to the door, so perhaps it's official number is different. .

No matter. The postman knows us. He drives a motorino and wears a bright yellow helmet. When we drove up the hill toward Bomarzo this morning, we met him coming down. He waved to flag us down. Oh, oh. Roy stopped and signed for, yes, yet another driving citation from Rome. December 20th. We hope this is the last of them....

I have always had a fascination for postmen. Mine have always been very kind and friendly. The one I remember the most was George, who was our mailman in Quincy, MA, while I was growing up. I remember him delivering mail for more than 20 years to my mother, who gave him a glass of water while he handed her the mail. Whenever I was away and send her a postcard, George read it in advance, and commented on what a good time I was having. So for years I remember putting "Hi, George" on the back of any envelope or on any postcard to my mother. .

This postman is that kind of person, who beams when we greet him. I look forward to offering him a glass of water when he delivers our mail. One day we were in the street below our house as he drove up and Roy crossed his arms and frowned in fun, saying that he did not want any other parking tickets in the mail. The postman dipped into his box on the front of his motorino and smiled. "Rosa!" he exclaimed as he handed Roy a late birthday card from Uncle Harry and Aunt Elaine. .

Stefano told Roy that we could drive into the parceggio today, so we went out to buy a melanzanie plant for the ground and groceries for us. Tomorrow is a big holiday and the stores will be closed. .

While we were out, we went to Il Pallone, near Viterbo, to get groceries. Nearby is the most wonderful vivaio for peonies. Only peonies, as far as the eye can see. We were not able to stay long, but will certainly go back this week for a long stroll. The peonies are in full flower, and since they only bloom once a year, now is the time to go. .

We drive home, right into the parceggio! And there are even 4 or 5 centimeters to spare before the gate! .

MAY 2003

May 1
This is a state holiday, honoring workers, and we spend most of the day in the garden. In the afternoon, we decide to go to the festa in Porchiano. Yesterday we saw Maria in the next town and she told us to be sure to go. The festa is held under a grove of trees, and the main attraction is a dance floor where people of all ages dance to disco or to the accompaniment of accordion players. The dance floor is crowded. We go to the top of a knoll to look down. I love the music. It is a mix of old Italian folk songs and more current tunes I cannot identify. Mario and Maria are on the dance floor, at the opposite end of the outside room from our vantage point. Maria looks up and waves. In a few minutes, the music changes. Everyone moves in unison. Each person dances alone. The steps are very familiar, a dance I vaguely remember from my first years in San Francisco. I cannot place it.

A few minutes later, as we leave, we are greeted by Mario. I ask him what the dance was and he beams, "The Allegalle." "Allegalle" The letter "h" is not in the Italian language...The dance is the Hully Gully. I am really getting old. .

May 2
We find the peony garden near Viterbo. Giovanna, Duccio's wife, told us about this place, Centro Botanico Moutan in Pallone, but we had no idea that it would be this grand. Hundreds of varieties of peonies, marked off row by row. Every twenty rows had a marker, designating row numbers and the name of the particular variety of peony. We especially liked Rosa Ziao, a multi-petaled white. We were not able to stay long, but vowed to come back within a week. This is peony season, so to view the best display, we must return soon.

May 3
Roy has made an appointment with Vezio to come to get to know us and talk about his possible purchase of San Rocco. For weeks we have been nervous, "preoccupato", thinking that if he is a sculptor in stone he will be very noisy.

Instead, we learn that he works only in bronze. The foundry that he uses is in Milano, so he will not have any machines in his studio at all. He is very mindful of the noise. We are very relieved.

I am sorry that I have missed going to yoga for another week, but this meeting with Vezio is important to us. We also learn that he is trying to get the Comune to fortify the little strada in front of our house that leads to San Rocco. They are positive. So are we. This will be a good relationship.

He is not in a hurry to obtain San Rocco, and we will see how the process all unfolds. We ask him about the tree which is growing into the back of San Rocco, damaging the apse. He is going to ask Giuseppe of the Comune to look at it and possibly cut it down.

Later in the day we go to Viterbo's flower exposition, an event that takes place once a year all over San Pellegrino, the medieval section of the city. I'd like a blue hydrangea, to put in the old pot left at L'Avventura by the previous owners. The pot is quite old, perhaps more than 100 years, and stands as a sentinel inside the side gate.

One of the displays has many hydrangeas, and a man asks us where we are from. When we tell him Mugnano, he smiles and says, "bellisima...piccola, piccola". An old woman takes my hand when I ask "meliore?" (the best) and brings me inside to a cool room, filled with hydrangeas of many colors, safe from the day's hot sun. We find the one we like and she seems happy that we have bought one of her favorites. As we leave, we see a little black dog with a plastic flower pot hanging from his mouth. He is wagging his tail, and wiggling over to his owner, who appears to be working at another display.

Down a side street and we come upon display after display of red and yellow and blue and pink and white...flowers everywhere. Viterbo is an especially beautiful city to display flowers, with many cascading over centuries-old walls. We truly have smelled the roses today.

Tonight there is dancing in the village, but we stay home. Instead we watch the fireworks of Chia from our bed. This weekend is a festa for them, too.

May 4
Roy asked me early today how I felt and I answered, "I feel lucky to be alive." I meant it.

Today is an important day in Mugnano. It is the feast day of San Liberato, our patron saint. I get up early and go out to water the flowers and plants. When I am through watering the front yard, I walk out the side gate to the street to see if any houses on the street are flying their bandieras for the festa. Last night Alberto told us that August is when they are flown, even though we remember flying them two years ago in May. We love our bandieras. We had them made in California just after we bought L'Avventura and were disappointed last night to learn that we might not fly them.

I am not sure if we should fly our bandieras. If we should fly them, I am not sure which way they should be faced, blue on the left or right. In Italy, often the Italian flag is flown upside down or backwards. Flying the flag in Italy does not have the significance it does in the U.S.

After I walk out the gate I walk up about 10 feet and see a few bandieras flying. I keep walking up the street toward the village, because I want to know which way to hang them. One house has the blue on the left facing out, the next house has red on the left facing out. As I reach Luigina's house, someone has come out to go into his cantina. He is familiar to me, but I don't know his name. I know he is one of the Mugnano Confraternity, so I am confident that he is the right person to ask.

"Un domanda (a question)?" I ask. He looks out the doorway half asleep. I ask him which way to hang our bandieras. Blue first or rosa? He looks at me and shrugs. "No importante." I thank him and go home to hang the bandieras over the wall between the roses on the path. The wires we have strung to guide the roses are perfect to keep them from blowing away.

At 9 AM, cars with musicians from the Polymartium Band of Bomarzo begin to arrive and park across the street from our house. This is one of the only days of the year that cars can park across from us. The street is only wide enough for two cars, so if cars park on one side or the other, the few cars that come and go have to beware. Today, there is a policeman, who stands right near the entrance to our parcheggio. So we feel fine leaving the windows to the house open when we walk up to the mass and solemn procession.

We are both out in the garden early in our grubbies, and take a break to walk to the bus stop to sit and wait for the band to march by. Sr. Lagrimino sees us and walks purposefully over to us and sits down kitty-corner across from us. He is all dressed up with a light blue shirt, matching light blue socks, a jacket and slacks and tie. Pretty spiffy. Poor old guy. The people in the village don't pay much attention to him. He is a little dotty, but wouldn't you be at 95 years young?

Band members walk to and fro with their instruments. Roy said about these musicians, "Did you ever notice that individually each musician plays very well, but when they all get together...well.." I would say it is a kind of cacophony when they play. I never had great expectations of any marching bands I have seen. I only half-listen, and instead get caught up in the wave of nostalgia they create. This band plays some marches I do not know. Today, they will also play solemn music.

We go home to change, because these fellows will not begin for a while. When we are having breakfast, we can hear them above us. They started to play a few minutes ago just below our house and will march and play through all the streets of the village. It takes them about half an hour, and then they mill about until eleven, when the mass begins.

Roy looks so handsome in a spring sport coat and slacks and straw hat. I look up at him as we walk past the bus stop on the way up to the village square. The tiny church is transported outside, carpet and all. Not only are San Liberato and his bier stationed on the right of the altar outside, but a second bust of San Liberato, all in bronze, stands right in front of the altar. His skin is black in this bust, and the metal looks quite old. No one we ask knows how old it is. This is the first time we have seen this.

Almost a hundred people mill around. We greet Felice, who is not with his wife. He makes a sign with his index finger in his cheek to indicate that she is home preparing pranzo. He looks excited in anticipation. We heard she is a great gnocci maker. I will see if she will give me a lesson some day. I really love her. She is so sweet and laughs at all Felice's jokes. After 50 years with him, that is a good thing.

Felice has an important role today. He and Giovanni, our sidewalk superintendent, are to take the wreath to the fallen soldiers to the memorial just down from the square in a few minutes. Roy tells me that Felice spent most of the war in Sicily. Perhaps that is why he laughingly refers to us as "mafioso". I wonder how many years we will have Giovanni and Felice to do this. I hope many.

There are two sets of confraternities, those of Bomarzo and those of Mugnano. The confraternity of Bomarzo are dressed in parchment colored long coats with short terra cotta colored capes that reach to just below their shoulders. Rather elegantly trimmed in gold cord, they are a serious bunch. This is a serious occasion. Our confraternity of Mugnano, dressed in rose and blue, aren't as elegant, but they look very special to me. A number of the women wear blue scarfs with special initials. They are the female equivalent of the confraternity, if that is possible. Rosita is dressed in a red suit with the blue scarf. She looks very handsome. While we are waiting to begin, Don Luca zooms up in a new black motorino and black motorcycle helmet. He is quite a guy .

The procession to the caduti (fallen) begins before the solemn mass. The young Bomarzo choir sings throughout the mass. Then the procession of a hundred or more of us begins with Don Luca, Stefano Bonari, the mayor, first the Confraternity of Bomarzo, then the Confraternity of Mugnano holding San Liberato on a bier, and then the rest of us. We end half-way, because we have reached Giustino's building, and go home from there.

Paola Fosci comes by for a prearranged visit at 3PM with a school friend of hers. We sit inside in the living room because it is very warm outside. Paula gives us our first lesson in the Mugnano puzzle. This is quite wonderful, because now we can relate names to the faces. This is what we learn:

We start with her family, the Fosci family, which is very important in Mugnano. Paola and her family live on the North side of Mugnano, around the corner from Santa Maria, the church we go to on Sundays.

Rina is the tall white haired lady who spends time in the garden next to us with Paola's grandmother. She is Paola's aunt, but we think she is the sister of Paola's father. She also sits in front of Roy and over one to the right in church. Paola's grandmother is Candida, who we see often in the garden. She sits on the other side of the little church on Sundays. Candida's daughter (Paola's mother) is Serena. Serena and Candida are from Montecastello di Vibio, a little town near Todi. Paola's father, Giuseppe (called Pino or Pepe) is from Mugnano. There is an uncle, also Giuseppe, who we see with Pepe and Ubik(the dog) when they are out on the tractor.

Giuseppe the uncle is married to Giuseppa. Giuseppa sits directly in front of Roy in church. Giuseppa and Luciana and another woman(next lesson?) walk by our house often and look up. Some weeks ago we invited them in to see the property and Luciana told us then that there were pigs kept in one of the grottos years ago. Augusta is Giuseppe's sister and is the mother of Mauro, the mechanico, not Mauro, the muratore.

Paola has a brother around her same age whose name is Mario. Mario's girlfriend is named Fulvia Cozzi. Now we go to the Filiberti/Cozzi family...

Fulvia and Livia are sisters. Their mother is Vincenza and father is Augusto. Their grandmother is Leontina, who I have referred to as Dina. Dina's sister is Marsiglia, wife of our dear Felice! Leontina is married to Italo Filiberti.

Back to Fulvia, she is a distant relative to Vincenzo Cozzi. Vincenzo is the handsome white haired man who has the first Contadina as you make the left turn to come to the village on Via Mameli. He also is the reader in the church on Sundays. We think he may be a very learned man, for his diction is impeccable. Paola tells us that he studied for many years in the seminary. That makes sense.

We learn for the first time that Vincenzo's last name is Cozzi. We know his daughter is Anna and that he lives with her across from the old big church that needs a new roof. Their house is covered with flowers. It is quite lovely in any season. But what we now learn is that Alberto ( the friendly man who works for the telephone company and told us the other evening to fly our bandieras in August) is Vincenzo's son! Alberto has another sister, who lives in Bomarzo, named Luisa.

Now, Paola Fosci has a boyfriend named Antonio who we know of as Tonino. He has a sister named Rosalba and his mother is Giuseppa, the wonderful woman who takes the collection at the church.

We end our lesson by learning that Giovanni, who we call our Sidewalk Superintendent's last name is Ruco.

That is the end of this lesson. So now I will refer to these people by name. Perhaps some day there will be a Mugnano family tree....anything is possible.

May 5
Today, Ernestine Campagnoli and her two daughters, Joy and Julie, are coming for pranzo. They toured Rome with Karina and then went to the Borghese Gardens. Today they will drive to our house and then on to visit other friends in Umbria, near Umbertide.

Roy does the watering today, and I work on the pranzo. We are having grilled polenta with a red peper sauce, spring lamb and crusty potatoes, a salad with Felice's lettuce, ruggheta (arugula) and pears and a dessert of a torta with tiny berries. I cooked the polenta yesterday, so that we can slice it and cook it on the grill. Yesterday I also made the peper sauce, a red sauce with big red pepers and red onions.

This morning, the black metal base of the cancello is installed, and we concede that the bruto (ugly) yellow flashing light will go on the front of one of the pillars. Roy said, "This is a prime example where function wins out over form." It is sad that we have put so much time and detail into our project, only to see it scarred by a piece of unattractive modern necessity.

The roses come out to meet the girls. Everywhere are flowers. It is very hot and the roses love the heat. We are shielding the new hydrangea. It cannot live in the pot by the side gate, but looks great next to the laurel tree right at the edge of the cornice (frame) made by the loggia walls and roof.

We have a wonderful time, and eat until almost four. I take a picture of Julie and Joy on our high bed facing San Rocco and another of all of them on the balcony. It is as though Leo and Iolanda were here with us. We used Roy's grandmother's plates and her crystal at lunch and took Ernestine around the house to show her anything we had that she might remember. The day was very nostalgic.

May 6
I was watering the white seafoam roses by the front path when I looked down to see Felice slowly walking up the hill with a bamboo pole strung over his shoulder. On the pole hung a plastic bag with vedura. I called out to him and he waved.

A few minutes later, he arrived through the front gate, and came over to see if he should water. It is hot. Yesterday he said that it was 25 degrees in the ombra (shade) and 30 degrees in the hot sun. Today it is just as warm. He asks about the tomatoes and we go to look. He bends down and stands one up tall, pinching a few little buds away. I think he is saying that that will make the plant stronger. When the plants are a little taller, we will tie some of the thin green rubber cord we have around them to help support them against the bamboo poles as they grow.

Roy comes out to say hello. Felice refers to him as "padrone" with a laugh. I tell Felice that I found a wasp nest in a lavender when I was watering. They want to see it. Felice bends over and knocks it off, then tries to clap his hands together over the wasp that has flown out. I gasp and run to the other side of the cherry tree. Wasp nests need to be caught when they are small. Then, they can just be knocked off. It is when they get bigger that they are a problem.

I ask him when we should plant the ground cover where the seafoam roses and the marble top table and iron chairs are located. I show him the box of seeds. He says, quindici maggio (May 15th). Or possibly the 15th, in the evening. It all has to do with the phase of the moon. Perhaps tomorrow evening we will plant the zucchini and onions and eggplant.

I take him to the lemon tree to show him with pride that we have another blossom. He is very pleased. Up above, our neighbor calls out to Felice. We learn now that her name is Rosina. Rosina is the woman who called the geometra to complain about our wall going too far out into the street... She tells Felice she thinks the weeds on the bank below her house but above ours are bruto. So do we, but that is a big project for another time. They are mostly obscured from our view by our laurel tree, so piano, piano. No need to rush. They will only grow back....

We go to the raised vegetable bed and I show him some shoots that do not look like weeds. He thinks that seeds from the earth from above sprouted zucchini or melon. We will let them grow a little and when we figure out what they are we will move them to the other growing garden above the lavender.

I ask him to give my regards to "Signora" and he tells me he is going to go home and give her a big hug. So sweet. I give him my biggest smile.

Soon we will do a diagram of the property and see if we can get that on the website. Yesterday Julie told us for a while that she stopped reading the journal. I had not posted for some time, so she forgot about it. Now that she has been to Mugnano, she wants to read every entry. All the references will begin to make sense.

I feel that this journal is running away with me, but it is a good exercise. This is a good answer for the question.... "Whatever do you DO all day?" There is always something going on.

May 7
Yesterday Stefano told Roy that he thought the little strada in front of our house is dangerous and needs a railing on the outside, possibly of castagno. This is the responsibility of the comune, and we think it is a good idea, especially since they will rebuild the part near San Rocco for Vezio. We hope that they will agree, and that it will not be bruto.

I went over to look at how the vedura garden is doing and had a strange thought. I think the lettuce we have planted called "cappuccia" is really smooth cabbage. The leaves look thicker than Felice's lattuga planted just above it. I go into the house to look at The Edible Italian Garden, and under cabbage, it says, "cappuccia!" Lord! We have about a dozen! Roy says, "Pull them all out!" I'll ask Felice and we'll go to the nice man in Attigliano near Sapore Uno to see if he has the lettuce we want. I think if we plant it on the 15th of May we will be all right. Live and learn.

We have been sitting in the loggia for cocktails before dinner on our canvas sling chairs. Roy muses that he wonders if the tiny bird on the telephone wire is listening in on a conversation. It strikes me as funny and I laugh until I wipe my eyes and realize that I have put peperoncini in the pasta sauce and my eyes are stinging from that hot little plant.

This morning, very early, we drove to Soriano for blood tests. Dottoressa Ofelia wants to check my liver and also check Roy to see if he can discontinue one of his medications. She has given us prescriptions to get our tests. Salute, the Health office, is a wonderful newly painted pink stucco building in this old and very interesting town.

While I am registering, Elizabeth comes over to greet me. She has been on duty all night here and is just going home. We are invited for pranzo today, and to enjoy the pool. Perhaps later in the month she will go before a judge and he will demand that she yank out the beautiful pool she has put in this past year. It appears she did not have the proper permits, although her town told her she could go ahead. What happens here is that once a local community gives someone the go-ahead, they usually have to send the paperwork to the Italian government, and if there is no response for 60 days they can go ahead. Not everyone succeeds in going around the system, and poor Elizabeth seems to go around with a cloud over her head. She needs some better luck.

We take tickets to wait for our turn to get our blood drawn. While we wait in the hallway, we watch people milling around holding cotton in their inside elbows while they gab. One particular pair of women is greeted by old friends as they come out of being jabbed. Everyone smiles as if to say, "Isn't that nice!" I notice that an old woman has not taken a number and guide her over to the machine.

"Miracolo!" Roy exclaims. We have just given help to an Italian!

Later in the day, after a pasta primavera pranzo with Elizabeth and three of her four children, we take her to Terni. We do not know this city well. From our standpoint, we think it is brutto. It was a steel factory town during WWII, and was heavily bombed. As a result, a lot of modern cement buildings were built in the 50's and 60's. Somehow, we are unable to call a 50 year old cement building charming, unless it is overgrown with flowers so that the fa�ade cannot be seen.

Today Elizabeth shows us a different Terni. Very fashionable, a few lovely tree-lined streets with centuries-old buildings. A few very interesting houseware stores and a store for me to buy a linen dress. Blaunotte, a hip store started by two women in their garden, now in Madrid and London as well as locations in Italy.

We also go to a fabric store, a very interesting one. She buys canvas material to recover pool chairs, and I buy linen to make a cool summer dress in the style she is wearing. We return to Orte and go to her dressmaker, who takes my measurements and in a week or two we will see if I have a wonderful new dress.

May 8
School today. We have not had school for three weeks, because April 17th was Easter week and the next Thursday was May 1st. When we arrive in the office, Elettra gives me a big hug. It is good to see her. Since we no longer have homework, we do not dread class so much.

Today we talk about wood. We are confused about the many words that refer to wood. Il legno refers cut wood, or a piece of furniture. Legna refers to firewood and legname refers to timber, or beams. Il tagliatore is a person who cuts wood. Il Corpo Forestale are forest rangers. One forest ranger is la guardia forestale. La foresta is a grand forest, like the Amazon. But a bosco refers to trees. Then il boscaiolo is a person who works in the woods.

But, pizza boscaiola is pizza with fungi and salsiche. And tagliatelle is cut pasta. We are still trying to figure out the difference between pesca and pesche (peach and fish). Elettra tells us we close our mouth to pronounce pesca (fish) and open it to pronounce pesche (peach). I am imagining a big K sitting on a luscious peach. "ch" is pronounced "k", so that association works for me. Roy is still not sure.

We next go onto exercises with verbs, but enough of that already. There is so much to learn!

We arrive home to find Enzo here replacing the pump in the parking area. Later, we find that he was not familiar with the pump, and the new one does not work either. So he flushes out the first pump and it works. Then we ask them to test the alarm, which we have reduced to a small red light in the kitchen. It works, but will only go off 20 seconds or so before we have to close the house down and call Enzo. Thanks, Roy, for your eagle eye. So Stefano and the electrician will move the switch down further in the ground. We will have plenty of time when the pump malfunctions to get Enzo here.

It was a messy job, and it is very hot at 6PM, so we give everyone a beer. Except for Felice, who has arrived to check things out. He makes a face when he is offered a taste. This is the first time I have seen him grimace. He has his blue shirt tied in a knot on his waist. If Ralph Lauren only knew.

May 9
Yesterday was sultry, and we slept with both windows open. Just before seven, the wind started up and a sweet rain fell for about half an hour. With a menacing sky overhead and showers here and there, we do not have to water today. It is cooler than it has been for a week, so today we will be tourists. I will take Roy to Civita di Bagnoregio, near Orvietto. Although I have already been there five times, Roy has not been. It is good to go on a cool day, because once you leave the car there is a steep walk over a narrow bridge. On a hot day it is blistering. I can speak from experience.

Roy has a wonderful attitude about parking. He never parks at the first lot that is offered. He waits until he is close to where he wants to be. If it looks crowded, he will look for a space or even backtrack. But first he wants to get a "lay of the land". Today is no exception. He finds a place right at the entrance to the bridge.

It is slippery underfoot but there is no rain. We do not take an umbrella, but take each other's hand. The bridge is very narrow until the very end and so incredibly steep that there should be steps. It goes up and up and up and don't dare look down. Civita shoots up from a cliff and the bridge taking us there is sturdy, but those of us from California are mindful that if there is an earthquake it is all over...We try not to think of it and laugh instead, all the way up. I want to stop to take a breath and Roy wants to keep going. It is dizzying, so we stay as close to the middle of the bridge as we can.

Civita is a lovely forgotten village. We have no idea how anyone could live there. It is a village in decay, however, there are many lovely old homes there built of tufa rock and a spectacular view from every direction. A view not unlike the Grand Canyon with trees! Strange rock formations jutting up from green, green vegetation. We have no idea how anyone could get groceries or a piece of furniture up to the village or down. When we walk back an hour later we watch a muratore in a little "put-put" maneuver down the rain-slicked bridge with his partner in the truck bed in the back. We walk faster because he is gaining on us, but we reach the end before he does.

After a memorable lunch at the hosteria at the foot of the bridge, sitting on the terrace with a clear view of the village, we leave to see five nuns in inky-black glide up the bridge, habits blowing in the soft wind. It is a photograph I will long remember, especially since I don't have to return. Taking that walk six times in a lifetime is enough for anyone.

Back at home, Felice arrives to plant in our planting bed above the lavender. He and Roy ready the earth with terra buona, and he digs furrows with his old tool, making mounds where the plants will make their homes. Three zucchini, one eggplant, and I remember we have a package of tiny red onions. He picks them out and separates them, so only one shoot per planting, even though they came sometimes two and three shoots to a plant. There are fifteen, but before he is done we have more than twenty. Enough to feed the village. It is not possible to buy only a few of these, as they come in little Styrofoam containers for €1 or €2 each.

It's time to view the tomatoes, and it is as if someone shot them with a miracle drug while we were gone. We are sure they are several inches taller today. We tie rubber string around them to guide them up the bamboo stakes and pinch leaves to give each plant more room to grow.

There are so many roses in bloom that I make a bouquet for Signora and send him home with a little surprise for his love. He gets a kiss from me for all his great work and waves c'e veddiamo (see you again). After he leaves, Roy shows me eleven tiny lemons on the lemon tree, which Felice had shown him. They are microscope-tiny, growing where the flower buds were. And so fragrant it is impossible not to take a huge breath and sweep the fragrance up to my face with my arms.

May 10
I recall two memories of our festa last Sunday that I did not write about. The first happened during the mass. We were all outside sitting on wooden benches that had been dragged out of the little church. Sun and shade, we had the best of both worlds. Overhead the ucelli chirped away, so tiny we could not distinguish one from another. We remember that most of the birds in the village are a taupy-grey, the same color as the centuries old Orsini Palazzo to our right. The mass droned on, with young singers from the Bomarzo choir aiding Don Luca from passage to passage. Almost everyone on the right side of the "church" sat down as though we were being lulled to sleep. About three minutes later, the young Don Luca looked over and said to all of us with a grin, "Are you tired? Stand up!" We had a laugh at ourselves. Everyone on the left side knew to stand. There we go again.

Tonight, however, we go to six o'clock mass at Misericordia, a tiny chapel in Bomarzo. We will be in Rome tomorrow, so want to go to this service, which is held each Saturday evening. It is a jewel box of a church, around the corner from the giornali, half way up the steep Bomarzo hill past the parking spaces that are aimed toward that breathtaking view of the Tiber Valley. Again, the cars have the best view.

During the mass, Don Luca asks what word is used to describe the Catholic Church, in connection with other Christian worship. Roy knows the word is "universal" and later in the mass when we are asked that again, Roy speaks the word out loud. His altar boy training has come in handy once more.

The other memory of the festa on Sunday was of the extraordinary vista we have of our village's fireworks. It is hard to describe them other than breathtaking. Sitting in our loggia at 10:30 at night, the fireworks pop up from the valley below us and burst right in front of our eyes...not high up in the sky but right directly in front of us. If anything, the view is oppressive. It is hard to miss these "in your face" fireworks. The village dogs hate them, and for the rest of the night howl away. For now, John Franco and his guests on their patio above us laugh and we can hear an occasional "Guarda!" "Che bello!.

But now it is Saturday, and I am back at yoga. Kees is here for the first time, telling Roy later, "I ran out of excuses..." Keess' wife, Catherine, teaches the class. Roy wants to see what he is missing and next time he will go with me. I tell Catherine and Shelly that we have capuccia for each of them.

Later in the day, we move the two capuccia we have left, the fennel and the red onions to the planting bed above the lavender. The phone rings and it is Tiziana, asking at the last minute if we can come to see her tonight. She is playing her violin at a baroque concert in Lugnano, the town on the other side of Attigliano. Of course we will go.

We have never seen the inside of the church at night, but the old white stone building is lovely when lit. The concert, with music by Rossini and two Bach's, is perfect in that location. Above the altar is a kind of dome, under which three young men played baroque trumpets. Roy loves brass instruments, and we both enjoyed the concert a great deal. Afterward, we spent a few minutes with Tiziana.

We learned that Alberto is restoring a tiny church in Orte, but it is dangerous work. He is doing muratore work, and unfortunately there is not money to pay him. He should be working on his thesis, which is due in September. They will come for a visit in two weeks, and we look forward to seeing them again. We miss them.

May 11
On the way to Rome, the sign just before the toll booth tells us that there is an accident between Orte and Magliana Sabina. The road looks clear, so we decide to chance it. A few minutes below the Orte exit, traffic slows, but we see the flashing blue police lights ahead. They must be clearing the accident. It probably happened a few hours ago. We are all in a coda (queue), and in Italian fashion, many people get out of their cars and start up conversations with each other. No one seems bothered by the delay. Fifteen minutes later, we are able to move forward, now in one line, instead of three. Sadly there has been a death, and we leave the scene just behind a hearse. We can see the body bag inside. The hearse with its signature cross on top is led slowly away by a blue police car. No need for them to hurry now.

The road is clear. There is an eerie silence and although earlier there was a lot of traffic behind us, we are able to drive forward almost alone on the road. We reach Lore and Alberto's apartment in about an hour.

Today, they are taking us to a famous garden in Rome. It is called the Giardino Comunale, formerly a Jewish cemetery. Paths are designed in the shape of a menorah, and the garden is full of hundreds of kinds of roses. This is their month, so the blooms are everywhere. Although there are signs on each plant, stating the name, provenance and year the type was introduced, I am able to pick out many of the roses we have at L''Avventura and also at other homes we have owned.

Lady Hillington, Mary Rose, Madame Alfred Carriere, Iceberg, New Dawn, Baron Rothschild, I can pick those out and a few more. Today is Sarah Hammond's birthday, so it is a perfect day to be in a special rose garden. I must email her later to tell her we will bring her here if she comes sometime in May or June.

After the garden, we walk across the street to the Giardino degli Arancia, a garden full of orange trees and a great view. Next to the garden is the Chiesa Santa Sabina. The huge church is getting ready for a solemn high mass, with thirteen priest standing in their inner doorway, peering out and joking with each other. A sour-faced woman walks stiltingly toward us and then turns an abrupt right into the area where she will sit. We are sure she has sat there every Sunday for decades. And probably in the same outfit. Dressed in '30's garb, her red velvet flat hat sat on her head like a cakebox. She was dressed in black, with a black and white dot narrow pleated skirt and plain black top. Her hair was yellow-white and short. She must have combed it a few days ago. Lore looked at her and whispered, "Look who came out of the tomb!"

Alberto went to get the car, and Lore explained that this was one of the many churches that were built with columns and other artifacts from different Imperial Palaces. It was kind of a mish-mash, but there were some wonderful marble reliefs on the walls.

A block down the street, in the Piazza de Cavallieri di Malta, we were treated to a strange sight...We queued up behind a line of about ten people taking their turns peering into a keyhole!

When it was my turn, I pressed my right eye against the hole and saw...St. Peter's! There is a lovely gravel path that leads to the end of a cliff. On either side framing the view are green hedges holding hands overhead in an arch. The site is picture-perfect. And this is a site people come to see and wait in line to peek through this famous keyhole.

From there, we drive to Capitoline Hill, to look over the Forum. Then a walk to Piazza de Campodoglio, which was designed by Michelangelo. Lore tells me that it was formerly a big pit, and Michelangelo was allowed to design whatever he wanted. The star shaped pavamento fans out to several buildings, but what caught my eye was the women. The Italian women, especially the Romans, dress in a certain way. Well, not the way Lore dresses. She puts her head down and looks at me over the rim of invisible glasses, to show her disdain. Words are not necessary.

There were three brides on this day, the first with her new husband in cutaway coat, posing in front of different rose bushes in the Giardino Comunale. What struck me as odd was the choice of the roses she chose to stand beside. Each was yellow, but the petals folded back in a way that made Lore exclaim with a laugh, "Guarda! They are all disheveled!" The petals folded back like a jacket freshly sat upon. The bride had no expression, except for her "formaggio!" pose waiting for the shutter to click.

Later, when climbing up to the Piazza de Campodoglio, I spotted a woman in a white chiffon dress, designed flamenco style with a graceful flow to her ankle. She wore her grey hair tightly back in a bun. The give-away was her tiny white bouquet of white roses. Roy and I debated whether her husband was young enough to be her son. She wore her dress brilliantly, walking with a slight swing of her hips as tho she was dancing to The Gotan Project softly playing one of their slow tangos. When first spotted, she was sitting on her husband's lap for the photographer to snap.

So about the Italian women. They dress for sex. Or at least the allusion is that that is what they are after. They remind me of female birds searching for a mate. There is a style of dress here that confounds us. When worn, the dress looks fresh from an attack, with a hem slashed from hip to foot. Or if they are dressing conservatively, the slash goes from knee to foot. The shoes are higher than the foot is long, and the heel so slim that they appear to totter. Around each of them, a mist thick with perfume. Roy's favorite Italian piece of clothing that he has seen is a pair of jeans, with dirt spots designed right into the fabric. I guess that is casual wear, and what we see today is definitely something else.

Another strange site to me is the choice of clothes people wear to daytime weddings. Long silk and chiffon and beaded dresses. The men seem to dress the same, wherever they go. There is a wedding taking place at a church next to Piazza de Cavillieri di Malta, and the bride, the third we have spotted within an hour, is wiping a tear from her cheek when we pass by her Mercedes.

I have a large brimmed straw hat to shield me from the sun, but it is not enough. I am starting to fade from the heat, and I can just feel a migraine coming on. Back at Lore and Alberto's wonderful apartment, where the terrace outside covers more room than the inside, we are treated to another of Lore's great meals.

I sneak a pill and have a glass of water, but it is too late. Through the meal of bresaola with ruggheta and shaved parmesan, then stuffed tomatoes with risotto and oregano, then roast veal and peas and dessert of semifreddo, I quietly behave myself. I take one sip of the spumante and one sip of the Orvietto Classico, but that is all. We decide not to have salad of gallinella, a tiny leafed lettuce which Lore loves, and she gives it to us to take home in a bag, with instructions on how to clean and dress it.

At about four, we leave and I rest in the front seat, with a blast of air conditioning aiming right at me. It is 31 degrees outside. An hour later we are home and I go to bed with an icepack. Roy putters outside and reads in the loggia.

May 12
We decide to check on Virgilio, to find out the status of the cancello. I am not prepared for what I see. It leans against a wall as if smoking a cigarette and is more beautiful than I had imagined. Their faithful execution is a wonder. Tomorrow afternoon it will be installed. The gru and the rest of the project will come later. No matter. Virgilio will call Stefano to make arrangements for him to be there. We anticipate that cement will be poured in the pilasters and the copper tops installed soon afterwards, for the binario is quite heavy and it will need support.

May 13
I hear voices of men outside. Il Capitano. That voice is low and unmistakable. He is talking with our neighbor, the retired shoe man, on the street below us. It sounds right outside my window until I realize I have the balcony doors open because I have hung our down comforter over the railing, Italian style, to breathe in the fresh air. Roy has gone to Viterbo, and I am changing linens.

A few years ago, we purchased some lovely white cotton fabric in Viterbo, with a simple embroidered detail about 20 cm from the bottom. The curtains flow from just below the ceiling to the floor. Today, they dance in the breeze. I walk out to the balcony to see who is there and I am hidden from view by the caki tree, whose leaves have grown almost overnight, pushing the few remaining frost-bitten leaves out of the way. There are so many leaves they seem to be pushing each other out of the way for the best view. This tree, this tree. It is difficult to speak of the tree in an unemotional state.

I hear the unmistakable horn of Franco's fruit and vegetable truck. He has the most wonderful vegetables. I forgot that it is Tuesday, and he is right up the street. I put on my camp royanee "play with your food" shirt jacket and walk down the stairs to get my wallet, only to discover I don't have any money. Franco comes on Tuesdays and Saturdays, and I always miss the Saturday delivery because of yoga. It will be another week until he returns.

The phone rings and it is Roy. "Write this down. Canile Municipale. This is the Italian version of the "pound" and I want to see if we should get our dog here." It is in Bagnaia, and he has found out about it by stopping at a pet food store in Viterbo, our provincial capital. He will go there on the way home to be sure it is the kind of place we should go to find a dog. We have not heard back from the breeder in Rome, so perhaps it is not meant to be.

In the morning, we go to Bagnaia to find Canile Municipale. It is the saddest place. Over 305 abandoned dogs, all big ones. We ask to see if they have any small dogs and they will keep our name on file. The one small one they have is still too big for us. The women are saints. They plead with us not to buy a pedigree dog. The Italians just abandon the dogs they are tired of dealing with. That memory will stay with us for a long time.

Dopo pranzo L'Avventura is a busy place. Maria, who cleans our house, arrives first with a friend who works with her. Close behind is Mario, her husband, in his ape (a three-wheeled tiny truck ). He is going to clean the fireplace, and she will tape it off so that soot will not create havoc inside. He brings a huge ladder and tries to open it up on the front wall. After a few unsuccessful tries to get to the roof, he determines that the way to go is from the roof of the bathroom, so moves around to the back of the house. This works.

Stefano and Luca arrive to prepare the pilasters for the cancellos. Mario gets up on the roof, only to find that the chimney cap has been cemented by the previous muratores. What good luck to have muratoes on site. Luca gets his tools and climbs up to help while Stefano gets more sand to mix with the cement.

Aldo and Virgilio arrive with their open back truck, the big cancello lying across it, magestic in all its blackness. The front gate is also there, with its new automatic lock. We will need to sand and paint it, after it has been installed. Anthracite is the color we use. It is not quite black, and we have lots to "touch up" all around, thanks to Virgilio's masterful iron work.

For the next three hours, the house sings inside with the laughter of Maria and her friend, and outside with two muratores, two ironworkers, Mario and Roy and I. Mario finishes his chimney cleaning and Luca fixes the chimney cap. Down below, in the parking area, it is determined that the light on the column above the gate does not have to move. We measured well. So well that we have at least 2 cm. clearance above the spiking arrows rising from the gate.

Have I said that I am really proud of Roy? His mastery of the Italian language is more than just "I can slip by". Today, Virgilio needed to mount the top piece of the gate, which holds the channel and Teflon rollers in which the gate slides. The light was possibly in the way, and he wanted the mounting to be centered on the pilaster (column). Roy figured that out and told him it must be mounted "off center". Contractors universally think of their work as art, that function is "art", but we know better. By mounting it off center, the light could stay right where it was. Otherwise, the light would be off center, "catty-wompus" to use Roy's word.

Later, I hear the word, "mafia!" and know it must be Felice. I go down to greet him and we have a discussion about the volunteer cetrioli or melons, jutting out between the lattuga. He shows me the difference in the leaves from the cucumber plant. You could have fooled me. When they get a little taller we will replant them up above with the zucchini and eggplant. I take him to see tiny flowers on the pomodori and Maria flies out to see if I will help her, breathless and eyes full of fear.

A Japanese artist bought a little house in the village years ago from Loredana and Alberto. The artist has died and his relatives are coming in June. Lore gave them Maria's name and they called her to see if she will clean for them before they arrive. She is afraid to clean, thinking that she will get SARS. Mario does not want her to clean. She is "paura" (afraid). Imagine that she is coming to me for advice. I can't really figure out that it is SARS that she is afraid of, nor can Felice, so we all march down to see Roy, who of course figures it out right away.

Roy tells her to wear a mask. Then I remember that Maria, the Romanian woman who takes care of Giustino, would like to get some work cleaning. Maria goes to see if she will do the work and we are alone again.

May 14
Karina came today for a visit and will stay tonight. She has been our lucky charm since the day we came here to buy L'Avventura, and we love having her see all the changes. Tonight we are planning to start to design a couple of unusual Rome tours with her. Well, she is really going to be doing the tours, we are just helping her to walk around and give her ideas regarding what works and what doesn't. She has a great following of people from the U S who have taken her behind the scenes tours in Rome. So we welcome hooking friends up with Karina if they want to see Rome in a wonderfully personal way. We love her stories and her grasp of history. But most of all we love Karina. She is a joy to be with.

This is Stefano and Luca's last day here until the sewer hookup, when they will also do the paving of the loggia. The pavement of the bottom landing inside the front gate is finished, as is the tile work on the top of the pilasters. Roy will affix the copper tops in a few days with silicone. I think that means that the two of them will not be here on Saturday, when the front gate and the cancello get electrified.

While Roy stood across the street watching Luca work on the top of the pilasters, Celestino Natale's niece walked by, and told Roy our property looked like a "fantasy". I think that means she likes it. Months ago, she told us that her uncle built our house in 1935, and we are still meaning to invite her for a visit. If we are fortunate, she may even have a photo or two. The only photos we have are two we took of Celestino and his wife years ago from their headstones in the graveyard.

May 15
We were robbed! I woke up a few times during the night. The last time I woke, around 6:30 AM, I walked downstairs to get a pill for my migraine headache. The kitchen floor was filled with things. "Why would Karina leave her things all in a pile in the kitchen?" I thought until I looked closer. Karina had stayed last night and was asleep in the guest bedroom. My shoulder bag was open on the floor, Roy's shorts on top. Around them were the contents of my bag, and Roy's wallet. The new screen window was wide open.

I called up to Roy and opened the front door. The "key prison" where we keep our keys was open, and when Roy came down he went outside to see the new cancello open and the car gone!

They were professionals. They came in through the side gate, opened the screen window above the sink, opened my purse, and actually came upstairs, opened the bedroom door and walked around the bed to get Roy's shorts and wallet hanging on the back of the chair! I am a light sleeper and amazingly did not wake up. They stole our two cell phones, but did not take our checks. If I had woken, would they have shot me/us? We later learn from the Carabieri that they must have "gassed us" so that we would continue to sleep, allowing them to walk right into the room without us hearing them.

When the Carabinieri finally arrived just before 9am, they said that these men were not Italians. They knew this because they asked me if they had eaten anything. I said no. They did not take our bancomats, or our credit cards. Nor did they take the TV or stereo. They were obviously professionals, and the exact same robbery had taken place in a nearby town. Cash, cell phones, the car.....Later we realize we had just put four new tires on the car, Roy's prescription sunglasses were in the car, and our digital camera is also gone.

Karina and Roy have gone with the carabinieri to make a formal report at the station in Bomarzo. I am here to guard (ha) the house. We have always called Karina "our lucky charm" and in a strange way, she is. She has made the calls to the carabinieri and insurance company, and accompanied Roy to the carabinieri headquarters. Without her, Roy would have really had to work overtime. I know he would do a great job explaining, but he does not need the extra stress right now.

On the way out, the thieves left the second set of keys in the parceggio. They could be in another country by now, with Nora, our car. The police did send out al all points bulletin on the car as soon as Karina called in around 7AM, but we could not report the claim to either insurance company until after 9AM.

I am calmer than Roy. These things are not important. They are just things. Roy told Pepe Fosce, as he walked up to his garden, about the robbery, and he was very upset. He thinks we should have a gun and should shoot them, even if there are five of them. That would be a lesson and would tell them not to return. I don't think so.

"In Roma, in Milano, in New York ok, but not in Mugnano!" He felt personally violated as well. This is a tranquil village, and this sort of thing should not happen here. Welcome to the new world.

I want to be quiet, not to talk. So I go out and pick tiny weeds from the orto (food) garden. Keeping busy is a good thing now. I hear footsteps on the side path and it is Felice, looking so sad.

"Cara Signora." Mi dispiace (I am sorry.) I tell him, "Non importante. La vida continua. L'Amo continua. Nessuno importante. (Life continues and love continues and that is all that is important.")

Luigini comes through the open parcheggio gate and up the new steps. "Mi dispiace. Mi dispiace." I thank her and give her a hug. Marie looks down from her balcony and tells us that John Franco looked down at 5:30 AM and saw the cancello open and no car and thought that was strange. It was only hours later when the carabineri arrived that he connected his thought with what really happened.

In the meantime, Karina and Roy have been driven to Bomarzo to make a formal report. It takes both young officers to take the report, one to do two finger typing and the other to hold the mouse. I learn later that the image on the mouse pad is Sharon Stone sitting in her famous "Basic Instinct" pose.

They are fighting with each other. The one who types makes many mistakes. A few minutes later the Capo comes in and pats one of them on the back of the head. "How are we doing? Did you remember to call Telepass in Roma?" The Capo is the man who took the police report when our stereo was stolen some months ago. He is tall and strong and majestic looking in his black uniform. A decorated hero, he served in the Kosovo war and I imagine his picture in the dictionary under the word, "hero". Roy wonders what he did or did not do to get such a sleepy assignment. And then he questions, "Who took my pen?" Pens and paper are not wasted in Italia, and often one pen is shared by several people. There is some confusion regarding the car, as it appears that two cars have the same ID number. We must get the VIN number from SARA and that will probably help. In themeantime, they claim an "all points bulletin" is out on the car.

The carabinieri are sure the theft was done by more than one person, and that the thieves were Albanian. No credit cards, no checks, no identity papers were taken...These fellows were after cash and a car. A similar theft happened recently in Soriano and the car was found nearby. Let's hope our car will be found soon.

At least an hour later, Roy and Karina return with Shelly, who joins our group and drives us in Frigo(our former car, an old BMW) to Viterbo to make the claim and hopefully rent a car. At SARA, the insurance company for the car, we give the claims person the carabinieri report and he asks for the papers for the car. We said, "They are in the car." and he responds, "That is not in the report. You must return to the carabinieri to have them include it in the report before we will open a claim." No goading deters him from his powerful seat behind the glass partition. He is every nightmare you can imagine. He take his job of "bureaucrat" seriously. We have hit a wall.

We walk across the hall to ACI, our version of AAA, to see if they will get us a rental car. We are brought into the boss's office. He will retire in a few months, and nothing seems to phase him. It is now 12:30 PM. He looks at his watch and it is almost time for pranzo. Shelly convinces him to call the home office in Milan, When he does, they tell him we need to fill out a claim form and fax it back and they'll negotiate a car rental. The form must be faxed to us, and the office is now closing. It will reopen at 4PM, but he will be gone for the rest of the day. Karina gives her cell phone number, and the person in Milan is to call her back regarding faxing the form right after pranzo. We have no idea what time that means.

The manager of the office then tells us we have to report the claim to SARA, and to get there we go out the front door and into a door about ten feet to our left. The woman there tells us the people who work on claims are in next Tuesday, so come back then. They are closing for pranzo.

We decide to have pranzo in Viterbo, and wait around. Shelly decides that the form we need to fill out can be faxed to the restaurant, Il Labyrinth, where we are having pranzo. We wait and wait and it does not arrive, even after two calls back to Milan, where the clerk swears the fax was sent. We decide to leave the restaurant and buy a cell phone, but the place Roy wants to go to does not open until 3:45. When it opens, we decide not to buy a phone there. The clerk is a young gum-chewing woman who flashers her long fingernails and shows us a few phones, but does not give us any information. She stands and looks at us blankly, waiting for us to choose. That infuriates me.

Instead we return to the SARA claims office. Karina has called the Carabinieri in Bomarzo who think the claims man is crazy. We get back to the SARA claims office and it is closed! On the door it says it is open from 2PM to 3:30 PM. It is 4:15. A man comes out and says the office is closed until tomorrow and they cannot help. Karina goes back to the SARA general office and the woman agrees to help. We are trying to find the VIN number for the car. She does not know what a VIN number is and asks if we are sure that the car was really stolen. They do not consider a car stolen until after 60 days. The woman agrees to walk over to the SARA claims people, who claimed they are closed, and they agree to talk with the Carabinieri, but refuse to do anything until we get the amended report. We will see if we can get a rental car today anyway.

We go back to ACI and one of the young women agrees to help us. Roy says about the women at ACI, "After their one-year reign as Miss Viterbo, the winners get jobs at ACI. The costumes the women wear are not to be believed. On this day, one of the supervisors, Angela, wears tight bright red pants and a tight white t-shirt with the numbers "22" embroidered in spangles. Another young woman is dressed in faux pirate garb...black and white tight, tight pants that only go up to her hips, a black tight top and glitter on her stomach. Another woman wears a black top so transparent that Shelly suggests to us that she wear clear plastic straps on her bra. Donatella, who takes on our case as her own, is dressed conservatively....Beige denim tiny skirt the size of a postage stamp and jacket and t-shirt, with pointy-toe cowboy boots which rise to her mid-calf.

Karina is trying to get the form we need from Milan faxed to ACI now. Roy and Karina are out in the hallway, and Karina is trying to call the man in Milano. Her phone goes dead. We return to ACI and to Donatella, who invites us to sit in her office while she calls Milan. "You need the fax? You need the phone? Tell me what you need." Now we are getting somewhere.

The person she calls in Milano claims the form was faxed and she said, "I have four witnesses standing here. There is no fax." It takes another hour, and Angela comes back and calls the big boss in Milano. She stands in front of Donatella's desk, in full view of us. Her eyes widen. Her nostrils flare. Her right hand grasps the phone while her left hand holds a cigarette, which she smokes quickly between blasts at her boss's boss at the home office. The air fills with smoke. Shelly moves closer and takes out a cigarette. Donatella takes out another Chesterfield and lights up. I move to the other side of the room near Karina, who is perched in front of a water cooler, to get away from the smoke. The boss agrees to fax the form himself.

Angela admits, "It should not be this way." She is sorry. She tells us that the boss in Viterbo is getting ready to retire, and does not care about the business. And the people at SARA in Viterbo never work. We are learning unfortunately that her words are very true.

The fax arrives, we finish and fax the form back, and in the meanwhile Donatella arranges for a rental car for us.

We arrive home tired and hungry. I am able to make a frittata and prosciutto and melon. We go to bed early, but are unable to sleep. We keep hearing sounds....

May 16
Yesterday was Nemo's birthday. I hope he is doing well, and can't help but think that if he were here we would not have been robbed. Then again, he always slept through the night, so may have slept along with us through the robbery.

Karina stayed with us one more night, and now that we have a rental car, she will go with us to the Bomarzo Carabinieri to pick up the amended police report and then go to Viterbo to start the claims process again.

At the police station, we pick up the amended report and know we will have to get another for the house claim, but Karina needs to go back to Rome soon, so we can deal with that later.

At SARA/ACI, the same officious man is behind the counter. He barks something out at us and then sees exactly what he asked for in front of him in the new report. We are sent back to Maurizio, who turns out to be one great guy, in stature and in manner. The ACI people think he looks like Bud Spenser. Evidently Bud and Terence Hill were two detectives. All we know is that he is huge and hugely helpful.

He speaks not a word of English, but has a picture of one of his ten bloodhounds on the wall next to him. He also has 5 basottos (dachshunds). He has never been to Mugnano but thinks it is a wonderful, beautiful place. We tell him that the car has