JANUARY 2006

January 1
The year ends as I imagine it began... with us peering out at a display of fireworks, spitting in the air far off in the distant sky. This year, even little Mugnano fashions a splash of lights and a barrage of fireworks at midnight.

Far to the left, we glance at the fireworks of Penna, then Orte, then Bassano in Teverina, then Chia, then Bomarzo. Once upstairs I can also hear the blasts from Giove and Attligliano. It's a sorry place that does not greet the new year with fireworks at midnight, ushering in new hopes and dreams and even a few resolutions.

Little Sofi hates the fireworks. A fine mist wraps the village in its hoary cloak, and the gravel is wet under foot, but Dino steps outside to see what's going on. I watch the world around us light up from the doorway and the noise reverberates like shots barreling through the valley as if we're in a war zone. Our little dog cries at my feet, taking little comfort in the fact that the noise will continue for another twenty minutes, or until everyone runs out of fireworks.

So what will this year bring? I'm told it will be my best personal year ever, and I look forward to it. I wish the same for Dino, although I'm not a wishing kind of person. I believe that what is meant to happen will happen, and just hope that his year is blessed with happiness all around.

After a good night's sleep, we walk up to mass. There is a superstition that has to do with the first person you encounter in the new year. This year it's Nando, who's out in the street helping Giovanna's husband. Red plastic interlocking bins cascade down to the street from the front window.

They're taking on a complete restoration of the little house, and this is how the rubble will get from the top floor to the street. They must be doing a lot of the work themselves, although Stefano will be the muratore.

Terzo steps out from his front door to tell us that Dottoressa sent her greetings to us yesterday, during a visit to the borgo. And Nando's wife leans out over the front balcony window to wish us "Auguri!" as does Gianfranco and Luigina's husband from their cantina. One by one, people pop their heads out of their houses and cantinas to wish us "Auguri!" as if they're part of an advent calendar and today is THEIR DAY!

The auguri's continue with everyone we meet. We are embraced with hugs and kisses by people we least expect, but that's fine with us. We're feeling happy today. Don Cirio is our priest, and he sings as if he's standing on a cloud today. If a human being could be an angel, he is what I imagine it would look like.

You know, the homily is the time when we mostly daydream. But on this day, I try to pay attention to the words. "Which words can I single out?" I say to myself. "Let's try to make some sense, to get the drift, of what he is saying." And then he tells us that he wants to talk about a very important VERB! Mamma mia! What do our neighbors care about VERBS?

"Dire is a very important verb," he tells us all, with that wonderful cherubic smile. And I listen as I remember listening years ago at a concert in Symphony Hall in Boston, where the remarkable Artur Rubenstein played Chopin. Someone told us when we were first learning the language to "catch the drift" of what a person is saying, and not worry about all the other words in between.

I'm carried aloft by his drift, as if the words are twinkling notes from a piano, for I don't remember what the verb means. "Later," I tell myself, "I'll look it up." I wonder why this is such an important verb?

Dino hands out a few Babbo photographs to people he sees, but we've agreed not to distribute the remaining gifts. If children are to receive gifts, they must be here to greet Babbo in person. So we'll take out the candies and put the remaining gifts away for next year...

I prepare lentils and sausages for pranzo. Eating lentils on New Year's Day is an Italian tradition. The lentils are shaped like tiny coins, and we've been told signify money. So we surely eat them with gusto. Italians think that if they eat lentils on New Year's Day, they will be rich.

In the afternoon it rains, and I sketch away until I'm tired, then take a little nap. It's a lazy day.

January 2
I forgot all about Don Cirio's verb, "dire" yesterday. But in the shower it all comes back to me. "Dire, dire," I tell myself. "Whatever does it mean?"

I sit down at the computer and take out the dictionary. The word, "dire" means "to talk, to say, to tell or to call". I let that sink in. So perhaps he is telling the lumachese (snails) of Mugnano to talk more, or perhaps even to have more to say.

Why not take a verb a day, or even a week, and work it every which way? That might be a fun way to move further along with the language. I've always loved what I think is the ability of the Italians to speak so poetically and philosophically. You can do it, too.

So here are a few ways to use the word, "dire": "per sentito dire" means "by hearsay",
"stando al dire" means "according to his words",
"detto e fatto" means "no sooner said than done",
"dica pure!" means "go ahead!" or "speak up!",
"dire bene di" means "to speak well of",
"dire di no" means "to say no",
"dire di si" means "to say yes",
"dire la sua" means "to have one's say",
"dire male di" means "to speak ill of",
"dirla grossa" means "to make a blunder"...

Then it dawns on me that the reason it's taken so long to learn the language is just that. So many tenses, so many twists and turns of the language. So my new year's resolution will be to use a verb a week, and try to use it many different ways. Because there are so many fewer words in the Italian language than in English, each word can mean many things.

And so I fear I'll break my new year's resolution even before I've begun...

Before the day turns into night, I'm on page 68 of my sketch book. These exercises are marvelous. I'm drawing and sketching all manner of flowers and vegetables. By the time I finish the book, I'll be on page 100. I hope to have a whole menu of ideas by then. Perhaps this week I'll even move to the studio and put a few of the designs on small plates, plates that we'll take to class on January 11th to be fired. I'm sure I'll finish the book before then.

So it's time to take out the new heater and see if Dino can get it to work. The heater and the scanner are ongoing challenges for him. He is so good at these technical challenges, that I'm sure he'll figure them out, or we'll return both the heater and the printer as "lemons" and get new ones.

I'm laughing thinking how strange it would be to take something back to a store and tell the owner that what we're returning is a "limone", but when I look up the word "lemon" up in the dictionary, it refers to a car that is a lemon as "catorcio", which translates to "a piece of junk". Perhaps the translation is a good one after all...

January 3
It's a beautiful day, so let's do a little work in the garden...

January is the month for cutting back trees, thinning them out, cutting back plants, readying the garden for its spring burst. Dino takes out his weed zapper, but the ground is too wet. The sky clouds over, so perhaps it is not such a good day to work outside.

I spend a lot of time on the new web site copy, and hope that it will be ready soon for us to switch over to the new format. There is also time to do some sketching, and somehow the day just flies by.

Tonight we are invited to the Gasperoni's house for cena. The centerpiece of the meal is a fagiano, or pheasant. Enzo captured and shot the poor thing, then skinned it. Rosita made a lovely thin broth, with small thin squares of pasta, served with grated cheese after an antipasto of mixed spreads on crostini.

Next we were served the fagiano, which tasted quite a bit like chicken. Rosita topped the pieces of the fagiano with julienned carrots and other vegetables. It looked very nouvelle cuisine! This was very delicious, and was followed by sliced turkey and peas with prosciutto, then our steamed persimmon pudding and Shelly's fruit crumble.

Tiziano was put to work whipping the cream, which tired him out because there was no beater. After a long time with two spoons, I went out to the kitchen to tell him we'd have the cream just as it was.

Earlier, Shelly brought out little jars of homemade mostarda to serve with the fagiano. I have wanted to make Mostarda (a la Mostarda de Cremona) but don't know how. She tells me that what is needed is the essense of mustard, not the mustard seed, and that it can be ordered specially through a pharmacia. So Roy will ask Vezio, his pal in Bomarzo, to rustle some up. Shelly's mostarda was made with figs, and what a great idea! I think Tia will love making them with her apricots as well. This is a very good idea. Stay tuned...

The news in the village is all about the new pavement. A number of people are trying to get a petition together to allow cars to return to park inside. What a shame! After all the money and time spent to beautify the borgo, the inconvenience of it all is stirring up some unhappiness.

Enzo thinks that when things are too tranquil that someone has to stir something up, and perhaps that is so.

We are hopeful that the borgo will not be open to traffic, but more than that, we do not want to be a part of a divisive movement in the village. We hope that we can remain apolitical. That won't be an easy task.

On a more fun note, I ask Enzo and Tiziano who will be on the festarolo committee with me, starting right after the San Liberato festa in May. They think Anna Cozzi and AnnaMaria, Gianfranco's wife, along with Mario, Tiziana's father. We don't know whom else.

So as I can see it, we'll all have great hair, and Mario will be the driver for anything that needs being done. Anna Cozzi is the village paruchierre and Mario is the husband of the woman who owns the only store in the village. He's always running around in his car, waving and smiling. So what will I stir up on this, my first festarolo experience?

Don Luca will read the list of members at the festa in May, but I want to get going before then, so we'll find out soon who else will join me on the committee. It will consist of anyone in the village whose birth date ends in the number "6". Might as well jump right in, for I certainly can't avoid it. And I have a couple of ideas up my sleeve...

January 4
I have some new ideas for my ceramic plates. So I'll be drawing more veggies today. As a young girl, I remember mugs and plates with little surprises in the bottom when I've finished eating. So little beans and peas and things at the bottom of soup plates will be fun. There is so much to learn and explore!

Yes, it's time to make soup. And it's also time to put away all those holiday decorations. Except for the lights on the terrace, I'm tired of looking at them.

I do want to get up to Graffignano to find out more about that Sippiciano property. It will be a good exercise for us to rummage around the Comune there and research plot maps.

We watch a documentary on the miracle of San Gennaro in Naples. Such a strange happening this is! The producers want to find out if the miracle is indeed a miracle.

What is believed is that once a year a cardinal takes out a relic of Saint Gennaro, the patron saint of Naples. While standing at the altar of the Duomo in Naples, he holds the relic, an elaborate vessel with a glass window.

The "miracle" is the act of the saint's "blood" liquefying behind the window as it is turned upside down by the cardinal. The congregation claps and cries. What the documentarian believes, is that the "blood" was mixed some years ago with a chemical found in the lava of the nearby Mt. Vesuvius. For otherwise, the "blood" would not liquify.

We are left with the question unanswered, but in my mind it has me thinking of Friday's special mass in Mugnano, where the reliques will be taken out one by one. This is my favorite mass of the year.

January 5
I'm sketching again, and now I have larger sketches that we may sell separately. I'm working away at them, because I want to add things I sketch here and there to the web site. So Roy works on the scanner.

The day disappears, a headache looms, and I'm not remembering much. So I go to bed early, and Roy is still working on getting the scanner to work.

Earlier in the day, he met with a client in Amelia on a kitchen project, and wants to give some work to Mauro, the village muratore, so translates a preventivo and takes it to him to bid.

January 6
We walk up to mass, and it is very cold. Sofi stays outside, because in the warm sun with her fur "coat" she is plenty warm enough.

Giuseppa, Giuseppe's wife who sits in front of us, greets me and asks me if I will be the Befana tonight!

Definitely not! I'd need a nose like a witch and a boil on my face. With all this Babbo Natale action, the neighbors think I'll chime in as the beloved "befana". All over Italy are contests on this day for the ugliest Befana. The whole idea of it all does not appeal to me.

My headache is a little better, really much better, and I sketch for most of the day. Roy works on the web site.

For pranzo, we eat a grilled pork loin, homemade apple sauce, carmelized onions and chocolate cake. It's really good, especially since we don't eat until about 3PM. We love eating later in the afternoon, especially on Sundays.

Just after six, we leave Sofi in the kitchen and walk up to the Epiphany service. Roy takes his Confraternity bag, and dresses along with about six others. Don Luca arrives, and tonight the other Giuseppa asks me if I'm the Befana tonight. They think it's very funny. I guess it is.

I love this service, especially the hymn to San Liberato. Miriam sits next to me in the place where Roy usually sits. The church is filled only with women, except for Livio. All the other men are in the Confraternity.

The turnout of the Confraternity members is not very good, but Dino and Enzo are there, as they always are, along with Alberto Cozzi, Federico, Mauro and Gino.

Vincenzo chants his glorious namings of the reliquaries. Federico hands the statues one by one to Alberto, who shows each one to us, and then turns it over to Mauro, who replaces it on the back altar. We have many, many of them. Some day, I will record the whole list. Fingers, bones, pieces of body parts, they are all there. The whole idea of relics is a strange thing. But we bless them, every one.

While sitting in front of the altar, Don Luca has a chance to look around, and his eyes are drawn to the statue of San Liberato. He has an "epiphany" on this day, an epiphany I will recant later...

On the way home, we laugh about the goings on in the sacristy after the service. We feel such a part of this family. It is as though each of us is a little petal of a flower, embracing one another on this, and every day. Bless you, little Mugnano.

January 7
On this cold and clear day, I think I'm going to spend the entire day in the house. But it is not to be.

The morning is spent cooking...a new soup with potatoes and celery and carrots. It's very interesting and tastes great.

But the afternoon is spent in Tenaglie, for the muratore there contacted the man who owns the house we want to look at, and we have an appointment with him.

I love the house. It is very close to the one we're in the middle of selling, and has even a better view of the ruins of the Caparra family. The house is practically a tear-down, but there are more than two long rows of mature olive trees, and many fruit trees. In a tiny garden are what we think are lovely roses and a pergola.

What I love the most about the house, which is about 150 square meters, is the little building which houses the outdoor pizza oven. It is the most romatic looking little doll house kind of a structure, on two levels, but the rooms appear to be only child height. The structure is stone, with an antique cotto roof.I can just imagine roses growing up the side of the structure.

Inside there is nothing much to save. So although the neighboring Tenaglie house is ready to move into, this is a "teardown". Before we're through, the owner tells us his wife also has a house to sell. Would we like to see it?

"WOULD WE!" We follow him around and down a hill to a marvelous three-story casale, on more than two hectares of land and 70 olive trees, plus many fruit trees. This house is a dream, perhaps one hundred years old. So you'll see it on the site, soon.

He invites us home to meet his wife, Ernesta and have coffee. Sofi guards the car. Inside, we meet Ernesta as well as her aunt and uncle, and all sit around a beautiful fire and have coffee. Well, Dino and I have coffee.

I make the mistake of calling the wife by her name, and realize later that that is not the right thing to do. I should have called her Signora. In American fashion, I wanted to let her know that I paid attention when we were introduced, and thought I was paying her a compliment.

Oh, well. Later I'll explain that in America it is polite to refer to someone by their name. And then I realize, what a silly custom this is!

Anyway, she is very kind, and tells us about the house she has to sell with her cousins, all of whom want to sell. We look forward to seeing them all again, and to putting both the properties on the site.

We hear that Tenaglie is a quiet village, with mostly older people. We'd like to work with people to purchase properties in this village. We think it is very good place to live.

For our work, or rather Dino's work of Project Management, learning who the local workers are, and having more than one client in the village, will work for everyone. He's waiting to hear back from the local muratore about a project for the first Tenaglie house, and perhaps there'll be other projects to manage.

We've agreed that Roy loves this work, and I'd rather be painting. So there's plenty of work to go around.

On the way home, we stop at an excellent market in Guardea. This is such a good shopping town. Inside the market, I want a ham hock for tomorrow's soup. I don't know what to ask for, so tell the macelleraio that I want a pork bone to use for soup.

He nods his head, and moves to a huge piece of pork "flesh" (hi, Judith) where he skillfully carves away from the far end. We see a huge joint facing us, and then watch him cut away what we realize is just what we want.

I ask him what it is called and he tells me it is a stinco, or shin bone. I'm really looking forward to cooking tomorrow. And before we leave the market, we find girasole seeds for bread. Earlier, Dino purchased faro grains for me. And we also find excellent borlotti (cranberry) beans. This will be great soup!

We arrive back home and Mauro arrives for a short visit on his way up the hill, to talk about an Amelia project. He and Dino will travel to Amelia on Monday afternoon so that he can see the project to quote on it. Mauro tells Dino that he'll be gone to the mountains with Francesco Perini the following week, but ready to go to work the next Monday. I ask him if he'll be skiing, and tell him not to break a leg. So he jumps out of his chair and runs to the ferro (iron) staircase to "knock" and runs back like Groucho running across a stage.

Dino tells him that in America we "knock wood". In Italia, it's "knock ferro". Well, until pretty recently, there was very little wood used in Italy, so the use of ferro for this superstition makes sense.

I'm finally able to sketch a few flowers tonight, but am distracted after Mauro leaves, and fix the borlotti beans so that they'll be ready for tomorrow's soup with faro. The beans must soak in water all night. This is a good thing to know about cooking all dried beans, except perhaps lentils. And the Italian grandmothers say to never add salt when cooking beans, for it splits the skin. The skins on these beans look like wizened fingers after too much time under water no matter what. But holding out on the salt makes sense to me.

We're still working away on the web site, and now I want to spend more time on the food pages. We have a lot of recipes to include, and now I want to go through the notebooks I have and include a good representative sample. Where do we stop? I suppose I can keep adding and adding, as if I'm making the famous Tuscan soup, ribollita.

There's so much to learn, and probably only about twenty or thirty years to learn it all....

Overwhelmed at the though of living that long, I get up from the desk and its time to go to bed and read for a while. After this afternoon's coffee, I plan to read for a long time...

January 8
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals has announced their annual awards, and Rome is the winner for its law banning fish in bowls. We understand that fish are driven insane by going round and round...Wouldn't you do the same? Or do you feel you're going round and round in your daily "grind?"

Here's the award:
Progressive Country of the Year award:

"In the past two years, cities throughout Italy have passed a series of animal welfare laws that rival those of any other nation and set the standard for how humans should interact with the animal world. Most impressive was this year's Roman law banning fish in bowls, halting the practice of giving animals as prizes at fairgrounds, requiring dog owners to walk their dogs four times every day, and banning tail-docking for aesthetic reasons.

Last year, Rome passed a law levying stiff fines for abandoning a companion animal. Turin, in Northern Italy, passed a law requiring dog walks three times per day, and a law passed in Reggio Emilia in 2004 banned the boiling of live lobsters. The city counselor behind the Roman law said, "It's good to do whatever we can for our animals who in exchange for a little love fill our existence with their attention. The civilization of a city can also be measured by this."

When you come back as a dog or a cat, don't you want to wind up in Rome?

We walk up to mass on this very cold morning, and the group is small. For many weeks, Luciana has not been in church. I hope she is all right, just spending time with her daughter during the coldest months. She remains absent.

After church, Enzo tells us that both Rosita and Tiziano are in bed, "horizontal"...He thinks it's funny, and I ask him if he'll do the cooking. Buon pranzo!

We bid a "c'e vediammo" to Ivo, who returns this morning to Parma, but he'll be returning soon, to do some work on his mother's gravesite. We never did get together with him this trip. Next time.

On the way down the hill we're invited in for coffee with Vincenzo and Augusto. On our way out, the Festarolo committee, consisting of Federico, Antonella Cozzi and Marina arrive to ask for the monthly donation for the village festas. We're always happy to comply.

Back at home, I spend the next three hours making a faro and ham and borlotti bean soup. What a lot of work! I'm not sure I really like it after all, so tomorrow I'll take it out again and play with the ingredients. I see why Candace and Franco played with their version of faro soup on Christmas Day. But it is an interesting experiment.

We have fillets and baked potatoes for pranzo, and eat late. We both like eating late...around 3PM. Where does the day fly?

Roy works on the web site and I work on sketching, larger sketches of flowers.

Later tonight we watch My House in Umbria with Maggie Smith, and I am drawn to the subtle painting on the doors. Yes, I'll paint our inside doors this spring and summer. First we'll have to take the doors off one by one and strip them...Roy likes this idea. I still want Livio to advise us regarding our front doors. They need to be restained, but I am hoping that the darker stain that Anselmo so carelessly dashed on the doors a few years ago won't destroy the original castagno (chestnut) stain.

It's time for me to do some work on the site, so Sofi and I come up our bedroom while Dino watches TV. We're going to be behind posting this month, but it's because we are not sure of how the journal on the new site will post.

January 9
On this lovely day, Tia arrives for pranzo. We serve a soup of farro and tomato, and it is very good, although I'd like it to be thicker. Tomorrow when we serve it I think it will be just right.

Dino rushes out early for a meeting with Mauro and a client in Amelia. So Tia stays and we walk around the property, talking about the roses and the bulbs. We then sit with catalogues and decide on roses that she wants to buy. She likes to buy her roses "bare root" and plant them in the coldest days of winter. So she'll go to Michellini with me to pick out some good ones soon.

January 10
The signing of the compromeso for one of our properties takes place, with Duccio standing in for the actual owner. The signing takes place in Attigliano, and I decide not to attend, thinking there will be too many people in attendance. So Dino and Duccio drive on.

I start a loaf of bread with sunflower seeds on top, but it is only after the bread has been in the oven for almost twenty minutes that I remember that I did not add salt. So I open the oven and spread salt on top. What a strange thing for me to forget to do!

We hear no church bells announcing the funeral of Angelina, the 92 year old woman who is the aunt of Marieadelaide. We don't know who she was, but probably would have been able to recognize her.

Roy calls me from Attigliano to tell me that the funeral has taken place, and the procession already begun. So Sofi and I walk down to the end of the path to wait for her and her cortege to walk by.

In front are the women, my colleagues in Cattolica Accion, holding sprays of fresh flowers wrapped in clear plastic. I see them sneak a look at me out of the corner of their eyes. Many give me a nod.

But while I wait for them to walk by, so that I can say goodbye, a man drives up and I put my hand out to tell him there is a funeral coming. He drives up to the planters near Giustino's and walks back to me. Thinking that I am waiting for him, he starts a conversation. But who is he?

No, I am not the daughter of Donata. She is waiting for him in Mugnano, So he walks on. Just then, Tiziano and Rosita drive up. The car is now behind Enzo and others on foot behind Don Luca. I ask Tiziano who the Angelina was, and I don't recognize her family name. Nor do I recognize anyone in the group except Marieadelaide.

So Sofi and I walk home, and finish preparing pranzo for Duccio and Dino and me. I prepare a chocolate cake, the same recipe I have prepared dozens of times. But I don't add the third egg. There are two eggs in one container and a container of six sitting next to it.

I bring both containers out to the counter, but am distracted again before I open the second package. Even though the mixture looks strange and not puffy enough, I don't realize that one egg is missing.

When the cake comes out, it is denser, and perhaps a little crustier. What is going on with me? I feel a bit distracted, but otherwise am fine. So I take the soup out from the loggia and put it on the stove to heat. Its consistency is thicker, and I think just right. So fixing the meal proceeds apace.

With an hour or so before Duccio arrives for pranzo, I sit and sketch. Tomorrow is my class day, and I so look forward to painting again.

Duccio arrives and we have a lovely time, hearing about Duccio and Giovanna's trip to Jordan. Before he leaves, we all take a look at the ruin that is the far wall before San Rocco. I want the huge boulders replaced on the front of the wall, but Stefano thinks they are too fragile.

I want a more ancient looking wall. We'll see what we can do. But that will all have to wait, at least until Spring. For it is too dangerous to work on a wall with wet earth. Let's hope we don't have torrents of rain in the meantime, or we'll have a real disaster on our hands.

I'm thinking of our cemetery plots, and it's time to contact the mayor again, and secure our spots in the new area of the cemetery. Surely after all this time has transpired, he will have found some space for us.

January 11
I'm so happy to be back in class, but first we have the rest of the day...

This morning we drive to another kitchen supplier, one who can find the French country sink we are looking for for a client. So we have them spec two designs after working with them.

We return home for a quick pranzo. I'm designing new square kitchen tiles to have as part of my repertoire, and I finish the design just as we drive off to class.

Tonight I paint two lovely trays with artichoke designs, and an antique looking trim. I also paint another small plate with a previous design, one that I like very much.

I don't know where all the plates are that I painted during the last class of the year, but just as I'm ready to leave, Monica shows them to me. All but one needs work, so I'll finish them next week. But at least two of them were damaged by being touched by people while we were on Christmas break. The good thing about these ceramics, is that I can just paint the designs again.

Tonight is very cold, and it appears to be close to a full moon. Perhaps tomorrow morning Sofi and I will work outside. There is a lot of cleanup work to do in the garden, and January is a real cleanup month.

January 12
The bright sun is lovely, although the temperature remains just above freezing. Sofi and I step out onto the terrace this morning and it feels almost balmy.

We all drive north to Terni. I have had another dose of forgetting. Last evening, when leaving class, I forgot to take both sketchbooks as well as my architect's ruler. During the night, all I could think about was that silly ruler. And when I looked around for my sketchbooks and could not find them anywhere this morning, I felt instantly tired. I have no memory at all about what transpired when I left class. I am usually so precise about remembering details that I'm mystified by my actions, or lack of them.

Dino to the rescue. He puts his arm around me and tells me we'll drive back to Terni to pick them up. And when we arrive at the studio, Marco welcomes us and shows us that they are all sitting right by the tiles I'll paint next Wednesday.

We take Sofi for a walk and then she takes a nap in the car while we eat at the Indian Restaurant. We are its only customers. The owner tells us that he's thinking of opening a Maharaja restaurant in Viterbo in March. Roy later tells me, "Thinks so! In March?" How funny that all sounds. Perhaps he is superstitious. The man tells us he is looking for a location just outside the wall. We'd certainly welcome the addition to our area.

We drive home through Capitone and Amelia, and Tony and Pat call us, asking if they can come for tea. They arrived in Lugnano this morning, and the house is so cold that they'd welcome a short visit sitting by the fire.

So we welcome them for a visit, and before we know it the sun has set and we're relaxing for the night.

Dino calls Mauro to check in on his preventivo, but Mauro answers in a groggy voice. He is in the hospital, and has just had his appendix taken out. Puor troppo! So his family vacation next week will have to wait.

January 13
We meet with a kitchen supplier and agree on a new design for a client, and its the best design we've done yet, including one of those fabulous farm sinks made out of a composite similar to travertine marble. Mauro is in the hospital, so Roy is trying to work with Mauro's teammates to get a bid for the muratore work. The client is understanding, and luckily preoccupied.

Today is lovely and cold but in the sun on the terrace it is almost balmy. I spend most of the morning in the studio and finish painting a white chicken pitcher. It is so much fun that I think it will be our signature chicken pitcher, if it comes out well from the forno. So the next time we're in Deruta, we'll pick up some more pieces to paint. You'll be able to see them on the site soon.

What you can see on the site right now are my latest designs, two plates of a leafy flower design that will become our regular plates, unless we sell them out from under us. Each one will be a little different.

Since the weather is sunny each morning, I'm going to be out in the studio painting from now on. We still don't know what's wrong with the electrical system out there, but in the sun I don't need the new heater.

I'm also working on some new 4" tiles, to keep around in the event people want hand painted designs for their kitchens or bathrooms. Perhaps we'll take a few to our suppliers, to see if they'd like to keep them around for samples. Lemons, pears, olives, the standard stuff, as well as some more elaborate designs. Those will be on the site soon, as well. I am in heaven.

January 14
We'll have pranzo today with Franco and Candida at out favorite local restaurant, NonnaPappa. Sofi loves the place, too, and they love Sofi. We've planned this date with Franco and Candida before they return to San Francisco for six weeks.

We offer to start their tomato seeds for them while they're gone, and they'll bring some tiny fingerling potatoes back to share for our each of our gardens. It is fun to compare notes of our garden successes and fiascos. This year, we'll all try to plant those delicious tiny potatoes from San Francisco. So let's see what success they have bringing them back. First things first.

But this morning I am drawn to a story in a Carol Field cookbook, In Nonna's Kitchen, a book I refer to often. Since I was not alive during the years of WWII, that time seems like a strange almost romantic period to me, one we learn about only through an occasional book or film. But today I learn about a grandmother who served her family of four a meal, all from one hard-boiled egg. They were that destitute. It seems hard to believe.

So what does that mean to me? I stand at the table and read the three pages of the story. Originally, I intended to look up a recipe for chicken broth, just to see what it said. Instead I learned oh so much more...

And I'm left with a feeling of sadness all day. Sadness for the people of this country, who worked so hard just to survive during the war. Here in Italy, they were years of abject poverty. Many of us will never know what it was like to not have even a piece of bread to eat, or heat on a cold night.

I'm drawn to make the food entries of our site simpler. For people who want to experience the real Italy, the part we love the best, I'm hoping to share the simplicity of a meal with friends and loved ones not complicated by the trendiest treatments. Can I do both? I'll be thinking of that for the next two weeks, while we slog forward toward the end of preparing the new site.

This morning, I'm able to paint three more little plates in the studio. This next Wednesday, we'll have a number of finished plates to take to class to be fired. With the six pieces left from before Christmas that need repair work on their edges, we'll have many more to show by the time the new site is up.

Dino walks up to Mauro's house to bring a get well card with Sofi's photo on the cover, and hears from his father-in-law, Tonino, that he's up and walking around the hospital, but that on Monday he'll have his tonsils out. We hope he'll be home soon and feeling better before too long.

Pia and Francesco stand at his car at the edge of her property across the street, and Dino walks over to bring the photograph cards that Phillip and Donna made for her. This year, Phillip and Donna have reproduced a box of ten wonderful cards, plain inside and with their wonderful photographs on the covers.

One of the photos was taken on Pia's land, with an old motorino in the midst of a field of mustard seed. It's quite wonderful. Pia explains the story of the photo to Francesco. Later, Dino tells me, "Francesco called me Roy!" Maybe he'll even call him Dino one of these days...

Candida and Franco arrive, and we drive to pranzo with Sofi nuzzling Candida and I in the back seat. Candida shares a story about passing her driving test yesterday in Orvieto, a story so sexist that I realize that Rome was the perfect place for us to take the test more than three years ago. And even then I almost did not pass, due to a completely sexist view on the part of the examiner. But that is a story for another time.

It is good to see Fidelia, her mother, Rosa, and her father, Pepe, at the restaurant. They all love Sofi, but Sofi sticks right by my chair, even when their Jack Russell Terrier, Fidelio, comes by for a friendly sniff. Did she forget that Fidelio relieved her of her virginity some two years ago under our very table?

After a slow afternoon and tasty pranzo, we drive home and then drive up to meet our friends again in Orvieto. They agree to take us to a jeweler friend, a man who can repair my engagement ring, which has split in the back. We'll take it in again next week when he can solder it.

We say c'e vediammo to Candida and Franco, after agreeing to get their seeds started in their den under grow lights while they are gone. Tonight the moon is full, so in another month we'll be planting fifty or so seeds for us, and the same number for them. With seeds, it's good to plant plenty, for who knows how many will "take". Franco tells us that their fava beans have not done well, for only two have survived their planting over a month ago.

Our favas are peeking out of the earth, spreading their leaves, and since we've planted them in both the upper and lower tomato "patches", we'll have plenty of fertile soil in late April, when the favas are picked and the tomatoes are planted in their places.

With the knowledge of a really full moon tonight, I'd like to plant agretti seeds, so perhaps we'll do that tomorrow. Agretti is a spring green, like a grass, but very tasty, especially when brushed in a pan with olive oil and garlic and a sprinkle of vinegar. This is the month to plant it, to have it ready in April.

Dino and I take turns at the computer, each day and evening, working on the new test web site. With Alex's expert hand guiding us from afar, we hope to have it ready by the end of the month. But there is so much work to do! And I keep coming up with new concepts that I want to include. It is a good thing that a web site is an ever-changing vehicle for sharing information. For the more we learn, the more we want to include.

Good night, dear moon. Luna piena, smiling down upon us, let us have a good night's sleep under your watchful eye...

January 15
Sweet Sunday. Yes, the sun is low on the horizon, and the moon watched over us last night. So we're off to mass, with Sofi staying warm in the kitchen.

Once in church, we're finding that hugs are in order wherever we turn. So a greeting, a handshake, a hug, are given to almost everyone in the little church. This is truly like a little extended family.

Don Ciro arrives, and while we're waiting for mass to begin, the sheet of announcements is passed out. San Antonio d'Abate, the patron saint of farm animals, will be celebrated on Tuesday...in Bomarzo! For the three years we have lived here, the feast was celebrated with a bonfire outside the church. Is it possible that Mugnano has been forgotten this year?

I ask Livio and Giuliola, but neither of them have an answer. Tiziano and his parents arrive, and they know nothing new. So I cajole Roy to ask Don Ciro after the mass. More than ask him, to tell him how important it is to maintain this tradition. The gears start to work in my brain, and I ask Dino when Don Francis flies back to the U S. "Wednesday," he tells me, although we're not able to reach him, for none of his telephone contact numbers work. We have emailed him, so expect to hear from him soon. We know he is doing a retreat in Verona. So if we speak with him, we'll tell him it is an emergency, and we need him to arrive on Tuesday and give the blessings at our church. Then we'll take him to the airport for his plane on Wednesday. That's if he calls or emails...

Outside the church, the parishioners are all in a buzz, standing around in the sunlight. First, Mauro (the shorter) is not happy with Tiziano, who did not want to read this morning, because he has a sore throat. Then, I mention San Antonio and everyone around takes up the charge. Why not a blessing in Mugnano? What about Brik and Sofia and Ubi, and Vincenzo's lamb, and Pippa....?

Don Ciro comes out of the church and he is swamped, with me at the helm. "Speriamo!" we tell him about Tuesday evening. He is merely a messenger, but promises to speak with Don Luca. "Speriamo! Speriamo!" the villagers chant.

And then there is the issue of the catena, or chain, closing off the borgo to cars and trucks. Two petitions have been taken around. Carla has one, with nineteen signatures, to let cars and trucks back into the borgo. We are dismayed.

But then Tiziano tells us that Laura, Francesco's wife, took around another petition, to leave the catena in place. Fifty-five signatures are on that one, and we did not have a chance to add our two. Or Lore and Alberto's, who will also sign. So the mayor will come to a meeting at the end of the month to hear what the people have to say. All this energy is good for the heart, good for keeping warm on a cold day.

And so we walk home, past Italo in his cantina, past Terzo and Nando sitting stiffly facing South in Mugnano Scalo next to the fountain. Then past Donatella's mother, a scarf over her shoulders, standing silenty in a pool of sunlight and leaning against a building across the street from her front door.

On the way up to church, we noticed that a red chair was abandoned right in the middle of the arch to the ancient entry into Mugnano. Dino takes out the camera and drives up there for a shot before driving to Il Pallone, our Sunday supermarket, to pick up a chicken.

How's this for a "property of character and charm"?

I had plans of planting agretti, and starting on the de-leafing of the roses, but it is too cold today. So instead I paint three little plates in my studio. By Wednesday, we'll have many to take to class. We're back in business...And with a trip to Deruta during the next week to pick up larger plates and tiles, I can count on painting three or four pieces each day, at a minimum.

The agretti will have to wait.

Oosten arrives for a short visit and a glass of wine. He'd love to turn his little garden and shack at the back of San Rocco into a holiday studio. Perhaps that will come true. Right now, he's teaching kindergarden in Norway and is happy there, but misses Mugnano.

We'll miss Don Francis this trip, who is to fly out of Milan in a few days. His friend Sal calls to give us an update. But I am somehow confident that we will find a priest to perform the blessing of the animals on Tuesday evening.

Speaking of animals, the word has come down that Brik and Tex have had a monstrous fight outside the cemetery. Tex is Shelly and Claudio's fluffy white Maremenna dog. Brik is the "mayor" of the village. But Brik escorted three women to the cemetery this afternoon, and Tex was loose from his usual chain. It is fair to say that "all hell broke loose".

Carlo, the archer, was seen giving an injection to Brik, or Oosten thought that was what he was doing. We never found out who is Brik's master. Instead, we think he belongs to everyone in the village. We are surely sorry about the fight, and hope both dogs are healing well. The women in the village hate Tex, for he has a tendency to follow them and sniff in the most impolite places. So war's a brewing...

Stay tuned.

January 16
It's almost too cold to be in the studio today, for the sky is overcast and grey. Without the bright sun of the past week or two, I've decided not to paint this morning.

We drive off to Orte to pick up a kitchen cabinet sample, and then meet with a client in Amelia, who encourages us to follow him to his marble craftsperson. We know the man, who has fashioned marble counters for a previous client. And so we help our client to pick out just the right piece of marble, in the correct thickness, to do his kitchen. He'll have the craftsman make a grand sink for him as well, instead of ordering it from a kitchen fabricator. So we make sure that the joints will be done in a characteristic way. We hope to start on this project soon. Dino will be the project manager. I just go along here and there to put my 2 cents in on the design side.

We have a meeting with a notaio in Orte, one we have heard about. We want to have an initial meeting with her to make sure that all the costs are spelled out correctly for our client and to give her the initial paperwork.

But after an hour's wait, we get up to leave, and finally are ushered into a conference room. When the notaio arrives, without even an apology for making us wait, she sits down at the end of the table as if it is a throne and puts up her arms as if to say, "eccociqua!" or "here I am!"

In less than two minutes, we determine that she is unable to go to Attigliano for the Atto (final step of the property purchase), so the meeting is for naught. We leave there and get a lead on a notaio in Orvieto, and call him, so we'll figure it out soon.

We're worried about Brik and decide to drive up to the borgo in Mugnano to speak with Livio and Giuliola about Brik and also about tomorrow's blessing of the animals.

They're happy to see us and invite us to sit with them in their cozy and warm kitchen. Brik was taken this morning to the veterinary hospital in Terni by Antonella Fosci and Carlo. We hope he is all right. They confirm that Tex is a sweet dog, and it was just an unfortunate encounter between the two male dogs. Since no one really "owns" Brik, they confirm that the entire village embraces him.

But the news about tomorrow's blessing of the animals is not good. Don Luca is out of town. And last year the bonfire was held in front of the church because the new pavement was not yet laid down. So now if we have it it will have to be somewhere other than in front of the church. The news gets worse.

With no conversation with Don Luca, there will be no blessing of the animals in Mugnano. It will have to be in Bomarzo, as planned. With Don Francis now in Milan, leaving on Wednesday, he's too far away to step in, either.

So when Livio and Giuliola find out that I will be on this next year's festarolo committee, they clap their hands with glee. For NEXT YEAR, there will be a return to the blessing of the animals, in a very special way.

We end the evening with a silent prayer for dear Brik, and wonder if someone will take him to Bomarzo tomorrow....

January 17
We drive to Rome with Sofi, to download some special Mac software from Giordano, and to take him to his birthday pranzo. First, we take Sofi for a visit with Valerie, who loves spending time with her and will keep her for a few hours. And then we find Giordano's office.

When we take him for pranzo, I tell the owner that it is Giordano's birthday, so he is surprised with a little dessert with a lit candle. The pranzo is so very tasty, pasta all around and then abaccio, grilled baby lamb on a wood fired grill before his birthday surprise.

After we take Giordano back to work and pick up Sofi, we realize that we must drive right to Bomarzo to reach the blessing of the animals in time. It has been announced for 5:30, and we arrive just a minute early, to find the blessing already in progress, a big fire in the little square right at the turn to the Comune, and Don Cirio smiling and waving his holy oil all around. We step up to the front right next to a sweet big white dog, who has no idea what is going on.

Before we know it, the benediction is over. Just in case, we drive to the borgo in Mugnano, but there is no fire, so there will be no benediction this year. So we drive back home for our own little fire in the fireplace and a cozy evening.We did not see Brik, so wonder if he is in the hospital. We are sure everyone in Mugnano is praying for him.

January 18
The day begins with rain. Here in this part of Italy, any rainstorm is a dangerous event this year. There has been so much rain this fall and winter that the earth is seen putting up its weary arms and hollering, "I can't take it anymore!"

This morning, an important wall holding up part of the town of Amelia collapsed...60 meters of it. The wall withstood 3,000 (yes, three thousand) years of rain. But at 7AM it had enough.

So what we know is that there had been a construction crew with scaffolding standing in front of the former wall for over two years. Two archeologists were hired to work with the contractors. Tiziano tells us on the phone this afternoon while we're sitting in a parking lot viewing the action, or non-action, that the archeologists may have created some problem behind the wall, causing a schism in the wall and a domino effect on the 2,300 year old wall.

Or perhaps the archeologists advised the contractor, who did not pay attention to their warnings. Archaeologists are put on these kinds of jobs for this very reason...for the protection of important historical structures. There is a lot of finger-pointing going on, and when we see Tiziano on Friday he'll tell us more. It is very sad news.

This morning, we were on notaio business, still searching for the right one for our client's property sale. Yesterday, the notaio in Orte could not help us. This morning, we drove to Orvieto for an appointment with another notaio.

I like the building where the notaio's office is located very much, and can imagine taking clients there to close their property purchases. Once inside the huge wood and iron front door are three gracious flights of marble stairs, with views to formal Italianate gardens as eye candy while we climb.

Inside, we have a long wait, although we have an appointment. But there is a marvelous drawing of an iris on a wall, so I stand sketching it while Dino waits. When we're ushered inside, we are told that the notaio will not agree to drive to the seller's apartment for the "atto" or final contract signing.

So we leave, make more calls, and come up with two more notaios. We agree to meet with a young man in Terni, who agrees to come to Attigliano as we've asked. And strangely enough, he bought his practice from the man who acted as the notaio some thirty years ago on the same property!

Dino deals with the notaio business while I paint away in class. The two trays with artichokes are finished, and they are wonderful. There are also two more small plates.

But in tonight's "cache" to go to the oven is one large chicken pitcher and eight or nine smaller plates. Four more plates remain there to be finished next week, as well as a tea pot. The design has been sketched, and it will be ready for the oven next Wednesday. Tomorrow, we'll drive to Deruta for more plates.

After a short "show and tell" at Tia and Bruce's on the way back, I'm back on track with coming up with a design for their plates. My designs are too elaborate for their every day dishes, so I'm going to simplify and have some ideas of what I can do to make their plates simple and very special.

Depending on what goes on tomorrow, I may even have sketches finished on Friday morning, when Tia picks me up to drive to Michellini to pick up some winter roses. I want to replace the polka rose in the big terra cotta pot in the lavender garden with a Madame Gregory Staechlin, a pink blowsy rose with a paler pink on the inside of the rose. It's been a rose I've loved for years. So this is my choice.

Sofi sat in Tia's kitchen chewing on an osso bucco bone. I do not like her to have bones. They turn her into a wild dog. So she chews on nylabones at home, and her disposition is always sweet. We divert her away from the bone with a piece of cheese and she's back to being a sweet dog again.

So we drive on home and settle in for the night.

January 19
We take a day trip today, starting in Deruta to pick up pottery to paint. We still buy small lots to paint, for I continue to experiment with styles and shapes.

Because we leave the house late, it is noontime when we arrive in Deruta, and our searching for new suppliers don't bring us to anyone we feel good about. So we return to Vania, who is closed until 2:15pm.

We return to the Bottega we like, and have pranzo while Sofi guards the car. Vania opens, we look around and pick up a few things, then drive to our other supplier, who agrees to make two 29cm plates as a test. Poor Tia and Bruce have waited six months so far for their plates. But we have to come up with just the right design. I have a plan. So the plates will be ready to paint in two weeks, then it will take another ten days to get them painted and fired. So perhaps they'll have a valentine surprise.

From Deruta, we travel north to Perugia and across to Tuscany. It is now 3:30, and with the sky low in the horizon, the cypress tress cast their long shadows on the green carpet of hills and valleys.

We drive on past Pienza, and take photos at little towns and on hillsides. Then we drive home as the sun lowers and the sky turns light blue grey and then dark blue and then we're arriving as the tower of Mugnano is lit and welcoming.

We've had a lovely day.

January 20
Twenty-five years ago today, Dino and I had our first business dinner. It was a dinner that turned into a date. Twenty five years later, we look back on those years, and are amazed that we are still fairly young and have shared so much together.

Tia arrives mid morning. We have planned to drive to Michellini for roses. She drives and Dino stays at home with Sofi and works on the web site.

Lucia, Luciana and Tiziana are all at Michellini when we arrive, and it's always a pleasure to visit the vivaio and work with them. We come away with only five roses: three for Tia, the Madame Gregorie Staechlein for a long wall behind the lavender garden reaching down toward the Rosa Banksia and a Pink Cloud, a rose bush to replace the polka rose in the lavender garden.

This Pink Cloud rose will become quite large, although it will soon be planted and will remain in a large terra cotta pot. I envision it growing like a small tree, bushy and full amid the field of lavender. Lucia promises me that it will be spectacular. The color looks dark for a "cloud", but we will see.

The Madame Gregorie rose, the one I really can't wait to see in full bloom, will be planted nearby, spreading over the fence in all directions like a buxom woman hanging over a balcony. The fence is quite ugly, a wire square mesh held up by castagno poles every two meters or so. The rose will obscure the unfinished look of the fence. Although the rose will only flower once, probably in May, I am expecting it to be fabulous. And the green leaves will remain. Speriamo.

I make bread from scratch, a loaf that I started early in the morning, and also a cece bean and pasta soup. I soaked the beans last night and although we don't eat until 2PM, everything comes out fine. I'll post the soup recipe on the site, for it is amazing. The recipe comes from three different recipes, and a few ideas of my own. We think it will taste even better tomorrow, but there's hardly any left.

We have no plans for tomorrow, so I expect to be out in the studio, painting, for most of the day. Roy is excited about "getting inventory ready", so I suppose I am, too. My hope is that we will bring six or seven pieces each week to class, and finish another one or two. Next week I plan to finish my tea pot and am excited about that. I suppose everything goes into inventory. I can always paint another...

January 21
We're surrounded by fog this morning. It's too cold to paint outside. Roy drives to Soriano to figure out about our health ID cards for this year, and I work on the web site. We are bleary eyed working on the site, but hope that everyone likes the changes and new information. Soon it will all be behind us.

The day is cold, cold, and I'm happy to stay at home all day. Between writing and sketching in front of the fire, I'm happy.

Tomorrow we'll have a late mass and celebrate our second patron saint's day, San Vincenzo. It's funny that we are such a little village and have two patron saints. I think San Vincenzo was the original saint, and a hundred or more years ago San Liberato edged him out, so to speak. There will be a procession, and I wonder if I'll have a role since I'm now a member of the women's group. Without my blue scarf, tho, I'm really not the real thing.

We'll see.

January 22
It's the feast day of San Vincenzo, and at 8AM blasts of fireworks crack and whoosh and bang! right below us in the valley to welcome his spirit and tell the villagers its time to celebrate. Although we'll have a procession and late mass at 11AM, there won't be much in the way of village celebration. Perhaps next year when I'm on the Festarolo committee things will be different. I'm already tired just thinking of it.

Sofi stays in the kitchen and Dino and I walk up about twenty minutes before the mass. Cars line the street, probably for the musicians in the band.We heard them tuning up in front of the house for the past hour or so. Marina invites us to walk down to the school building for sweets, but we're not hungry. Instead, we'll walk to church, and Dino gets ready to change into his confraternity costume.

When we enter the church, the Bomarzo adult choir is congregating near the front left aisle, taking up several rows of benches. I'm still not realizing what is about to happen. The church is filled with deep red gladiolas, and the silver reliquary of San Vincenzo stands on the center of the altar. Dino steps forward to get changed.

Behind me, Serena, Mauro's wife, walks up to me and takes me by the arm. She hands me my blue AC scarf, and ties it around my shoulders. "Today," she tells me, "You will take the bandiera for A C and walk with it in the center of the procession, for it is your first time." I am not ready for this blessing, but move forward in a daze with Serena, and walk with her into the sacristy, where Dino stands talking with Mauro. Mauro gives me a kiss. He is able to walk, and is slowly getting better after his two very recent operations.

Serena takes me over to the back of the sacristy, where the A C bandiera on a long shiny silver pole leans against a statue. She gently takes it out and explains to me that the ribbon is probably one hundred years old. The color is a lovely pale egg blue, with silver embroidery. I am not sure what it says, but later we will take a picture and I will study it. Vincenzo walks over and affirms that it is very, very old. Everyone looks at it respectfully. Serena tells Don Luca what I will be doing and he is "Happy. Very happy."

She and I walk back out to the church, and I greet a few friends before the start of the mass. Luciana is sitting down, and it has been so many weeks since we have seen her that I walk over to her and take her hand. She shows me a black eye under her dark glasses, telling me that she fell in her house, but she is better now. She has been staying with her daughter in Castiglione in Teverina. It is good to see her back in the village.

I am missing Felice and Marsiglia, but their son Renzo is here from Bomarzo, dressed in his confraternity costume, along with about fifteen other men. There is a good turnout today.

The mass is wonderful, with the big Bomarzo adult choir taking up at least a third of the benches, and the women of the village taking up the rest. The few men who are not in the Confraternity, including Tiziano and Livio, stand against the back. The choir is a very wonderful addition, and the notes and voices rise up and over the arc of the roof and down again, seeming to hold me in a kind of embrace. These days, I am no longer frightened during the mass. I breathe more slowly and speak and walk and sing during the mass as if it's all a kind of procession. Each of us in the church moves slowly and sings mostly in tune.

Just as the mass finishes, Serena motions to me and I follow her forward.We stand, waiting until Don Cirio has finished. All eyes are on the choir. Everyone but me seems relaxed. Each person I glance at is reverent and serious, for they have performed this same mass all their lives, and know what to expect. My eyes well up with tears and I try to think of something else to keep my mind off what I am about to do. The tears fall, but I catch them with a handkerchief before anyone notices. And then the Carabieneri we refer to as The Little Prince moves over for us. Beside him is another policeman, then Tiziana, the Vice Mayor and Stefano Bonori, the Mayor, in the front row.

Serena and I step onto the altar as the Confraternity members move into place. The bandiera is handed out from the sacristy and Serena hands it to me to take out of the little church. Once outside, she tells me to stand in the center, and leans the pole over my right shoulder, the bandiera hanging behind my head. The women of the village stand on either side of me, in two lines. In front of me, Alberto Cozzi, as Priori, stands and then walks back and forth, making sure everyone is lined up correctly. Dino is ahead of me at the front of the procession, holding one of the two tall lanterns.

The band starts to play, and each of us steps slowly and confidently, on the same slow beat. I look straight ahead, my head slightly raised, to keep the tears from spilling down my cheeks. The cold rod feels wonderful in my ungloved hands. I leave my gloves in my pockets, for I want to feel the metal against my skin, to remember every moment.

As we walk slowly down and around the bend and toward Giustino's house, I reach two fingers of my left hand across the silver rod and over the edge Iolanda's gold bracelet. This is a bracelet I treasure and wear on special occasions on my right wrist. She is with me today. Today I am also very sad, for Leondina is not here and I really miss seeing her smiling face, standing at her door. We walk by her house and I am sad. I see her daughter, Vincenza, ahead of me in the procession, and later I will give her a hug. At this moment, I realize that it is time for another of life's passages for me. Gently, gently, we are blending into the village as if we are two of its own. Adopted, perhaps, but truly two of its own.

The procession ends, and I am to stand on the altar, next to Enzo, who holds a huge crucifix. When the benediction is given, I am to raise it, and Enzo smiles at me telling me, "When I raise Jesus, you raise your bandiera." On cue, I do as I am told. Then the parishoners line up to kiss the reliquary of San Vincenzo, and Serena takes the bandiera from me, so that I may do the same. She solemnly hands it to someone to take to the sacristy, and my job is finished.

Dino and I walk down the hill side by side, and soon it's time for pranzo and a quiet afternoon, with oh so much to think about.

Tiziano arrives later for tea. The news about Brik is all right. He has been staying inside Pepe's house after a week at the vet in Amelia. So we bring up the subject of his fight with Tex, and Tiziano tells us that although Brik does not have an official owner, he is the dog of the neighborhood, so in a way this is as official as any. We think that Antonella Fosci will be getting him a license. We hope that he will be all right.

Tiziano thinks that Claudio and Shelly should get a muzzle for Tex, on those occasions when he is let off his long chain at their property. But we all know that they won't do this, so hope that the two dogs won't cross paths again. If they do, one of the dogs will surely be killed.

Tiziano also tells us that the situation in Amelia is probably that the archeologists were working on a part of the inside wall that was not fortified, and the wall gave way. But these archeologists are favorites of the superintendent, so won't receive any punishment. Somehow the town will have to find money to repair the wall. We talk about the keystone for the arch above the red chair. See our last posting for the photo. The chair is gone, and the keystone, the stone in the center of the arch that holds it together, is slipping. The right side of the wall is no longer straight. So if the mayor does not take action soon, we will have another Amelia crisis. We'll see if we have previous photos of the arch, and will write a letter to the mayor. Tiziano has agreed to tell his cousin, Tiziana, about the problem. He thinks it can be solved with a kind of brace below it as a temporary fix.

We talk about the San Antonio d' Abate blessing of the animals, and at the end of the procession yesterday, Don Luca apologised to Dino for the lack of the blessing in Mugnano the other day, but felt that for one dog, it is not possible. One dog! So this December, we'll make a long list of the dogs: Brik, Basquia, Sofi, Ubik, Enzo's dog, even Tex, who won't come, and then there's Vincenzo's latest lamb, and scores of cats. Homage to a patron saint is called an omaggio, and San Antonio d'Abate is the patron saint of farm animals. So we're sure to have the tradition return to our little village next year.

We talk about our wall tragedy above the path leading to San Rocco, and Tiziano reminds us that the wall undoubtedly collapsed because the Comune, who is responsible for maintaining the path, is responsible. The path has dropped, and so the wall gave way. It makes so much sense. So we'll have another thing to write and talk with the mayor about. This time, we have photos of the path and the wall before the collapse. So the comune will have to find a way to fix the path and the wall. Now that Oosten owns the property behind the church, he must have a way to get to it. So in the coming months we'll have yet another project to take on and push forward.

January 23
Dino agrees to finally check out the heater, and he gets it working. I'm able to paint in the studio for the morning and early afternoon. The heater is quite good. But it is so cold today, that by 2:30 my hands are like ice, and I have to come inside.

Mauro is supposed to meet with Dino and a worker in Attigliano, so we will see. There is no sign of Mauro all afternoon, so tomorrow Dino will track him down.

January 24
The heater in the studio is working well, so I spend a few hours painting. Dino tracks down Mauro, to talk about a client's project. On these cold days, I can't face working in the garden. So I paint until I'm bleary-eyed, them come inside and sketch and read and write. Dino spends most of the morning on the site, after taking a blood test.

Mauro's associates who are the tile layers arrive for a meeting with Dino, and leave with a promise for a bid in two days. It's so cold that I spend a lot of time standing in front of the fire, and am bored with TV, so spend most of the evening absorbed in a new book.

January 25
The morning is cold but sunny, so the heater is turned back on and I'm back in the studio, painting. Sofi loves to be outside, mostly lying around catching rays while I paint inside the studio with the door ajar. Dino drives to Amelia for a client meeting, and I make a pear torte with two huge ripe pears while he's gone. The torta is still warm when he arrives home for a quick pranzo before our customary Wednesday afternoon in Terni.

The ceramics are packed, nine of them, and we're able to get into class early. So I put four hours in, and am able to finish an elaborate teapot and a few other items, including cleaning up a few things that we transported from home. The smalto is still a problem. Most of the ceramics we dipped in class come out better than those we dipped and painted at home, because there is less transportation before the pieces are fired. But some of the pieces that were transported just from Terni to Deruta also show problems.

We return home with about eight pieces, all lovely, but almost every one has one problem or another. We love the pieces just the same, so when you come for a visit you'll probably be served on one of our treasures. I'm not ready for "prime time" yet.

I don't think we should plan for a spring show. Perhaps the Villa Lante show in the fall is more realistic. Slow and steady, slow and steady. It's a fascinating process. The weather is a factor, and the cold temperatures I'm sure have something to do with the smalto not adhering as well as it should.

I'm feeling less pressure these days to get many pieces finished. Since we are not happy with the smalto, or undercoat, on some of the pieces, we've decided to continue slowly. I continue to teach myself, with Monia lending a hand during class for a minute here or there each week. She does not have any real guidance regarding the smalto, just responding by shrugging her shoulders when I mention it. One of these years I suppose we'll figure out what the solution is, and by then perhaps we'll have our own kiln. But many, many other things will come first.

I've been researching what to plant in the row across from the main lavender field where we planted three peony bushes five or more years ago. At the time, we thought that the peonies did not seem to like the spot, so moved them two years later, and could not find anything better to take their place. We've tried new things every year. Nothing seemed to work. At least two of the peony bushes survived in another spot. But when I look at peony catalogues, they're what I really want to see...hedges of glorious peonies.

So I want Mario to come back and dig a big trench, taking out all the old soil, and then plant three large peony bushes there again. Friends tell us to just plant them and forget them. Sometimes they take years to take off. But I remember one as a child next to the garage. It was totally ignored, I don't think it was ever watered, and grew beautifully. The best vivaio for peonies in Italy, perhaps even in Europe, is right down the road from Il Pallone, one of our favorite markets. So I'll break it to Dino one of these days and we'll go back for three bare root plants this next week.

January 26
We wake to an email from our great friends, Donna Pizzi and Phillip Thompson. Take a look at their great photos, especially Number 4, taken across the street from our house before Pia cleared her land. http://www.pizzithompson.com/italy You can buy a selection of their photographs on note cards, just published. Tell them we sent you. They live in Portland, Oregon.

Dino drives to Civita Castellana for client business, but Sofi and I will have none of that. Last night when coming to bed, Dino sent me off to dreamland with sweet compliments of my painting style. Check the website to view some of the latest pieces.

So of course I'll paint today. After an hour or so, it's so cold I have to come inside the house, but bring a jar of smalto, to stir it up at room temperature so that I can make repairs. I can't figure out why it is so cold in the studio with the heater on all morning.

And then Dino arrives home and tells me that this morning on his way out, he went into the studio to turn on the heater and found a dead bird on the counter. After disposing it, he went on his way. Dead bird? How could it get in? The front window is closed almost completely. A bird could never get inside that small space.

So Dino walks out to investigate, and returns laughing. We never closed up the back window! There is an old grate sitting outside, but plenty of room for birds to fly in. So Dino will find a piece of the obscure roofing material and will mount it front the outside, just to keep birds and critters outside.

This afternoon, Dino calls DMV in California for me. My license renews in March, and I tried to renew it in November. DMV. They make red tape in Italy sound simple. In November, I could not renew, nor would they take my photo. But now I am to come in and take a vision test and a photo. We call them, saying we won't be available until November, so they finally agree to extend my license for a year. I'm sure when we arrive in November there will be some kind of mixup. So will I abandon my U S driver's license? I have no interest in taking a driver's test, so perhaps this will be one more reason to give up a connection to the U S. I have mixed feelings about it.

Tony and Pat arrive for pranzo, and we drive off to the Chinese restaurant in Viterbo. It is really not bad, but how could you ruin spring rolls (rolatini privavera), Won Ton Soup or Hot and Sour Soup? Their version of rice is not the sticky kind, which makes chopsticks a kind of joke. We are served a chicken dish with almonds and also a crispy pork dish. The pork dish is very good. The chicken is good, but with not much taste. But no fortune cookies! With only three tables full in the restaurant, it's certainly not a "hot" spot for pranzo. But we like the change.

Dino drives us around Viterbo, and we stop at one of the larger churches in the centro storico to take a look. With several popes during the 13th century guiding all Christendom from Viterbo, there is much to see in this small town. We'll post some information on the site soon.

I'm thinking that we should have a section on the site of words and phrases used often by newcomers to Italy. That means things that have to do with settling in, making a home ready to live in, doing the ordinary things like getting power turned on or finding a plumber. While it is cold, we can start that. But once the weather turns warm, we'll have much less time. I'm also being prodded to do some real writing (the book), but there is research to do and I'm finding all kinds of reasons not to do it.

Dino drives off for a meeting with a supplier in the afternoon, and I do some sketching. I come up with a man who I've seen in a book about Raphael. He is a grotesque, and Dino thinks my interpretation of him is a winner. So I'll work on him soon. But I'm looking around for ideas for the tiles for our outdoor sink.

Remember that project I've talked about for over two years? Now it's time for me to design and paint the tiles. I think I'll start to map the designs out on paper tomorrow while it's still very cold outside. We're debating whether the design should be big, so that the designs can be seen from far away, or more intricate. I favor the intricate, because the tiles are to take a back seat to the flowers, unless a person is close to the sink. I think the design will be of my grotesque women, very bawdy with curves and curls and intricate flowers and leaves. I'll take the designs I've researched and tweak them to become my own designs.

That reminds me. I want to revisit the artist in Bomarzo who has her own ceramics shop and kiln. Taking the ceramics up the hill to be fired is far more reliable that driving them to Terni and then to Deruta. So in the next week or so we'll see if she'll let me fire some things there, and what kind of arrangement she will want to make. Sometimes the answer is right under our noses.

January 27
I cannot sleep, so get up before 7AM and sit at the computer to start of the dictionary for the web site. I am able to put a couple of hours in, creating and working on the list, until my hands and legs are really, really cold and get up to take a hot shower and get dressed. There is no heat to speak of in the bedroom. This will be an ongoing project, with help from Dino on many of the words and phrases.

Dino and Tiziano drive off to Alan's property in the morning. Tiziano wants to do some walking around the property and to do some measuring if any artifacts have been found. Penna is one of the places where he has been given a grant to document.

Do you remember the book, The Man Who Planted Trees? Well, Tiziano is a little like that man, in that he intends to walk almost every inch of the Tiber Valley in our area, documenting history and helping to preserve the ancient stories of this land. He is a remarkable young man, and is providing a very valuable service to the people of Italy and of the world who will want to come here to learn about the area's history.

Sofi and I stay at home. I map out a few tiles, and start to design the whole garden sink project. I think I'll first do a general design, then map it out and only then get into the detailed intricate work. Roy will love doing the measurements. I love the drawing and the dreaming. This really needs to be finished by May, when the flowers in the garden are at their best. I think that is a reasonable goal. What a delicious project!

Yesterday, Tony told us that he calculated that they spend about Euro 30 per day for heat. So I've been thinking about getting a stufa, or little heater, to be installed to the left of the fireplace. I've seen people heat them with pellets. Today and tomorrow, we'll research the prices of stufas, and see if we can find a characteristic little one for our kitchen. Last night, Dino confirmed that most of the heat from our fires in the fireplace stream right up and out of the chimney. So we need to find one, and now is the time.

It rains while Dino and Tiziano are at Alan's, and Sofi and I stay inside by the fire. Dino returns to tell me that they did not find any artifacts, but that Tiziano was able to rule out the area. He and Dino walked around the property and up to the top of the property where Alan and Carlo were working to repair another landslide due to the heavy rain this winter.

After pranzo, Roy and I drive in search of a stufa, one just the perfect size for the spot to the left of the fireplace. Before we are finished, we have traveled as far south as Vetralla and as far north as Lugnano. We have stopped at ten (!) places that sell stufas, but have not found the one that is right for us.

So tomorrow morning, we'll drive south to Civita Castellana. That town is known for its ceramic porcelain factories (mostly for toilets and sinks), but it is an industrial town, and we intend to comb it like Tiziano combing the Tiber Valley for ancient artifacts.

What we have agreed is that we want a pellet stufa, one that has an electrical starter and burns pellets made of a kind of decomposed wood material. It is ecologically good and economical. I'm also looking for something characteristic, in either ceramic or cast iron. We'll have more to report tomorrow.

At home, I do some drawing. I am sketching a plan, as well as a few ideas, for the tiles for the garden sink. By now, Dino agrees that we'll demolish the existing sink and rebuild one from scratch, using the same old marble sink, but nothing else.

The base will probably consist of cement blocks with my ceramic tiles mortared on top. The design will consist of some kind of flowering vines, with a characteristic grotesque border or top and front detail. Yum.

Is it the damp weather? I don' t know, but muscles in my right hand and forearm are starting to feel a dull ache, something like the persistent ache in my right shoulder. Is it arthritis? I do a search online for hand exercises, and next Tuesday we'll visit the doctor to see if he wants to refer me to a specialist.

Dino thinks I do so much drawing that it may be a kind of repetitive thing. But the years are beginning to creep up on me. And Ruby warned me that if I am to have any physical things to watch out for, it is arthritis. How strange! There is no arthritis to speak of in my family.

We are waiting anxiously to hear back from our web designer, for we can't move forward to finish our new site without his counsel on some of the more technical aspects. Let's hope he can give us some time this weekend.

January 28
I spend the night working out the sink tile design, and am not much farther along than I was when I went to bed. But I am excited about the project.

The morning is cold, and there has been no snow. We are wondering when our one-day-a-year snowfall will arrive. In past years, we have always had snow in January. Perhaps we will have no snow this year.

Just as we're about to leave after pranzo in search of a stufa, Mauro arrives with his preventivo, followed closely by Sergio, who is the tile layer, with his. I like Sergio, who tells me to wait for the snow. The winter is not over yet. I have to hold my breath to not ask him to look at our garden sink, thinking all the while of him laying the finished tiles on the surround below the sink. Just before Mauro arrived, Dino and I walked over to the existing garden sink, and talked about how it will work.

We all drive to Civita Castellana in search of our little stufa, after everyone leaves. I've lost count, but think we have found the right one at about store number 20, but there is something I don't like about the inside ventilation pipe. Dino tells him we have to go home to measure, and then we drive around the corner to the main Orsolini showroom to number 21.

We are told at the receptionist station to take a left and then a right, where we'll find an assortment of stufa samples. We walk around blindly, and then, when turning around to face the direction we've just come from, we see it. It's a very small stufa, dark brown and black ceramic, in a kind of French style, with curved legs. There is one little chip on the ceramic door.

We wait almost ten minutes for a salesperson, and when a young woman arrives, we ask her about it. She tells us it is a good model, and quotes us a price. The model is the only one in the showroom. We tell her that the price will have to include IVA (the dreaded 20% tax on almost everything in Italy). She thinks it's a problem. But since she did not say it will be impossible, we send her back to her boss to see if they will sell it to us for that price. Either price is very good, but we are on a roll.

It is only when a new salesperson named Michela, returns, and asks us if we can speak English, that we think we have found what we have been searching for. She agrees to the price, but is now worried. This is the last of three that they have had, and they cannot order any more. If we want it, we need to come back on Monday afternoon so that a technician can look it over. There are no instructions included.

She asks us to come to sit down at the front of the showroom while she looks at a few other catalogues, and then we hear the real story. This stufa has been in the showroom for eleven years! Two others were sold, an orange one and a bright red one. But this one has stood there for all of eleven years, collecting dust, one candy rapper and one spent cigarette butt.

We must have it. What a lovely and sad little piece of cast iron and ceramic! So she places a sold tag on it and her name, and on Monday we'll return and will make sure everything is fine with it (what can go wrong?) before having someone lift it into the car. Stefano or Mauro and Enzo will install it. What we like best about it is that it vents to the back, so we won't have a tall chute of black tube running up the interior wall of the kitchen. It will vent right out the side of the house, and then an insulated pipe will run up to another little chimney. The little stove has finally found a home.

At home, I sit on the couch and imagine it in its spot to the left of the fireplace. We have made a good choice. Now we'll have to figure out who is going to install it. This will be another project, but project is Dino's middle name, if you know what I mean.

We drive home and settle in, and Sofi sits with me while I do a little sketching and then a little writing, and then it's time to go to bed, do a few exercises I've found on the internet for my hand, and then drift off to dreamland, while Roy watches movies on TV.

January 29
With the month almost finished, we have an appointment with new clients to talk with them about finding a new property. The days are full of surprises, with new adventures around every turn. We are certainly never bored.

I am wishing that I had started drawing and painting a decade or so earlier, but perhaps our lives were so different then, that I would not have found the time. But now the days are growing shorter, and I am wondering if my hand is starting to tell me that I am giving it too much of a workout with all the sketching and painting.

As it is, I have not played the violin for months. I really miss not playing, but it hurts my shoulder too much to play. So the music stand remains right next to the window facing the lavender garden, a reminder of how much I miss playing. I do know that the twins will grow up so quickly, and before I know it they'll be almost ten, and hopefully one or both of them will want to play the violin by that time, and then it will be theirs. What better legacy for Uncle Harry to have?

We walk up to church on this misty morning, for a mass with Don Cirio, and before the mass even Vincenzo gives me a hug on his way up the aisle. With Marsiglia at home with a sore throat, Felice comes to church looking a little forlorn. He sits on the aisle where he and Marsiglia have sat recently, and I regret not having him sit with us.

After mass, Tiziano takes us across the piazza to the Barberini palazzo, the building known as the Orsini palazzo. Sandro wants us to look at his work, and we are met by one of the sisters, Elsa, who shows us around.

The place is really quite remarkable. We are shown perhaps a quarter of the building. I had thought it had been turned into several apartments, but it has obviously not. She takes us through a few rooms, and when I comment on the crests on the fireplaces, she shows us even more rooms. When I ask her if we can come back and take photos of the crests so that I can paint them, she answers, "Why not?" The reason for our visit, a look at the floor tiles, brings us to ask her if we can see them. But they are covered in cardboard, perhaps to seal them. We then have a discussion with her about what material is used on them to cure them, so that they won't get as dirty as they would with olio d'lineo. Even with Tiziano there to translate, we cannot figure it out. So we will ask Sandro this next week to explain.

In one of the areas, she is proud to show us two new bathrooms, across from each other and separated by a little opening of about a meter or two in width. When I ask her why there are two bathrooms in the same spot, she tells us that the palazzo is big, so they need to have multiple bathrooms. Perhaps when the building has been fully restored, we will understand. The bathrooms are beautiful, just the same, fashioned in taupe colored tiles.

After pranzo, we drive to Amelia to meet with new clients near the Teatro. Their home is lovely. She is keen on finding a country property near Amelia, with land and buildings to restore. We don't have what they want within their budget, but will start a search.

I'd like to be home sketching, and we drive home on this gloomy afternoon. Before I know it, I'm laying out a plan for the garden sink tiles. Dino helps me by drawing the piece in perspective on graph paper. This is not my forte. I seem to blank at calculations, my vision clearing as soon as I am left to sprawl on the page and watch my hand spring to life as petals and shoots and stalks and buds and flowers emerge from the pencil.

By the time we go to bed, I've sketched small and large samples. I'm not quite there. But soon...

January 30
With the dawn, I look forward to rising. The sky is grey, but I am drawn to the large pad of paper waiting for me. Yes, it is as though it is telling me that yes, the design is ready to appear.

And in the next hours, that is just what happens. Before the day is done, I will have sketched out eleven tiles. I need approximately 25, and some of those will be repeats, a few without designs.

We are ready to pick up our tiny wood stufa from Orsolini, and after a pranzo of tomato bread soup, using our bottled tomatoes and basil that has been marinating in our best olive oil for months, we drive off, with Sofi at home to guard the kitchen.

The little French stufa is a perfect design for us. Although we'd like a pellet stufa, they are so ugly and also so expensive (starting at Euro2,000), that this will be a good alternative for the next year or two. Even if we decide to plunk down the money for a pellet stove now, the designs are so ugly that we could not find one in any of the twenty plus stores we visited this past week. So we're happy with our decision. They wrap our little orphan, who stood in the showroom for eleven years before we came along, and we drive home with it.

Dino and I bring it up the front steps, and it fits just fine. Tomorrow Dino will find Stefano and see if he can steal some time this next week to install it for us, the tube running straight out the side of the house and up, next to the chimney. Unfortunately, we don't think we can connect it to the chimney, but perhaps Stefano will have a better idea.

The temperature is not cold this evening, so we don't lay a fire. I work on some sketches while Dino works on the web site, knowing that Alex will be available later this week to hopefully finish some of the technical aspects. We won't be ready for the first of February, but perhaps for Valentine's Day we'll be ready to unveil our new site. Speriamo!

January 31, 2006
So it's the last day of January, and although the morning is cold, the afternoon is sunny and lovely. On our walk up to the borgo to see Dottore Bifferoni to get prescriptions, we pass eight or so neighbors, packed tight as sardines on the bench next to Donato's house. Donato's delivery truck boxes them in but no matter. It is sunny, and they squeeze in, not even noticing us until we greet them as we walk by on the far side of the truck.

At that moment, they all seem to spring to life. It is as if they're in the audience of a quiz show, and everyone is told "look asleep!" And a few minutes later, "Wake up!" The requisite, "bella gionata's" and "bell sole's" are thrown out and we volley back. Then we continue our walk up the hill.

The dog named Brick meets us, and he is a real mess. Stitches and bare skin appear on a ring around his neck and also on his hindquarters. He seems spry, however, and comes over for a buss. Carlo's son is there with a special petition for us to sign about officially making Brick the neighborhood dog.

Now if you recall, more than a week ago, Brick and Tex, Claudio and Michelle's huge Maremenna dog, got into a terrible row, with Brick very badly hurt. Carlo stepped in, and we thought he and Antonella Fosci took the dog to a private vet in Amelia, where he stayed for a week, before returning to the village. With no official owner, no license and no proof of shots, he was not allowed to go to a regular public vet.

So a group of concerned citizens got together to petition to the mayor to make Brick an official dog of the borgo of Mugnano. Dogs in Italy are not supposed to be allowed "off leash" in public areas. Brick has never been on a lead, nor does he even have a collar.

I don't know what will happen to Brick's "status", since Brick has been the unofficial mayor of Mugnano for as long as we can remember. He greeted us in September, 1977 when we first stepped into the village, leading us around and making us feel welcome. Since then, he has meandered all over the village and the adjoining pieces of land at will.

We can see Claudio and Shelly's point. Tex is not allowed off leash. So Brick should not be either. Tonight Dino told me that Brick has even gone onto Claudio and Shelly's property, with Tex on a chain, unable to reach him. No wonder Tex wanted to get to Brick. And so one day, with Tex off his lead, he traveled just next to their property to the cemetery, where Brick had led three women of the village on their daily walk. Cue the music of "Gunfight at the OK Corral...".

Sofi stayed on the property today during our walk, and is obviously unaware of all the dog talk these days in the village. If we ever needed a blessing of the animals for the feast day of San Antonio d'Abate, it was this year...

We are the third in line to see Dottore Bifferoni, who arrives right on time for his weekly hour. Since we only need refills of current prescriptions, it takes no time at all, nor does he ask anything about our health. I am still not sure about having him as our doctor. He seems to be a competent country doctor. But if something more serious arises, as it has in the past, I am not sure that I want him to be our "captain".

I know that the doctor in Soriano who is supposed to be the best around is very busy. So don't know if it's a good idea to join a practice of someone who has little time to get to know his patients. Am I making any sense? Isn't the reason we want to go to him because he is very good? That would make sense that many people want him to be their own. In the next weeks, I will convince Dino that we need to learn more.

On the way back down the hill, Maria (the Sarda) tells us that she switched to Bifferoni from Dr. Fagioli (known as Dr. Bean). Dr. Bean was always too busy for conversation with her. She thinks a doctor should be like a priest, and get to know his "flock". She wants a conversation. Are we any different?

Stefano the muratore arrives to look at our sweet little stufa, and he'll install it within the week. Tomorrow when I'm getting my toenails done in Orte, Dino will pick up the supplies. It's possible the work will even be done in the next few days.

Stefano plans to tie the little stufa right into the chimney of the fireplace. So after he leaves, Dino knocks off the bottom pepperino shelf under which it will sit, leaving the other shelves where they are. A black pipe will be run inside the fireplace and up into the flue. I'm sure it will look fine. Then Dino and I will repair the paint on the wall. I may even paint a detail on the back wall. This is exciting news.

Earlier this morning, we all drove to Sippiciano to Daniele, our parrucchieri (hairdresser), and the road is still closed at Bomarzo, so we drive through Attigliano and Alviano. Once there, Daniele tells us he is working alone, for his findanzata is now working as a receptionist at a big hotel in La Quercia near the Duomo. We'll stop by sometime to take a look.

That reminds me. Donatella appeared at the salon to say hello, looking like a twenty-something, all dressed in black, quite wonderful, with a black faux boa and some kind of black short pants over tights. She has a slim figure, and although I'd think she's a little long in the tooth for such an outfit, it looks quite good on her. But that's not what I want to tell you about.

She tells me that Ingrid and her husband are almost prisoners in their lovely villa in the countryside outside La Quercia. There have been so many robberies that they won't leave their property after dark. They are frightened and remain poised in their home with a gun!

I am shocked hearing both that there are so many robberies, and that they are waiting with a gun. Donatella tells Dino that every Italian in the countryside has a gun. And now there is a new law that gives people permission to shoot anyone who appears on his or her property to threaten to do them harm. Is this another American custom the Italians have embraced?

I fear it is not the Italians they are after, but the Albanians, who roam the countryside, appearing to be friendly but after dark descend, just as they did with us. We refuse to let this thinking rule our lives, and feel secure here. See our Archives for mid May, 2003 for our own experience.

Tia worked on the first of her roses this afternoon in the beautiful weather. She hopes to have them all done this next week. So perhaps if it is lovely later this week, we'll get started on ours. I remind her that tomorrow in ceramics class I'll work on two test designs for her. I have an idea that I think will work well. We'll see if they like the bowls. If they do not, we'll like them and will use them ourselves or sell them to someone else.

I have fifteen tile designs finished for the garden sink, including a special row at the top with two cherubs (called putti) and ribbons and roses and only need a couple more. So we'll buy the handmade tiles in the next week so that I can paint and fire them. I'd like to have the sink done by March, but don't know if that will be possible. At least the tiles may be finished. Then we'll see who will build it and who will lay the tiles. I am truly feeling like an artist now.

As the month ends, although a long winter's nap continues, I am hopeful of many things, and already see the first signs of Spring just around the corner. Perhaps before the next month is through, we'll have published our new web site and will have the tiles for the sink finished. Dino promises me we'll buy the three peony bushes this next week, and that means that Mario will come to do any of the heavy winter pruning and digging we'll need to have done in order to get ready for next month.

See our Garden Calendar and Garden section for more specifics about the garden.

FEBRUARY 2006

February 1
I'm awakened by the sound of birds and a bright blue sky. What a wonderful way to start a new month, a new beginning! Let's work on the roses!

Sofi and I walk down to the path, and finish clipping the leaves from four Lady Hillingdon roses, growing against the tufa front wall, before it is time to come in and help Dino with a project. Well, we don't finish the entire grooming, but we clip off all the leaves.

Tomorrow we'll return to finish the fifth and then walk back to eye each one, clipping off deadwood, crossed stems, and getting ready for an explosion of blooms in April. These are wonderful roses. See the photos of them on the photos section of the site. Tomorrow we hope to work on at least the roses on the front and side terraces.

While I sit at Giusy's for a pedicure, Dino picks up the supplies we'll need for the stufa project tomorrow. Stefano will arrive in the morning and we expect a real mess in the kitchen. He'll bore into the side of the fireplace like a beetle gone amok, but when he's done we'll have the stufa venting right up into the fireplace flue. Speriamo.

While we're working on the roses, Luigina calls up to me and asks me if I'd like some fresh eggs. I walk down to meet her and she hands me four, still warm from her chicks. Wish we could have them for pranzo, but it's already noon and we have something else cooking. So we'll have them tomorrow. How sweet Luigina is! I ask her what about eggs for her, and she tells me she'll have plenty tomorrow.

Later tonight, when we're backing into the parcheggio, Dino points across the street to the abandoned chicken coop and tells me, "We could have our own chickens. If we took over that coop, we'd just be walking across the street to collect our very own eggs now."

I remember that he had no interest in raising chickens when we first bought our property, for there was a chicken coop where my studio is now. He's still not interested. I like the idea of the fresh eggs. I just don't like the idea of making friends with little creatures who will someday turn into a meal. It's enough to make someone a vegetarian.

I have had a headache for two days, and am not very excited about class, and that's not like me. I don't have a migraine, but the headache persists as a low droning kind of ache. I think it's because of the change in weather. Bummer. It's beautiful outside and I can't really appreciate it the way I'd like. Hopefully with another icepack tonight, it will go away.

My history this past year or two has been remarkable, with very few headaches. Let's hope my decades of migraines have finally come to an end. We'll go back to the hospital in Perugia in March, so hope we have good news then, too.

We pick up a finished teapot, two candlesticks and a number of plates from class. So take a look at the photos and see what you think. Unfortunately, the two bowls I paint today as tests for Tia and Bruce do not get to be fired, because at the end of the session I realize they need some smalto repair. So it will be another week before they're fired and two weeks before they're ready to be seen.

While I work in class, Dino picks up a folding table with a handle to use at mercatos. I am having second thoughts about selling my ceramics. Unless the smalto situation is fixed, I don't know when we'll be ready to sell in any quantity.

I do realize that there are problems with transporting the items to Deruta after class. Each one comes back with a problem. So the answer is to either have our own kiln or to work with the woman in Bomarzo. We'll have to visit her again soon. I'm not ready for the kiln just yet, nor do we have a place for it. Ultimately, it should be located in a little room behind the studio. But I am not sure if we can obtain permission to build one there.

February 2
Yesterday at Giusy's, we talked about spirituality. Holding a conversation solely in Italian, I tell her about an experience on Sunday in church.

Sitting during the homily, I started to think about God as if He (I see God as a He although I know many women see God as a She) was lonely. I wondered whom HE talks to, what His life is like. Does he ever get depressed, angry? Are there things He wants to learn?

I tell her that when I'm in prayer, I don't ask for anything. He knows what I don't have, what I miss, what my anxious moments are, but I think asking Him for something is not what I ever choose to do. If something is to happen for me, or for those I love, it will happen if He wills it.

Giusy thinks the idea is interesting. Considering that I still don't understand everything that she is saying, we do quite well bantering back and forth. So the conversation continues...

Today, I tell her that I remember starting my own religion at about age six, probably as a result of what was going on around me, or not going on around me, at the time. Called evannism, it consisted of God and me, just talking things out.

Giusy and I continue to speak about Catholicism and about religion in general. And Giusy, who is very spiritual herself, agrees with me that no matter the cloak of one's particular religion, it gets down to an individual's relationship with a higher being or spirit.

I write about this in the journal, because, well, the journal is my journal!

Today, my headache is gone. It is a new day, and the birds tell me it's a lovely one. It is not as warm as yesterday, but clear and cold. We think Stefano is coming to install the stufa, but when he calls at just before noon to tell us he can't work here until late, we decide to eat pranzo.

I make a soup with sautéed minced onion in olive oil, chicken broth, frozen peas and broken up bits of pasta, and it is actually excellent! A recipe from Jamie Oliver tells me to put in mint, but our mint is gone. So I use dried tarragon and dried marjoram, one half teaspoon each. The pasta is regular pasta, broken up into one-inch pieces and half cooked before popping it into the chicken broth. I wait until the pasta is added to drop in the frozen peas, because overcooked peas are really terrible.

With grilled crostini covered with a swirl of olive oil and grated parmesan melted on top, we eat happily. Dino grills radicchio and spedinis of chicken and sausages from the macelleria in Attigliano, but I am too full to eat much of it.

There is always something new, and we like to figure out ways of using things we already have, like the frozen peas and parmesan and broth. But we have still forgotten to use Luigina's four fresh eggs from yesterday. Tomorrow they'll still be fresher than anything we pick up in the market.

We walk up to the mass for the blessing of the throat, on February 2nd of each year. It is a sweet mass, and we're back home before Stefano arrives. In about an hour, he's drilled into the wall and the whole room is covered with a fine powder.

He splats a white cemento on the hole to finish it off, and tomorrow afternoon, after we buy a few more supplies to finish the job, he'll return and hook it all up inside the chimney. This is a remarkable and inexpensive way to install the stufa, and we so appreciate Stefano's superb craftsmanship. He is a joy to have working on our projects.

February 3
We wake to a very cold and foggy morning. It looks as though it will never clear. Dino has an MRI this morning at the hospital in Orvieto, so we arrive early and even though we're there before 9AM, our number is 64.

Dino needs to have a colonoscopy this Spring, so we make an appointment and also pay for it today. That way, when he has the procedure he won't have to wait. And when you're about to go in for a colonoscopy, you don't want to wait, if you know what I mean. Since they found a few polyps the last time around for him, he's scheduled for this March. I have another year until it's time for mine again.

His MRI takes just half an hour, and then we're traveling across the gorgeous Orvieto countryside to Montefiascone. Below Montefiascone, we spot an antique shop that also does restorations, and stop to take a look. We think we find four lovely kitchen chairs, but I am not sure. So we'll measure tonight and perhaps take one of our existing kitchen chairs there to measure against them. And of course we'll tussle with them for a great price. Or pass them by. Fa niente.

We buy the tubes we'll need for the stufa project in Viterbo, and there's just enough time left to stop at the peony vivaio in Vitorchiano. Yum. We pick up three medium sized ones...These plants are priced like truffles. My intention is that they will grow side by side in a kind of hedge. The fellow who sells them tells us that the variety we've chosen is known to flower prolifically.

He also tells us something interesting. In October, when the leaves have pretty much fallen off, feed them. Don't feed them at all later in the year. Perhaps that is why our peonies didn't do anything. So with no food this spring and summer, perhaps the three original ones will recover.

We'll add that information onto our planting journal for the month of October. Once our new site is up (this month some time for sure), we'll have a monthly calendar to check off. Hope that helps a few gardeners, and hope it reminds me in time to do the things we should not forget to do each month.

Back at home, Stefano arrives around 3:30, and although Dino bought just the right supplies, one of the tubes is aluminum colored, not black, and he thought it would not show. But it does. Stefano tells him to just paint it, so that's what he'll do.

Before he goes to work, we take him out to the garden sink, and he advises us to use fewer tiles on the bottom supports, so we won't need any half tiles. That will look prettier and also be easier for me. So when he and Dino are working together inside the fireplace on the stufa connection, I'm redrafting the sink, and liking the design very much. I might begin the painting as early as next Wednesday, depending on whether Monia has brought the handmade tiles to class, and whether they are the right price.

As Stefano finishes, we tell him to take his pick of my hand painted Mugnano plates. We really want him to have one. He wants one with my initials on it, and I'm thrilled he'll have one. He leaves with instructions for Dino to not to fire up the stufa tonight. So Dino takes off for an errand in Amelia, and will return by way of the hardware store with black paint.

I can see the black pipe shooting diagonally into the side of the fireplace, and at first want Stefano to block the pipe off so that we won't see it. But if we need to do some cleaning in a year or so, that will be difficult if it's all cemented in. I sit for a few minutes having tea from my newly painted ceramic tea pot after Dino leaves, and rather like the authentic look of the pipe. It is such a short piece that I no longer mind it.

The eyes and the brain are such interesting parts of the body. In just a short period of time, it is easy to get used to something new. And now I'm thinking of putting in a short pepperino shelf next to the shelf above the stufa, for Dino's scotch and a few other liquor bottles. The shelves above the stufa will now be only for ceramics. We later compromise on no new outside shelf, and only a bottle or two.

I take a pass at drawing a pot with roses for the four remaining tiles for the garden sink. Dino would like a tromp l'oeil effect on it somewhere, but I don't like the way a pot with roses comes out. It looks too contrived. So I'll give it some time. In the meantime, if the weather is good tomorrow morning, Sofi and I will do more leaf pruning of the roses.

February 4
Today Tia invites a number of her women friends for pranzo. Bruce is out of town. So Dino and Sofi stay at home and I drive to Tia's. This is probably the third or fourth time I have driven since we have owned this car! I know it sounds strange, but our life is so simple and we share so many things that when we go out together Dino always drives. Once I'm out in the car, I don't feel especially liberated.

I join Terry and Helen and Nadia as Tia's guests today, and Tia is a great host, as usual. I have not gabbed with a bunch of women since my lavender lunch last July. Women always have something to talk about, and although we have very different backgrounds, we find that we have plenty in common.

I have done quite a bit of thinking about raising chicks, and although agreed with Dino that we won't do it, can't resist asking the other women what they think about bird flu and what they think about raising chickens. This is not the right group to talk about farm animals, so after an agreement that we have no control over the bird flu, we move on to other subjects.

By the time we leave, it is as though we've each peeled back a layer of ourselves for each other. Personalities are so interesting, and each of the women is complex and intelligent. So there is a lot to learn from, as well as about, each one. In a mixed group, there is seldom the opportunity to have the kind of discussions that women can have when they get together. The dynamics are just different. Not necessarily better; just different. And today, interesting.

After I leave, I stop at Coop in Amelia for some shopping, wanting to roast vegetables tomorrow in a little olive oil and herbs in the oven. Oh how wonderful they would taste if we had a bread oven! I'm not holding my breath about that one. We'll need to sell a couple of houses before we'll be able to put a new roof on the loggia and put in the bread oven there. In my dreams we'll use it all the time...

Every time I draw out the schematic for the garden sink, we take another look at it. And then in the redrawing, the sink gets taller. So now we're at 81 tiles...I rework the design and now will need to design some new elements. The process is so very interesting, and I'm very happy that we're taking our time, figuring out just where each of the designed tiles will be placed.

When I arrive back home, Dino tells me it's time to christen the stufa. He's spray painted the rest of the tubing black inside the fireplace, and it looks fine. After adding wood and a little paper to get it going, the stufa draws as it should. And then we see smoke. But for the first fire, the smoke is not too bad.

We'll have a couple of additional fires before the little thing settles down. But after an hour or so, we stop putting in wood and it cools off. Was there heat? Yes. A lot? No. I think it will work fine just the same. And it surely looks wonderful.

February 5
A special blessing goes out on this day to the family of Joy Thompson. Joy's maiden name was Campagnoli, and she was the loving daughter of Ernestine and Fred Campagnoli. Joy passed away yesterday after an illness.

The year we moved here, Joy and her sister Julie and mother Ernestine arrived here for a visit. We ate pranzo on Dino's grandmother's fine china and laughed all afternoon. I write about the china because, by some strange coincidence, the plates were of the same china pattern that Ernestine and Fred had when they were first married. When the three women walked into the kitchen, where we served pranzo, Ernestine laughed out loud. And then we did, too.

Here are two photos. One shows Julie and Joy on our bed, the other with Ernestine in the garden. We treasure these photos and hope you enjoy them, too.

February 6
Yesterday we spent a lot of time thinking about Julie and Joy and Ernestine, and also of Freddy, the girls' brother and Ernestine's son, who we forgot to mention yesterday. Since Joy had been ill for some time, the news was not a surprise.

This morning after reading the sad news from Julie, we leave for church. The little church is full, with Lore and Alberto returning, as well as Augusto and Vincenza and many others who do not return every week. Lore is expecting deliveries and their architect friend, so will be in Mugnano for a week.

We've invited them for pranzo, and although we think Alberto does not like the idea of eating at our house, we think they'll come. I attempt to fix authentic Italian food when they come, with a little twist, but he is such a traditionalist that I can see his eyebrows twitching, although he is so very proper and polite that he would never say anything.

We pick up Sofi after church, and drive up to Pissignano, the monthly antique mercato we like so much. The town is just north of Spoleto, and even if we don't buy anything, which is the case today, we see friends and love seeing many unusual items.

Maggie is there, and Dino asks her about how difficult it is to exhibit. I turn my head and roll my eyes silently in horror, for I cannot imagine exhibiting here. But Dino wants to. Perhaps I'll let him do it once. And unfortunately that means I'll have to be with him.

We run into Patricia and her husband Bassam, who are always looking for special furniture pieces to add to their antique business. But we stop at the porchetta truck for sandwiches instead of having a big meal. I want to cook a pork roast and roast vegetables later, so encourage Dino to do this. The sandwiches are excellent and the meat very lean, but it is so filling that I cannot eat much of mine.

We drive on to Montefalco to a shop specializing in the linen fabric that Umbria is famous for. The shop opens at 3PM, so we stop at a bar for coffee to wait until it opens. While we're there we run into two women from Southern California with a tour guide.

We take his information, because these women are in the midst of a weekly cooking tour, and we always look for short cooking classes for friends in the area. Short classes are difficult to find in spans of less than a week, and we later learn that conducting the classes is not a moneymaker unless it is of a five day duration.

We find the shop, and wait until it opens. Giuseppina the shop keeper, helps us to pick out a lovely and characteristic linen damask fabric, and agrees to have the shop sew a runner the perfect length and width for our hall bureau. While they're at it, they agree to seam the rest of the fabric into a wonderful tablecloth. And so I of course must purchase more, to make the low drapes to fit under the kitchen sink.

The fabric is 120 cm wide, so one meter will be just what I need. We think it will be ready in two weeks, so it will be a good excuse to return. Then it's time to drive home in the cold afternoon light, the sun hurrying to drop below the horizon as the light turns to pale orange and then in an instant, to icy pewter.

But we're not hungry when we arrive home, so the roast and vegetables will be cooked for pranzo tomorrow. It's been a lovely day, experiencing one of the day trips we like so much. The countryside, especially as the sun drops low in the sky, is the colors of the fabric, a persimmon-y orange and that pewter grey again.

We are collecting quotes for our business to use on the web site, so stop at Tony and Pat's for a short visit. They return to Ohio until mid June, and I offer to put some lettuces and rughetta and herbs in pots for her, so that when they arrive they can just walk outside the kitchen and have their kitchen garden all ready. It will be fun to do, starting the seeds in May.

While we're sipping tea and hearing about their adventures with the Comune, we ask them if they were to speak with someone in the U S who wanted to purchase property in Central Italy, would they recommend that they contact us? If so, what would they say about us? We know that Tony would tell us how he really feels.

Tony does not hesitate:

"I'd tell them you know everything about this area. You know even more than the people who live here, people who have lived here all their lives."

Thanks, Tony.

At home, we continue to work on the web site, but we're edging so very close to being ready...It's all up to Alex, now.

Today, Monday, Dino wakes up early to the alarm. By the time I'm up and dressed it's 7:30, and Mario is already here starting to work on the big cachi tree by the kitchen window. I think it is going to be incredibly cold, but instead I have to take off my coat. The sun on the terrace is warm, and without a wind, it's a beautiful morning.

Mario finishes pruning the cachi tree, leaving it for maximum shade. Then he moves over to the gigantic laurel tree, which reminds me of some kind of fantasy creature, all arms and shoulders and very tall. Mario's up in the ladder, all monkeylike, snipping and snipping. But he does not have his moto-sega with a motor. Some of the branches are very big. So he climbs down and rushes off to the next town, where he has his little machine.

Once he's back, he does not really use it very much. It is a monstrous thing, an electric powered saw that I won't let Dino get near. The ladder reaches up, up into the tree, and Rosita is out on her balcony, looking down at the tree she loves.

She would love it to be round. Motioning the shape lovingly as if she holds a baby in her arms when I ask her, she is not thrilled that Mario is cutting it lower than she'd like. I have to tell her that in spring she will get her wish. Dino tells Mario that when we can afford it, the tree will come down and instead we'll have a proper loggia with a higher roof that will come out onto the terrace. Right now, that project feels like its not likely to happen for at least two years, perhaps more.

When he's finished, the terrace has a mound of laurel clippings, almost as tall as me. Dino will be stripping the clippings of leaves and cutting them small to use next year as fire starters.

Mario moves from tree to tree, clipping here and there. He knows what he is doing, but I don't really understand. He does not clip back to a bud. He just clips, leaving three inches or more past an intersecting branch.

I am much more relaxed now about pruning our trees. During the first few years, I hovered like a hen, nagging and pointing and holding my breath. I was a real bore. Now I shrug my shoulders, knowing that he knows what he is doing, even though he is like a bull in a china shop.

Mario does get me steaming when he reaches the special plum tree, for he wants the three main braches to open up more, and breaks through a joint between two of them. I had suggested that we put a rock in to encourage that growth, but Mario asks for a piece of wood from the cuttings he's already finished.

He fashions a kind of slingshot from a sturdy branch with a "y" at an intersection, but as he moves the branches out, he damages a joint. "MARIO!" I yell from about 20 feet away. And then I turn around and walk into the house. I can't watch. This is one of the two special fruit trees we purchased in northern Umbria a couple of years ago. I can almost hear it sobbing.

Mario tells Dino that Bruno in Attigliano has a kind of glue for trees that will repair the problem. I stay inside fixing roast vegetables and the pork roast. When things are in the oven I reappear, and Mario has clipped the rest of the fruit trees and is now working on the olives.

I don't want our olive trees to get tall. They're too hard to reach that way to pick. He's pruned the big olive so that it will grow some this year, and tells us that next year he'll cut it back. No one has had many olives this year, so when we ask him what to do to produce more this next season, he tells us not to worry.

He's impressed with our fava crop, for in the lower planting area Felice placed three seeds in each hole. In most of the holes, three plants have come up. But in the upper planting area, only half of the holes have plants. Go figure.

We're to clip the nespola trees ourselves, and Dino wants to plant the peony bushes himself. That's all right with me. So before noon he's finished, and Dino walks down to his car to help him with his tools and also to give him a budino di caki from the freezer. Roy places it on the bumper of his car.

Twenty minutes later, Mario calls to speak with Dino. He can't find the budino. Dino looks down on the street, but can't find it. So I ask him if he's going to look for it. I let him take another, in the event he doesn't come across the one Mario can't find. And five minutes later Dino is calling, laughing. He just ran over it on the bridge to Attigliano.

"Ran over it!" I exclaim. "I thought it was a plastic bag," he replies. And I am thinking, "Do men aim at plastic bags in the road?" So Dino takes the new one to Mario and Maria. When he returns, he reassures me that he was not the first to run over it. Sigh.

I continue to clip roses, and by the time we sit down to eat, I have finished clipping all the roses on the front and side terraces. That makes twenty-five so far. I'm about half way there.

While watching the clipping of the laurel tree, I thought I noticed a nest way up in the tree. But I see it on the ground and am sad. A number of robin looking birds are flying around, not very happy. So I ask Dino to put his gloves on and place the nest back up in the tree. He chooses to put it in the nespola tree on the front terrace, thinking the birds will find their way to it.

But I think this is a territory thing, and they will ignore it. Luckily, there was nothing in the nest. How difficult the life of a bird. I hope I don't come back as one in my next life. Or a tree. This life is challenging enough.

Dino forgot to ask Mario about the lemon tree, so he calls and Mario will come back after pranzo. Some of the higher leaves have wind burn, although we have covered the plant. I fear that wind has blown under the covering.

I'm back to the design of the garden sink, but when Dino hears how many tiles I'll have to paint, he thinks we'll have it ready next year. I don't agree. The calculations of it are as interesting as the design, especially with the matching tiles, designs that move from one tile to another, and the two front corners. I'll paint them in sections, working from bottom left to top right. I love this project!

We drive to Viterbo to Gianpiero, Sofi's new vet. We don't have to wait more than fifteen minutes, and he is quite wonderful. As of 2006, there is a new law that all dogs must have a chip, so we find out where to take Sofi for it, and in another two weeks she'll have her chip.

For today, it's a quick checkup and one injection. Now she's ready until June. He cuts her nails and tells us that no, she is not overweight. Perhaps her fur coat has made her look heavy. But when I hold her, she does not feel any different.

Sofi shakes like a washing machine going through the ringer stage, but is a good dog, and happy to be home again. On the way, we discuss a new plan for the lemon tree. Mario clips back the burned leaves from the frost that found its way under the material that is used to shield the tree. He shakes his head and frowns, telling us it must be kept in the little cave nearby.

But that is an impossibility. The tree is almost too tall to fit, the pot is too heavy, the way there very unstable and Roy is against the idea. He tells me later that there must be something we can do. "What do all the people who own lemons planted in the ground on the Amalfi coast do?"

On the way home, I'm fantasizing again. This time I fantasize out loud, imagining a kind of structure like a flimsy guard shack that will fit over the tree, but be taken off and folded up after the danger of frost has past each Spring. We're getting closer.

February 7
One of our very dearest friends, Margaret Flaharty, is close to death. She has battled the big "C" for many, many years. This has been a difficult week for us, and today the most difficult yet. Dino speaks with Pat, a best friend for almost six decades, and if we could send strength by our voices, we would do that. Margaret lays at home with hospice care, resting.

This morning, we drive to Deruta to pick up terra cotta and to Perugia, to track down my migraine doctor at the hospital. He is not there, so we drive across Perugia to another hospital, and track him down in the stroke ward. Luckily, he happens to be right there, and comes out to speak with us. On the way out, we realize that if either of us has a stroke, he is the very best doctor to have by our sides. So we will keep his cell phone number, hoping we won't ever have to use it.

His office has been transferred from one hospital to another, so we'll call later to make an appointment for March, to update his treatment of me for migraines. This done, we stop at a favorite tavola calda by a little manmade lake for pranzo, and then drive across Umbria to Tuscany, for a meandering trip home on picturesque back roads.

We drive to Cetona as our first stop, but there is a funeral taking place in the square and we can't drive through, so we turn around and drive to San Casciano di Bagni. I've wanted to return since reading Marlene Di Biasi's book, A Thousand Days in Tuscany, which I liked, especially for the recipes.

We look for the café, but are not sure if it is the same one, so walk up the street. There is a shop open that strangely sells painted ceramics from Vietri Sul Mar. We walk in and speak with the owner and his mother, who also o