Strangely Worded Sign

Two things about this sign I saw in a store in the US before I came to Italy (yes, that's me taking the picture in the reflection).

1. What the heck is ratation? Yes, I know, it's supposed to be rotation. Don't they have spell-checking?

2. More importantly, why would you advertise a tire sale as a BLOWOUT sale??? ;-)

Giorgia's Birthday Party

Giorgia has become a second sister to me and a first to my sister Sally. She is that dear a friend to us. We decided to throw her a birthday party last Saturday and invited several people. She is the sweetest person you could ever meet, bar none (even sweeter than I am!).

More fun photos and a video can be seen here!

Miniature House Show in Bibbiano, Italy

In Bibbiano, there was a show also of miniature houses. Built by hand with meticulous detail, they are real works of art.

A lot more of these photos can be seen by clicking here.

Bibbiano Aritisan Show

My sister's artisan work was proudly on display in Barco di Bibbiano this past weekend. Bibbiano is considered the birthplace of Parmesan cheese, so show some respect! My sister's works were among those of other artisan works, the best in the area. In the first photo, you see several dignitaries from the area, including the mayor of Bibbiano, the gentleman with the tricolor sash. (Mayors here wear the sash for official functions.)

More photos? Click here!

Uncle Attilio and Cousin Arianna

Here I am on the left with my sister Sally, my uncle Attilio and his daughter, my cousin Arianna, and my brother-in-law Settimo. Uncle Attilio and cousin Arianna came to visit from Friuli, an area in Northeast Italy, about five hours' drive from here.

More Photogenic Kitten Pictures

The kittens are still cute!

Oh, wonderful, wonderful, Matildic Territory!

I can't help it. Whenever I visit my sister, I can't help but want to take tons of photographs of the area in which she lives! It's just so beautiful! Aside from the rolling hills of green and vineyards, there's even a castle here and there just to spice things up! This whole area was ruled once by Countess Matilde so the area is called the Territorio Matildico. I've only put one photo from a large batch here but if you want to see more, click here!

Helping my Sister Teach at Fagioli Corp in Calerno, Italy

Last Thursday I helped my sister teach her class at Fagioli Corporation, a worldwide shipping company located in Calerno, not too far from here. I couldn't have hoped for a nicer group of students! The two ladies in the first photo were in the beginner's class and the other students are in the intermediate class. That's my sister posing with them in the photos in which I don't appear.


More photos? Click here!

The Miracle that is Mom

I've updated this last week's happenings and have saved the best for last so that it would appear at the top of my blog - mom is doing so much better that it's hard to believe.

She and I have had long talks in the last few days. She doesn't hear as well as she used to and she still has a hard time eating. She will not regain the use of her legs to walk any time soon. But the most important part of her body, her brain, seems to have come through this ordeal relatively unscathed. Her memories have returned, both those from a long time ago as well as those that are recent. The only thing she doesn't remember is the time she was in that catatonic state - no surprise there!

She has regained her sense of humor and is joking a lot.

Today was special. She asked to talk with me one on one and then asked me my forgiveness for not having done her best for me as my mom. I told her she had nothing that needed forgiving. She has been a wonderful mother who did all she could for her children after the death of our father when I was only two and my sister was not yet born by three months. I then asked her for her forgiveness for the hard times I put her through as a teenager especially and she too told me that I needed no forgiving. A lot more was said but suffice it to say here that it was wonderful to have the opportunity after being told she would not survive last month to be able to have such a deep conversation!

My main job now is to get her to eat more - something she finds difficult to do. She's now lost 60 lbs but she was pretty overweight before, so that's not as bad as it sounds. If she can get her strength back and start some physical therapy on her legs, she can get back to the point where she is self-sufficient again, at least as much as she had been.

Thank you all for all the kind thoughts and prayers. My mom asked me to thank you all too!

Pizza with Friends and Family

After seeing mom yesterday, my sister and I joined her good friends and mine for a good pizza dinner in a very nice restaurant. On top is Davide, then Giuseppe, myself, my sister Sally and our friend Barbara. A nicer group of people you could never hope to meet!

What happens?

What happens when you mix Euro coins and batteries in your back pocket, as I did in my jeans today? Well, interestingly, as I was sitting in my sister's car while we were going to visit mom, my right butt cheek started feeling hot, then almost burning. What was going on??

I pulled out the coins and batteries and found that two of the batteries had become very hot! So the contact between those batteries and coins were causing some kind of overload and heating them up fast. If I had left them for much longer, I wonder if they might not have exploded. They always tell you not to throw batteries in a fire for fear that they will explode.

Any chemical engineers out there want to clue us in?

The Kittens Are Growing Up Fast

Since I was here in Italy in July and August, the three kittens have now become three cats, with one of them having been given away to another family. Both the kittens' mom and grandma have died in the interim, leaving here at the house the two kittens, quickly becoming cats, that you see here. They are so much fun to watch, constantly playing, jumping on each other, and so on, then resting their head on one another when resting.

If this keeps up, I might actually start liking cats! :-)

A Visit to San Benedetto Po

My sister and her Artisan Consortium has a two-month long exhibit at San Benedetto Po, a town about 90 minutes away from where she lives, just over the border in Lombardia (Lombardy) from Emilia-Romagna, the province in which she lives. Emilia-Romagna is right above Toscana (Tuscany). Hey, go look at a map. :-)

Quite a beautiful edifice, isn't it?

It dates from before Columbus.

Note in the second photo how there were two more arched entrances that sometime in the past were filled in with bricks.

My sister Sally is in the fifth photo.

A Car Aptly Named?

OK, I know it's taking it too far to say a Mercedes-Benz is not supposed to be Mercedes-BENDS, as in, "Oops, who bent this car?" But when you put on the side of the Mercedez-Bends the word "Kompressor" aren't you just asking it to be...well...compressed?