Returns

In two hours I will leave for Italy.  By noon EDT I should be in my house with my cats and I certainly hope my luggage as well.  At least it is a shorter trip eastwards.  The twenty-four hours it took to get here will be seventeen going back.  The rollies are packed to their zipped-completely-out enlarged gills and I have a big shopping bag besides.  It might be fun to list what went into those bags someday.  So many times I bought things or received gifts that I didn’t plan on, but when you see a gigantic ZipLoc bag, what can you do?  What a concept!  It puzzled my friend that I bought so many dvd movies, but they cost the earth in Italy and only those guaranteed to be popular with Italians get dubbed and published.

When I am gone I will miss my loved ones.  While I have been here I have been thinking how big the cars are, how small the noses are and how much I miss the sound of Italian.  I heard a Tizio song in an Argentine grill today and it brought me up short.  When I am in Italy I will miss English.

I read some books.  I did a lot of cooking.  I saw old friends and made some new ones.  I decided very firmly on some choices for the future and dropped some tempting but unlikely ideas.  Unplugging makes things seem different.  I feel just full of ideas for work, the blog and my life.

See you from the other shore.