long island for a year

Admittedly, I love design and home design magazines. But this one is more than just about design; in fact the cover is by a friend of mine, Elena, who - hopefully - will be visiting New York in October. I haven't seen her in ages, but I definitely connect her with a positive moment of my life, having a good time during (and after) school. And also with a special sketch (she was always good in drawing) of me and my beloved one (better looking than in real life of course!) engaged in a kiss,  subtitled " I need to do some experiment ", as the philosopher Hume would say. That was hanging on the classroom's wall for a while, triggering some interesting question from teachers! Do you remember that, Elena? btw HAPPY  BIRTHDAY!!!

Given the fact that the settimana enigmistica (the Italian crosswords-riddles&puzzles authority!) is my favorite magazine and that some people used to call me like that, no wonder this title is some kind of riddle. Anyway, since some of you were already laughing at the strange coincidences I experienced during this week, I'll explain what I mean. I had birthday and I had my cousin and her family visiting from Italy for some days. Because they are Jehovah's Witnesses - but also people I like a lot - I decided to leave my celebration uncelebrated on the very day - and keep my daughter distracted enough and forgetful - so that nobody would be offended or hurt. I wasn't hurt: as I said, my cousin is one of the persons I like most and since she is nice, sweet and caring that's no effort. As kids we used to spend quite some time together and she was always a sort of older sister to me, as much as I was the sister she never had. This in spite of the fact that we are very ...

No revelation here: I am not thinking about having a third child!!! A dear friend of mine on LI is going to have her second child; the due date is around mid-January, which means I am not going to see the baby. This is triggering a lot of feelings of course. In the first place because I know how a pregnant woman feels about babies: suddenly there is nothing more important, more beautiful, more precious and delicate than your child, even if it's just as big as a tennis ball and even if it makes you feel sick from morning to evening or tired as if constantly jet-legged. Or too sensitive or just freaked out. Even pathetic at times. When a good friend has a baby, I respect her need for rest but I am very glad to get to see her and the new-born and maybe do something together that might help her feel not too lonely without making her too tired. It's a very intense and very emotional phase of a woman's life. And I AM NOT GOING TO BE THERE. It is clear to me that - at least i...

This title sounds like that of a toddler soap-opera...now seriously: I got bitten by a tick ten days ago. This brought some disappointment because I wasn't incautiously hiking; in fact I wasn't hiking at all. My only fault was to have spent 10 minutes in our garden, where the grass is low, to prevent the kids from running on the street, while Ralph was removing the last fall leaves. Guess the mischievous beast had been on my body no longer than a couple of hours before I found it, still... not a nice feeling; am I a bit paranoid about ticks? This is because I have seen one (plus hundreds of pictures) and there are definitely nicer species on earth. Yes, I do feel alright, no symptoms at all but anyway it is too early to decide whether or not to test and see if I got Lyme disease. And no matter how much people tell me ticks aren't a big deal: it sucks! After this brief introduction, I come to the point. There is a lot going on recently: we might prolong our stay in the US...

Last night I couldn't sleep well: my nose was a bit congested and I had a terrible head-ache...so I got mad at myself about the last post. It was the typical scene with a little angel sitting on one shoulder and a little devil sitting on the other one, arguing about this facebook craze. The devil was right, asking "Why on hell would you wish to add another family member to an already large family?". On the other hand the angel was also right, asking "Shouldn't we forgive, even if he voted for B.?". Basically this is what bothered me most; in the end I decided to forgive - but not forget - and kind of forgive myself too, because I seem anyway to have the urge to find more relatives.  Might it be that I am often around and feel a bit rootless?Whatever!I have a more fun story  about relatives. This all started on our last Japan trip, to be correct at the welcome banquet that always takes place when one of Ralph's conferences begins. At the reception we ha...

Last Saturday we had the very unique chance to be invited to one of Carlotta's friends' birthday party. I say unique, because this was about the fanciest thing I have been in my entire life. One of the few. A little wedding party - and although I have been invited to some weddings either I didn't show up because I couldn't or I was too far (or both) or the kids were too small or whatever. I feel sorry for the couple that get into so many troubles to make everybody happy and ends up being exhausted and, in the best case, criticized (for whatever reason, don't ask ME). Back to the birthday party. The little one to be celebrated was a five year old girl and the invitation needed a RSVP: the setting was an Italian restaurant, about an hour away from here. There were a DJ, a magician - who did the fire alarm trick so good he sent us all outside in the cold weather until the fire-fighters declared that the place was safe "again". Who else was there apart from th...

Marty and Irma - on the left - on their pontoon boat What was I doing lately, apart from running after my son who is now a professional walker? Some days ago we had some Lab related meetings, meaning that there were colleagues-friends coming over to Long Island for work, which led to some dinner and nice talk afterward. We met our friend Marty - who used to be Ralph's colleague back in 2000, in Chicago - and Shen Pen - a Chinese Californian colleague with whom we were sharing our compartment on the night-train from Shanghai to Beijing two years ago: thanks to his human engineering AND knowledge of chinese language we managed not to spend the night with perfect strangers. Aren't we relaxed? We were all invited at Nancy and zio Bob's (that's how Carlotta calls him) place and had a very good time, with me trying to protect the kids from Sierra (their dog). If you know how scare I am of dogs - childhood shock - then it might sound amusing... We were all brave, indeed, and...

Last night we were at Gabriele's for dinner. His a very fun person and his family is really sweet. So...let's talk about sweetness!He is an incredibly good ice-cream maker. He probably has an ice-cream maker BUT he is mastering the machine. So, now I have to be careful not to become addict, since he might have things to do other than throwing ice-cream parties with 13 - yes, you got it right, 13 - flavors, including tiramisu, cinnamon, blackberry, mango, safran (he is from Milan that's explains it) and so on. Gabriele's VS Ralph's ices 1 to 0