long island for a year

Dear Roger , it's me again. I know I said goodbye once, but I needed to tell you how impressed I was when I saw you on tv, winning the Lifetime Achievement Award. You in public, speaking to hundreds people... what an emotion that must have been! You looked pretty good, very elegant in your self designed turtle neck. Sorry I devoted myself to another little man - you know...that's how it is now (be aware, he's a singer and a dancer too!!!). No, I will not forget your back then in Paris. Sigh, more than ten years have gone... And yes, you more than deserve a spot in my heart - because with Ben and my cousin Monica, you'll always be my favorite Jehovah's Witness ! WARNING: Although the characters in this post are all real, I obviously  have never had anything to do with Prince. Too bad!

This one  is especially dedicated to Dede of "Varie ed Eventuali" . One more post isn't enough to talk about this beautiful city, but I should eventually be talking about the main attraction of these few days in Montreal: the Jazz Festival. I could start with a negative note, saying we missed the George Clinton & Parliament's concert and the Dave Brubeck's concert as well and  - given the fact that good Dave Brubeck is 90 - this is NOT one for the next time, probably. Anyway, in things music, I always tend to see the glass full. The amazing number of concerts (all of high quality) and the relaxed way Montrealers and visitors had during this festival struck me as an ideal of tolerance and good behavior I've seldom experienced at open air concerts. US Americans are a good example, but Canadians are perfection - this is something Europeans should learn. There was a huge crowd and I didn't see anyone pushing nor yelling (that would...

Here is a post loaded with positive impressions, one I needed to write for myself and I owe to an old friend. Trying to avoid Independence Day's fireworks (that's one thing that makes me weak, fireworks!) we visited the city of Montreal - a suggestion given by more than one friend of ours. We used the perfect combination of not being able to cross the US border after July 31st and having at least five weeks of appointments we can't miss  and were there in perfect coincidence with the Jazz Festival, a life-time dream!!! When I left I had the blues , so it was also a kind of soul vacation; not a relaxing one altogether, spending two full days in the car, torturing the kids with long walks, late night concerts, warm weather...but one after which you come back with new energies and new stories. Let's start with day one. There are the kids, requesting the three Cs (cookie, cracker, cheerios - pleeaase). Obviously the requests were never fully satisfied all time, s...

Once in a while you'd hear me say "that's my favorite song". And I'd say that about way more than a dozen songs, so the truth is that I love lot of songs and that they are all number one. But songs, like seasons, are coming and going: as for now I really like "When I go Away" by Levon Helm and can't get tired of it. Levon Helm's voice is a sand-paper caress and...wow, what an energy this guy!

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...