Lazy Saturday

Our internet service is back after a week without--ATT punished us for getting rid of our land line by turning off internet for a while. It was actually nice not to check email fifty times a day!

Sammy and I are gazing out the window at the Josephine Street traffic and at Mike's beautiful front garden. He has worked magic. Mike is off busking at the Berkeley Farmer's Market with Brian. They call themselves the Darryl Brothers, I think.

In terms of the pregnancy, I'm feeling fine, just heavy and slow. Less nausea, more heartburn. Supposedly heartburn means the baby has hair on his head. Mike doesn't exactly pass along hairy genes. I pulled out his one and only chest hair the other day because I was bored!

We are starting to receive gifts from our Target and Babies R Us registries, which makes everything feel a bit more real and imminent.

Ah, I love having nowhere to go and nothing to do (sort of)!

Playing in Cesar Chavez Park

Belly at 26 weeks in front of Umbrian countryside

This one's for you, Kristin Grrr!
And that husband of yours...whatever his name is.

Can you find Mu in this photograph?
How about Milo?

Separate flower from zucche
stuff with mozzarella di bufala
acciughe e sale
twist flower closed
dip in egg
coat with breadcrumbs
saute in olive oil.
Mangia!

Umbria, from our humble lodgings at the Palazzo Cesi (circa 1500).

Unnamed travel companion enjoying a post-lunch digestif.

"No fotos!"
Oops.
I have decided that Michelangelo's David is the greatest thing since
Phish @ Hampton 3/7/09.

Let's all go to church...

Back from Florence and Umbria

I'm sitting in the apartment off Via Flaminia, catching up on email. It's cloudy, and Mike is watching the Rome series on DVD. Florence was lovely as always, home to both Botticelli's Venus and Michelangelo's David, two of the most gorgeous people ever created, in my opinion (Venus and David, not Botticelli and Michelangelo). Mom was ever the patient and efficient guide. Note to everyone who wishes to visit the major museums of Italy: reserve tickets in advance! We slid past people who were waiting three and half hours to get in to the Uffizi. If you know me well, you know what sublime joy this gave me. Jolan was an amazing museum-goer, stopping in front of each work of art, jotting down in a little notepad things to remember. We ate less-than-stellar pizza and pretty good gelato, no match for anything in Naples (pizza) or Della Palma in Rome (gelato). Our 24-hour visit to Mariano and Marie Laure Cittadini-Cesi in Umbria was dreamy. They live in a medieval palace, truly, complete with cavernous fireplaces, heavy wooden beams, frescoed walls. It was stunning. I will post photos later! This week has gone by much too quickly, as we knew it would...

Arrivare a Roma

"Here lies Raphael, whom Nature feared would outdo her while alive, but now that he is gone fears she, too, will die."

-the poet Bembo's epitaph on the tomb of Raphael in the Pantheon

To behold the rosy glow of late afternoon light on the yellow-washed masonry of Roman apartments is to know one has arrived in the profoundly beautiful axis of Italian urban life. Long white curtains run along the tall, slatted hardwood doors opening onto a narrow ledge of a balcony planted with compact spring flowers. The curtains sway gently in the breeze and reflect the tranquil mood of this Palm Sunday. Zio Carlo's extensive, tidy shelves of books on classical subjects - art history, mostly - repose on the far wall. A Renaissance painting - not a reproduction - graces the entirety of the adjacent wall with a baptism scene. Darkness all around, the artist paints a beacon of light on the penitent sinner mid-canvas. I took time out to write this blog from preparing a plate of burrata with pomodori, sweet olives, bread purchased by the kilo, and parmiggiano reggiano good enough to slice and eat with one's fingers. I can get used to this life. I think I will return to my Peroni and finish the last pages of the pocket paperback I started on the plane yesterday. Rome, take me away.