I laid everything out the night before, and when I woke at 6:30 it was raining. Cold.




Paolo came outside the apartment at km 38 to take my photo. He looked very clean and well rested. How I managed to be grinning in this photo I have no idea. I was somewhere between delirium, relief (at being so close to the end, and seeing someone who, if I'd really wanted him to, could have taken me home) and pride.










Oh, this was a nice moment! Seconds from being able to stop running, I sprinted to the end, determined to get in under 4 hours and 20 min. I'd made a bet with Paolo that I could. He said he'd buy me a real live Christmas tree if I did...


















And if you can read those little numbers... I want my tree!!!

Sweden

Hiking in Northern Sweden

At the start of the five day hike, looking down into the Bothian Sea


I swam here. Well, as long as you call being in freezing cold water for about 5 seconds swimming...



The skies were always so blue and the sea looked like a lake.

My new neighbor

Dana, Marcella, Mariane and I on the boat off the Isola d'Elba this past weekend. Have I mentioned that life is good at the moment?

Her mission, if she chooses to accept, is to penetrate the small town of Manorola, spend all day in the water and sun, read as many books as possible, get a tan, and become a much happier, more relaxed version of her former self. She has four days to complete her mission at which point she will return to Florence, with the intention of spending much, much more time in Cinque Terre.

This message will self-destruct in five... four... three...

My cousin Jessica came to visit for the day. Of course, on the day she and her friends come to town, all Florence museums call a mandatory staff meeting and close all exhibits for the morning. We walked up to the Piazzale Michelangelo instead, had coffee and pastries at my local cafe and ate gelato in a famous gelataria... all before the Academia opened and she could meet David.

In my yellow dress ready to walk to the Lady Macbeth opera...Russian.


So I think there should be a rule. Don't open your opera with along aria about being bored. It's rather... boring.

As I tend to do, I left at intermission. Three and a half hours of some woman being bored in Russian was too MONUMENTAL of a work for me. My yellow dress and I went and had a drink at a nearby hotel instead.

missing my camera cord but news none-the-less

When you receive an email with the title "HCM ilmoittautuminen" I do believe that can be loosely translated as "you have just signed up for the August 16 Helsinki marathon, so we advise you to take up running again".


Oh yes, first thing... tomorrow.

More photos from the gallery opening

1. Follie! Follie! (folly!, crazyness!,
what a terrible idea!)




















2. the moment before the Sempre libera
section begins

21 grams... at least

I had Kelly and five other friends over for dinner two nights ago, and, like the wonderful woman she is, Kelly brought her USB drive filled with pictures of my performance last week. I'm singing E' Strano! E Strano! from La Traviata. I love singing that aria maybe even more than Caro Nome because it's filled with changing emotions: breathlessness, mocking, worry, self pity, love, and so it gives lots of opportunities to be the acting lover that I am. Plus, I find I can get deep into the role much more easily than many of the other arias I sing. A little bit of tragedy always helps me along I guess.






I love this photo because it looks like the camera caught the song leaving my mouth. It reminds me of the experiment Dr. Duncan Macdougall did in 1907 when he weighed patients during the hours of their deaths to calculate the weight of their departing souls. Apparently our souls weigh about 21 grams. So what about a song? Sometimes I feel like they weigh a lot, maybe that's why when I finally let them out in a performance of rehearsal I feel such a high, and why when I'm sick and can't song I feel heavy and lethargic and generally icky.

I am a smart girl... I keep telling myself this, but in spite of my self-encouragement it still took me over an hour to figure out how to get the email subscription box to appear to the right of your screen. So "stupid is as stupid does", or shall we blame the internet connection and feedburner's not-so-easy-to-navigate site?

I finally did it though, and now the correct little widget appears on my blog, and I promise this time you can subscribe and you'll receive an email whenever I post something new.

Now, to figure out how to get rid of the previous and incorrect subscription button... my computer and/or blogger is ignoring me.

Ah well, I'll think about that tomorrow. As I sit with my laptop by the glass wall (where the internet connection is the strongest) I have a nice view of my garden (fence goes in today or tomorrow if all goes as planned) and the new addition to the wall. You can see the new Florentine stones at the top. My hydrangeas are just about to bloom too, and you can see a tiny bit of pink on some of the bud clusters (how thoughtful of them to bloom in pink instead of blue, since blue would just NOT go with the raspberry wall and pink roses!).

Had a nasty visit from the landlord's wife today. Wow, now I know why he looks a little hen-pecked! Landlords and land-duchesses are the one downside of renting here in Florence. I thought this time I was going to go a year without wishing I was going to be in one place long enough to buy my own home. No such luck. She seemed unhappy with life in general, I, unfortunately, am part of that unhappy life and so she was unhappy with me too.

I've been told she will not extend my lease after this year and so, a little (okay, A LOT) sad we all went on a walk to the park.




Dave, as you can see, now walks very well off the leash. Puccini, has found a spot he likes too.



Walks outside put things back in perspective, and heck, maybe something good will come of having to leave my little Eden...

Meanwhile I'm off to sing La Rondine and Turandot...

Musical Menagerie

Today has been a long, eventful day. I'm finally back on a reasonable practice schedule and am furiously learning two new arias before my lesson tomorrow. She told me last week that I am to sing in a competition at the end of the month... BUT I had to have two Puccini arias to qualify. I have no Puccini arias. Not one. This does not deter Taskova, oh no, she says, "no problem, pick from these four, and learn them before your next lesson (in three days)". Well, that isn't EXACTLY how she says it since she says it in Italian and with much more diva flourish, but that was the gist.

So here I am, reviewing and perfecting the four other arias for the competition, picking and learning two brand new ones -- and as if that weren't enough I've been asked to learn a few Neapolitan songs for an upcoming concert a local opera company wants to give me (what the heck Neapolitan songs are, and were I'm to find them I haven't a clue, though unfortunately something tells me it has nothing to do with vanilla, strawberry and chocolate ice cream) -- the same opera company also has me memorizing Rigoletto in its entirety "as soon as possible". And La Traviata "if it isn't too much trouble".

That's my morning: singing. Then it's off to run a few errands which somehow come to include the citywide search for a bunny. Eight miles and a very tired Dave later, we find the perfect one. Puccini. He's two months old and about the cutest things I've every seen. Unfortunately he's also the cutest thing Teo has ever seen, and so I have yet to hold him...

We introduced him to Dave, and while the bunny didn't seem that interested, Dave was mezmorized. Puccini is now a very slobbery bunny.

Sorry, sorry, sorry! I kept all of you hanging as to the results of the audition and the performance beforehand at the Angels Academy of Art Exhibit. Both were so much fun. For me, singing creates the biggest high, so I was flying from about 8pm until after midnight when my final audition was over (more on that later). This is a link to my friend's blog, Kelly Borseim. She took photos and video of the performance and has them posted on her blog under "May 26". Have a look and I'll see what I can do to get some other photos from her to post myself.

GELATO!!

We have quite an evening routine going. First dinner and then...



Dave has me trained: he gets first spoonfull and then he sits nicely under the table until I'm done - so long as I order at least half my coppetta filled with vanilla -- he doesn't like fruit flavors.

A Sunday afternoon picnic in the garden behind our house. The view certainly can't be beat. We could have climbed into the park using the scaffolding in our backyard that the Florentines are using to rebuild the top of our Etruscan/Roman wall, but carrying Dave up the ladder would have been difficult, so we walked around. Dave ran and rolled and jumped and had a generally wonderful time, and we sat on our sheet and ate and drew and read and had a generally wonderful time too.

I might be able to match the color but...

Try as I might, I just can't
seem to have hair as cool as his.

Making lasagna for the dinner party last night. 7 people and two dogs. I had such a good time. Dave too. Today he's so exhausted from all the playing in the backyard that he hasn't wanted to leave the apartment.

Teo made me a cake and Lia made a birthday flan. I'm so glad she lives downstairs -- I forgot until it was time to serve cake that I didn't have enough cake plates for everyone, so she just ran down and brought some up from her house.

The silver rain boots got their first outing on my birthday. It was a very wet morning but dried up into a sunny day perfect for picking flowers and playing in the river.




I picked lots of the pink flowers and some greenery too for a bouquet that matches my house. I've got to start carrying my knife with me, though, as that pearl handled one would have made it so I didn't have to carry the roots around with me too!




















It was a lovely afternoon

Birthday breakfast with Teo and Dana and Dave

The boys with their backpacks ready to walk to the supermarket for birthday cake. It's the first time I tried Dave's backpack on him. He didn't seem too bothered...








...until we put the groceries in it!

Dave lives up to his name

It was such proud moment when Dave bounded from the other side of the park with that big stick in his mouth. Anyone around me would have thought he'd just discovered the cure for cancer.

Saturday morning in Florence

Saturday began with much activity. The revelry left one casualty, but most escaped unharmed. "We're going to need a sturdier toy!"









Then we walked down the the river and played with other dogs. It's warm and the sun is bright. It's finally spring, just in time for my mom's visit.

The gardener canceled on me yesterday so I went out this morning and bought my own flowers, hence Dave found his new favorite place and I discovered the true etymology of the word for flower shop-- florists have the coolest floors in town.

A gift

"Won't you come into the garden? I would like my roses to see you."

a lovely quote by Richard Brinsley Sheridan, though his real name is Roberto and he lives on my street...

Planting Puppies

It's spring and that means sunshine, rain, new coats and time to plant all the things you want to grow during the summer. We have a gardener coming on Friday to help us plan our green space, but as you can see, Dave and I have a head start. We're growing something all together new this season, thanks to the furminator (that expensive, yet oh-so-worth-it tool we bought in the States).

A night's dream

Dave listens...

The Garden of Eden

Dave and I went here to buy three mint plants. We put them "in terra" by the wall in our back garden... the wall that dates back to the etruscan times. Now we can all have mint tea...

The color of the season

This will mean something to someone special... 

Death in the Afternoon

Tragedy struck yesterday afternoon in the back hallway of the Andrews apartment. Bear had lived a long a fruitful life, part of it in the arms of a little boy, many years in an attic and finally, his golden years were spent mostly in the mouth of a dog named Dave. 

It's impossible to know exactly what happened, or how the last moments to Bear's life were spent, but the stuffing strewn about the floor gives us a clue. 

Sometimes all you need is a a little Mexican!

Well, she's not very Mexican, but the food was, and so were the margaritas, and the combination made a cold rainy night in Florence seem just a little more like home.

Please go to sleep now, Caitlin

And just in case you were all wondering... this is what I would look like without teeth... or at two o'clock in the morning after drinking too much "Coca light".

Pasquetta

I live in a country where any holiday is a excuse to close every shop for at least three days. Today, Monday, is called "little easter" and therefore is yet another reason the sheet music store should not be open, and I should be unable to buy Mozart's mass.

Oh, well, guess I'll go eat some Easter chocolate...

"I'm just a whole lot of different simple people"

this is what happens with too much i-move and a 5 hour time difference

This is our back garden...

How I'm feeling right now