Earthquake

I should have written this when it first happened. Fabri and I were unaffected by the earthquake in L'Aquila, Italy as were our friends and family here. That region is very far from Saluzzo and nothing was felt up here. It was incredibly devestating and upsetting even more so because that is a poor region of Italy whose people will have trouble rebuilding. I think the Italian government is doing a good job though, much better than how the US government handled Katrina.

I heard on the news that about 50% of Italy is in an "earthquake danger zone" and only about 14% of Italy's buildings are up to US earthquake safety standards. That's because a LOT of Italy's buildings were built hundreds & even thousands of years ago. And what are they supposed to do, tear down Roman farmhouses and medieval churches to build something earthquake proof (which doesn't really exist anyway)?

I just wanted to mention that we are not in that 50% earthquake danger zone, and though we do occasionally get very small tremors, there's never any damage. Ok, I should have written that earlier, but better late than never.

Agrilus goldsteini

Fabri and I are in the US! He's being a bit unrealistic about his ability to stay awake. We arrived on Friday at 1:15 in the afternoon. That was about 40 minutes late. The flight was fine, but we waited for a half hour on the plane for additional passengers whose connecting flight was late. Anyway, we're here now and having fun and doing lots & lots of shopping!

I didn't get a chance to write about some of the museum-related events that occured before we came to the US. On Wednesday I went to the museum and while there I overheard Giovanni, the head of the museum and an ornithologist talking on the phone to someone about me. I usually tune out the Italian when someone's on the phone, but "entomologa americana" makes my ears perk up. He was reccomending me for a job. The museum had a project on the dragonflies of the national parks of Piemonte that began last year. The gentleman who did the project last year is now employed full time, but they are happy to have a replacement ready to go! The only hitch is that they have to verify the funding is still available. I am not sure what exactly I will be doing, how much it will pay or how much travelling I will be doing, but I'm happy that they love me at the museum.

Speaking of the museum loving me, Gian, the entomologist who I work with, named a new species of metallic wood-boring beetle after me! Introducing Agrilus goldsteini!! It's a very small beetle (approximately 1/4 of an inch). It's from the rainforest of Nicaragua. The larvae bore into trees and feed just under the bark. When they become adults, they leave the trees and fly around the forest looking for a mate. Anyway, I have a beetle named after me, s there! Also Gian thanks me twice in his manuscript describing this and about 11 other new species. Once for my work curating the butterfly and moth collection of the museum and again for helping him write in English. I spent about 6 hours correcting Gian's English. But I'm happy to do it to make a name for myself and hopefully get more paid work in biology/entomology!

New January 3 Wedding Photos

You can check out new January 3 wedding photos at my Picasa albums.  There's a link on the right side of this page.  These came from Brunella who's been holding them hostage (aka I've been forgetting to get them from her).  They're all group style photos.  This is my favorite

From Third & Final Wedding Party

Anyway.  See you all soon, we're arriving in 4 days!  Just a reminder, I don't have a US cell phone anymore, so you can email or call my parents' house to get in touch with us in the US.  

Spring Time!

Yesterday was the first day of spring and that means more gardening posts!  I planted a bunch of daffodil bulbs in February.  I was worried that they weren't cold long enough to come up (usually they're planted in the fall), but they're coming up and have buds!  Fabri and I have both been delighted watching they grow taller and taller.  Everyday there is a substantial increase in height!  I also have a bunch of lettuce planted that I hope to keep around until the hottest part of summer when they'll probably wilt.  Check out the slide show to see some photos of our additional living space!  It's still too early for some things, but I plan on having a nice little vegetable garden out there.  I'm going to have a grape or cherry tomato plant and then I hope to find an eggplant & a zucchini that can thrive in containers.  Also Fabri and I are going to get a trellis and transfer the ivy to the back balcony that doesn't get any direct sunlight.  Any ideas of other vines that do well in only indirect sunlight?  

Tonight we're doing the Melting Pot in Saluzzo again.  This time we're taking it a bit easier though.  Antonio and Laura are coming over and bringing the appetizer AND dessert.  Fabri and I are just doing the broth this time with sausage, beef, chicken, shrimp, cauliflower and broccoli.  That seems like plenty!  I feel like I'm missing a couple good vegetables though.  

In our apartment complex there are (in general) two apartments per floor.  Our next door neighbors are two single brothers in their late 60's & early 70's.  One had a medical issue one night and came over to get advise from Fabri.  Fabri checked him out and told he needed to go to the hospital to have something done.  The next day Fabri checked up on him and our neighbor was very grateful.  Last week our neighbor brought his medical test results over for Fabri to look at.  When Fabri brought them back on Tuesday night, our neighbors invited us over for some dessert.  It was about 8:30 in the evening and we hadn't had dinner yet, but we went on over to make a good impression.  The guys were very nice and their niece was over as well.  We deduced that they are a rich country family that owns a lot of land and rents it to cow herders.  They gave us a bottle of rum from Santo Domingo.  One of the brothers has been to the DR 21 times!  We told them that Nebbiolo is my favorite wine and they said next time we'll have a tasting of their nebbiolo.  Whoot whoot!

Visit to the States

It dawned on me that I haven't announced Fabri's & my visit coming up.  We'll be in the Washington Area from the afternoon of Friday, April 3 to the late evening of Sunday, April 12 (Easter).  We have a few plans so far, but I'm hoping after this announcement we can get pencilled in to some more calendars.  Wednesday, April 8 we're going to the O's - Yankees game in Baltimore with Sweetums and her newish BF.  Then Thursday night we're having Passover with the family in Olney.  For Easter we're going to Aunt Pam's (I assume).  Otherwise we have no plans.  We might have to go to the Italian embassy to translate some documents and have them sent over here to Italy.  We also plan on doing a LOT of shopping.  Basically I'm chomping at the bit to go on a shopping spree.  Hooray for making euros and spending dollars!  Comment or email me to make some more plans!  USA USA USA USA!

Women's Day

Today is International Women's Day.  It's funny that it's called International as I've never heard of it outside of Italy.  The yellow mimosa (pictured above) is the official gift of International Women's Day here in Italy.  Fabri and I bought a small potted tree yesterday for our balcony.  Yesterday we bought all sorts of stuff for our balcony.  We got a nice teak table with four chairs, some more pots and dirt and more flower seeds!  Today we treated the new furniture with teak oil.  It was fun getting dirty and getting stuff done around the house.  We also got rid of the last of the packing material from my shipment.  Getting ready for spring!

On Friday I taught 3 classes in Cuneo in the afternoon finishing at 7:30.  Then I came home and changed and Fabri and I met Giovanni, Brunella, Lulu, Gaetano & Detta for pizza in Monsola near Savigliano.  Lulu is in her terrible twos and was at first shy and upset about being to dinner with us.  She wouldn't even look at her aunts & uncles!  What a little baddy.  But she got over it and started behaving eventually.  I taught her Itsy Bitsy Spider which she really liked, especially when I made the itsy bitsy spider with my hands.  After dinner we invited everyone back to our house.  I made a big batch of popcorn and then played with the baby.  Oh, you know what Giovanni did when he got to our house?  He came inside, picked up the dish of candies and threw them up so they landed all around the room!  Giovanni is CRAZY.  He picked them up of course, but he's an animal that one.  But it was a lot of fun.  

Last night we had 3 members of the band Schneeflock.  Schneeflock is Mickey's band & Mickey was the best man in our wedding.  Anyway, we had Pej, Steo & Mickey over.  They're all friends of Fabri's.  They were going to a concert at this bar/club just a block from our house and we told them to come to our place first.  We had some drinks and showed off the house to Pej & Steo who hadn't seen it before.  Then we all went to the bar.  This pretty famous singer was supposed to be playing an acoustic set starting at 11 or so.  Well sometime after midnight he finally hit the stage.  Instead of singing the songs that made him famous (what everyone was there for) he read his diary loudly and horribly to bad music with a lot of background (not unplugged).  It was horrible!  Fabri plugged his ears.  We grit our teeth through the first song, but then a mass exodus started and we heard that he planned on continuing with his performance for the whole night.  Fabri and I decided we were out of there and joined some friends outside complaining about the performance.  Steo was there and he was really sorry for me because I couldn't even understand the monologue.  So Fabri and I headed home, but we still had fun.  It's good to go to a dive bar/music club and drink a couple of beers with some friends.

We don't have many plans for this week.  I'm teaching classes on Thursday night and Friday evening/afternoon.  I'm volunteering at the museum Tuesday and Wednesday mornings.  Hopefully we'll find lots of fun stuff to do too!

Pictures!

I finally got around to loading some random photos from my camera to Picasa.  You can see Fabri, Gaetano & I bottling the wine we made back in October at the end of the Wine Time album.  I am dressed ridiculously in Fabri's soccer clothes, so that's always good for a laugh.

A couple of weeks ago we made Bugia at Fabri's parents' house.  Bugia is basically fried dough with powdered sugar on top.  It's a dessert typical of Carnivale.  You make the dough and then you flatten it out with a pasta press.  Then you sort of knot it in a particular way and fry it in oil.  We actually made batches two Sundays in a row.  Fabri and I have been completely bombarded by desserts and I'm gaining weight again instead of losing as I had been.  Boooooo!

Part of the dessert problem is that when we go to friends' houses for dinner they always make dessert(s) AND when people come to our house they always bring desserts!  The worst is when we go to a friend's house, they serve us dessert and then they make us  take some of the dessert home with us!  Basically it doesn't matter that we don't buy or make desserts, we still get thwarted and end up tubby!

Here a picture of the cake our friend Roby made when her and her husband Lorenzo came for dinner one night.  It's pretty cute but she left the ENTIRE thing at our house.  The frosting and designs were done in marshmallow.  She had to buy special dye paste to get the colors, but she was sad that she couldn't find red, only orange.  I think the effect is still pretty good though. Speaking of Roby and Lorenzo, when they were over for dinner Fabri told them how we were going to rent a truck to pick up my shipment from the US in Milan.  Lorenzo's Dad apparently owns some sort of trucking/courier company and Lorenzo had to go near Milan to pick up something related to that.  He said they had a big truck that would hold everything no problem and he would be happy to take us to Milan to pick up my things.  Well Fabri and I were excited to accept because that saved us about 150 euros for renting our own truck and that meant we wouldn't have to drive the truck either.  So on Monday we met at 11 am in Savigliano in front of the Motta's house and headed out.  We stopped a little after noon at an Autogrill for some sandwiches.  We arrived at Lorenzo's stop outside of Milan just before 2.  We had to wait about fifteen minutes but then they brought out these sheets of plastic with the forklift and stuck them right in.  Then we headed around the Milan beltway to the other side of the city.  An hour later we were driving around looking for CFG Overseas, the company with my stuff.  We had to call their office because it's actually impossible to find without directions from the company.  There isn't even a sign visible from the street!!  It's behind another building and we didn't see the sign for the business until we were in their parking lot.  First Fabri and I went upstairs and saw the jerk who we've been "working with."  He seemed pretty scared of us.  Fabri and I both were wearing angry faces.  We asked him how much the additional bill for storage was going to be and the guy said it was only about 20 euros which is sooooo not right, but makes us happy.  We have two theories on this.  Either he was lying because he was afraid of us and we're going to get a crazy high bill in the mail or the American company that I complained to (who never responded) spoke with them and they discounted the fee based on that conversation.  Either way we haven't actually gotten the bill yet, but if it's something we're not willing to pay, we will be contacting an attorney again.   The most important thing is that we have my stuff!!!  It's already unpacked and organized.  Some things got packed up and put in the basement and the boxes are still on the balcony, but the house does not look like a tornado hit it.  I haven't brought the boxes to the recycling yet because it's been raining all week!  Hopefully this weekend it will be nicer and then we will clean off the balconies.   One last thing,  I have set up my blog so that some of you will get an email when it's been updated.  There are only 10 slots for email addresses for this feature (which is dumb).  Please let me know if you got the email or if you didn't and would like to.  Otherwise keep checking back for new updates!