A Study In Contrast

While I was on The Last Road Trip with The Master Baiter last summer TheSpecialOne set out to locate whatever remained of my family in Sicily.

This was something we'd talked about a few times over the years, but one thing or another had come up and I'd never pursued it.

As it turned out, she located my family and made contact with them.

I didn't learn about any of this until December 11th, when the Chrishanukwanztivus season kicked off. We were lying in bed, basking in post-coital bliss, when I asked if she would like me to fly her family to La Alegría for Christmas.

The news of her discovery came as a great surprise, needless to say, and I felt very grateful...both for her initiative and effort. Once I finished properly thanking her, a few hours later, she suggested, perhaps, going to Italy for Christmas might be something I wanted to do.

A week later, we touched down at the Catania Airport.

It was a great help that I was able to arrange use of a private plane, thanks to a bet I won on the 2008 election which I hadn't yet collected on. Since I had put up two weeks at La Alegría against what was to be a cash payment, I was able to work out using the plane throughout the trip.

Our plan, originally, was to spend a week-and-a-half in Italy. As things have unfolded, though, we decided to extend our stay another week and will be leaving Monday.

I've fallen behind quite a bit on posting.

In addition to the time we've spent in Sicily we visited Rome, twice, Naples and Florence. The weather has been beautiful, it's been warm even when it was rainy, except when we were in Florence where the temperatures were in the 40s at best.

We're going north once more, to visit Milan, before returning to the States.

I received an email this morning, from my housekeeper, which included a photograph taken out the window yesterday at Black Squirrel Run. It's quite a contrast compared with the view we have in the house where we're staying here in Militello Rosmarino.

Black Squirrel Run, December 31, 2009...


Militello Rosmarino, December 31, 2009...


That will have to be all for now. It's 9 o'clock and we're going out for drinks. Ciao.