Moving Dramas and Bordeaux, Button-down Blues
Dear Blog Readers – My absence from the Blogsphere for the past week has been due to the fact that I am moving, and yesterday I seem to have hit rock bottom. So, “basta” (enough) with the boxes, and time for some blogging. The photo above I took at a bus stop near my home. […]
Giant Moon at the Colosseum, Red Toenails at Home
Dear Blog Readers – I’ve had little time for blogging these days, but I wanted to share the above photo. Last night I had to cover a night tour of Rome’s Colosseum. The special tour for journalists just happened to coincide with the Giant Moon. After we finished filming inside we walked out and I […]
Mediterranean Men
Dear Blog Readers, you are all going to think I am completely nuts, but here goes. Today I was walking home from work down Rome’s famous Via Del Corso lost deep in thought, I was thinking about my usual concerns (work -Italian hostage killed in botched British rescue attempt in Nigeria and kids- Caterina has […]
International Women’s Day – Italian Style
It’s March 8th, International Women’s Day, when we are supposed to celebrate the economic, political and social achievements of women past, present and future. In Italy people give women mini-bouquets of yellow mimosa flowers. I will leave the background and history of internationlal women’s day to other bloggers, but I want to say that an […]
Nico and Giovanni Hit The Big Screen As Scared No-Globals
Last night I got to go to a special preview showing for the film “Diaz – Don’t Clean Up this Blood”, an Italian film in which my son Nico had a small role as a No-Global protester from France who goes to the G8 Summit in Genoa to join in the massive demonstrations. But he, […]
Italian Mini Divas
Food and fevers are at the top of any good Italian mamma’s to-do list, but clothing is not far behind. Italian mammas are obsessive about how their children dress and Italian children are often perfectly dressed. First, they have to have a canottiera, undershirt. They actually call it the ‘maglia della salute’, the health shirt. […]
The Flying Fried Potato Ball
A little fried potato ball flew across the room and hit my darling Caterina on her new dress that her father bought her last week in Madrid. I charged down the hall, past the dessert table and into the private room at the pizzeria where we were having a 14th-birthday party for Caterina with all […]
Fevers – Measure Away Mamma
Italian mammas spend their days measuring their child’s fevers. When a child has the flu, the mamma has to measure the temperature at least four or five times a day to report the specific number — 38.3, 39.1, 37.9 — back to the mother-in-law, husband and pediatrician. An Italian pediatrician under the National Health Service […]