It was another dreamy month in the Vicolo, not too hot and there was some rain. We kept our windows flung open to the crashing and thudding of the wrecking crew a couple buildings down. They are renovating the floor above our neighbors Luigi and Gabriella’s pad. “L” and “G” are a sweet older couple. Luigi is small like the Fiat Cinque Cento, well proportioned but just tiny, Gabriella is friendly and loves to chat with us, has a particular way of making her “r”’s, almost like how the French do it. We bump into them all over Centro on their little giros.

There was plenty of stress this month, trying to get some work lined up while staying focused on output, productiveness. Lots of social energies needed. It’s great living here but one has to get over the language barrier or you kind of dread bumping into folks, even more than usual. I’m kind of a shy cat myself. The chatty street encounter has always been anathema to me and here I am in small-city Italy. You can get lost for a minute, but there’s pretty much always someone you have to deal with around the corner.

Photo taken by Rolf Taylor. Thanks for driving all the way from France!

A couple of clients are late paying L. and now we must back out of going to France for Audrey’s 30th b-day. We had determined to go but there was no way. Guess we’ll pass 2007 without a proper vacation. Though our life here is pretty sweet and we can largely make our own hours, we often find ourselves isolated together in a work bubble. You need to just get away sometimes, be where you can’t work. We’ll go to the States, but that won’t be relaxing exactly, like the Vendicari beach outside of Siracusa or spending a week in Rome. We’ll be dealing with airports, driving all over the place, lots of activities jammed into a tight window of time.

In any case, Verona empties out from early August to Ferragosto (sp?) and that’ll be nice. We were in the city at this time last year and loved how tranquil it was. Living in Centro, we really sense the tourists. The re-fitted Parco Lambroso is awesome on warm summer nights with it’s array of lamps, the leafy trees (which were not all felled despite local concerns), the white-lit dome of Chiesa San Giorgio seen through the leaves.