On the way out of our apartment, just before stepping out on Corso Garibaldi, you pass Camericia Rocca del Perigini, a clothing store so formidable it is not well suited to me. (Bob McKillop is the only one I know who knows his Italian fitted shirts and suits.)

So even though we’ve never done more than a bit of window-shopping now and again, we are passingly acquainted in the literal sense with the shop owner. No less than we, she has a face-recognition scanner that, whenever our eyes meet, exchanges “buongiorno” or “buona sera” between the glass.

Only the first time on our way out this year, the usually diligent one happens to be standing outside next to the presiding green goddess. Words of welcome bubble up from within our welcoming neighbor and immediately sink into our hearts even as they penetrate our brains more slowly:

Torna qui (To come back);
Ultima primavera (last spring);
L’anno scorso (last year);
Amiamo Spoleto (We love Spoleto.)

Yet again our home away from home persuades us of an ever-widening connection–as good a reason as there is, should one be needed, to explain this odd predilection.

Civil servants handing out bottles of water to motorists diverted from the highway to Firenze by the aforesaid incident.

Incidente. It sounds so much more innocent than accident.
Nothing like the prolonged roadway’s end to a long night flight.

Civil servants handing out bottles of water to motorists diverted from the highway to Firenze by the aforesaid incident.

Naturale (still) or Frizzante (sparkling)?

A fitting gamble on our last day’s weather.

When the two collide, the hapless civil servant
Can count on getting looks from the government:

Estimated damage: 500,000 euro and a long time
before these ancient steps will move people again.

In a most jovial mood last night, our host Umberto
a) Jokes about Rebecca’s customary insalata e ravioli;
b) Laughs at me when I know the meaning of his Dove?;
c) Joins us (and the US?) in mocking our President Trump;
d) Makes up the most preposterous story in explanation
of the Italian wedding custom of a “double ceremony”–
the one applying to a civil authority five months before
the other one with religious authority that really counts–
in which our waitress finds herself with two husbands;
e) To which, later, Rebecca hastens to inform Ginevra:

One marito will prove himself to be more than enough.

f) All of the above, and so many more good times.