San Lorenzo Maggiore

I finally got around to taking photos of San Lorenzo, which isn't far from the Museo Diocesano. The church is Byzantine and dates to A.D. 370, although most of what's visible is from the 16th century. The columns in front -- in the foreground in my photo -- are relics from Roman Milan, although they aren't in their original location. (There are 16 columns, but I didn't have a chance to get a decent photo of them as a whole.) But even with all of the random lunchtime lurkers one encounters, it's still a lovely scene.

Museo Diocesano

On Friday, Owen and I went to the museum of the diocese of Milan to see Filippo Lippi's La Nativita, which has been on loan here for several weeks but was leaving this weekend. Photos weren't allowed, of course, but Wikipedia was nice enough to provide this:The real thing is much nicer, very colorful and vibrant. There also were accompanying videos showing closeups of various details of the painting. Although it's obvious delicate and cracked, I must say it seems to be in excellent shape for a 545-year-old.
I admired some of the museum's other works very quickly but didn't have a chance to really look at much. (Many of the treasures are shown on the Web here.) Oh, well, I guess that means I'll have to go back.

Skylark Farm by Antonia Arslan

This novel was inspired by stories of the author's Armenian family's deportation from the Ottoman Empire in 1915. I think it's a very moving book regardless of whether you consider what happened during that time to be genocide, although it's obviously written from the Armenian perspective. I highly recommend it.
It's quite clear early in the story who will live to the end and who won't. (Very few do.) The family members' day-to-day experiences are outlined, and it's hard not to be a bit awestruck by not only their generosity toward their community but also their sense of togetherness. The main body of the extended family was in an unnamed city in Anatolia, but there were others in Aleppo (Syria was part of the Empire), Italy (Venice), and the U.S. (Boston).
It is repayment of that generosity, as well as selfless togetherness, that enables the survival of those few.
But because it's apparent early on who makes it and who doesn't, the story really has to hold your attention. And it does. Even knowing how it was going to end, I kept trying to figure out how they reached that point. And the reality was more dramatic than anything I came up with.
It's a great story and very well-written. Or perhaps I should say well-translated, as it was written in Italian. Not that I read Italian well enough to have taken advantage of that fact.
FYI, this post gets me mostly up to date on my book reports, so you may not have to endure another one for a while. But we'll see ...

A couple of random thoughts

1. Our electricity went out again Tuesday night. It seems the light fixture that caused the problem Monday really didn't like us (although none of us were messing with it or even near it Tuesday). And it was a bit more difficult to get everything working again the second time. But it did mean an electrician was called to come and fix the problem yesterday, so now I won't be taking out everyone's power anymore. Perhaps more importantly, I can see what I'm looking for in the freezer, which was why I'd replaced the bulb in the first place. I'm trying not to dwell on the ugliness of the bulb that's now visible because the glass dome won't fit over the top of it. Baby steps, people, baby steps.
2. I found cheddar cheese at Carrefour yesterday. Italians are horrified by this, I'm sure, but I needed some and was more than happy to buy it. In fact, now I'm thinking I should have bought more.

Adventures in northern Italy: Lodi

Today's adventure report is a little different because Kevin was by himself. Friday he went out to Lodi -- it's just outside Milan -- to give a presentation on various aspects of U.S. history to students at a high school. There was a story about it in the community newspaper, too, although I'll have to find it online before I can add a link.
He came home with a book on the history of a sister school, which is interesting. I'd probably find it even more interesting if I read Italian well enough to understand more of it.
It was an extremely foggy day, so some of his photos aren't as exemplary as they'd be otherwise. But this is the Basilica Cattedrale della Vergine Assunta. If you do a Google image search, you'll see that the bell tower behind that barrier is pretty cool-looking.

Those, my friends, are called fat rolls

I found more of Owen's handiwork today, including 299 photos on his camera. Yes, they were every bit as intriguing as they sound. But this one, taken with our Sony CyberShot, was the real winner. I only wish I had a similar photo of Laura's thigh when she was the same age so we could compare them.

April in Paris by Michael Wallner

I read this book in November before our trip to Paris. I thought it'd be good for getting me thinking about the city and its sights. It was a quick read, and I thought it was decently written.
But ...
I didn't find any of the characters particularly likeable. It's a love story but not a romance novel, which is a plus, and the main character is a man. (It didn't seem to me like it'd appeal to male readers, though.) I certainly believe there were good Germans making good choices, in Paris and elsewhere, during World War II. Maybe stories similar to the one in this book happened. There isn't anything so out there as to make it unbelieveable. But I thought it got bogged down with some extra action (or non-action), and it's more a book to read when you have a slow day than one to rush out and find at the store or library right now.

Would I have had the figurative light bulb if the real one had worked?

Last night while Kevin was out helping procure supplies to ship to U.S. Embassy personnel in Tunisia, I decided to change a light bulb.
This should not have been newsworthy. Hello, I have a college degree and have birthed two children and have accomplished many far more complicated tasks.
But alas, our apartment's electrical system disagreed, and when I flipped the switch, the whole apartment went black. And when I flipped the breakers that had tripped, nothing happened.
Our upstairs neighbor came down, wondering whether anyone else's power was out. When he flipped the breakers, the power in our apartment came back on. But his didn't, although it did when the main breakers were flipped in the basement.
So we went along with our lives with no serious or long-term complications.
Later I was thinking about how lucky we are. That the power came back on easily, yes. But also that we're not in need of evacuation. That we've never lived under a dictator. That we're not depending on an after-hours-on-a-holiday shopping excursion by a couple of guys at a consulate 600 miles away to have something other than MREs to eat for breakfast. (And those are the lucky ones there.)
Good luck to them all.

Side Effects: A New Orleans Love Story by Patty Friedmann

This is another book I'd had lying around for a few years and finally got around to reading. It was worth it, too.
Despite my family connections to New Orleans -- my mom was born there and later went to Tulane for a time, and both Kevin and I have relatives in surrounding parishes -- I thought of the characters in this book as basically Southern and less specifically Orleansian. There are plenty of specific NOLA references for people who like that kind of local detail, but some things transcend a pinpointed location.
The best example is one of the book's characters, Vendetta. Yes, it's an unusual name. The explanation in the story is that her parents had seen the word in a newspaper headline the week she was born and thought it was pretty. I grew up with people whose unusual names had similar kinds of origins, so this was totally believable to me.
The entire storyline of the book is believable, which is something that can't be said for all the books floating around these days. This one is well-written, has "good guys" and "bad guys" -- but nothing too sinister -- and there's a somewhat happy ending to boot.
It's not on Kindle, but I imagine it's available in some libraries.

GG gets her way

Yesterday we received a Christmas card from Kevin's grandmother. In it, she instructed us to give the card -- a musical one -- to Owen when we were done reading it. And since we believe in obeying our elders, at least most of the time, we did.

We're No. 5!

Yay for Milan! The New York Times has it fifth on its list of places to visit in 2011. It specifically mentions the Duomo's shedding its scaffolding as a reason. (There still is some of it up, but the current situation definitely is an improvement.) You can see a slide show of the places listed here.
See, more and more reasons to come and visit us ...

Did you know Dumbledore has a scar shaped like the London Underground network?

Yeah, I finally got around to reading the first Harry Potter book. Since I already knew the story – of all of the books, in fact – and pretty much everyone else in the world already has read them, I won’t dwell on any specifics. But I will mention a couple of things.
J.K. Rowling really has a great imagination to have come up with such a concept. Last night at dinner when I mentioned this, I equated it to Stephanie Meyer’s ability to dream up the Twilight series. Kevin was horrified by the comparison. I don’t think there’s any real competition between the writing abilities of the two, and the Twilight books are just plain silly. But where they do compare is in the level of detail in the parallel realities they portray. (I’d argue the same for Monsters Inc.)
Since I’ve only seen bits and pieces of all of the Harry Potter movies, I’m having a hard time remembering what Neville looks like. Somehow I think of him as the irritating kid who’s always out to get iCarly. How’s that for mixing genres?
So I didn't jump right up and go find the second book -- it's somewhere in Laura's room, so it might take a while for me to locate it -- but I'll definitely be reading all of the others at some point.

Apparently I'm much older than I thought

The conversation started like this:
Mom, how long have you had this flute?
Since I was in sixth grade.
Wow! That's one old flute!

Wait. It gets worse.

Then she asked:
How old were you during the Great Depression?

OK, so it's unlikely I can pass for 18 anymore. But do I really look 85?

Photographic proof it's time for school to start again

Laura seems to have been entertaining herself with Owen's camera. A selection of today's downloads:
How in the world is this so yellow? Maybe the camera has some kind of filter. I have no idea.
I think this is beyond classification as overexposure.
I guess this is what Laura would look like in Extreme Impressionism Land. If she had a pig's nose.

Museo Bagatti Valsecchi

I'd been in the courtyard of this museum on a PTO tour awhile back, but we hadn't gone inside. Yes, the courtyard is awesome, but the interior is even better.
Not that I can show you that because photos aren't allowed. But take my word for it -- and visit its Web site.
Owen was asleep the whole time, so I didn't take any photos of him outside. So Laura bore the brunt of the posing.
It's a hard life.
The museum was a house during the 19th century. Its owners were great collectors of Renaissance art and other artifacts. Basically they did everything they could to re-create the Renaissance in a then-modern dwelling. Among the highlights is a bathtub with carved features, such as a little frog in the bottom. There are many wonderful paintings and some awesome furniture. And right now there's a Venetian glass exhibit spread throughout the rooms. It's truly amazing the things artists can do.
One more photo from the courtyard. I love that someone's bicycle is peaking out.

Oh, the joys of the past six months

We'd been here six months at the end of December. This morning I was looking for something in my e-mail and came across this little gem I sent to Kevin on July 27 titled My cell phone number:

It's (number redacted). Finally found an actual Telecom Italia store instead of just going to Darty. Lots of fun.
Drove the car (on a different outing). Must get a new GPS. I might throw the current one out the window. It had me driving on what I'm pretty sure isn't a road but just a streetcar track.

I wrote more about our GPS drama here. I'm glad we've moved on.

Festival Internazionale della Luce

There's a major LED art exhibit installed all over Milan right now. (The lights on the Porta Romana arch I posted a few weeks ago are part of it.) Yesterday we were in Montanapoleone and got a photo of another of the works. It's on Via della Spiga, which is a narrow, pedestrian-only street. I imagine these would be too heavy to string across a regular city thoroughfare. They look cooler at night, of course, when you can tell they're lights and not just funky laundry hanging up there. There's a slideshow of all (or at least most) of the works at www.ledfestival.it.

There's a partial solar eclipse in there somewhere

And no, I didn't look at the sun while taking this photo. The camera did it for me.

Foreign Service swap

A few years ago my friend Amy organized a Foreign Service swap, which was a way for all of us far-flung lunatics to get to know each other (and other posts we might not be familiar with) a little better.
I was assigned to Victoria, who was in Iceland at the time and now has moved on. She goes all kinds of cool places and takes all kinds of cool photos.
Now Amy's organizing another swap, so head on over to Crafty Foreign Service to sign up -- and to read all about Ottawa.

I wonder if the other guy is hash browns now

I just walked into the study and happened upon this scene of carnage:
I'm guessing Spud Lightyear wasn't warned our house was so dangerous. One of his arms was missing for a few days, although it mysteriously reappeared. (Random Christmas soundbyte: "It's a tiny plastic arm! It can't have gotten far!") But now one of his ears has gone AWOL. (The space helmet clips into his ear holes, so he can't wear both at once.)
Luckily we have some spare parts from a Mr. Potato Head we picked up at Disneyland Paris, so all isn't lost.
I knew I should have gone to the grocery store today. Then we'd have potatoes. Mmmm, hash browns ...

Welcome, welcome, 2011

I'm up at my normal time this morning, but I pretty much went to bed at my normal time last night. I've never been much of a New Year's person. I did hear fireworks going off around midnight but didn't get out of bed to look at them. Yeah, I was that lazy.
2010 was both a great and complicated year. High: We got to move to Italy. Low: My dad died. Let's hope 2011 is full of great things and with only a few painful ones mixed in for variety.
A few days ago I posted a list of my Christmas-related goals for next year. My biggest non-Christmas goal is to acknowledge the birthdays of all of our immediate family members -- and Facebook doesn't count. So I guess I should get cracking on a list of all of those dates since a few of them are right around the corner.
Happy New Year, everyone.
Added later: I should clarify that I have plenty of other goals, many of them ongoing. But these are the ones I feel like discussing in cyberspace.