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Some things seen and heard

Since we're leaving New York for real (I think) next Monday, I've been walking around with a heightened appreciation of the city.

West Village street, from Wikipedia Commons

On Tuesday I went down to the West Village and SoHo. I almost decided while I was there that if I ever move back here, I want to live in the West Village. It's so full of Italian eateries! One pasta shop that I went to, Raffetto's, was even closed for Ferragosto, the Italian holiday month. I stopped by Rocco's bakery and passed a Grom (an upscale gelateria that originated in Torino). And that was just a small sampling.

But even though Bleecker Street is full of Italian food, the old, tree-lined streets of the Village look distinctly American, perhaps Bostonian. Combined with the funky gift shops, they remind me of my other hometown (or one of them), Athens, Georgia. I stopped and looked at exquisite pottery, much of it Asian, in Global Table. I don't care much for the touristy, mall-like main thoroughfares on Prince and Spring in SoHo, but I like the side streets.

I wandered so far east on our math tutor Steven Tenney's recommendation that I went almost all the way to the Lower East Side. Eventually I rested my tired feet in McNally Jackson bookstore on Prince near Mulberry Street. McNally Jackson has an instant press for self-published or out of print books, and a sizable collection of new fiction. Among the various signs I saw posted in the store was:

"Alphabetized by author, or by subject if subject's fame exceeds the author's."

Ouch. Wouldn't you be mortified if your book were shelved by subject?

I also saw this book title: The Atlas of Remote Islands: Fifty Islands That I Have Never Set Foot on and Never Will.

I'm so glad that there are some left. By all means, let's stay off of them!

Unfortunately I had to skip Pylones, a funky gift store, but that was okay because I know there's one in the Porta Nuova train station in Torino. And I also, reluctantly, passed by Sur La Table. With extraordinary discipline (or maybe just tired feet), I ceased window shopping and walked all the way back to Houston Street, where I got on at the front of the comfortable old 1 train.

There, sitting in the seat across from me, was a pro-wrestler-looking sort of fellow wearing a T-shirt that read, "Boston Sucks." He was reading a subway tabloid and had one of those hand-strengthening devices in his cooler pack.

No sooner had I read his shirt than a second man walked onto the train. He, too, had an outer-borough look, and his shirt read, "Philadelphia Rocks." He had to pass right by the first guy to get to a seat.

"Nice shirt," muttered Mr. Not-Boston.

"Thanks," mumbled Mr. Philadelphia in the same macho growl.

They were both asleep by Penn Station.

Other people stories: There's a guy who puts bookmarks in all the local stores, at least on the Upper West Side, that say, "Dan Smith will teach you guitar." Once we looked him up, incredulous that someone would go to so much trouble to advertise a trade that's usually word-of-mouth. Indeed, he does teach guitar. So far as I can tell, he's not hoping for fame as a rock star or second Andres Segovia, with guitar teaching as the publicity vehicle. It's all guitar-teaching.

A couple of weeks ago during my visa flurry, I was FedExing my marriage certificate to Georgia to be apostilled, and an employee walks into the copy shop saying, "Some guy wants to know if he can put bookmarks in your store." I just happened to be walking out, and there was Dan Smith, looking exactly like he does in the ads, with the exact same expression. If I hadn't expected a human, I would have thought he was a cardboard cutout.

The other local persona I met this week was Hani, the guy who does the sidewalk chalk paintings. I found him squatting on Broadway between 106th and 107th, chalking in Margaret Thatcher. I decided to tell him about election night.

"Hi. You know those drawings you did of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton during the election?" I ventured.

He nodded.

"On election night, I saw someone drop to the ground and kiss the drawing of Obama. She was crying."

"That's a great story!" he replied.

All of New York is a great story.

After the storm

Yesterday after the storm, CZ and I took a walk in Riverside Park. Apparently it was the thing to do, because I'd never seen so many people there at one time before. It was like one big party!

Below are some of the pictures we took during our walk:

Down by the Hudson, people were standing over the railing to see how high the water had risen. They were taking pictures and standing against the wind like seagulls. And lots of people were out jogging. Apparently they were tired of being cooped up.

There was a nice big puddle in the middle level of the park. It was much more fun to wade through it than it was to walk along on the sidewalk. CZ borrowed my boots and filled them with water.

Batman showed up at the party, escorted by his dad.

I got rather fascinated with making a splash and trying to take a picture of it. None of my efforts was quite in focus, though!

And today is gorgeous!

One flight up

Watching Irene from the window of our empty apartment

We were supposed to move to Italy this weekend. All day Friday, while the packers were realizing they'd understaffed our move, and I kept running here and there to get them drinks and takeout, an Irene-shaped cloud hovered. Would our flight make it out in time, or not? Would our furniture make it to the warehouse? More specifically, would the sofa make it out the front door? We couldn't find the super to remove the hinges.

In CZ's empty (except for her piano) room, I heard my voice echoing as I called Alitalia--will you cancel? Can we reschedule? Call tomorrow, call tomorrow, they said.

The movers spent until 10 p.m. packing (against the building rules), and then said they'd have to come back on Saturday to finish (also against building rules). My revised plan was to clean the apartment for the tenants around the movers' efforts to get the sofa out, and leave for JFK by three. Thankfully, our neighbors had offered us their furnished rental apartment through the end of the month, so we were staying only one flight upstairs.

I got up around 2 a.m. on Saturday, sleepless--how to stock up on storm groceries just in case when I'd just emptied the pantry for an international move? And how to explain the extended move to the co-op board? I checked e-mail, and there was the cancellation.

I sent CZ out early to get some grocery staples (thus avoiding lines out every grocery door by 10 a.m.), while I supervised and cleaned downstairs. Bob spent three hours on hold with Expedia on his Blackberry, only to get disconnected. When the movers finally left at noon, the subways were shut down and there were seemingly no groceries left in the entire city. We didn't have much to cook, but we had tons of oil and vinegar that the movers had rejected, so we were good for salads until 2012. Bob and I doubled our phone efforts via Skype, and I called Alitalia. After four hours on hold, we finally got a rescheduled flight--for September 5th. But the customer service rep was very proud of the fact that the plane was brand new.

Once we got over our initial dismay (CZ would miss a camp with her new violin teacher in Italy), we started to see a silver lining in the cloud, so to speak. We had been wanting to say a proper good-bye to our city all summer, but we didn't have time. Now we would. Besides, after a week with an international move, an earthquake, and a hurricane, all I really wanted to do was sleep. So I did. I slept soundly all through the hurricane's approach!

Of course, this storm, just like the earthquake earlier this week, was more notable for disrupting regular New York life than for any destruction here. But I think it made the week memorable. This is the week the curtains shook from side to side, the rain broke the subway, and we didn't move to Italy. I wonder what will happen next week?

Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra visa

This time two weeks from now we'll be spending our first night in Torino. Exactly where, I don't know. There's no one left in Italy to ask, because everyone is on vacation. Bob imagines a cartoon scenario in which we call a number beginning in +39, and a voice answers, "You have reached Italy. We're not here to take your call right now, but if you'll leave a message, we'll get back to you in September when we return from vacation."

And besides, we don't have our visas yet. I could explain the whole drawn out and nonsensical process of trying to get them, which has grown especially intense during the last two weeks, but I promise you don't want to hear the details. I'm not even sure I understand them, because they're in Italian, and besides that, they are Italian. But the upshot is that by some miracle we have an appointment on Thursday for the immigration equivalent of the Last Judgment. We'll sit on one side of a desk on Park Avenue handing over a series of notarized and apostillized documents, and a woman with a box full of rubber stamps (which clearly represent power) will either accept our application, or not. I'm thinking of taking some cookies.

That leaves us a week to get ready for the movers!

Last spring, I'd had thoughts of saying a proper goodbye to the city, perhaps visiting places we've loved for fourteen years for the last time, having long visits with friends, and even going to some of those museums and interesting stores we never got around to seeing. Now I see that this isn't going to happen. Instead, I'm living in a kind of blur, running papers down to Fed Ex, grouping things for packing, carting belongings to the thrift store, spending all my American change, eating down the pantry, calling insurance companies. I've made my last Amazon order. But I also find myself staring at people on the subway, with a sideways, New York glance. Such variety, such eccentricity! Every now and then I realize that I'm leaving, and I catch my breath. But there's too much to do to think about it very long.

And yet, this too is a part of life. It's not what I would have chosen, but it can be lived well, and it certainly calls for character; more than I have, in fact.

Detail from a Florentine fresco of Dante. The book is open to "Nel mezzo del cammin..." The people on the left are waiting in line for visas.

Last Monday I was having a bad bureaucracy day, which made me feel especially satirical. So I began imagining the famous first terza of Inferno as applied to immigration:

Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra visa,

mi ritrovai per una selva oscura

che' la diritta via era smaritta.

In the middle of the pathway of our visa

I found myself in a dark wood

the straight way lost.

Yes, this is the perfect allegory to describe our situation! We really don't know what we're doing. Without our Italian Virgil, Michele, we'd never have gotten even this far. Even the phrase written jokingly above many a bureaucrat's desk, "Abandon all hope, ye who enter here," comes from Inferno.

But the words of the first terza are really "Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita," not "visa," which isn't really even an Italian word, and that's where the truth comes in. I'm in the middle of the pathway of my life, and this rather tedious and stressful process, however annoying, is a part of that life. Today, and not tomorrow, is when I live.

And perhaps, in about two weeks (or maybe a little later, after our obligatory visit to the police station), I will emerge in another hemisphere, on what seems like Easter Sunday, to find the sky studded with stars. Or I'll start exploring my new home, at least.

Guest post--Bob talks about why we're moving to Italy and other stuff

Bob, eating lunch in a Garfagnana restaurant last month

A week ago, my husband Bob gave a lunchtime talk at his law firm. The talk was part of a series in which the different attorneys have been talking about their practices. Bob used the opportunity to explain how he ended up taking a job in Italy. But before that, he took a long running start which goes back to a few years before our marriage, from an educational and work point of view.

We were married twenty-four years ago yesterday, by the way. At that time, Bob was in his last year of vet school.

What follows is more like a transcript than an essay. It has a lot of "inside" references. It lacks full written polish, more than rudimentary punctuation, and of course, the je ne sais quois of Bob in a room. But it should, include, at least, some of "the rest of the story" behind the events I describe in this blog.

And although perhaps it goes without saying, Francine was the attorney who introduced Bob at the beginning of the talk:

* * * *

Thank you, Francine.

Good afternoon. Let’s start with a joke. How do you know if a patent attorney is extroverted? When he talks to you he looks at YOUR shoes.

I'd like to make this payday lunch talk very informal so please feel free to ask questions or comment on anything I say over the next few minutes during which I will briefly discuss (1) my educational background; (2) my 14 years working in New York; and (3) my plans going forward in Italy. Past, present and future, as it were. As a bit of incentive to make this talk more interactive, on my first visit back to New York from Turin, Italy in October, I’ll bring a box of famous Turin chocolate and give it to the person who asks the best question or makes the best comment as determined solely by me.

Point 1. I grew up in the South, mainly in the Atlanta, Ga. area. I speak fluent Southern. [Repeat in Southern.] I went to the University of Georgia as an undergrad, also for vet school and after deciding not to be a veterinarian, I went to the University of Georgia law school. I've occasionally thought that the University of Georgia should name a building after me given all the time and money I've spent there. Ok, we're already done with Point 1.

On to Point 2, the New York years. After graduating from law school in the spring of 1997 and dealing with some goofiness from a mysteriously vanishing first job offer, I was left scrambling to find permanent employment. I was fortunate to meet a patent attorney in Atlanta who gave me the names of 10 people at IP firms throughout the U.S. By the way, up until the meeting with this guy, I had never considered for a moment working or living outside of the southeastern U.S. or even outside of Atlanta. But I wrote to all 10 people on my list who were in places like Los Angeles, San Francisco, Portland, Oregon, Seattle, Minneapolis, Chicago, New York and Boston. I got one response. And this was from a guy named John White at a firm called Cooper & Dunham, here in New York.

John White asked me to fly up to New York later that week for an interview and so I did. This was the first time I'd ever been to New York. I was basically offered a position on the spot. As I later learned, I got the job because a senior associate at Cooper & Dunham had just given notice that he was leaving. This associate was responsible for, among other things, a portfolio of cases related to recombinant DNA technology for veterinary vaccines. My resume came across John White's desk within a couple of days of this associate giving notice and my background in veterinary medicine was a perfect fit.

By the way, the name of the associate who had just given notice at Cooper & Dunham: [pausing for effect] Mark Cohen.

(Laura's note: The pause for effect is because Mark Cohen is now a named partner in his current firm.)

So my wife, Laura, our 3 year old daughter, Sara, whom we call Sarie, and I drove a U-Haul from Athens, GA to our new home on 72^nd and 3^rd Ave. on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. We planned to live in New York for about 2 years and then return to live and work in the Atlanta area. Well 2 years somehow became 14 …. and our 3 year old somehow became 17. As Woody Allen once said: If you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans. Indeed.

So what have I been doing the last 14 years? I'll tell you very briefly and I'll limit my comments to work-related activities. Marathon running, bicycle racing, snow skiing and gelato eating, while certainly more interesting, are beyond the scope of this talk.

I started by suffering through 14 months at Cooper & Dunham. Anyone who knows John White understands that when you work with him, time is measured in something more akin to dog years.

So after 14 months or about 8 dog years at Cooper & Dunham, I took a position in the IP group of a big general practice firm called Kramer Levin Naftalis & Frankel. There my IP experience expanded greatly beyond patent prosecution for veterinary vaccine technology. Over the years at Kramer Levin I had the opportunity to work in almost every area of IP law: patents and trademarks; prosecution and litigation; opinions, transactions, counseling.

I developed somewhat of a specialty in ANDA-related matters (ANDA refers to the process by which pharmaceutical companies get approval to market generic versions of branded drugs) and I often worked with technical experts on their expert reports and taking and defending experts in depositions. A couple of these experts have actually become friends. One, a guy named Sandy Bolton, interestingly (at least to me), played Bobby Fischer to a draw in a chess match in the mid-1960’s.

Probably the most high profile matter I worked on at Kramer Levin was the fairly well-known ANDA case, Purdue v. Endo, both at the district court and for the appeal to the Federal Circuit.

As the economy started to falter in 2008 and some of my own clients started suffering, I began looking for an exit strategy from the big firm life and lifestyle such as it was. So I began seeking alternatives and was successful in getting 3 separate offers all of which were available for me to consider at the same time side by side by side. One offer was for a position with an Atlanta based firm called Troutman Sanders which was starting an IP group in their New York office. I was also offered a position in beautiful Portland, Oregon as an in-house patent attorney for the technology transfer office of Oregon Health and Sciences University, and finally, I was offered a position in a grubby little boutique firm tucked away in the southeast corner of midtown called Lucas & Mercanti. I also had the fourth option of staying at Kramer Levin.

For reasons I’m still not quite sure about, although I believe autonomy played a significant part, I chose the grubby little boutique firm. My Kramer Levin clients followed me over to Lucas & Mercanti appreciating, I’m sure, that my billing rates went from close to $700 down to about $400 per hour.

Now at this point my story should end with me working through the years at this little firm, enjoying relative autonomy and a reasonable income. So what happened to interfere with this happy if somewhat dull ending?

Last summer - summer 2010 - my daughter was signed up to participate in a music festival in northern Tuscany. She’s a very talented classical violinist by the way. We decided to make it a family vacation. Since the festival would take place over a 3 week period I agreed to visit some of Lucas & Mercanti’s Italian clients, especially some of the satellite offices of the big Italian IP firms based in Rome and Milan. Lucas & Mercanti gets a substantial amount of work from Italian law firms and people from the firm pay frequent visits to offices in Milan and sometimes Rome, but never the smaller offices in between. So my task was to spend 1 of my 3 weeks in Italy speaking with IP professionals in smaller towns like Parma, Bologna and Florence, all places relatively close to the location of the music festival. And aside from all of the parking tickets, it was actually a lot of fun. By the way, the Bolognese sauce in Bologna is excellent.

So we now arrive at the fateful day – Thursday, July 1, 2010 - 13 months ago today. I had a mid-afternoon appointment to meet with two patent attorneys in the Florence office of a firm called Notarbartolo & Gervasi. Their office is in a beautiful 18^th century building near the center of Florence. I met with the attorneys there and spoke with them about several U.S. patent issues. They told me a little about what it was like to work in Florence, including their commutes to and from work by Vespa. The following moment I recall like a dream. As our meeting was winding down one of the attorneys, Livio Breghenti, said something like the following in a typically mellifluous Tuscan accent, which I’ll not try to imitate: Wouldn’t it be great if we had a U.S. patent attorney like you working in our office all the time. While he was saying this, the other attorney, Silvia Valenza, opened the shutters of a large window revealing a framed view of Florence’s main duomo. And as I recall it a choir of angels was singing too.

Thus an idea was born.

After returning to New York and convincing myself that I hadn’t been hallucinating that afternoon in Florence, I spent a few weeks writing up and refining a business plan listing all of the benefits I could think of that a U.S. patent attorney could provide to an Italian IP studio. In October – just a little over 9 months ago – I sent my business plan to 8 IP studios in Milan, telling them that I could meet with them in November. All 8 studios contacted me stating that they would very much like to meet with me. That was the first big indication that I was on to something. 8 out of 8.

All of those meetings went very well and everyone agreed that my business plan was right on target. I narrowed the 8 firms down to the 3 largest IP groups in Milan and met with those 3 again in February – less than 6 months ago. I received offers from 2 of the 3 firms while I was still in Milan. I ended up agreeing to work at the largest IP firm in Italy – Jacobacci & Partners – in their Turin office beginning September 1st, one month from today. I chose Jacobacci for a number of reasons: One, it’s the largest IP firm in Italy. Two, and related to the first point, Jacobacci is capable of handling all technical areas and is not over-specialized in any one area to the detriment of other areas.

Besides the personal logistics of moving from New York to Italy there were a few other things to consider. One part of the business plan included selecting a single U.S. firm, preferably in New York, to develop a nice reciprocal relationship with. While I could do some U.S. work for Italian clients on-site in Italy, certain matters I would need to send to the U.S. At the same time, the firm I selected could send European work to me. So I began considering which firm might be the best fit.

On my list of people to contact was Caleb. Caleb and I had both worked at Kramer Levin in the early 2000s just prior to Caleb leaving to work in Israel. Caleb thought the idea sounded interesting and suggested that we speak with Zeev. So Caleb, Zeev and I met a few times and it seemed like this firm would be a good fit. It also made sense that I should come over here for a few months before heading off to Italy. Among other things this would allow me to meet people here and also would allow me to bring my clients to Pearl Cohen and to continue working with them to some degree as I will continue to be Of Counsel to this firm. This type of arrangement would not have been possible at Lucas & Mercanti.

Several things make Pearl Cohen particularly well-suited for this overall arrangement. First, as you all know, Pearl Cohen has offices in the U.S. and in Israel so reciprocity can work in multiple jurisdictions. Second, and related to the first point, this firm has an international outlook. Third, the U.S. office is in New York but the rates are very competitive. So you get the convenience of New York without the typical New York big firm fees. Fourth, I've come to appreciate this firm and the people here very much. From what I can tell there are no oversized egos. People here seem genuine and this is actually quite rare for a law firm, at least in my experience. And finally, it may be a bit odd, but it’s probably a good sign that the managing partner here uses smiley faces in his emails.


So I decided to cast my lot with Pearl Cohen. I walked away from Lucas & Mercanti on Friday, April 1^st and walked into Pearl Cohen on Monday, April 4^th.

As I mentioned earlier, when we first arrived in New York, we thought we would be here about 2 years before returning to the Atlanta area. As it turns out we have been here nearly 14 years and we’re not moving back to Atlanta - we're moving to Italy – and in less than 4 weeks.

So that’s the story of the last 14 years, also known as Point 2 of my 3 points. Point 3 – Italy and the future - will take much less time to discuss. In fact, we’re nearly done.

By the way the country of Italy was unified in 1861 so it’s celebrating its 150th anniversary this year. And the firm I'm going to, Jacobacci & Partners, was founded just 11 years later in 1872. And even though Jacobacci has been around for 139 years, I believe I will be the first U.S. patent attorney born in Knoxville TN to ever work there - or in any Italian IP firm for that matter. I may even be the only person born in Knoxville TN to ever visit Italy. Anyway.

Over the past year or so I’ve learned a lot about the inferiority complexes of Italian IP professionals. They seem to look at themselves as the red-headed step children of Europe. And it's somewhat understandable. For every 10 cases they send to the U.S., they may get 1 case back for filing in Europe. Think how frustrating this must be. 10 cases go west to the U.S. and they wait and wait and wait and finally one case comes back east to them and they continue to wait and wait and wait. And that's it. The other 90% of cases go instead to Germany and the U.K. even though costs there are much higher. And the Italians are so emotional - the stereotype is basically true - so this must feel like unrequited love to them.


So Jacobacci has hired me to make things right, at least for them. How will I go about doing this? They want me to do 2 main things. First, they want me to work on certain U.S. matters for their European clients directly on site in Italy. If they don't send a case out, they don't have to worry about getting one back – no unrequited love problem there. Second and most importantly they want me to use my connections in the U.S. to generate more European filings. By the way, a substantial performance bonus is tied solely to this second point – new European filings.

And now I have to apologize for sounding like a Jerry Lewis telethon, but I do need your help to make this venture successful. I can't do it without you.

I’ve brought a number of clients here from Lucas & Mercanti. I believe that number is 12 – some little, but some big. For example, Abon is a start-up pharmaceutical company in New Jersey co-founded by Sandy Bolton (the guy who played Bobby Fischer to a draw in a chess match). Dyna, is a Brazilian company that makes windshield wipers. Bracco is an Italian-based company which develops contrast agents for ultrasound, MRI and other modalities. Schott is a German company that makes different types of glass for many different products. Baumer Electric, a Swiss company that makes high tech sensors. And from Italy I will send you U.S. work whenever I can, both to the New York office and to Israel.

In return, please remember me, [plaintively] please, when you have clients interested in filing European patent applications, especially for your clients with budget concerns. Fees in Italian IP studios are about 20% less than in Germany and about 40% less than in the U.K. and the quality is very, very good. The Italian IP attorneys, at least in northern Italy, are very competent. In fact, Italian practitioners are regularly beating German and English attorneys in opposition proceedings in Munich, for example. Low price plus high quality means value, right?

But not just new European filings. Any matter – patent or trademark, prosecution or litigation, even validations.

Finally I want to let you know that Fabrizio Jacobacci (the great, great, great, great grandson of the founder) and I will be in New York on October 17^th and 18^th - I'll be here a few extra days. He and I will be happy to speak with you about the various things Jacobacci can do for you. And I will honor my commitment to bring a box of chocolate to one of you.

I have now reached the end of Point 3 which is also the end of my payday lunch talk. Grazie mille per la vostra attenzione. Thank you very much for your attention.

This and that post

I'm making this post because I'm waiting on the phone to talk with someone about COBRA coverage. This is what I do all day lately, and it's not the most interesting blogging material. But perhaps it will allow me to sneak in a quick post.

The photo above is my roof deck planter. I hastily threw in a few annuals in late May and put a net over them to keep the jays and starlings out. At the time we were having problems with the building watering system and I left for Italy in June thinking all the plants would surely be dead by the time we returned.

But when I finally got home and made it back upstairs (late July), our planters looked better than they ever had! Everything had filled in, the plants were lush (the basil has yellowed a little since), the tomato plants had become the size of a small tree (I apparently mistook Beefsteak shoots for Sweet 100s), and best of all, my mom's heirloom salad tomatoes had volunteered in the thick of the other herbs. Beefsteaks don't do so well in planter boxes (mine currently have a sort of rot), but the salad tomatoes are doing fine. Is this the law of benign neglect?

We also returned to find that a pair of Redtailed Hawks had adopted our neighborhood as their hunting territory. They may quite possibly be descendants of Pale Male, the famous Redtail who lives on Mary Tyler Moore's building on Fifth Avenue. If so, they are decidedly slumming in Morningside Heights. But either way, they get the same rich diet of New York City rats and pigeons, and I often see them at work around 6 a.m. when I wake up. (See below, and note the extended talons.)

But the photo above is the one that was the initial impetus for my post: I was cleaning out the science experiment cabinet and happened upon a mason jar that looked like the remains of an old experiment. At first I thought we'd grown some salt crystals, but then I noticed that the bottle was labeled, "Bleach." Then I remembered that I'd used a bottle of bleach to clean up after a bacteria experiment. So I poked the almost 1" crystals adhering to the bottom of the jar, and sure enough there were still bits of liquid bleach underneath the hollowed out pyramids. So I guess this experiment was a two for one!

One last anecdote: CZ recently performed in a nursing home concert for the 103rd birthday of one of the residents. When she walked back into the apartment after the concert, she announced, "Well, now I've seen everything!"

"You mean the 103-year-old man?" I replied.

"No. I was walking up Broadway at 107th and I saw a Columbia student carrying a four-foot-long, clear plastic toothbrush!"

I'll miss this city.

Do the next thing

In absence of the time or ability to say anything else for perhaps another month, I will simply post a talk from Elisabeth Elliot that explains how I feel right now, how I am coping with what is frankly an enormous job, filled with uncertainty. Perhaps you've heard this talk before. But if you haven't, it's quite worth the read, because everyone gets to this point at some time.

I hope your summer is going well. If I have time to post again before we move, I will. If you want to pray for something for us, pray that we'll have faith in God's presence, and extra understanding for one another. And pray for visas.

I'll be back eventually. And there will be some sort of blogging when it seems doable. Arrivederci!

La gioia del Signore

Goji Bear, Splot and Schu-pin climbing our host's refrigerator in Torino

We're back in the US for a month or so before our move. Oh, there is so much more I'd like to tell about our trip, but I need to take care of finding a mover and packing, finding at least a temporary apartment, and handling a letter from the IRS before the middle of August. So it might be a little while before I blog again.

I'll just leave it at this for now: The trip renewed my faith in the country of Italy. Despite the bureaucracy, it's a lovely place, and I do think we'll like living there. And I can think of no better symbol of our transition than the three little animals in the photo above.

As I wrote before, we took two teens along with us on our trip to Garfagnana and Torino, a sister and brother. By the end of the trip, they and CZ had bonded to the point where they had their own inside jokes, and knew the others' pet peeves. And despite having to deal with various travel inconveniences (namely lugging suitcases on trains, traveling in full sun, and keeping enough clean laundry in these conditions), they really got along beautifully. I think they helped CZ realize that she liked Italy. And I can honestly say they never met a gelateria they didn't like.

The last day in Torino, while I was looking at apartments and Bob was visiting his new employer, the three of them explored the center of the city together. They had intended to do some shopping, but most shops in Italy are still closed from Sunday on Monday morning. So mostly they window shopped.

At the end of the day, they went into some little IKEA-like store where everything was cheap, which suited their budgets just fine, and bought the three little "friendship animals" above. Their names are Goji Bear, Splot and Schu-pin, which are all inside jokes and I can't explain them except that someone was very tired once and combined Schubert and Chopin, resulting in the third name.

The other item in the photo is a little card that was on our host's refrigerator. It says, "La gioia del Signore e' la nostra forza (Neemia 8,10)." The joy of the Lord is our strength. Italians are to skilled at doing much with little, and for the most part, they are full of joy. And I've met some who are full of the joy of the Lord. What better thought to take home for our last month in the United States?

A quick post about chocolate and coffee

During last year's festival in Castelnuovo, our family became big fans of the macchiato at the pasticceria in the center of town.

We're still big fans of macchiato, but this morning we tried something new, and it definitely gets added to the list of favorites: caffe fondente!

Caffe fondente is a coffee with steamed milk, but it also has dark chocolate sprinkled in it and a bit of steamed milk in a little cup-shaped chocolate on the side. Ours were delicious and attractively presented. The saucer was even slightly assymetrical to hold he spoon and tiny chocolate.

While at the pasticceria this morning, I also took some photos of the other chocolates the pasticceria hand crafts, including a set of tools, a Bialetti moka pot, and a sheet music cake (for the festival CZ is participating in). The owner greets us familiarly now, so I figured it wouldn't be too obnoxious to take photos of some of our favorite items.


Perfectly detailed paint brushes, wrenches, locks, and scissors, all made of chocolate. They even look a little rusty.

A chocolate Bialetti Moka pot, one of the symbols of Italy. It's a little hard to see because it's wrapped in plastic, but inside the plastic, it's perfect!


A special display window for the music festival, showing a mannequin in a pink feather boa, playing a masonite violin while sight reading from a chocolate sheet music cake.


A typical morning macchiato, about to be gone.

(At the top: caffe fondente.)

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Location:Castelnuovo di Garfagnana, Italy

Waiting for zucchini flowers

Remember the basket of vegetables that Sig.ra Bertolani brought? Sig.ra Bertolani had given CZ some instructions about how to fry the zucchini flowers, but CZ didn't understand them, so Sig.ra Bertolani promised yesterday that she would show us how to fry them sometime during the afternoon. The only problem was that we didn't really know what time. It's not the Italian way of doing things to make an appointment.

Meanwhile, it was supposed to be audition day and the kids also had rehearsals and lessons. In typically Italian fashion, there were no time slots; one simply had to wait in the hot piazzetta until the directors called one's name. CZ had a bit of an excuse to leave, because she had a lesson. But we had an idea that might get all three kids an early slot: We taught CZ's friend L to say, "Alle due di pomeriggio, la Sig.ra Bertolani ci insegnera' come cucinare i fiori di zucchini." She went over it several times, reading from the back of an envelope amid much laughter, and then she went off to charm the Italian director of the program, with CZ acting as backup. It worked, sort of: "I understand that you have an important cooking lesson," he smiled. "Come back tomorrow."

Then the three kids thought about busking, but they didn't have their trio music, so CZ busked alone and made 2€ in about five minutes. This proved a good excuse to go get gelato before going back up to the house.

By three p.m., Sig.ra Bertolani still hadn't arrived, and we had to go back into town for rehearsals and groceries, so we thought we'd missed our chance. But when we returned at six, she was ready. She brought over an iron skillet (padella) and tongs (pinze), mixed together a batter of water and flour (this was the part that we hadn't understood), and poured about an inch of olive oil (sesame is better, but olive is what we had) into the skillet. Meanwhile, we pinched the stems and the prickly bottoms out of the flowers and coated them in the batter.

Into the sizzling hot oil went the flowers, where they quickly hardened and turned lightly golden. Only when they hardened were we allowed to move them around with tongs. You had to put them in with your fingers, I think to keep the hot oil from spattering. And the minute they came out, you had to put in the next batch, subito!


Pretty soon we had a batch of zucchini flowers ready, but of course these first ones only lasted a few seconds. Sig.ra Bertolani confessed that she usually ate them as she cooked them herself, because they were better that way. She left me to finish the job, and after a while I had fried two heaping plates of zucchini flowers. We had some bruschetta ready as another appetizer, and fully intended to have pork chops as well, but somehow after two plates of zucchini flowers and a couple of pieces of cannelini bruschetta each, we deferred on the pork chops. This morning Sig. Bertolani brought over some charcoal and newspaper, so we intend to try cooking them tonight on the concrete grill if it stops raining. Even the weather here is unpredictable.

Most people in this music program stay in one of the town's hotels, where they have all their food cooked for them, but because we are in a house and cook for ourselves most nights, we are getting to know the shop people all over town, getting to know the Bertolanis, and are eating some great food with fresh ingredients, fairly cheaply. And after dinner, the kids pull our their instruments and practice their Mozart trio. We've already been told there will be another performance party for the Bertolanis' friends. But of course, this being Italy, we don't know when yet.

One seemingly never knows when things will happen in Italy. But it's easier to wait when you know that something is worth waiting for.

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Location:Castelnuovo di Garfagnana, Italy

Roving Reporter post: We return to Castelnuovo

I am sitting on the gazebo of Il Palazzetto at the Bertolanis' house, perhaps my favorite place in all of Italy. I am listening to the disorienting, but happy sound of a violin, a viola, and a cello all practicing different scales and etudes at the same time. We have brought two friends with us to the music festival this year, and though CZ and L have been practicing for two days, M has just picked up his rented cello. Once they get warmed up, they can start practicing together. (Which they did, after lunch, of course.)

This morning we walked down the hill and into town for a morning cappucino and a trip to buy groceries. But we couldn't find just the right kind of zucchini for tomorrow evening's dinner, so we came back empty-handed, thinking we'd try again tomorrow. When we got to the top of the hill, Sig.ra Bertolani was just walking around the corner of the house where she had been talking to the kids.

"Ecco la mamma," she said to me. "Here's the mama."

"Lentemente," I replied, smiling, because no matter how hard I try, I'm always about 25 yards behind the others when going back up the hill.

Sig.ra Bertolani had just delivered a gorgeous basket of vegetables, with just the zucchini we had been looking for, zucchini blossoms (which she told CZ how to fry); green, purple and white beans; a bit of basil; and two kinds of greens, one bitter (a type pf arugula, perhaps?) and the other sweet. With three days worth of four people carrying groceries up the hill, and now this gift, our small refrigerator is delightfully full. This year I'm cooking off the New York Times pasta section and a Mark Bittman cooking app, plus a few recipes from home. With no measuring devices in either English or metric, I'm improvising, but it works.


All the kids are very helpful, and after dinner they play cribbage, chess, and, last night, Settlers of Catan. When the sun goes down at 10 p.m., it gets cool enough to put on a jacket. Then the stars come out (so many more than in New York!) and we watch the town's lights glittering down below. It's so delightful that we can't seem to go to bed before midnight. Thank goodness for siesta!

Unfortunately, there are some things I can't do well from the iPad, and fixing photo margins and inserting links are among them, so I trust that if you have no idea what I'm talking about and somehow want to, you can find my posts from last year's music festival in Castelnuovo di Garfagnana.

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Location:Castelnuovo di Garfagnana, Toscana, Italy

Roving reporter post: Nostalgic food

A real Southern meal is called "dinner," even when it's eaten at noon. Clockwise from top: fried green tomatoes, candied yams, butter peas, flat green beans cooked in pork, collard greens, and fried chicken livers.

I've been in Georgia visiting our relatives for the past nine days. Yesterday my sister and I took my parents to lunch at the Blue Willow Inn in Social Circle. Don't you love that name for a town?

The Blue Willow Inn is, naturally, in a big Southern house with lots of Blue Willow china. It may be a slightly exaggerated version of the Old South, and the food may not have quite the freshness that a foodie would prefer, but I did see lots of foods that made me homesick for my grandmother's kitchen--butter peas, collard greens, the flat kind of green beans that are cooked with a piece of pork until they fall apart, cornbread, biscuits, fried chicken and livers, fried green tomatoes, candied yams, one of those Jell-O salads that remind me of neighbors bringing food after a funeral, banana pudding, lemon meringue pie, and more.

When we arrived at the restaurant, the entire elementary baseball team of Athens Academy was sitting in the front yard listening to a man play Christmas carols on a plastic keyboard. A young woman was roaming around in a dress that was a cross between antebellum and 80s prom, serving lemonade. Flags were flying, and a bit of everyone, wearing a bit of everything, was lined up at the buffet.

We were there to celebrate my parents' fiftieth wedding anniversary,
which will actually occur about the time we move to Italy. We would have raised a toast of sweet tea, but no one could have heard us in that festive atmosphere, least of all my hard-of-hearing dad. Nevertheless, as they say in the South, a good time was had by all.


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Location:Athens, GA

Growing up in the Metropolitan Museum: Part II

The view from the balcony

As I mentioned in my last post, every Friday and Saturday night, a group of chamber musicians play on the balcony of the Metropolitan Museum lobby. Museum-goers can sit at little round tables along the balcony and enjoy an apertif while listening to the music.

When Bob and I first listened to the music, we would just sit across the balcony for a few minutes during our weekend evening trips to the museum. We didn't expect a four-year-old to be patient or quiet enough for us to sit down and order anything. But soon we started to wander timidly through the area, child in tow. (I've seen many, many parents doing this since.) Then one weekend Bob and I went there by ourselves and tried out the bar itself.

Eventually we ventured to take CZ in to sit with us. To keep her entertained Bob had her play "guess the century" with the music. CZ, age five, barely knew what a century was. But her friend from the Chinese Scholars' Court played violin, and it turned out CZ liked the music. It may have also helped that the first violinist was a woman. For the next year, CZ begged me for lessons until I decided she was serious.

CZ, age six, watching the pianist at the balcony bar

The balcony bar became a part of our Upper East Side weekend routine. You could tell the musicians had seen everything: One night someone's napkin caught fire right next to the musicians. At the same table, soon afterwards, a man fell flat on his back as he started to leave. Another time, still at the same table, a tipsy group of women clapped loudly, not only between movements, but every time the musicians played a whole note. The most reaction any of this got were some politely raised eyebrows for the applause--the first couple of times, at least. Bob's mother remains the only person I ever heard actually get shushed by the musicians. She was right up next to the velvet rope explaining something to CZ, because our table was rather far back that night, and she had insisted that they go closer. Her voice does carry.

Once by the end of the first year or so, the cellist leaned over to the violinist as we sat down and muttered, "Here comes your fan club," indicating CZ.

There were other regular listeners, too, including a man we called "the cormorant," because he always sat listening to the music with his head cocked up in the air. There was a disheveled man who always carried a bag of papers that looked like a long-awaited dissertation. And there were people we saw only once, but were memorable, like a little boy who'd busked with his fiddle for a train fare to the city; a Mennonite woman and her daughter; a Mary McFadden look-alike wearing a long, wrapped crepe dress; and a man in a long linen caftan with a mandarin collar whom we dubbed "The Future," because he looked like a character from a science fiction movie. But these are just a cross section of the typical crowd.

We learned a lot about chamber music while listening to the balcony bar musicians over the years. During this time, CZ's skill on the violin was growing, as was our collection of CDs. "Name the century" grew into "Name the composer," and then "analyze the music." I discovered Dvorak's kinship to Brahms, and that I liked Brahms' chamber pieces even better than Dvorak's.

At least for me, the experience of listening to the balcony bar musicians was always somewhat synesthetic. I was coming at this experience from many years of enjoying drawing and painting, so my understanding of the music was colored by what I had just seen in the galleries. And after we'd make our escape before the final flourish (the group had a habit of ending with a waltz, which we never liked as much as the previous piece), the colors in the galleries (especially the Degas pastels in their darkened rooms) seemed more vibrant from the music.

The Singer in Green, ca. 1884

Edgar Degas (French, 1834–1917)

Pastel on light blue laid paper

23 3/4 x 18 1/4 in. (60.3 x 46.4 cm)

Once we moved to Morningside Heights, though, the museum was too far away to visit every weekend. And once CZ started music school on Saturdays, our museum experience was almost eclipsed altogether. We'd mostly go once or twice during the summer. CZ was also becoming a teenager, and once while we were looking at Chinese ceramics, she confided, "This gallery reminds me of wanting to go home." It seemed we were moving on.

But this weekend, knowing that we'd be literally moving on soon, I asked to go back to the museum for one last Saturday evening. When we got there, CZ wanted to wander through the galleries by herself with a camera. Bob thought it might mean she didn't like us, but I understood that it meant she wanted one experience of the museum that was entirely her own. We agreed to meet at the balcony bar at 7:15.

When Bob and I got there, it was almost as though the musicians were waiting for us. We got a table very close to the group (minus the first violinist, who was on vacation), and they were just playing the first notes of my favorite Brahms piano quartet (No. 2). There were no noticeable patron antics that evening, and we simply sat and listened to the whole quartet while CZ took some photos.

As we left, I wanted CZ to go up and thank the musicians for introducing her to chamber music. "Otherwise we'll just disappear, and they'll never know why," I said. I didn't think it was my place to tell them for her, as I've spoken for CZ too long already and I think it's time for her to speak for herself. But she didn't want to, so we left without saying goodbye.

Maybe we'll go back one more time before we move to Italy. Maybe we'll move back here one day. Maybe CZ will move back by herself. Or maybe the years will roll by, everything in the museum will be remodeled, the balcony bar will be discontinued, and our ghosts will be exorcised altogether. But in my mind, the Metropolitan Museum will always be an important part of our family memories, one that spanned three apartments and may have, in the long run, been the place our daughter grew up.