Hallo! I'm back home now, and home it does seem now that we are here. All is well: the kitty does not appear to hold anything against us, the plants did their usual return-from-the-dead act, the mailbox was not overflowing, and, though the lemon tree seems to be on its last leg, I believe it may bear its first fruit before dying. A fruit before dying – heheh.

Observer of all, participant of none

Greetings from the Pacific Northwest (of the United States), where, for the first time in many weeks, I find myself with a spare moment and a computer. My travels in the past month have taken me far and wide and at the moment I feel like I don't have any home at all. Oddly, perhaps even ironically, it seems likely this place will actually probably be my home one day. But that day seems very distant indeed.

In my displaced, disoriented state, I've found it interesting to observe people who are at home in these places and to imagine what it must be like to have certain things as your "normal." How must it be to hear mariachi music through your window every night? Or to watch a gigantic Mexican flag taken up and down outside your office every day? To grab a coffee at a pick up window on your way to class? To know the differences between 18 types of oysters? Or to feel like you the parking spot on the street in front your house is yours? I am having difficulty comprehending.

Grappling around a restaurant bathroom lit by just one little candle last night, I wondered to myself (more existentially than literally, but also literally), where am I? And how did I come to be living this adult life here, in this place? What is my own normal? And why do I feel like an anthropologist in my own country? It is hard to tell if I am coming or going.

Day 7: Edgewater, Sweet Edgewater

Nature was busy this weekend while we were away, giving out steroids and sweet-talking the shrubs. Lugano has been transformed! Everything is so full and intensely green that when we turned down our street around midnight last night, we both thought we were on the wrong street.

Even my porch of pathetic plants is looking lively. Well, to be honest, the pine tree has still seen better days, but the daffodils are in bloom, the lemon tree has some lemons, and the herb seedlings have sprung up out of their dry, barky soil (making a good case, by the way, for nature in the nature/nurture debate). 

Atticat is enjoying spring here as well, taking the opportunity to bird watch, bug hunt, and sit very close to the herbs on the porch. Boo-kitty would have been going crazy with all the birds around here. 

Hmm... it sounds like I almost like nature. Been reading too much about naturalists lately.

"Modified Mediterranean Climate"

Lugano's weather is confusing.

Sleepin' European

At long last, we have a bed with all the necessary parts and sheets whose fibers will allow me to sleep.

this bed represents the triumph of the human spirit!

And, while I'm at it, a view from the bedroom window:

via Henri Dunant meets via Madonna della Salute

Sammy's triumphant return

Announcing the return of another member of our family (and Super Mario 2)....

Un giorno emozionante

the boxes that will change our lives forever