*Today* is the *son's* birthday...

8. luglio
a treno en route a Verona per Aida questa sera
10 minutes a vicino di Milan

Yesterday was my birthday,
I hung one more year on the line,
[inconsequential 2 lines...]
but I’m having a good time…

-Paul Simon

Well, I think I got everything I wished for – a nice meal with friends, good wine, a funny birthday card, and a PURSE! Yes, ladies & gentlemen, I hereby advise you Trevor, even though he is a *guy* went *shopping* (voluntarily, I might add), and got me a rockin’, Italian made purse, complete with pizzaz and leather detailing *a viola*. (By the way, did you know viola is not just a big piece of wood and a color, but also a flavor of gelato?)

And wow – for me, the Italians rival the Japanese in terms of purchase presentation – this lovely purse comes complete with its own little sleeping bag (it has to rest *some* of the time --obviously I won’t be able to use it *every* day – what if I want to wear Burgundy? Perwinkle? Mauuuuve? ) which they then place in a substantially sized shopping bag where the store name is written large & elegantly in silver; and there are *three* silk ribbons – i.e. two for handles, and a third for tying the bag shut in an elegant little bow.

Oh – I also got stuff I didn’t wish for, like a phone call from my brother! Some of you probably don’t even *know* I have a brother. (This, a comment which will be mostly/especially/additionally amusing if he ever gets around to reading my blog like he threatened…)

The other moderately cool thing is that, for the 1st time in my life, I got 9 hours of my birthday all to myself….sure, it was cool all these years – the witty, left-wing jokes about the “Two Party system” and “Planned Parenthood”…but I had to draw the line when Garthe (yes, that would be my brother – and the ‘e’ is silent) moved to Japan and suddenly I was not only sharing my birthday with my mom, Satchel Paige, Ringo Starr, Mahler, and that oboist from music camp – but 16 hours of it with my brother as well! Basta! Enough! Ma, c’e non problema – insert small jaunt to Italy, and now, from midnight to 9am Turin time, it is July 6th in California (i.e. not my mom’s birthday), and July 7th in Tokyo (i.e. not Garthe’s birthday)…yay, I win!

And now, for something completely different….

Presently, we are on the train (but getting off soon – yay again!) on our way to Verona, with Syd & Lily. We are going to see Aida at the Arena there, which is oh-so-fitting, considering Aida is a female name in Arabic that means “visitor” and/or “returning” – two identities which during the next 5 months, I am always one or even both!

Then tomorrow, Syd & Lily will head back home to Torino, and Trevor and I will begin our 2 week, not-quite-fuel-efficient, upside-down-T to Münster, Essen, Köln, Aachen, München, Venezia, Trieste, & finally Cinque Terre, before doubling back home…now, it may not be *fuel*-efficient, it is something a little more important --*friend*-efficient – and that’s because Barbara (Trevor’s co-worker, *my* friend :-P ) and her family will be Trieste next week, and Syd & Lily will be in Cinque Terre after that. The careful reader (a.k.a. my mother-dear and my dear ol’ dad) might note that I have already *had* a trip to the Cinque Terre, but 1) that was *last* month, and honestly 2) a place that beautiful merits multiple visits.

I’m sure you’ve had enough of me now, not to mention I have to go review my Ethiopian and Egyptian history. Tune back next time, when I’ll have confirmation on whether they used live elephants at the opera (I guess *that’s* why it’s such an expensive production to put on?) and what it feels like to sit on concrete for 3 to 4 hours (and here I give thanks we’re not going to see Wagner).