In Love with France, At Home In Italy

This is an embarrassed Donatella trying to get back on her horse. Could it be that a year has gone by without postings? How is this possible? The short answer is that Donatella's academic alter ego was writing a book, retired from her beloved university posts of 33 years, and downsized after 35 years from her beautiful home. It has been a year filled with transitions, and you know how much Donatella loves those. But it's time to try to catch up. There has certainly been no lack of misadventures to record. After all, this IS the Umbrian countryside where the returning homeowner is likely to encounter power outages, droughts, busted irrigation systems and garbage disposals and pool pumps, and riding mowers that have gone on the fritz. And that doesn't even include the espresso coffeemaker that gives Donatella's husband reason to live. To resolve each problem requires a certain energy and patience, but the silver lining can be a good story and the cementing (or r...

This is the sequel to " Geniuses to the rescue during this day of drama!") It's lunchtime, and Leonardo was really happy to see the back of us! (We reassured him that the other route outa here wasn't half as bad, and when we took it to town later in the day, we were relieved not to find him stuck anywhere. There were, however, plenty of downed branches along the way. Like his namesake, Leonardo had left his mark.) PLEASE IMAGINE THE SHORT VIDEO THAT WOULD HAVE BEEN HERE HAD THE CYBER GODS CHOSEN TO SMILE ON ME. As you can see, there's no attachment here. Bummer! I tried to include an 11-second video to illustrate this post, but supposedly it's too big to send. No make-o sense-o. But then again, technology never makes sense to me. By the way, this is being written on a brand new computer. While an improvement like that would bring joy to most people, it merely strikes terror in the heart of a techno-dunce like yours truly. But fortunate...