In Love with France, At Home In Italy

Carissimo B, I just read our horoscope in today's local paper, and for once, I could actually understand it, and it's good: "A very positive day for work--you showed the capacity to create more favorable circumstances to score points and obtain what you want. But don't let yourself be carried away by enthusiasm. Remain vigilant until you have reached your goal. Big successes in love!" Actually, when I tried to type that last sentence, at first I wrote "BUG successes in love." Maybe that was a Freudian slip? The good news is that there seem to be way fewer bugs in the house. Not sure if it's just the season, or if they've decided to take a powder because of the nutty woman who keeps ushering them out via her cup-transfer system (that is, when not squishing them outright with the Giornale dell'Umbria--the source of such insightful horoscopes as the preceding). The problem with randomly killing bugs is that they could be Kafka, or Charlotte...

 In the 2.5 years that this former ruin has been inhabitable, we have been trying, with mixed success, to convince the local fauna that this is now OUR house. A pacifist at heart, I have on each floor a special bug transport system that consists of a plastic cup and a special designated art postcard that I slide under the "cupped" insect in question, whom I then usher out the door. The downstairs postcard, the first piece of mail I ever received here, is from a former student telling me about what a wonderful time he was having studying French in Paris. The upstairs card is a night scene of a couple in evening dress dancing alongside the Leaning Tower of Pisa. To have someone as thorough and wise as V to clean our house every few weeks is a great privilege, but unlike me, she is NOT a hoarder. Therefore, if I want to keep something whose utility is not readily apparent, I must hide it from her. My bug transport system falls into that category. The problem is that when I...