In Love with France, At Home In Italy

So today is plenty hot--hot enough for me to finally want to venture into the swimming pool. Not much of a swimmer, and, like Woody Allen, I don't tan;I stroke, so it takes a lot to get me down to the water at 5:30PM. Furthermore, I am all by myself here, and I recall being told not to swim alone.  Well, I almost wasn't. As I am anxiously walking down the pool steps into the water, I take a nervous glance over my right shoulder at what looks like a grayish mass of something sort of floating on the top step. Uh-oh. On slightly closer examination it does not appear entirely dead. In fact, it is looking back at me, but not moving. Now I could have turned around and decided that that was the end of today's foray into the pool, but I decided to suck it up and dig down to find my inner contadina spirit. My idea was to get the long-handled net and scoop up whoever it was and dump him over the fence. At first this wounded ? baby owl did not want to go anywhere, but I managed ...