Saturday morning, 11:30. The church bell just tolled. Birds in the courtyard. A lovely, fresh breeze through the open windows. Sunny and warm. And someone in the neighboring building has been playing scales on a synthesizer keyboard creating the kind of repetitious, monotonous sound that makes me “fuori di testa” – out of my head. [...]

At 10:15 last night, I stepped out the front gate from the public courtyard of my apartment complex and headed north along the canal for a couple-mile walk. I crossed over the small foot bridge near my place, then glanced over and noticed a couple of older women sitting out on their second floor balcony, [...]

Happy Father’s Day to my own “Pop”, and to the other men that I know that get to say that they are “Dad”. Sunday morning, 10:00 a.m. Father’s Day. The sun is bright in my courtyard and I’m out enjoying a CUP of coffee (not a two-sip Italian shot). Since construction workers have been rebuilding [...]

Standing in my skinny kitchen, washing the dishes, I heard a couple of women talking. I looked out my kitchen window and its security bars, across the long, common courtyard and saw two women chatting, five floors up, at the corner elbow of the building. This must be the Italian city equivalent of “talking over [...]

Shortly after arriving in Milano, I had a nesting moment and went out to pull weeds in and around my little courtyard just to tidy it up and make it a little less jungle-like. It’s really a pleasant garden spot in the midst of these 8-story city apartments. It’s tucked in a narrow passage on [...]

The mid-afternoon sunlight is coming into my almost-three-foot-wide, skinny kitchen and it strikes me as so beautiful. It’s almost a black and white shot, except for that delicious green mug, a sprinkling of red, painted petals on another mug, and red pepper lip stains on the cotton napkin. Nothing contrived or set up, yet it [...]

May 15 Journal Entry – London Heathrow Tarmac. Departing soon for Milano. “Sleepy and subdued after the long flight from Seattle to London, but I look forward to flying into Italian skies, seeing the distinctive Italianate architecture down below me. After arrival at Malpensa and retrieval of my one checked bag, I’ll take the train [...]

A pigeon wandered into the other bedroom, twice, off the balcony. A child was practicing lessons on a recorder flute, playing “Somewhere (There’s a Place for Us)”. The sound was amplified through the courtyard, allowing us all to “enjoy” the practice. It actually wasn’t too bad. The neighbors next door must be good cooks, or [...]

Always an exercise in “packing light”, I keep removing things from my one-and-only carry-on bag for two weeks in the south of “The Boot”. After a week in Milano, I’m heading to south to wander around. First, I’ll explore Sicilia for a week. Then I’ll take a train along the “sole of the boot”, to Puglia, [...]

How do you give a 13-year-old a whirlwind overview of Milano and other spots in Italy? I had grown up picking rocks off of Earl’s parents’ waterfront on Three Tree Point, just down from the house I have in Seattle now. (In other words, he’s known me since I was born.) So when Earl decided [...]

One year ago today my plane landed at Milano Malpensa Aeroporto. I caught the train into the center of town, to the Cadorna Station. It was a hot day. I started sweating quickly. My Irish/German skin was bone white in contrast to all those on the street and I laughed. I was whisked through the city [...]

This two-room apartment of mine is really pretty great: A bedroom with lots of storage, two skinny little less-than-twin beds, and a table for sorting things. A well-functioning bathroom. A loft space that I’ve blocked off with fabric and use to store anything I don’t want to look at or use. And one big, high-ceilinged [...]

12:20 a.m. Why go to bed when they’re just outside my bedroom window pressure washing the streets and sidewalks? (At 12:20 in the morning!? Hey! They’re early tonight! It’s usually at quarter to one!) Might as well wait, rather than lying there watching the pattern of their flashing orange lights and the patterns they make [...]

Seven in the evening after a mid-80s day. My french doors are open and I hear a music box playing “Lullaby and Goodnight…” with that classic, shallow sound of the child’s music maker. Where is it coming from? (It’s much better than the mid-day Italian soap operas I hear during the week.)

My house in Seattle is a mansion. My living room here is as big as my whole apartment in Milan. All of this space for one person? Really, it’s just a two-bedroom, 1950s rambler with a basement and a great yard. But after almost a year in Milan, my house seems enormous. I can’t imagine [...]

Boy! My two cousins come into town and a riot ensues! Connie and Gerry arrived yesterday morning, crashed out for a nap then wandered the town for a while. I met them in the evening at their Duomo-close hotel and we goofed around the piazza for a while. Connie succumbed to the bird food man, [...]

THIS is the time to be in Milano. The temperature is warm enough (75 degrees) to be comfortable in light linen and cotton, and enjoyable having the windows open to fresh air, but not so warm that there’s any thought  yet of air conditioning. I had a wandering, leisurely ride through the farmland exploring roads [...]

The first order of business this morning was to usher the flock* of ants OUT. As soon as the weather warmed, the ants returned. When I first shared my apartment with them last summer and mentioned it to a friend here, he said “It’s summer.” As in, “Ants? And your point is?” (A corollary response:”Welcome [...]

The windows are open to the day’s remaining warmth while trout and green beans grill and steam for dinner. I had awakened this morning to bright sun direct into my bedroom, and the day held promise. After some tasks around the house and a light lunch, I went for a bike ride along the canal, [...]

They put the temporary, scaffold-and-tin poster walls back up in my neighborhood just in time to feature advertising for the regional elections. Three inch holes are bored into the sidewalk, with rubber plugs for the off-season. Overnight, they can pop the plugs and throw up the walls clean and ready to be weighted with soon-flaking [...]