She's got the whole world...

Tomorrow around 03.55PM GMT + 1 time Jac & I will arrive at Fiumicino airport in a Ford Fiesta to pick up my mother and sister from the airport.

Don't underestimate just how 'scoinvolgente' this is for me (or how often I now find myself substituting italian for english words that have escaped me) -- my Italian world, my Rome world was just for me, not many people from my where-I-grew-up world have stepped foot in it. It sort of makes me feel like i'm in a video game, and none of this is real. My New York reality was one thing, but my life here -- my jac life, my kitties life, my work life, my city life -- it's something that noone back in NYC knows much about or could possibly imagine. And maybe it's not just because I only call once a month or so, if that.

Maybe it's because I don't want them to.

But the world pushes on and so they are coming, and I will be truly happy to see them and show them the Italy that the Discovery Travel channel tapes. They will meet Nerone, our new kitten that was rescued from the motor of a car which Jacopo insists we cannot keep though he's been with us almost 3 weeks now -- they will see our wood, brass and marble house and old, cumbersone ivy garden that has been converted into a Kitty Alcatraz with poles and nets to keep them from entering the Big Bad World... they will see the Colosseum lit up rust and green at night while a bum plays the star spangled banner on his electric guitar below for euros, and the kids with Peroni beers sit on the old, broken and dented Ancient Roman cobblestones to listen. We will eat. By God we shall eat, pasta, lots of pasta, with fresh fish, fresh tomatoes, parsley and basil from the garden. We'll eat in the garden under the saffron tree. We will go to Ischia and ride motorboats into blue grottoes and gape at Vesuvius and think about all of the specials we've seen on TV about Pompeii.. and hope the damn mountain doesn't blow its top again -- and then it's to Florence and the Duomo and the (luscious) David and the wine country.

We'll get around.