DUNKIRK ROCKS!

We have had a good time with relatives here and the weather has been wet. But my brother Jr.s greenhouse is incredible. Here are some favorite shots and the sky tonight!

BACK IN THE US 2

We are in lovely, wet Dunkirk now, and we are pleased to announce that Jessica has graduated, our teeth have been drilled, our pap smear taken...oh, wait, too much information. Anyway, the details are almost all taken care of. We have moved our US address to:

Collier Jonas
c/o Mancuso
10807 Roberts Road
Dunkirk, NY 14048

My brother Sam (Jr) and sister-in-law Jo will gladly forward any important info back to us.
So here are some pictures! I will update again as soon as I can.

BACK IN THE US!!

We are in the US at Jons house in Waltham, quick to leave for Albany and Jessicas graduation. She is thrilled that she is done and working in a costume shop in Chatham on the Hudson river for the summer. More later on that. Here are few more from the new "Best of" CD.

P.S. I have to leave out apostrophes or the text does not appear, so please do not think I have lost touch with English grammar!!!

BACK TO THE STATES

Since I did not get any pictures of the fire outside the gate, or the new roof at Gaspares or the work on the wall at Paolos, here are a few shots from "The Best of 2003-4" CD I just spent hours making!

LAZY DAYS

Not much to write about because not much is happening. We continue to plan for our US trip and garden.

MOTHERS DAY MARSALA

I hope everyone had as nice a mother’s day as I did. It’s hard being away from family on a day like that, but the phone brings everyone closer. Fortunately today everyone’s phone worked. It was a joy to talk to my mom as well as Jon and Jess, and so I had a very good day knowing that I will see them all in a few days. Steve bought me two azaleas at a special sale to aid women’s health research. Apparently Italy is also guilty of spending millions for bombs and too little for research.
It was windy and sunny, so we got into the Barchetta and drove to Marsala where they were celebrating the 144th anniversary of Garibaldi’s bold leadership of a thousand peasants against the ruling Bourbon government, thereby unifying Italy. Or so the story goes. We walked the main square and side streets and saw many events, like the Vespa clubs of Sicily arrival en masse in front of the Cathedrale during mass, a treasure hunt and a bunch of girl scouts in front of another gorgeous church, and an open house at the Civic Museum that glorifies Garibaldi almost to saint hood. We drove out to Mozia, the Phoenician Island conquered hundreds of years BC by the Carthaginians. There was the location of the wind surf championships, and the salt flats where sea salt is still made. They are renovating the wind mills that used to be used in this production. It was a beautiful clear day and we had seen some of the things before, but it is always fun to check out familiar sites in different seasons and different light. The island of Favignana, which we see from the top of Erice every time we go there, could be seen so clearly this day that all of the roads were evident to the naked eye.

FISHING CONTEST!

Paolo just left, explaining that it was a fishing contest (national!) that we were seeing out there yesterday. No fresh fish, but he told Steve to come over and get some good veal today! Must have been a sale somewhere....
Brian from Engliand and Christine from Scotland are back. More about them later.

NATURE STUFF

Things are quiet here, and we are enjoying the lull. The weather has been neither great nor awful. We have been busy with little things, puttering, shopping, reading, and generally preparing for our next transatlantic foray.
We got to see the full moon, then the red moon eclipse, but not the comet that was supposed to be visible with the naked eye after. I am not good at sitting and seeing a gradual change so I drifted in to read, and when I came out, the clouds covered everything anyway. The ancients must have been way more patient than I am when they were able to sit and wait for something to happen as they watched some of these events.
But nature is always fascinating, even if I do not always enjoy trimming the bushes or picking the slugs off of the basil and tomato plants. I know I sent pictures last year of the olive trees in bloom, and better pictures than these of caper plants. But this is a different year and different time, and daily caper picking trips are imbued with a special note of danger after seeing the tick Carl brought home from a walk here. Today I had a fine time finding new bushes, and even risked my life climbing a small cliff to get some. Those darn plants just cannot live in normal spots. Makes me wonder why it is so tough getting my own caper plant started! It’s still just holding on. Anyway, I went off the track to get a good bunch today and remembered the tick. So I looked down in time to see a tick walk out of my sandal! I ran home and stripped and sure enough, one had gotten itself attached to the crotch of my jeans, on the outside, thank goodness. Later we killed another one just walking around the terrace. Ick!!
There was a fleet of very small boats right in front of us this cloudy AM and we know that Paolo was among them because his boat was not in port when Steve checked later. Wonder what kind of fish they were all after? They left around pranza and have not returned, but there are plenty of fishing boats off of the point today. I expect Paolo to show up with a sample of his catch.
Finally, last night we saw the end of the latest Italian reality show “Grande Fratello 4,” or Big Brother. They broke all audience records with this one and marketed it pretty cleverly-it was on IN THE MIDDLE of the word show that we watch daily to improve our Italian. The show, Passaparole (password), would go on for an hour, then GF would come on for ½ an hour, then the end of the quiz show. The winner, Serena, worked at not annoying anyone, and the more dynamic personalities were eliminated one by one. She had crushes on two different guys who did not reciprocate, and everyone felt sorry for her for her bravery and cheerful demeanor. Gag!

THE END (maybe)

The waves were still crashing in last night and the then there was a dramatic electrical storm with very little rain that lasted into the wee hours. This AM there was a coating of sand on everything and the sun shone brightly. But at least the wall was finished, sort of. The cement was in, but we will have the plaster part finished when we do the whole house in June. Stay tuned for that exciting part! The waves took all the little stones away off of the beach. Now is the perfect time for some calm hot weather so that we can start snorkeling again.

THE THIRD SCIROCCO

I looked it up in my diary today. This is the third scirocco in two weeks. I also looked up in an Italian dictionary how to spell this word since I had spelled it 4 different ways in that diary. Using a “c,” it is Italian; without the “c,” it is English. Both languages double the final c. It is an Arabic word. A “sciroccata” is a south east gale. These winds are warm and sand-filled and come from Africa.
Recently I read that sciroccos occur in Sicily six or seven times a year. Then this is an unusual year, as our recent frequency is way different than normal. Each recent scirocco lasted for less that 2 days, but we have experienced ones that have lasted for 3 or 4 miserable days. The problem with them is that they are truly strong winds that seem to blow from every direction, so you are surrounded by wind in a very disorienting way. They are usually warm and they precede rain, which almost always contains African sand. We have had still, sunny days in between, and then suddenly, there starts another blow.
For me, this third Scirocco started a massive migraine headache which only worsened with the pounding and noise of Accursio and his brother-in-law as they worked on replacing the tile and the holes punched in the walls from yesterday. Why were the walls and tiles damaged? Well, our neighbor with an adjoining wall was here for the May 1 Labor Day celebration and noticed that her wall that we share has a water stain that ruined the new paint job. So being good neighbors and recent property owners, we did what was responsible and allowed their plumber to talk to our wall man (muritor-everyone has cement walls, so everyone has their favorite to work in stone and cement) to come in on a Sunday afternoon and prospect for problems. Did I say I had a headache??

THE CLOSING, THE WALL, THE SEA

Happy Labor Day! That is May Day in Europe, and it seems to be a family get together day just as it is in the states. The apartments are packed and the noise bothersome, cars arriving and leaving, kids yelling, etc. Oh well, we signed on for this knowing it was a vacation place for a few months of the year.
We had our final house closing Thursday, and it was almost no big deal, just reading the deed (a surprising amount of which I understood) and everyone signing their names a few times. Oh, yeah, and writing the checks (the seller thinks he will not get caught for his taxes if we pay him in smaller amounts). Now this place belongs to us! So of course today, the neighbor woman told me her wall is ruined from water damage and we need to get a plumber to fix the leak on our second toilet. Welcome to the land of happy landowners. Well, it was fun renting while it lasted.
At least our problems are nothing compared to Paolo’s. The road below his house has a containing wall that looks like it is ready to fall over onto the road. The police have closed the road, though everyone drives around the barriers, and he has seemed not to worry about it, but it is pretty dramatic. I walked over to take some pictures today, and I was amazed at how much worse it was getting. What will they do about it? Probably wait till the road is impassable and then put up bigger signs. That is Sicilian logic for ya.
I thought the recent Sirocco winds would help dry things out for him, as a day and a half of hot wind blowing dries things out pretty well. The winds cleaned the beach sea weed off but in its place, left a huge number of small stones strewn about, like someone had unloaded a truckload of gravel.