NINETEENTH DAY
KIMBERLY
STEALS THE KEYS
October
1, 2005
It
is fall here. We woke up late last night
and put on a blanket for the first time since our arrival. The studio is much quieter with the windows
closed. I always wonder where everybody
is. In general I do most of my writing
around 6PM and the 4th floor of the Academy is very still.
Yesterday
seemed like pure pleasure. We met an
artist from Oakland by the name of Abraham Elterman. He and his wife Bonnie are
here for two weeks. I am always surprised
when the artist is from the bay area and I have never seen his work. He is mid career and among other things, he
and his wife have a son at Northwestern as well as three other boys. Nice couple, great lunch at Il Cortile in
Monteverde, the neighborhood behind the Academy, and is reputed to have the
best Antipasti in Rome. I would say it
is very good and a nice walk from our place. None of our meals have been
terribly expensive, yesterday was about 45 Euro but add about .25 to every
dollar spent and all of a sudden 40 is 50.
Two years ago when we were in Rome, it was exactly the other way so it
all evens out.
We
went to a big dinner party last night in Trastevere at the apartment of Kristin
Jones, my motorino friend. She had a
bunch of artists and friends over for a wonderful meal of some sort of stuffed
pasta. You take large sheets of pasta
and coat them in some oil and then stuff large quantities of spinach and
ricotta cheese into them and roll. They
are about 5 inches in diameter. Before baking
you slice them and put a little more oil on.
They bake up in about 20 minuets and then you serve with a lovely sweet
red tomato based sauce. One of the
guests brought some homemade bread. I
think that in Rome that is like bringing coals to Newcastle. The bread that we buy is outstanding, equal
even to the great Acme and other Bay Area breads. It’s too bad I don’t like food. I could have a hell of a time over here if I
did.
The
guests were charming and as we were leaving we collected some of the names of
people we thought we might see again.
Little did we know that my great editor and the head of the style
section of this blog would take some guy’s coat instead of her own. In his coat he had his car keys. What a surprise that when I picked up the
phone this morning to see if we had messages that indeed we did. They figured that I had taken the coat
instead of my own. Of course, we missed
the message when we came in about 1AM last night. So we basically stranded this couple down in
the heart of Trastevere. I called the
girlfriend, Lucy this AM who lives very close, so we met them for coffee and
exchanged Kim’s coat for her friend’s model.
They were fine with the coat fiasco and friendly, glad it all worked
out. I wonder how my humor would have
been at 1AM I am working on my
meditation and will soon be in a Zen state where nothing will bother me.
Friends
from home start arriving soon; we are ready.
We now know buses, three star monuments and lots of good places to go
either to sit and watch or sit and eat.
It takes longer then we had thought to get the rhythm down. It is very different from touring. As many of you know, Northwestern has the
week off, that may be considered a win.
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