Leaving on a jet plane. Yeah. All systems Go. Going. Gone. We slipped the gravitational pull of Logan International in Boston and a couple random movies and rubbery raviolis later I was rushing through DeGaulle in Paris. Shortly after Paris I was up in the air over the Alps and the next thing I knew I was getting into a taxi in Chiusi, Italy and saying “Panicale, per piacere”. I found Wiley! She looks great, the house looks great, even in the cloudy rainy weather. I managed to stay up till real Italian dinnertime to get on myself sort of on Italian time and then we treated ourselves to dinner at Masolino’s, next door to our house.
They had a table reserved – in case I wanted to come – because they knew I was landing that day! Can you believe? Andrea pointed to a table for two. And says I put you right by the heater on this cold night. Really? The little gold “Reserved” sign is for moi? Kind of choked me up. I feel the love. I feel the love, praise the Lord, we have made it to the Promised Land once more! We ate the food, we drank the wine. I came home, fell into bed and slept the sleep of the seriously jetlagged. Except for a few minutes in the dead middle of the night. Where the heck am I? Did I say it was raining? It took some doing waking me from the coma-like state that I was in. But this was a wild and wooly midnight gully washer. Very freaky Friday weather this fall. We were here all last September and it was shorts and tee shirts in the garden till sunset everyday. Into each life.
But that was Friday. OK, that was yesterday too. But Today is another day. It is literally Sun Day in Sunny Italy. Sun on the rooftops, sun in the sparkling raindrops still hanging on the tip of every tree leaf. Sun in the Piazza. And, why there’s my daughter in the Piazza too. We had cappuccinos and watched the world go by and then had them all over again. And then, the bells began to ring and the village church at the top of the piazza poured a lava flow of wedding goers out and over the sun drenched piazza. We had to think All is Right with The World. I may even go home and garden for a while. I think I will.
First off, driving the three hours back from Rome by myself, with my father’s words firmly in my head ”When you pull out onto a road you are not pulling out onto a road in Maine, you’re pulling out into OMIGOD! ” Well, lucky for me I avoided all ’omigod’ situations on the way back, and only had a little bit of traffic and rainfall! And I have to say, it felt good, pulling into Panicale in my little car, heading to my little house, and knowing I got there on my own. I came in and made myself a big celebration dinner– pasta with pesto (and Italian gods don’t kill me– but I put a little Tabasco sauce in it too– my version of something old, something new,?!) also had some of the great farm fresh ricotta that the 
It’s Orfeo that’ll do it every time. After a brief hello, Celia told him about her quest for a particular hand cream made from bee products – that quickly led to Orfeo running into his house, grabbing his car keys, and leading us down the hill to his friends ”they have the best honey– you don’t need to go to Chiusi! You come to them”!
Later, as we strolled back to the car, more likely waddled, I noticed a very interesting difference between Chiusi and Panicale– In Chiusi all the benches and door stoops were filled with women, all sitting and chatting, fanning themselves and petting cats, well, as anyone’s who’s visited Panicale knows, in our town this sight is very unusual, it’s the men who take up the benches– but in Chiusi no men were to be seen– am I seeing a dating show? Umbrian Bench Dating, I really think I’m onto something here!
As daughter Wiley prepares to spend an extended period of time here — more than any of us ever have at one time, there is always something new to consider. Will the supplies we have work well, or will she find a million little things she needs? Well, the first thing we got for her is an Aldo Bar charge card! That way I know she will head to Aldo’s for her daily caffeine and meet all the neighbors! Today we saw Jurgen who said we “had some work to do on our garden&rdquo . . . ! Wiley and I came back to look, but it looks great to us. Wonder what Stew would do?
Francesco’s web site, from the very dawn of the web era, was the reason we first “discovered” Panicale and shortly thereafter discovered we could not live with out it. As the Eagles said in Hotel California: We could check out any time we wanted, but we could never really leave. And sure enough, the next thing we knePANICw we were buying a house. So, beware. Umbria may be habit-forming! Here is their autumn 2005 calendar:
He plays at being shocking to nose-tweak some of the more conservative factions in this fairly traditional part of Italy. He is Danish but speaks perfect American English (he was Born in the USA. In the state of Springstein) and was raised eventually in Panicale. He starts rolling his own cigarettes as soon as he sits down but first asks waitress if its ok and she says no because there little kids at the next table and he pushes the tobacco gear back and sweet as a kitten says but of course, totally fine, I understand. Everyone assumes Eric has brought his own beer into the restaurant to tweak our collective conservative noses a bit. Wiley harassed him about it the next day and sure enough we’d all unjustly put him in that place. He’d bought the bottle from the waitress before he came to the table so it wouldn’t end up on our table’s bill. OK, we all got burnt judging a book by its cover. Typical day in the neighborhood when dad goes dating with daughter. 
But I digress. Why am I sawing up a branch of our tree? It spreads its branches up and out to the street above us to share with the people passing by. Bus loads of them are now almost tearing it apart in a fig feeding frenzy. Even when we are in the garden. Turning the other cheek, Wiley will often gather a hand fulls of figs and take them up to the people on the street, just to get them to back off a bit. But still, would you believe the biggest branch was ripped right off the trunk? Weird, but true. Sweet older Italians of all stripes flocking to the tree to relieve some inborn fig deficiency. In the crowd of bus tourists, two old dears waved to us. We could just see their tiny bird like hands and their faces from the noses up above our garden wall. In trembling old-people voices they asked ”dove siamo”? I have days when I wonder what I’m doing, but usually I’m set on where I’m doing it. Afraid that the question is too easy I had to answer a bit tentatively ”Panicale?”no, no they mutter over the top of the wall, Che Provincia? They were in a state, they just didn’t know which one. Heck of bus trip. 
So. . . Big and soft. But not split open. Bring them to the chopping board and merrily hack to pieces. Skin and all. Smaller the pieces, the smaller pieces in final product. Carla like them cut in only 3-4 pieces each. I like much smaller bits I’ve decided.