The first weekend in August (I know I’ve totally skipped July; I honestly don’t remember much of what happened) Cesar played on a tiny island to the west of Tuscany.  As I had no money, I stayed behind.  But it meant that I had a weekend to myself, and did a lot of painting.  Most of them I can’t show you because they’ve sold (!), but here are a few, at least.

Mini vacation amidst the vacations….

The first weekend in August Cesar went to Capraia to play; he got home late Sunday night, and early Monday morning we got on a train to go to Rome to meet a friend of his who had stayed with us a couple of days, who plays the cavaquinho (little four stringed guitar).  There was going to be a roda– huge musical jam session, Brazilian-style– at his friend Roberto’s beach house close to Rome.  I have a whole book of these drawings which I will try to find soon; it was great fun, but after four days we were ready to come home.  Stayed at home for a day and then went with Cesar’s parents to Rimini because from there they were leaving for Croatia the next day.  Spent glorious hours on a very crowded beach, but there was a paddle boat involved, and then drove to S. Marino, which is magic.  It’s a seperate republic from Italy itself, and the historical center is perched high on a hill, complete with fortress, church, tiny winding streets, and magnificent views.  (I will try to find these sketches, too.)  We found food and a hotel well after ten, and they left the next morning for two weeks, and we wandered Rimini a while before finally heading home ourselves.  By this time we were ready to do nothing, but I got invited to cat sit for Naomi, so spent a couple of nights there with Romolo, who is sweet beyond belief, pretending I was an adult for a while.  I did these while I was there:

There is much more (I’m just now starting to realize how much I’ve left out…) but for now, you have a few new things.  I’m going to see if I can hunt down those other pictures now…

Be well, all of you!

Also, when I got home I helped Cesar dissect a chicken while he talked to me about parallel dimensions, quantum computers, and string theory.  I talked to him about turtles.

We shared a delightful gin and tonic, my first with lemon instead of lime. 

I read Portuguese for what felt like an hour to him, while he laughed at my pronunciations.  He maintains they’re cute.  

Now I’m sitting here typing and trying to think if my ring finger on my right hand is actually broken, fractured, or just hurts like hell.  I thought that it had stopped with the extensive bruising on the pinky that comes from squeezing the only break you have so hard you feel your teeth grate, only to have it be completely ineffectual.  Now, sharp stabbing pains have migrated inward, invading.  Perhaps this is what karma gives you for riding with unreliable breaks.

I promise: tomorrow I am going to get them fixed.  Please, bike gods, I need this hand.

Also, tomorrow Brazil vs. the Netherlands in the semi-finals.  Wish me luck; the outcome could determine the environment in my house for the next week.

Good night, all.

(Turtle!)

Sketch from our first party, held last Sunday, which was lots of fun.  Sugar from the caffè at the top of La Rinescente; flower from the sidewalk found close to the house.

ps– sorry for the quality of the images (again…)  I still have no access to a scanner, since the studio ended.

Hopefully pictures of glass (and a more thorough update) soon!

And I’m starting to need summer clothing, now; today it was 29 (84), and yesterday it was 33 (94).  It is simply getting to be too hot to go around wearing pants, or even things with sleeves.  But I’m happy– it’s the kind of heat that stays in the stones until late, late at night, so even if you bike home at one in the morning, as I did on Monday, you are still not close to being cold.  I had forgotten what this heat was like, but was reminded rather forcefully yesterday when we arrived at Cindy’s apartment and I was roughly the color of one of the new dresses.  I know that I should invest in sun block, but it just seems such a pain.

I planned on going to the studio to do more scanning, since Friday is my last day– I rang and rang and rang but– no Charles.  Che palle, palle.  So I went to SACI to find this woman to whom I had promised a ruler, and we chatted until I was late enough to have to hurry home on the bicycle to meet Cesar at six to pay the rent to Paolo.  Somewhere just after the vialle (one of these days I want to videotape my bike passage from school to home so you know where I mean) I slammed on the one break that works, and it just popped out, wires and all, sending me skidding in the middle of five thirty traffic.  Fabulous.  What was worse was that I had to walk the other twenty minutes home, knowing I was going to be late, already sunburned, and already having walked a fair amount today, lugging a broken-braked bicycle.  When I finally arrived home, money having been withdrawn for the imminent rent paying, the house was empty but for the dishes in the sink and the guitar on the bed.  So I had a litre of water, some cucumber, and waited.  Did the dishes.  Made the bed.  Listened to music.  Finally, when seven thirty rolled around, I said enough of this (an hour and a half of waiting?), and went out to buy paperclips.  Of course the store was closed, so by that time buying paperclips turned into buying a bottle of wine at Penny Market, so off I set in my new floaty cotton dress with the sultan pants underneath, marvelously cool and feeling slightly bohemian, only to see someone waiting astride a scooter some way up the road with a guitar strapped to his back.  So Cesar and I went grocery shopping and made sandwiches in the gloom of falling twilight, I had my glass of frozen wine, a shower, and he slathered my sunburned skin in lotion.  All in all, a productive day.

On Tuesday I reprised my babysitting experience for Isabella, and we had a lot of fun.  While she was watching Charlie and the Chocolate Factory in Italian (the new one by Tim Burton which seems a bit odd for a three year old) I did some sketches since it was likely the only time I was going to see her still.

Last Sunday it rained and stormed and in general was the lovely kind of summer thunderstorm weather I’m used to but never get in Florence.  So I made a huge pot of chicken soup (hurrah for learning how to boil a chicken whole!) and discovered that if you put in chunks of crusty bread without breaking them up into crumbs they turn into dumplings, and are delicious.  Got out the watercolors and painted away the afternoon while Cesar went to play in Galuzzo for a benefit dinner.  Quiet night at home playing with colors.  Yes, please.  Reprise of Pizzaghettone.

Some more random sketches from the train on the way to Rignano; I still haven’t figured out what they think of this girl painting on the train.  This is also when I rediscovered the color Prussian Blue.

Sketch done while having an aperitivo with Cindy in the bar on Via Faenza to show her how my pen worked; the restaurant is a seafood place, I think.  I liked the geraniums.

I recently came across a kind of pencil that was supposedly a water-soluble pencil like a watercolor pencil, but once the wash dries, it becomes a permanent ink.  I had to find one, as it seemed ideal for sketching– you could just lay in the values with the pencil, wash over them so that they were permanent, and then fill in the colors without messing up a water-soluble background.  So off I went to Zecchi, and after some deliberation decided to start with the black one (there are lots of colors, and the charcoal gray almost won through).  This is the first experiment (it’s a garlic flower that is exploding in our kitchen):

These are more attempts from sketching with Cindy in Piazza Signoria; how nice it is to have someone to sketch with!

Saturday night we went to Cesar’s parents’ house for dinner, and had a lovely evening full of salame di cinghiale (boar sausage), cheese and crackers, proscuitto, more cinghiale, beer and french fries.  Conversation ranged from traveling to religion to conspiracy theory.  Fantastic.  We bedded down in the living room, and the next morning had breakfast on the terrace with their magnolia tree:

It’s been a fairly good week.  Somehow it has become Monday, and I’m feeling oddly excited for it.

ps– last night I discovered that watercolor pencils are great for skin!  Who knew.