Buongiorno

TPP has taken up a new residency for a month. Rent-a-mob, the inlaws, have already descended upon us. After two days of traffic, airports, airplanes, and in some cases, trains, some lost time, an epic grocery shopping stop to get some bread, some butter, some wine, just the necessities, a fun time teaching our GPS a new language, a quick lesson in the local scary driving style, lots of narrow, curvy, walled roads, a very late meal of carbonara, followed by a fatigued collapse into something remotely like sleep, TPP awakened to find himself somewhere in Tuscany, the paying guest of a count and countess. The point of this is to convince his academic counterpart that waking up surrounded by vineyards and olive trees is just as much fun, just as relaxing, just as renewing as preparing for the fall's onslaught of little academic savages to teach.  The therapy seems to be working. The view is from the long wooden kitchen table so recently occupied by the mob for some coffee, toast, and fruit. Most importantly, the only thing planned for today is to make some dinner, perhaps a nice puttanesca.