My last few days were incredibly social, and now I feel chock full of stories and wonders. I had lunch Friday with my old Italian professor, Dr. Triolo, and amongst other things he told me about attending the Palio horse race in Siena in 1961 and seeing Sophia Loren there..! And I had dinner with my old schoolmate Chuck and his gorgeous wife Rowan, and they make lustrous pottery and travel all around to fairs and festivals selling it, and I learned all about this crazy life they have and about the elaborate over-the-top lengths people go to at these festivals, like for the Society for Creative Anachronism's Pennsic event, where one "baron" builds a whole palace complete with chandeliers and running water. And Sunday I met this art professor James and he showed me these beautiful hard plates and jewelry he makes entirely from paper, and told me about this show he'll be having in Pittsburgh this fall where he'll be presenting a series of artifacts from the fictional perspective of a 24th century curator. And I had an interview for the Centre Daily Times and hung out for a while with the interviewer and photographer after, learning about the seedy dealings the one uncovered during her time as a reporter in Buffalo/Niagara Falls, and the foray into coupon-cutting the other has recently begun with adorable and breathless abandon. And I had dinner with my sister and Barb and Jill, and then my sister and I went out for drinks with our old friend Hannah and we ran into more old friends, Jim and Ted, and Hannah is now getting her PhD in etymology and is conducting this huge study about mayflies and is trying to re-introduce them into this creek here that they once populated and then disappeared from. Mayflies! She said mayflies are the most beautiful and most ancient insect, and that the kind she studies come out at night, only one week a year, and have these white abdomens as adults that make them glow as they gracefully dip into the water and fly up again. Now I am no bug lover myself and roodly yet glamorously exclaimed "ew!" a few times as she spoke, but how can one not be swayed by the passion of a girl who loves mayflies and lights up when describing them. When I'm back here in May, she's promised to take me down to the creek to look at them.

Please don't be too jealous.

The end.