Falling behind

It’s been quite a full week, with photos piling up from Thursday lunch at Graziella’s; Friday’s visit to the cemetery and church in Canobbio; Saturday dinner at Dudo and Karin’s; and finally, a super fun lunch/sing-along with extended family, during which we were treated to the traditional popular music of Ticino, performed by the duo Tacalà.

I’ll be sharing all about that, plus lots of photos, in the near future.

But the top priority right now is being ready to leave early in the morning for the next phase of our trip: Cinque Terre!

Happy brothers

Today’s photo is of Ramesha and his brother, Fulvio, whose birthday was today.

For the first time in seventeen years we’re actually in Switzerland and able to celebrate Fulvio’s birthday in person. We all went out to dinner as a family, eating great food and having a whole lot of fun.

In fact, I haven’t laughed so much in a long time.

Hope you had a blessed Thanksgiving!

I’ve been on a roll with rearranging things in our apartment, which means going through boxes and papers and discarding a lot of unnecessary clutter.

I did finish in time to attend our first real Thanksgiving dinner since 2019(!), but I’m going to have to do post-Thanksgiving calls and cards.

However, while working, I was reflecting on all that I have to be grateful for…and it’s an extremely long list.

I give thanks to the Giver behind each gift, and to the one Giver behind all that I receive. My gratitude rises with devotion’s incense to the throne of Omnipresence.
— Swami Kriyananda

Two full years later…

We had dear friends over for dinner tonight.

An actual sit down and eat together meal, inside our house, for the first time since the pandemic began.

We’ve had occasional gatherings elsewhere with friends and family, but it really feels good to be able to entertain in our home once again.

Too much, too little, too late

This was a day with too much too do and too little time to do it in.

And now it’s simply too late to write more, especially since it’s going on 9:00pm and I haven’t eaten dinner yet!

(Wasn’t it just yesterday that I wrote about how eating well and regularly was one of the things I was doing right? Guess I jinxed it!)

Basta!

It’s going on midnight. We leave super early tomorrow. The last three days have been full to the brim with activity and our stomachs have been kept full to the brim with delicious food! As sad as we are to leave this, our second home, we’re pretty much ready to take a break from eating!

Saturday
As usual we had lunch at Silvio’s house (that’s Ramesha’s dad, who loves to feed us when we’re here). Not so usual is that there were two desserts: homemade cake with figs from the garden and pine nuts (thanks, Graziella!) and homemade tiramisu (thanks, Fulvio!).
For dinner we were invited to the home of the Sala family, just outside of Como. It took three years to arrange, but it was an absolutely delightful evening, which also featured two desserts (a custard cake with fresh fruit and another cake with marmallata (jam) using fruit from the Sala family’s garden!

Sunday
Lunch at “Ristorante Silvio” featured handmade gnocchi di zucca (gnocchi made with pumpkin) and only one dessert (thank goodness!).
We went to dinner with Fulvio (Ramesha’s brother) and had the final pizza of the trip (yum!).

Monday
Lunch was a simple — but delicious — pasta al pomodoro.
For dinner we were at Dudo and Karin’s for bruschetta, insalata, and more pasta.

I should mention that lunch almost always includes a plate with a variety of Swiss cheeses — and I don’t mean what we Americans think of as “Swiss cheese”! I’ve never seen that cheese in any Swiss home in the fifteen years that I’ve been living in/visiting Switzerland. No, this is a selection of cheeses from different regions and it’s sooo good!

[By the way, “basta” in Italian means “enough!”] 🙂