The First Photos!

Earthquake

Yes. There was an earthquake in Sicily two days ago. 2.7 on the RScale but none of us felt it.

More distressing was that when Romina came early in the morning on the 18th the steel gate was wide open. She said she panicked, ran in and checked all of the rooms to see if we were all ok. We were all sound asleep.

We asked the property manager, Sebastiano, how it could be that the gate that has always been locked, suddenly was not. He thought perhaps it was the gardener or the pool guy. We called Giovanni the villa owner who lives in Rome and he said he would contact the gardener and the pool guy to confirm whether or not it was either of them. I was certain it was not. The pool had the same leaves in it that were there yesterday. The pool skimmer was haphazardly tossed over some bushes - exactly where I had put it while filming the flowers. I was certain it wasn't the gardener as the grass hadn't been cut, the flowers hadn't been pruned or deadheaded and there was still garbage in the outdoor garbage can. I couldn't reach Sean -- the cell phone wasn't working.

I thought if I have any anxiety by three o'clock this afternoon I can check us all into a hotel.

Then Sebastiano came over and said it was him. He was checking the hot water heaters, early in the morning. Now how it is that he didn't remember this when Romina asked him, I don't know. There wasn't a translation issue since both Romina and Sebastiano speak Sicilian. Sean had the most likely, unsinister, explanation. Anyhow that night I locked all of the doors, the seven gates, and locked us into our sleeping wing with the dogs. We woke up alive and well.

The truth is, Romina's reaction scared me more than the gate being open and I'm pretty sure Sean was right.

Today I started the homeschooling program. I did one hour per kid and I was exhausted. I also got a letter from the Faculty of Environmental Studies erroneously stating that the Faculty of Graduate Studies had not accepted me into their PhD program yet. Let the administrative nonsense begin. I also got an email from the executive producer of the documentary that I am working on saying that I need to have a meeting with the broadcaster in France. Given the cell reception here that could be problematic. I also got a draft of the minutes for the annual meeting for WildlifeDirect Canada that I now need to complete by chasing down signatures in Kenya before June 15th AND its raining.

I think I am going to upload some pictures from my phone and pretend nothing is going on.

Enjoy the photos. I am going to now eat the fior di latte (mozarella); cafe (obvious); vagniglia (vanilla); pistacchio; and the frangolino di Nemi gelati that I just bought!