It has been a week and a half since the New Year's Eve dinner at the pub and I am only now recovered enough to write down even the smallest facts about the evening:

-- I had to unbutton my pants at about 10:30 in order to accommodate my stuffed belly and we hadn't even gotten to the main courses yet.

-- There was tripe.

-- In an attempt to escape the company of his somewhat disapproving-seeming family members (with whom he was obligated to dine on this holiday, but whom he managed to lure to the pub to do it), we were joined at our table by one of the regulars.

-- It turns out that some of the regulars are "fabricators" -- the people who actually cast the bronze or carve the marble that the sculptors design. They are incredible artists in their own right, but deny that label and claim only to be "artisans."

-- Since then, he has gone out of his way to show us that we belong and that we are accepted by buying us bottles of wine.

-- I cannot drink this much.

-- Oops! It turns out that I can.

-- "La serata e lunga" means "The evening is long." Renata says this to us while uncorking another bottle at our table and smiling knowingly at us.

-- On Wednesday, we visited Almo at his studio. He is another one of the regulars, another fabricator. He showed us all around and it was fascinating.

-- My dear friends from graduate school, Indermohan and Art, were here visiting for a couple of days and Indermohan snapped the very cool picture below during our visit. (You can see Jonathan in it, but only the back of Almo's jacket.

-- Almo offered me a chance to give it a whirl with the pneumatic chisel, but I turned him down.

-- I regret it.

-- But I am nevertheless very happy.