We still don't know for sure what "sn" means, but whatever it is, it includes us. The power went out at 9:01 yesterday morning and, although at first it was delightful to sit in the sunlight coming in through the windows and read from books, houses made of marble and stone cool off more rapidly in the February chill than you might think and we abandoned the place in late morning.

We had a good time down in town paying the cell phone bill at the tobacco store and being told at the Post Office to go downstairs behind to check for the Posta Fermo that we could see very plainly sitting on the shelf behind the teller. Then we went over to Viareggio, where M.C. Escher got married and where they take Carnivale therefore unsurprisingly seriously, and failed to find a food processor.

But in the end it didn't matter because by the time we got home, the power was back on and our lives in the sunshine progress peacefully enough without processed foods or mail.

In Pietrasanta, we've been having the celebration of the Feast Day of our Patron Saint, San Biagio, who is one of the lesser-known saints -- known as (according to Wikipedia) the "so-called Auxiliary saints." This seems needlessly dismissive to me. He is a famous intercessor for the healing of throat maladies and we celebrated in town by having a traditional Blessing of the Throats in the piazza in front of the church and with an equally traditional and somewhat more popular Luna Park set up just outside of town. Actually, Jonathan and I attended neither of these, but we could see the lights and hear the calliope music from the main street up here in lovely Capriglia-by-the-Sea. It is nice to know that people are eating tons of greasy carnival food and then riding contraptions that whirl them around wildly, even (or especially) if we aren't among them.