We are in the last days of summer now. It is meltingly hot and the meagre charm of the katydid chirping has long ago worn thin.

Forty years ago, I ate a pistachio gelato at a little gelateria by the beach here and it was so perfect, so intensely creamy and flavorful and rich, that I have never really recovered from it, but remembered it -- through all the years and all the other ice creams -- as the pinnacle, the Platonic Ideal of gelato in comparison to which all merely earthly gelatos would, inevitably, fall short. It was no fault of their own -- such ice cream as I ate on that summer day in 1984 cannot exist in great quantities in our limited universe and to ask that there be two such pistachio gelati would be greedy. The gods have their limits, too.

But the same shop is still there. I recognized it immediately. So after months of going past without going in (out of fear of finding the old idols fallen in the dust and also laziness), on Tuesday -- here at the end of the summer season just when everything will soon close down -- we had an ice cream.

My god.

It was so good that I became an instant addict and spend all my mental energy now trying to figure out when I can have more, how I can have more, how much more I can have... Like any addict, I plot ways to justify needing (not just wanting, but actually needing) more of it and of tricking Jonathan into going for just one more hit.

I had Cinnamon Apple and Salted Caramel. Jonathan had Lemon Zest and Campari Grapefruit. I dream about the Cinnamon Apple at night.

In the meantime, between ice creams, I have been working on my series of paintings, "21 Views of my Groceries." 

We are in fig season now and stringhe season and apricot season, waiting for the first porcini mushrooms to arrive. Barbara and Sara gave us some very lovely gourds to photograph and more honey from their hives. The bees have been getting nectar from the lemon tree blossoms and you can taste it in the honey.

Our olives are looking good, but we don't know yet if the flies will come again this year and lay their eggs in them so that every olive is ruined by larvae. Mimmo is pessimistic, but sometimes that is just our way of placating the gods. They delight in overthrowing our expectations, so it is prudent to expect the worst. 

We are leaving for a short trip to the US week after next -- seeing the boys and supervising getting all of our old belongings into the container to be shipped to Italy. Tragically, we will be missing the soccer tournament that will be held at the pub in Leonardo's memory. The soccer itself is not all that exciting for me, but the announcement poster says that there will also be "jugglers, fire eaters, and singing animals."* I am very sorry to miss that, but Alice says that she will send me a video.

*It really says "singing and animals," but we have all agreed that singing animals would be even better.