No one ever finds this house the first time they look for it. There is a little set of stairs on Via Capriglia between the wall of one house and the garden fence of another. There is a gate at the bottom of the stairs so that it looks like you shouldn't go down there.

But the gate, which is not locked, opens up into a green courtyard garden and that's where our house is. One side of the grassy, flower-filled courtyard opens out to a view of the sea, but the other three sides hold four houses. Ours is the one closest to the sea and with the best view of it.

The neighbors are all very friendly and kind, which is good because we are very much aware of each other during the day -- when and what we are cooking for our meals, who has gone out to the beach or the market, when the children are getting ready for a bike ride. Yesterday, while I was making lunch, someone had their radio on and Edith Piaf was singing "La Vie En Rose."

I like having people around and think of it as "Catfish Row" from Porgy and Bess, only Italian. It's nice to feel everyone going about their business here. Somehow, it makes things seems more tranquil than even if we were all alone.

I have been working this week on the final edits from the publisher for Armadillo Massacre Number Three. They are very light (thank god), but they are not non-existent, so I put aside the new novel that I've just started in order to work on them.

I hope the new novel will be funny. I'm turning all my friends down at the pub into a gang of assassins. They are all very much on board with this idea and read each section as I finish it (I run it through Google translate for them) and make suggestions for what happens next. Whether it will ever actually turn into a book or not, I have no idea. But I am having fun playing with it.

Jonathan is back in school at Pisa now and has very long days there on Mondays, Tuesdays, and Wednesdays, so I plan to use the time and the solitude to get my life in order and start exercising and organize my paperwork and read improving books and start publicizing Armadillo and finish all the art projects I have in mind and just in general become a complete saint. Wish me luck!