Last year Paul and I were separated by 4,160 miles on our 25th wedding anniversary. It’s just the way the summer panned out between traveling to multiple countries, scheduling a pre-college tonsillectomy, and navigating new home ownership in another country.

Today is our 26th wedding anniversary and this year was a balance again. I worked a full day on east coast hours but that meant I had the morning free to shop in Frosinone with Miss M and Paul.

At Coin Casa we bought new sheets for both bedrooms as the bedding from IKEA left a lot to be desired, an additional beach towel and some bathroom accessories. At Centro Commerciale le Sorgenti (a mall), Paul picked up a book on Michael Jordan in Italian and I purchased a shirt. We also introduced Miss M to Orizzonte who describes the store as a Walmart/Dicks Sporting Goods/Ace Hardware/CVS with a cafe with outdoor seating, all rolled into one. We stocked up on all sorts of things, from clothes pins to cat food to hair products to a phone adapter. 

After a brief espresso pit stop we returned to Pico so I could begin my work day. As I was working, Paul went to a nearby furniture store to buy the couch we saw yesterday and arrange for delivery. And yet ten minutes later Paul returned to the house with Tomasso from the store who wanted to look at our home to make sure the couch would fit. And Paul wasn’t able to make the purchase since his POS machine to process the payment was at their store in Rome, and Tomasso’s son will bring the POS system to Pico tomorrow. So tomorrow will be visit #4 to the showroom to finally buy the couch. 

Also in between my work calls, Marino our neighbor, our friend Carlo and Pasquele the plumber came by the house to discuss installing air conditioning. There was a lot of pointing and gesturing and nodding, and Marino graciously invited us into their home to see what Pasquale installed for them last summer.

Miss M has been very interested in the stray kittens who congregate at our front door and fed them out of a crystal bowl we found in the home when we moved in. 

In between more work meetings, Paul, Miss M, and I walked uphill to the Castel Pub for dinner. We had burgers, fries and a pork sandwich and everything was so good. It’s a Wednesday night and when we arrived at 8:30pm there was one other family eating. When we left at 9:30pm, there was a table for 18, table for 12, and multiple other tables filled with families and friends. 

At 10pm I hopped on my final work call of the day while Miss M fed more stray cats. She’s like the pied piper with six of them surrounding her with the tiny bowl of food.

Tonight’s dessert on the terrace: a glass of limoncello for Paul and a cup of amarena gelato for me. Readers of this blog know that I love amarena gelato and it’s very hard to find in the US. Buying mini gelato cups at the supermarket, in gelato flavor, for our home freezer was a great find!