jenny littleshoes and tkam

ciao!

how are the bluebonnets coming? that is one of the things i miss most (besides family and friends, of course). i have never been here (italy) in the spring, and the other day i got a package from a friend, out of the blue (so to speak), that included new music (thank you corbett!) and better still, photos of bluebonnets! they are now posted on the fridge so that i can revel in their blue-capped glory, far may i be from home.

one of the many things i do "on the side" here, besides playing concerts and writing songs, is teach english and guitar to the children of castiglion fiorentino. one of my newest students is an adorable girl named jenny scarpini. jenny is one of those names that, having completely conquered the north american continent, jumped the atlantic and is now taking over the better part of europe. scarpini, more or less, means little shoes, so i have taken to calling her jenny littleshoes. i am not sure she gets the joke but she likes it anyhow. yesterday she taught me how to do "scooby doo," which is what we used to call making lanyards. i am starting to feel old.

our english lesson yesterday consisted of baking my famous chocolate chip cookies...we did the whole thing, from grocery shopping to the baking process, in english, which is actually a great way to learn new words...she now knows flour is different from flower (those blasted homonyms). i was in a bit of a panic, because most of the ingredients i needed didn't exist (like vanilla, or baking powder), but with a bit of improvisation and a lot of math (i had to convert the whole recipe to the metric system), a batch of delicious cookies were born and i became the best-loved english teacher on the planet.

we took some press photos the other day that are pretty funny:
http://www.icecreamonmondays.com/press.htm
if you are bored at work with nothing else to do.

I just finished reading "my invented country" by isabel allende - good times - and am now on to "To Kill a Mockingbird," which I have read countless times and which I am enjoying all over again. I can't think of the book without referring to it mentally as TKAM, because it was assigned in my 10th grade English class and was always written as such on the board ("read Ch 1-10 in TKAM for tomorrow")...I remember reading it nearly in one sitting, and finishing it in class while we were having a grammar lesson...I had to hide the book and my tears when I was called on to diagram a sentence on the board...

okay, it's time for lunch so i really should be on my way. dallas and houston shows are scheduled for june with a possible house concert in austin in the works...
happy weekend!
vanessa