A quiet weekend!  Grace had a sleepover Friday night with 5 girls, followed by a day of shopping and wandering around the city center Saturday.  Gian Piero and one of our neighbors spent the day painting the stairway of our apartment block.  Here's the story.  The staircase (3 floors) hadn't been painted in some years and really needed a sprucing up.  The occupants all met and decided that this year was the year to do it but then all began hemming and hawing about having to cough up the funds to pay someone to do the work.  Typical.  So after months of procrastinating and making excuses, in a moment of frustration,  Gian Piero and our across the hall neighbor Renzo said that if they could all at least come up with the funds to pay for the paint, the two of them would do the damned work.  So last week GP put a sign on the front door of the building hoping that someone else would volunteer to help but alas no real takers.  One guy, the singer from upstairs, showed for a couple of hours then disappeared and another came out at the end of the day and helped with the cleaning up.  My husband, (and undoubtedly my neighbor), is now sprawled on the sofa with a sore back.  The stairway looks terrific though.  I spent the day cleaning and reorganizing the kitchen cabinets and studying (always half-heartedly) for my driving exam.  Last night GP and I went out for dinner with old friends.  Beppe and GP have known each other since they were teens and Beppe's wife Alessandra is a kick.  She spent the evening telling us stories about her weird aging parents.  Her mom once threw a side of frozen mountain goat off her balcony, hitting a guy in the head and almost knocking him out.  Tomorrow no plans aside from a long walk and dinner with the grandparents which has become the Sunday thing to do.  They too are doing some odd aging stuff.  Yesterday my mother-in-law was convinced the reason a representative from a phone company kept calling her was to tell her that the battery in my phone had died.  Hmmm.  xxoo me