12.17.05 Hero for Hire

This is my opportunity to brag about my husband. Today it is raining. Really pouring. Yesterday was gorgeous. This seems to be a pattern, one gorgeous sunny day where we walk on the beach, put our feet in the water, ride our bikes along the shore and pick up seashells. The next day the clouds move in and it becomes cold and rainy. I suppose this is what we can expect from winter in Sicily, or at least in our little corner of it. We aren't complaining, by any means. We know that those warm days are there and that winter won't last for long. We are perfectly content on these wet days to snuggle in our cozy apartment and read a book, or as I am doing now, to catch up on my writing.

But I digress. My hero. Around noon I decided I would make some soup. As the day was chilly and I had a bunch of left over this and that in the fridge that would provide the makings for a pretty good vegetable soup, I went at it. I started with a little chicken broth, added some carrots and some peas, some onions and garlic, threw in some of Elaine's slow roasted tomatoes and a bit of leftover meat sauce I had made earlier in the week. I tossed in some cannelloni beans and little stars pasta, some more seasonings and voila! Vegetable soup! What I didn't have was bread. So Bob volunteered to go down to the bakery (I really must tell you about the bread) to buy some. On his way to the bakery he noticed a wallet lying on the ground by the automatic teller machine outside the bank. Picking it up, he went into the bakery to see if they knew who might have lost it. At this, the man in the bakery went running to the door and shouted to someone out in the piazza. An elderly gentleman came running to the bakery and with tears in his eyes, was thrilled to see that his lost wallet had been found and returned! Much of the conversation went over his head but Bob could see that everyone thought he did a pretty good thing. Someone said "bravo" and offering thanks, and he blushed (I am sure, although I did not see it myself) because to him, this was just doing the right thing and he wouldn't have, couldn't have, done anything but try to find the rightful owner. Like when he was a firefighter and people overused the word "hero" he would say that he was just doing his job.

At any rate, he hopes that these guys recognize him now when they see him on the street and that he has made a good impression. They smile and say "buon giorno" or "buona sera" to us as we pass them on the street but now we think, they have a little story to tell about this American who has chosen to live among them.

I am really proud of this honest, good man I have chosen to spend my life with and I just wanted to share that with you.

Rosemary