Meet the Kitties

Our 10-week old kittens arrived in early May. The breed, Siberian, hails from Russia, and contain lower than average levels of the FelD1 saliva protein that is the most common antigen for allergy sufferers. We wanted to honor their heritage, but the Naming of Cats is a difficult matter. We weren't satisfied with Russian boy names (do they look like Boris and Dimitri??), and so we settled on Tundra for the "lynx" grey-tinged one and Taiga for the whiter "flame point". They share the same father, but Tundra's mom was Taiga's mom's daughter, which makes them sort-of 3/4 brothers if you follow the shared chromosomes. So far they've been hyper but sweet little guys who have discovered the coziness of girls' beds.

La dolce far niente

In celebration of our 15th wedding anniversary we left the kids behind for a 5-day trip to the Italian Cinque Terre on the Ligurian coast. The plan was to eat, hike, relax, and enjoy a true vacation.

Monterosso was our home base 

From there footpaths connected the five villages of the Cinque Terre

 Corniglia is perched on a clifftop

We took the stairs for a man and a woman that led to the place where you point at the water 

Yikes it was a lot of steps!

We passed terraced vineyards for local wine

that we consumed by the liter at enotecas and restaurants

with antipasti

and all manner of

delicious 

 pasta

that were not shared with the house pets 

On our way home we stayed overnight in Florence to see some of the Renaissance art 

and relics,

overmuscled statues 

 serpentine! 

and swaddled putti

the trail from Corniglia to Vernazza


oceanside lunch