Easy does it

I want to say Ciao! to everyone. Maybe I still can, something about "Thanks. See you later!" doesn't slide off my tongue the way it used to, but I feel weird saying ciao to people in Utah. I know, I know, I've only been gone 9 months.

I've been surprised at how at once comfortable a little clunky re-adjusting to home is.

I gave Ada a bath in a real bathtub yesterday. Coming from the shallow, tiny kitchen sink she's been bathing in, the bathtub was a large, looming, intimidating space. It echoes. It's deep. The sound of the water splashing into the basin is noisy. The water came up more than just a few inches.

I had to get in with her and assure her it was all okay. When I laid my head in the water she started to cry. I guess we'll ease into bathing in tubs.

In the grocery store I held my produce all bagged up in the plastic produce baggies and wandered for a few seconds looking for the scale to weigh it and get the little price sticker (in Italy, the checkers don't weight your fruit and enter the produce code, you do at a little electronic machine in the produce section).

For the most part, however, things have been beautiful, and sunny, and full of fresh smelling Utah air. Ada is adjusting, we're loving spending so much time with family, and for the first time since last September, we each have our own cell phone.

Life has never felt so luxe.