Old Friends, Gratitude, and Pomegranates

Saturday, October 8 was my first day walking without crutches. I had cheated and walked a little bit the night before and then walked a bit around the house and did my PT exercises during the day. All to be ready for a night on the town with old friends from New York, Jobie Shally and her husband, Dan LaBelle. Jobie was a colleague at the New York City law firm, Shearman & Sterling, where Brad and I met. She and Dan were in Rome for one night on their way back to New York City after a week-long trip to the Amalfi coast. They came for a glass of wine on the terrace at our house and then we walked down Via Banchi Vecchi to Piazza Navona. 

To get out of a sudden downpour (all too frequent in Roman autumns, we are finding) we ducked into a little place on the square for appetizers. Once the rain stopped, we talked a little further to Camp dei Fiori for dinner and reminiscing about old times.

On Sunday, October 9, we went to Mass at Caravita as usual. The priest had a good sermon (“gratitude is the parent of all other virtues”) and was given a Lampedusa https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lampedusa cross by the congregation. The crosses are wooden, made by a local carpenter from boats wrecked off that Sicilian island, which has been a major transit point for thousands of migrants since the early 2000s. 

We had lunch again at the restaurant on Piazza di Sant’Ignazio. It was a lovely warm day with pomegranates still growing on the trees around the square. 

We took our time walking home, and on the way back, stopped at the rooftop bar at Hotel Raphael just off Piazza Navona (we had intended to take Jobie and Dan there the night before but it was closed that night for a private party). Wonderful views of Rome!