Four Generations

My grandma Katie is buried at Holy Sepulchre cemetery on Lake avenue along with many of her 12 brothers and sisters, as well as her mother and father, who came to the U.S. from central Sicily - towns called Montedoro and Saradifalco around 1904.  The family history is fascinating!!! I would love to share more stories with you all about it, maybe I will bit by bit in the posts.  One of my favorite books about Italians in the U.S. actually describes a Sicilian family in Rochester - it's called "Mount Allegro" by Jerry Mangione.  My mom has her own website about her many trips to Sicily since retiring - discovering her roots, learning Italian, and creating a rich community of friends and family there. 

I was really close to my grandmother growing up. I loved visiting her on Bauer street, over off Lyell Avenue. She died on May 11th, 1994.  Now that I live here in Rochester, I can join my Aunt Angela and my mom for a trip to her grave around the anniversary of her death to decorate it with flowers and plants. 

May

I am really excited to make this blog happen, but frightened that it will end up being one of those abandoned blogs that no one reads, that I neglect to post to and that go nowhere.

I have a solution:  I will carelessly, recklessly, sloppily post whatever and whenever I can!!!!

I will post a simple photo if need be.
I will post unedited text that I write at the spur of the moment.
I will post what no one dares to post!!!

but hell, at least I"ll post.
so there's my disclaimer.
let's see if i can get this following post done in 15 minutes!!! ; ) 

now, for the post entitled "May." I moved back to Rochester in May 2010. Yes, that was not coincidence folks, I am no fool. My Fulbright fellowship in BAHIA BRAZIL came to an official end in December, and there was NO WAY on earth I was going to move to upstate NY in the month of December. So I stretched out the funding from the grant and hung out in Brazil a few extra months and landed in my hometown on Mother's day. I guess the last snow fall had just come down the week before and took a radical turn for the better that very weekend I came home.

The beauty that burst through flowers, trees and the skies that month were breathtaking. Though I had been living in a tropical paradise, I missed the seasons, I missed the trees talking to me, reminding me of how cyclical life is, a message that really resonated for me.

So, the photo journal is the best message: below, my daughter standing at the Village Gate in mid-May. It was a windy day, a storm coming in, and the buds from that tree were falling down as if it were a heavy rainstorm.  It was a Friday night, there were lots of people coming in and out of the many delicious restaurants there, and the Dark Horse coffee house (really nice one!! even has a section for kids to play!). I really like that sculpture (will research who the artist is and update this post later) and just in general, love the Village Gate! So many friends are working at Salenas so I've had one too many margaritas over there late night... and I recommend their mahi mahi fish tacos too... I ate at the Gate House Gourmet Pizza and Burgers and really liked the whole "local"-themed plates and the burgers were great. I worked the annual Image Out festival's closing reception for my aunt, who organizes events and parties, in the Village Gate too, it was a great setting for the event.

And, here we are at the beloved Lilac Festival. Really, you can't go wrong with a city that celebrates a flower! It's pretty much stunning and intoxicating to walk all over that famous highland park hill among flowers and spectators.  The parade and the booths are like any other summer celebration, but honoring a flower is just really special. 

"The only thing Kodak did for race relations was invent color film"

I love the Rochester Public Market! It haven't visited nearly enough since coming back. More organic farmer's markets like Brighten's on Sundays and South Wedge's on Thursday late afternoons took my attention in the first few months I was here. But this one beautiful fall day I took some out-of-town guests (I know! Some friends actually visited me here!) to the market and we ate delicious empanadas and then the owner of this gorgeous red truck let Zaya sit in the front seat.

I recently went back to the market for WXXI's (our local public radio) little gig to "Share a Kodak Story" on the heals of this company town's pride and joy multinational filing for bankruptcy. I initially was going to go and just blast them for the horrendous carbon footprint that the company left in Rochester, but then thought of the idea of bringing my 97-year-old grandfather down from his nursing home to speak about the 18-years of working there. I thought it would a) make my grandfather happy - he loves to go on and on, and b) make WXXI happy to have something a little more innocuous and personal than my uninformed and quite angry rants and raves.  Later I was talking with a friend with rich knowledge of Rochester's union history who shared with me a terrific quote from Saul Alinsky about Kodak that I wish I had shared with WXXI, so I'll wrap this blog up with:  "The only thing Kodak did for race relations was invent color film."