Hair cut-before and after

Right before Oliver's first haircut

After

Recently my 13 month old grandson Oliver was accused of being a girl so off with his curls.

Only 9 days left before I see him and his mother as we travel together to Seattle! Only one more chemo to go (tomorrow)! Only 6 more months until Oliver's sibling is born! Tick-tock.

Yesterday I went with Nancy, my Gagliano roommate, and her friend Shar to see Gomorrah at the Detroit Inst of Art. It was quite crowded there as it was the first day of the Rockwell exhibit, which we had no time to see. Cultural Insts in Michigan are especially hurting as can be imagined so it was good to see at least some people still are around to support them. Before the film, our cinema teacher Elena gave an excellent talk. She is a very impressive lady having so much knowledge about various aspects of culture I had little experience with. Last summer I enrolled in Wayne State with my retraining allowance from my former employer in a summer abroad program in Italy. We had to sign up for 3 courses. I wanted to learn the language, which I did but I also signed up for a graduate level cinematography course taught by Elena Past, which initially seemed way over my head. (My third class was independent study: I submitted my blog on various aspects of Italian culture which can be accessed under my blogs). The director of the Italian program, Dr. Rafaele deBenedictus, gave us background info on the Camorra, the Mafia of the Campania region (which includes Naples). He grew up in the region and is considered an expert along with being a Dante Scholar. The movie itself was very hard to watch due to its graphic violence. It concentrated on 5 interlocking stories of how invasive the evil of the Camorra is. The characters were just replaceable cogs in a giant, evil machine that there was no escape from. The most heart-breaking story was of a young boy who ends up in a rival clan to that of his best friend and he ends up having to betray this friend's mother. Naples is depicted as a very ugly place.

Aside from Rafaele and Elena, our Italian teachers Jim and Piero were there along with students Holly and Alex. Jim snuck out before we could talk to him.

Lots of flooded streets in Detroit due to the 2 days of non-stop rain. Nancy had to drive the wrong way down a one way street to avoid us being swept away in one particular, nasty section.

Later, we had family dinner at Josh and Julia's for Julia's belated birthday. Very nice.