Halloween

I went to visit my friends in Nicolosi for Halloween, and probably the scariest thing about the holiday was my finding out about new rules, which is covered in the entry below this one.

However, Halloween, while not celebrated much here in Sicily, is still an excuse for the American community centered around Sigonella, and they were going to have a costume party, and I was invited. I used an African shirt that I bought in Amsterdam last July as a mini dress, and went in drag. Now granted, I was not pretty enough for anyone to want to date me, but I did have a good time. The wig was bought for me at the Base exchange, and I am not sure it was my color, although it did seem to match my shirt. Everyone told me that I should have been wearing heels, and several times during the night when I was sitting down I was told to put my knees together. One woman actually asked if I would try crossing my legs, but I declined. At least I was wearing briefs under the costume.


There were all sorts of costumes, including one woman who came as a passable Marilyn Monroe, and another woman who came as a rice paddy worker, and was so well costumed her friends could not recognize her. She was mute until someone guessed who she was, as she did not want to let her voice give the whole thing away.

My host Rob, who is in the picture to the right, was a cook when he was in the Navy. Actually, because he and his wonderful wife Jacque (who is NOT pictured here) have cooked such wonderful meals for me when I have visited, I think that he was a chef in the Navy, rather than just a cook. Anyway, after Jacque and I found him the right sort of briefs to wear, he appeared as the pampered chef, and his was voted the best costume. The picture shows him with a wonderful woman who is from Lawrence, Mass, and who has returned to Sicily and her roots, and teaches in the local schools.

It was a great party, and the next day we visited a winery on the slopes of Etna. The winery was named Gambino, and they said they were not related to my friends the Gambino's in Palermo, however when I asked them if they were related to the Gambino family in the US that makes headlines every once in a while, they sort of walked away and made no comment. Hmmmm.

And just a little side light now. I did find it interesting that a federal judge refused to extradite a member of the Gambino crime family from the US to Italy, where he was facing eight years in the special mafia prison, where he would not have unsupervised access to his lawyer or his family (or any other visitors). The US judge said that such an incarceration would be torture, and this from a country where the new US Attorney General will not say that 'water boarding' is torture. It makes me wonder.