Today I read about a $1.7 million grant awarded to a team of scientists at the James P. Wilmot Cancer Center at the University of Rochester Medical Center for the development of new therapies attacking leukemic stem cells. And one of the substances under examination is parthenolide, which seems to be the first single agent that can attack leukemia at its roots. Hurray! A water-soluble form of parthenolide is expected to enter Phase I clinical trials later this year. I don’t have any time to pursue the topic any further today, but I will be watching it closely. And in the meantime I guess I will be ordering some parthenolide! Oh, this is very exciting!

Just a quick note before dinner: we got back from our holiday in southern Italy on Thursday, and have been busy busy busy (BUSY!) since then. Since our return, I haven’t had time to check my e-mail (so now I have about 200 messages to go through, argh!) or do any blogging. Plus, this is THE weekend that we are introducing Peekaboo to her new feline family. Yep, vacation’s definitely over! Mamma mia! 😉 We have been careful to do these introductions properly and slowly, BUT there still has been a lot of hissing and growling and stress on the part of our three adult cats. Can’t blame them. They see the little critter as a threat, and are very upset. On a positive note, though, they are not attacking her. They simply hiss and growl and bare their teeth at her whenever they set eyes on her. And when little Peekaboo gets too close for comfort, they growl more loudly or, if that doesn’t work (it doesn’t…the little imp isn’t scared at all!), they scamper up to the attic to hide. Hmmm. Frightened of a teeny TINY kitten? Sigh. Needless to say, Stefano, my parents and I are simply exhausted from running up and down the stairs after little Peekaboo, who is tremendously excited to be out of confinement (in this photo, she is trying to attack the kitten in the mirror… 🙂 Her eyes are still blue and will remain blue, by the way, too bad the flash interfered with the colour, here) and is dashing hither and thither. Tonight in order to give our adult cats a rest and time to mull things over, we will shut Peekaboo in her room again. Actually, we all need a rest! But tomorrow her door is going to be opened for good. We will let the four cats figure things out on their own. Tomorrow. 😉

Yesterday we visited Herculaneum (near Naples), located at the foot of the Vesuvius. Most of what follows is taken from bits and pieces I found on the Internet, in my memory and in the information booklet that you get when you purchase entry tickets to the ruins. In past blog pieces, I forgot to mention that almost certainly the eruption that destroyed Pompeii and Herculaneum did not occur in August but in November of 79 A.D., according to the previously-mentioned documentary ( Superquark ) that I watched recently on Italian TV. Now, this may not seem like a big deal or the most fascinating bit of news you have ever read, but the documentary presented clues and evidence in such a brilliant manner that I was reminded of CSI Crime Scene. It reported that ancient transcriptions of the eruption date were simply wrong, and that an error probably made by one transcriber was simply copied over and over again. This new theory is based on recent archaeological finds in Pompeii. I remember three of the main pieces of evidence presented.

1. Sealed clay wine containers with traces of the wine that had been produced that year were found in Pompeii. This would prove beyond doubt that the grape harvest had already taken place, i.e., BEFORE the eruption. There is no way that the grape harvest of 79 A.D. could have taken place before the month of August. 2. The inhabitants of Herculaneum were found clad in (bits of) heavier clothing than what would be expected in the hot month of August. 3. But perhaps the most important find was a coin that couldn’t possibly have been in the possession of one of the unfortunate city dwellers in the month of August, 79 A.D. I don’t remember the exact date on the coin, but that was quite a convincing piece of evidence. Anyway, I thought these were remarkable fragments of the Vesuvius eruption story. Ok, enough about erroneous dates. 😉

Some of the luxury homes of Herculaneum overlooked the Bay of Naples in ancient times. Now the sea is much farther than it would have been back then. If you look closely at the panoramic photo (top of post), you can make out the sea in the background.

During the eruption of 79 A.D., Herculaneum was covered by about 20 meters (about 65 feet) of pyroclastic material €”water, ash and debris €”that solidified into volcanic tuff, forming a sort of airtight seal around the city. Herculaneum was thus almost perfectly preserved for centuries until it was discovered by accident in 1702 by workers digging a well in an orchard. Until then, Herculaneum had simply disappeared off the face of the Earth. The eruption, you see, had added an entire strip of land to the surrounding coastline, so the precise location of the ancient city had been lost. Actually, I think that it was very unfortunate that Herculaneum didn’t remain hidden until recent times. Had the city been excavated with modern techniques, in fact, more of it would certainly have been preserved. In the 18th century and subsequent excavations, entire buildings were ransacked and damaged, frescoes were torn from walls, perishable goods and other organic matter were left to deteriorate etc. Concerning organic matter: unlike Pompeii, excavations in Herculaneum have unearthed plants, fabrics, furniture, and even parts of the ancient wooden house structures. This was made possible because the first phase of the eruption didn’t hit Herculaneum as forcefully as other sites (Pompeii and Stabiae, e.g.). And in fact Herculaneum still has several two-story buildings (see photo), unlike Pompeii, which suffered more structural damage (roofs caving in etc.).

When you compare the two cities, the first noticeable difference is size. Pompeii is huge (66 hectares, of which 15 still remain underground) whereas Herculaneum is much smaller: 4.5 hectares are visible, and as many as 20 may still be hidden under the modern city, including important public buildings, probably. Another big difference is that Pompeii is more removed from its modern counterpart and gives you much more of a feel for how ancient Roman city life used to be. Modern Ercolano, as can be seen in the photos I took yesterday, is instead precariously perched right above the ruins (see photo below). That reminds me: the first time I visited Herculaneum, I found the contrast between ancient and modern mesmerizing, but this time it really bothered me. I didn’t want to see modern laundry hanging out to dry practically over my head. I wanted to be completely immersed in my vision of how city life used to be two thousand years ago. But then I would look down and see that I was walking on ancient mosaic floors…

The main problem of Herculaneum today is preservation and restoration. Apart from destructive and stupid vandalism (we saw and were outraged by the damage that had been done to walls and frescoes by imbeciles writing their names etc.), quite a lot of water damage has been done to the ruins by the modern city. Until these extremely difficult problems can be solved, it is best that the rest of ancient Herculaneum remain buried.

Yep, yet another post on Pompeii. In fact, I took enough photos at Pompeii the other day to keep me posting for months. But seriously, this will probably be my last Pompeii post. I don’t want to overdo it. Tomorrow we are going to Herculaneum, which is less famous than Pompeii but in some ways more interesting. It too was destroyed in the eruption of 79 A.D. So my Herculaneum saga is about to begin. 😉

I took the above panoramic photo just as we were leaving Pompeii. At that point, my brain wanted to stay and explore the streets where we hadn’t been, but we were too exhausted even to contemplate such an effort. Here I was looking toward the theater (far end). The photo gives a vague idea of how vast Pompeii is. But if you want to be really overwhelmed, have a look at the map of Pompeii using Google Maps or Google Earth.

This (left) is a view of the peristyle (an open colonnade encircling an internal garden) of the House of the Amorini Dorati, or Gilded Cupids, which received its name from the gilded flying cupids that at one time were part of its wall paintings and which are now preserved in the National Archaeological Museum in Naples (if you are in Naples, don’t miss visiting this museum, by the way). The house is very well-preserved and, I thought, one of the most striking (of the ones we saw on this trip, of course). The garden, by the way, displays its original marble decoration. We were lucky: this house had been shut for renovations for the past ten years and was reopened only last year.

Here is a typical street in Pompeii showing the stepping stone crosswalks that city dwellers used in order to avoid stepping into the sewage that flowed through the city streets especially after a rainstorm. I learned from a recent fascinating documentary broadcast on Italian TV ( Superquark, for any Italians who read my blog) that Pompeii did not have a brilliant sewage system, unlike Herculaneum. These stepping stones are quite high, actually. Sensibly so, I guess! 😉 Besides being a bit on the narrow side, the sidewalks themselves are as high as the stones, more or less. I do not have a mathematical brain, so I have no idea how high, but I am sure this interesting little fact would be posted somewhere on the Internet. Hint: when visiting Pompeii, wear some sturdy footwear, since the ground can be uneven here and there, and in fact even these stepping stones are not flat. I slipped and almost fell on a couple of occasions. You really have to watch your step!

Yesterday we went to Vietri sul Mare, or Vietri on the Sea, a small town of Etruscan origin built on a terrace of land overlooking the sea. In 1997 it was added to the UNESCO’s Heritage of Humanity list, together with the rest of the Amalfi Coast. Deservedly so. We didn’t go to Vietri to lie on its beach or swim in the sea, but to locate a small pottery shop where we had bought a few lovely items three years ago. We found it almost immediately. I asked the owner, who is also the potter, Giovanni Mosca, if I could take a few photos of his shop, and he told me very cheerfully to go right ahead. Here are a few examples of the work he does. Giovanni Mosca is 45 years old and has been making and decorating pots since he was 15. He told us that he never goes on holiday because of his passion for making ceramics and fiddling around with new techniques. (And in fact his ceramics really stood out for beauty, originality and quality compared to the rather kitsch, frequently almost identical, pottery we saw yesterday in other Vietri shops.) We bought several of his small raku items, exquisite and very reasonably-priced. And an absolutely gorgeous raku wall lamp.

After buying up a small storm at Ceramiche Mosca, we wandered around the narrow winding streets of the town of Vietri, which in many ways seemed frozen in time: men sitting outside a café chatting and arguing loudly (in dialect, which here in the region of Campania is wonderfully colorful) while gesticulating furiously and an elderly lady lowering a basket from her terrace to collect an item from a woman in the street. So slow-paced, so peaceful, so ancient.

But what I loved most about Vietri, apart from Ceramiche Mosca, of course, were the majolica tiles (these are just a few examples of the photos I took). We saw tiles everywhere: the names of the streets were painted on handmade tiles, colorful hand painted tiles hung above and sometimes all around the storefronts of meat and cheese shops (see photo on left), and tiles, both old and new, haphazardly decorated building walls almost at every step. On the right is the photo of a large decorated wall tile with a view of the Amalfi Coast and a sailboat. We saw entire sides of buildings covered with ceramic scenes of everyday life. Extraordinary. Below is the photo of a ceramic fountain (depicting, in the foreground, a person devouring a piece of watermelon) that we encountered while climbing up toward the 17th century Church of San Giovanni Battista, which, surprise surprise, has a brightly-colored majolica dome.

As you may have guessed (!), Vietri is famous for its ceramics. There are pottery shops everywhere you look. This ceramic tradition dates back to the Middle Ages and became well-established in the 15th century. In fact, Vietri has its own ceramic museum (which we did not visit yesterday) that has pieces dating back at least to the 15th century. This small seaside town now has its own registered DOC ( di origine controllata ) high quality trademark. The DOC trademark, by the way, has traditionally been given to high quality Italian wines and cheeses, and it is only in recent years that it has been assigned to ceramics as well. A personal note: when Stefano and I bought and renovated our first (and only!) house several years ago, we decided to have our bathrooms decorated with colorful handmade Vietri tiles, which turned out beautifully. At any rate, yesterday’s visit was not our last one to Vietri sul Mare or the Amalfi Coast. But the best time to visit the Costiera is the fall or early winter, not the middle of August!

After our huge ferragosto feast yesterday, today we are going to take a well deserved rest. 😉 Tomorrow morning we are heading for the Amalfi Coast, or Costiera Amalfitana in Italian, but, in order to avoid the huge crowds of tourists and endless traffic jams that are typical of the Costiera at this time of year, we will stop only in lovely Vietri, which is the first Costiera town you encounter after the city of Salerno. That way, we will be able to make a quick escape when it’s time to return home. Or so we hope! This will be our third visit to the Costiera, our second to Vietri.

Back to our Pompeii visit. This (on the left) is one of my favorite photos, taken inside a house (I stupidly didn’t write down which one it was!). On the left is a lovely little fresco, on the right a window framing a (real) tree outside in the garden. I really liked the contrast.

One of the things that you cannot help noticing when wandering around the streets of Pompeii are the wine bars that were clearly very popular, since they appear on almost every street corner. My photo shows a wine bar with a counter that would have contained three clay pots filled with wine to be sold to thirsty passersby 2000 years ago. Day before yesterday, after walking around the hot city for a few hours, I almost wished that it had still been open for business! The wine of Pompeii was apparently excellent. It was highly praised by the Roman philosopher and naval commander Pliny the Elder–who, by the way, died during a vain but heroic attempt to rescue (with his ships) some of the unfortunate Pompeians during the 79 A.D. eruption–who reported that Pompeian wines were aged for 10 years (10 years!?! Modern wine-producers would go broke were that still the case!) inside clay jars, or dolii, buried to the lip.

Well, the Mastrobernardino family (famous southern Italian wine producers) has recreated this wine with the help of ancient frescoes, plant breeding and archaeological finds. The five tiny modern vineyards (one of which we saw during our walk on the outskirts of the city but duh, I neglected to take a photo!) have been planted on the same spot where the ancient vineyards of Pompeii used to be. How about that? Indeed, the same type of grapes that would have been used at the time were used to produce the modern version, called “Villa dei Misteri.” The first modern Pompeian harvest took place in 2001, and the first bottles were auctioned off in 2003. The proceeds from the auction were used to fund the restoration of the ancient wine cellars, which I think is absolutely brilliant. Every year, fewer than 2000 bottles of Pompeian wine are produced; they cost about 100 euros and are not easy to find. Of course, the experts cannot be sure that this recreated version is the exact same wine that the Pompeians drank, and in fact the first modern tasting apparently was met with an embarrassed silence. Perhaps Pliny was right: this type of wine needs to sit for 10 years before it can be fully appreciated. 🙂

Ferragosto derives from the Latin Feriae Augusti, or feast in honor of Augustus: a pagan festivity. Ferragosto in fact was introduced by the first Roman emperor Augustus and originally coincided with the entire month of August. Even slaves were allowed to participate in all the feasts and banquets. An interesting little historical fact is that in the sixth century the Catholic Church wisely chose to Christianize this popular pagan festivity, and as a result August 15 became the feast of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary. Nowadays ferragosto refers only to one day: August 15. It is THE big summer holiday for Italians. Everything is closed today, and there are religious processions all over the country. By the way, “andare in ferie” means “to go on holiday,” so the original meaning of the Latin feria has been preserved.

Stefano, with the help of many willing sous-chefs, prepared a huge feast for lunch today. A wonderful meal. We ended up eating for hours, with small but necessary rest periods. The meal ended with some delicious typical southern Italian mignon pastries (see photo), which just about sent me rolling under the table, more stuffed than a turkey at Xmas. Around 4 PM I finally said basta! and came upstairs to take a nap. I woke up at 5:30 PM. Yikes! Well, after all, I AM on holiday! 🙂

What a splendid day! No sudden thunderstorm drove us away from the magic of Pompeii this time. We set foot in the ancient city yesterday at 11 AM and left at 5:30 PM, exhausted and dusty but ecstatic. I cannot explain what happens to me when I visit Pompeii (yesterday was my second visit). The first time I was overwhelmed at how enormous it was. I had no idea! Back then, we spent several hours wandering around, and still only saw perhaps a third of it. This time, I was expecting the hugeness of Pompeii, but was still overwhelmed in part, with fatigue after walking for so many hours under the hot midday sun. I am consoled by the fact that so were the others €”Stefano (my husband), his aunt, a cousin and the cousin’s girlfriend.

First thing, we walked from Porta Marina (the most imposing of the seven city gates) to the Villa of the Mysteries (see photo of the red fresco known, I think, as the Great Frieze of the Dionysiac Mysteries). Extraordinary. Words simply fail me.

After spending some time at the Villa, we walked around a portion of the city walls up to Porta del Vesuvio. From there we strolled down Via del Vesuvio to the Teatro Grande, or Great Theatre, and rested a bit in the park above it, near Porta di Nocera. It was cool and wonderful there. We also braved the crowds of hot and tired (like us) tourists and visited some of the more famous houses €”the House of the Amorini Dorati, House of Pansa, House of Loreius Tibertinus, House of Venus in the Shell, etc. Spectacular. Unfortunately, the famous House of the Vettii was still being restored, so once again we were unable to see it.

We headed back toward Porta Marina on via dell’Abbondanza, which cuts through the city. This is a view of the Forum with Mount Vesuvius in the background. If you look closely enough, you will see two black dots. The dots are actually two big black dogs. There are dogs a bit everywhere in Pompeii. In fact, we came across a female dog sleeping peacefully on a cordoned-off mosaic floor inside one of the thermal baths, oblivious to the tourists walking around her. Here is a shot of the Thermal Baths…without the dog, though. The light filtering in from an opening in the ceiling made it all very surreal. Too bad there were so many tourists in there with us!

I will be posting a few more of our best shots in the days to come, just a tiny sample of the many photos we took. My recommendation: if you are planning a trip to Italy and have enough time, visit Pompeii and Herculaneum. My second visit to Pompeii only made me want to go back immediately!

My brain must be on holiday, too, since yesterday I didn’t make a rather obvious connection between two markers: the IgG count and the monoclonal component (MC). While my IgG level went up slightly, my MC went down. That puzzled me somewhat, yesterday. The first thing that I noticed was an increase in my IgGs, and that did not please me. But I completely missed the connection, i.e., the GOOD news.

A friend of mine just pointed out to me that the IgG increase and corresponding MC decrease means that my GOOD IgGs have increased, not the nasty evil MM cells. Duuuuh, Margaret! Of course! Well, an increase in my normal immunoglobulins is good news, for sure. Indeed, excellent. Cause for celebration. I want to thank my wonderful friend (whom I call Sherlock in our frequent e-mail exchanges) for pointing this out to me. Grazie mille!

Before finishing my chapter on bottling tomatoes the Italian way, I wanted to make a comment on another test result (see yesterday’s post): my active form of vitamin D, or 1,25-Dihydroxycholecalciferol, is right at the low end of the normal range. A close friend of mine, who is my vitamin D expert, told me that I must start taking a vitamin D supplement. I am sure she is right, so tomorrow I am going to a pharmacy to see if I can find the brand that she recommended. In the meantime, since it’s lovely and very cool here (we are in a small town near Avellino, about 40 minutes from Naples), I will sit out in the sun and do some reading.

Now for the tomato story. Yesterday morning we boiled the remaining tomatoes (the ones that we had not pressed into cauldrons and put inside the wood oven on Friday afternoon) which were then left to drip through a kitchen towel (photo on the left). Once ready, the tomatoes were passed through an electric tomato strainer (photo on the right). This wonderful machine separated the peelings and seeds from the tomato pulp and juice. Easy!

And this was the result:

We then bottled the cooked and passed tomatoes and put the bottles inside a homemade caldaia, or water bath canner. Since I am not an expert tomato-bottler (but mainly I think that my husband and his kind relatives wanted to spare me most of the hard work), I was given small easy tasks. It was fun, lots of teasing and good humor and laughter. We are all bushed today, though. So today will be a day of rest and relaxation. And of course, we shall be eating pasta al pomodoro! 😉

Tomorrow we are almost certainly going to Pompeii, so I should have some good photos to post on the blog on Tuesday. Stefano and I have been to Pompeii before (several years ago), but just as we were about to enter the Villa dei Misteri, or Villa of the Mysteries (which refer to secret initiation rites), a loud and scary thunderstorm sent us scampering toward our cars. We were thus forced to leave early and missed seeing the villa’s remarkable frescoes. Tomorrow we will visit the villa first thing!