did this in Caesar seem ambitious?

   Years, I tell you, years. Years of dreaming, deliberating, getting ideas, being inspired, being disappointed, deciding, changing minds, worrying. Fretting, fighting, quitting. It's been years of putting up with delays and being unable for every reason to finish the ground floor of this house. And all this time, one of our most difficult decisions was how to finish the floor. Now the carpenter was demanding a floor. He couldn't take accurate measurements for the doors without a threshold.
   It's an old house, terracotta is traditional. Shall we stick with terracotta? We've lived with terracotta upstairs, in the kitchen, in the bathroom, in the bedrooms. We're sick of terracotta. It's dirty. It's porous. It takes more maintenance than we want to do. So what else? Old or modern? Dark or light? Shiny or rough? Underfloor heating compatible? Stone! Cut stone! What stone? Marble? No; surprisingly affordable here but too grand for a farm house. Travertine? Also surprisingly affordable but wine stains. Sandstone? Everything stains. Granite? Ridiculously expensive, dark and also stains. Wood? Really expensive, worthless for a kitchen. Alex fell in love with polished concrete. Very trendy. Very difficult and expensive. I didn't think I could do it. It would require a polisher, and then a treatment. OK, how about Ultratop, a synthetic, 'self-leveling' floor poured in retail stores. It looks like a fake polished concrete in the pictures. No supply store sold it. The experts came out. We ordered a sample bag. We talked a neighbor into trying it. Theirs bubbled and they barely talk to us now.

'Tiramisu' from Carducci l'edilizia
giorgio7carducci@yahoo.it

   Desperation drove us to Omar. Omar is a modern day rug merchant, but Omar doesn't sell rugs. He sells tile. Not Chinese tile. Italian tile. Gres porcellana. Ees beeuteefull. Anytheen you want. Omar has built a three storey temple to Italian tile where people like us can find salvation. We took home heavy samples that looked stunning in his temple and ridiculous in our muddy ruin. With our capacity for decision-making exhausted, we chose a tile identical to our white-washed walls but with one concession to fashion: 'large format.' Our tiles are a meter square. I'm not supposed to lift them by myself. Pondering the methods of laying these monsters, I realized that such large tiles will magnify any

irregularity in the surface of the structure supporting the tile. A wave, crack or seam in the concrete will be amplified three feet away into a sharp, tripping edge. Panicky, I rushed to YouTube for tips and found a genius in southern Italy who has invented a tile spacer with a leveling cap built in. These draw the tile edges level with adjoining tiles while they are still floating on fresh glue. With $100 worth of these gadgets and another $100 worth of high-tech setting cement waiting, I'm now cutting our precious tiles to fit the wavy walls of our rooms.
    I figure by the Ides of March the world will be judging my work. And knives will be waiting for me in the forum.

world champions in Florence

    It was Bob's idea, some time ago. He said, "I'm coming back to Italy and we'll go to the 'Worlds' in September." Great idea, Bob. To us, 'The Worlds' means only one thing: The Rainbow Jersey. It's something a bike racer is entitled to wear all year long indicating that she, or he, is the world champion by virtue of winning one race on one glorious day every year. If you manage to win the Yellow Jersey at the Tour de France, it hangs on your wall all year. You win the Rainbow Jersey; it hangs on your back. The 'Worlds' date back to track events in 1892, and the first road race world championship was awarded in 1921. Italy has won more medals, historically, than any other country.
    This year Italy hosted the 'Worlds' and, in fact, held them in Tuscany for the first time. Bob did show up, and we went to watch the 'Worlds.' Rain and shine.
     The guy who actually made it possible was Max, my best Italian friend from Rome. He's a clever, cheerful Tuscan transplanted to Rome working in TV news production and a very distant employee of Silvio Berlusoni. Who he hates. And so should you. Max's family lives in Pistoia, birthplace of the pistol and a short distance west of Firenze. I visited here once before with Max and the reception was so warm and homey, I was eager to return and equally eager for Bob to experience Italian hospitality at its best. We arrived on Saturday in time to see the women's race.

Max dodging the sun at Montecatini Terme

    The race route passed just south of Pistoia over a daunting climb before heading for 10 circuits between Fiesole and Firenze. Absolutely beautiful weather. We watched the race on TV from behind a feast supplied by Max's aunt after visiting the start in Montecantini Terme. This is an old (seriously) resort town in the grand, over-the-top, Roman style. Colonnaded palaces, huge gardens, fountains, statues, the whole fiasco. Through the spacious wooded grounds, the team vans set up shop with mechanics, trainers, sponsors, racers, and gwakers all milling about in decorative lycra and festive chaos. We studiously noticed surprising gear ratios indicating a much more difficult course than was advertised, and sure enough, the race was wildly exciting with numerous heroics on every hilly circuit. Marianne Vos of Holland is currently the best cycling athlete in the world, seemingly able to win on any kind of bike in any kind of event yet still maintain remarkable popularity 'in the bunch.' She won, predictably, but it is was a good race with tough rides from English, American, and Italian riders.
    We took the train to a crowded downtown Firenze for the men's event on Sunday and spent the day walking up the

Max wringing out in Fiesole

mountain to Fiesole in seriously deteriorating weather. By the time we got to our picnic spot halfway up, we were all completely soaked along with our sandwiches. Despite the misery, I'll never forget the enthusiasm of the crowd. The sound: the vibrating power of the most deafening, sustained boom from the hundreds of tifosi crammed onto the sides of the road. These weren't screams or shouts, but a deep, inhuman, baritone roar so uncharacteristic on what is normally an eerily silent passage of a pack of bike racers up a sustained climb. The climb finished in the town of Fiesole where a huge digital movie screen displayed the video feed from the various helicopter and motorcycle cameras. A good vantage point except for the fact that the torrential rain allowed very little camera action and we were frozen stiff, shivering and soaking wet. Standing in the cold wind in front of a fuzzy tv screen didn't make a whole lot of sense. My hands had become frighteningly uncontrollable. We ducked out of the wind into a crowded, steamy bar to thaw out over a hot chocolate, but the effect didn't last long. Unable to stand still for fear of exposure, we retreated down the hill, more or less ignoring the race, until we reached the 'pit lane.' In each cabana was a closed circuit tv displaying the race which we could see from across the street.
   The sport is famous for awful conditions and it's rare that an event is shortened or postponed due to weather. This race was no different, the race must go on; but many described it as 'epic.' A few tough favorites survived till the end and they must have been angrily determined to see this through. In particular a rough, tough Colombian, Rigoberto Uran, who finished second in the last Olympic road race, looked in perfect position, romping strongly up to Fiesole and recklessly careening down the mountain in true Colombian form. The roads were no longer awash in deep, running water and Rigorberto put his mountain skills to the limit. Until he lost it on the descent and cartwheeled dramatically into the mountainside, raising screams from us frightened tv watchers. The Italian favorite ran out of gas chasing two Spainards. They looked like sure winners, but botched their tactics and allowed a Portugese to win, bringing tears to all eyes.
   Great idea, Bob! He drove us back home that night with the car heater going full blast.