February 16, 2003Early February carried me to Reston, VA, for a meeting of a committee whose task was to select 3 medical schools to receive money from a grant from the National Institutes of Health to help them add complementary and alternative medicine to their curricula. Despite (or because of) a snowfall that left drifts about, the meeting went off swimmingly - my colleagues were well informed, sincere in their desire to select the best schools, and dedicated to see the medical profession brought back to health. Fortunately there were three proposals that were substantially better than the rest, and those three were selected. Even more fortunately, 3 more med schools will be selected for funding next year.

February 12 I proceeded to Italy, for yet another PAC "seminario" in Rimini, where again we had sun, and sub-freezing weather, and where again I popped briefly into the Adriatic for an intensely cold, mercifully brief bath. After a pleasant weekend I returned to Crevalcore, where I stay with 9 ½ year old Divya and her mother Elvira, and lovely home-cooked meals. One night we enjoyed a fine dinner of mushroom lasagna, endive, chicory, eggplant, and squacquerone, the excellent local soft cheese, next door with Divya's grandmother Rossanna. Divya & Elvira live in a rural area, surrounded by fields, with pear trees in the backyard, and dog Gomez (who has a generally friendly relationship with Rossanna's dog Rasca). Elvira long had a single cat, Cindy (or perhaps, in Italian, "Sindi"), who has now been joined by two kittens, the inquisitive Theo and the apprehensive Vladi (whose confidence has been improving since Rossanna has been dosing him with Bach Flower Remedies).

Elvira & Divya & I set out on the frigid night of Monday the 17th to attend the "fiacolata" in Crevalcore's piazza - a "fiacola" is a torch, which makes a "fiacolata" a "torchlight procession" - this one a peace march protesting Bush's proposed war in Iraq. Divya insisted that we go, and her mother insisted that Divya eat first, so by the time we got to the piazza the stream of departees told us the fiacolata was ending. The cold weather didn't seem to have substantially depleted the enthusiasm of any of the participants, though; they strolled and chatted, many draped in rainbow flags bearing the legend "pace" (peace), still carrying sputtering torches shaped variously like candles, Roman candles, or elegant tulips, these last displaying a flame where stamens or pistil would ordinarily be. May the light from these torches illumine the minds of the warmongers; may the flame of peace ultimately prevail!

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