{"id":14049,"date":"2015-01-02T10:07:08","date_gmt":"2015-01-02T15:07:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/fass\/?p=14049"},"modified":"2024-08-09T07:42:52","modified_gmt":"2024-08-09T11:42:52","slug":"buon-anno","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/fass\/2015\/buon-anno\/","title":{"rendered":"Buon anno!"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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\n Buon anno!\n <\/h1>\n \n \n <\/header>\n\n <\/div>\n\n <\/div>\n\n <\/div>\n<\/section>\n\n

It is New Year\u2019s Day, and my eyes and ears are being bombarded with all the usual clich\u00e9s about it being an opportunity for a fresh beginning \u2026 not that I mind. I actually enjoy pausing once a year to review what life has brought my way over the last twelve months, and to contemplate what may lie on the horizon in the year ahead. The Globe and Mail<\/em> 2015 horoscope for those of us born under the sign of Virgo seems encouraging: \u201cThis will be a landmark year for you, the kind of year when it all comes together and you break through the clouds into the sunshine.\u201d Well, that seems like a reasonable expectation, at least the first part. This will indeed be a \u201clandmark\u201d year, as one very important chapter of my life comes to an end, and another begins \u2026 indeed in that regard it will probably be the most significant year since 1979. Ah, 1979 \u2026 now that was a year. And it began so very well, on a rooftop in Rome, surrounded by wonderful friends, firing spumante<\/em> corks into the darkness of the night and onto the street below. No New Year\u2019s Eve has ever lived up to that one since. Sigh!  And let’s hope that the second part of the Globe<\/em>‘s prediction is accurate also.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As an historian, memories play an important role in my life, personally as well as professionally. Since my student days I have kept a notebook, in which I jot down occasional thoughts, ideas, scraps of poetry that I want to remember, odd pieces of trivia, and much else. Over the years, entries have grown very much sparser and less frequent; but one habit that has remained unchanged is to make an annual list of \u201chighlights\u201d from each year just finished: family and career milestones, interesting people met, places visited, memorable restaurants. Over the years I have noticed a certain trend emerging from these lists: the list of restaurants grows longer, while the other sections shrink. And 2014 certainly didn\u2019t buck the trend in that regard. One establishment which returned to the list most happily after almost a decade\u2019s absence was the Locanda Montin in Venice, the only place in the world where I eat fegato alla veneziana<\/em> \u2026 a truly wonderful dish which I tend to order every time I am there, including a memorable Sunday in late November in the company of five adventurous Carleton students. It is good that some things in life never change. Yes, 2014 was once again a very good year for eating \u2026 and I have the body to prove it!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And then the Globe\u2019<\/em>s horoscope continues with some remarkably astute advice: \u201cTake each day as it comes and set yourself one realistic goal at a time. You don\u2019t need to plan, you don\u2019t need to look forward \u2013 just take small step in the direction that feels right for you and then keep on walking.\u201d That is precisely what I plan to do \u2026 and indeed have always done. And I offer it to all readers of these musings as advice well worth taking, Virgos and non-Virgos alike, both individually and collectively \u2026 and most especially to those of us living with cancer and other assorted ailments. My New Year\u2019s wish to you all is for the strength to deal with life\u2019s adversities and uncertainties … and there are no prizes for predicting that we shall all encounter many of those in the year to come.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Buon anno!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It is New Year\u2019s Day, and my eyes and ears are being bombarded with all the usual clich\u00e9s about it being an opportunity for a fresh beginning \u2026 not that I mind. I actually enjoy pausing once a year to review what life has brought my way over the last twelve months, and to contemplate […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[38],"class_list":["post-14049","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-deans-blog","tag-deans-blog"],"acf":{"cu_post_thumbnail":false},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/fass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14049","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/fass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/fass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/fass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/fass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14049"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/fass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14049\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":34309,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/fass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14049\/revisions\/34309"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/fass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14049"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/fass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14049"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/fass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14049"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}