The unwieldy Apple.

Here is Apple (Stefano calls her his furry daughter). She carries her toy dog Pluto around in her mouth with his tail across her nose and she just stands there and looks at you like, "What?" and she looks totally silly and I love it. But she will not take Pluto if you try to hand him to her and if she is holding him in that funny way where his tail looks like a silly moustache across her nose and she sees you coming with a camera she immediately spits him out and acts like she has never even met him before. I am still determined to catch a picture of her with him... somehow. This morning Apple came into the dining room and she had a part of a newspaper in her mouth and she was running under the chairs and I was trying to get her before she ate the paper and Stefano's mom was trying to catch her on the other side while shouting in Italian and laughing. And she had us both going crazy. I love this dog.
I had to post a picture of Apple today because neither Stefano or I are fit to be photographed. We just sit around in sweatpants and he keeps going over his thesis while I draw. We will both be SO HAPPY when Thursday has come and gone and he is finished.
Today I had my therapy over Skype. It was just as hard as it always is but it is SO MUCH BETTER to be able to just go into the other room when it is over and sit next to Stefano and hug him. It is SO much better. Every morning I wake up here I still feel just totally relieved to be here. When I wake up Stefano has already been up and working for at least two or more hours. Then I sit in his really nice sunny warm kitchen and drink coffee. Then I grab my sketchbook and go and sit as close to him as possible without being on his lap. I feel so much better when I am here- I feel like during my therapy today I was able to talk about things that are normally almost impossible to tolerate and even making my art is easier. Sometimes my work is so violent and/or descriptive of the past that I am not able to finish drawings I start or sometimes even start a drawing. I have been able to sit near him though and know this is 2008 and my dad is about 5000 miles away and I am more than safe and so I feel less scared to write and draw whatever I want. I will start to take more pictures and post them here soon.
When I was here last time I 'missed' my return flight and so we had to buy a new airplane ticket. A one way ticket was more expensive than a round trip ticket so we bought a ticket for me to fly home and to return on the 24th of this month. The point here is this: I have no return ticket yet. This makes both of us feel better. :-)