That Puccini...he always gets to me.

This statue of opera composer extraordinaire Giacomo Puccini is at his birthplace in Lucca, Tuscany.



I didn't go to Tuscany on this trip. Puccini found his way to me. Honest!

How? Through NWPR listener Ken Pitman of Prosser, who met me in Copenhagen and didn't know it.

Turns out Ken and I were on the same delayed SAS flight from Copenhagen to Seattle. When he read my blog post about the long trip back to Seattle, something clicked. Ken writes:

"It was the reference to lightning that gave it away. There you were with your NWPR shirt, and I almost struck up a conversation, but then I thought to myself, naw....just somebody who supports NWPR. I was wrong, and apologize in retrospect for not taking advantage of in person someone who I listen to every morning as I commute between Prosser, and Yakima. "

Knowing how I love The Man, Ken sent me this picture he took while in Lucca - possibly at the same time I was basking in the composer's aura at La Scala in Milan! This statue stands in the courtyard of the house where Puccini was born on December 22nd, 1858.

(I once had a boyfriend whose birthday is December 22nd. It went badly. Guess it's just as well I only know Puccini through his music and statues.)

Grazie mille, Ken!