Today, April 7, is my magnificent daughter Nicole's birthday. My "baby" is no longer a teenager. All of today's pictures are of her when she was here last month.

I'm sure most of you heard yesterday's news about the terrible earthquake in central Italy. The town where we were in 2002 and 2008, Macerata, is located less than 100 miles away from the epicenter. When traveling from Macerata to Rome, it's just about the halfway point on the drive. In checking the Macerata newspaper, there didn't seem to be any major damage in our little town. Our thoughts and prayers are with the people of central Italy.

Last night Kim and I went over to Mark and Martha's. They wanted to be sure we saw a movie before we left for our trip to Turkey. In English the film is called "A Touch of Spice" but in Greek it's "Politiki Kouzina," which roughly translates as "The cuisine of 'the city.'" As M&M explained to us, many Greeks still refer to Istanbul not as Istanbul or even Constantinople, but just "the city." I won't ruin the film for anyone who might rent it, but it has lots of references to food and analogies with life.

It was a pleasant evening. Martha had made sandwiches and we snacked and talked along as we watched. Pause buttons can be wonderful things. Unfortunately as we were leaving, Kim misstepped on the stairs and hurt her hand and knee. She put some ice on it and she was fine to walk the few blocks home (M&M offered to drive us but Kim said she was OK).

Today's news item is about the brief meeting that Barack Obama had with the Greek PM Costas Karamanlis on Saturday. When I'm in the US I always hear the stories about which foreign dignitaries have visited the US, or who the Secretary of State has met with overseas, etc. I listen, but never vest the kind of importance in the meeting that people here obviously do. Obama's visit to Turkey was met with some degree of uneasiness here. Greece and Turkey are currently on good terms but there is always a little underlying fear, and the president's visit there without any nod to Greece was a cause of concern (he wasn't even going to have a meeting with the archbishop of the Orthodox church). The brief meeting between Obama and Karamanlis went a long way in making Greeks feel less slighted.