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When I chat with a new friend or someone I just met and mention my fig trees, they almost immediately shake their heads and ask, “Did you just say fig trees?” Living in the Midwest as I do, it comes as a surprise to most people that we raise figs. And believe me, keeping these beauties alive in this region is truly a labor of love. I have vivid memories of the 22 fig trees my father kept when I was a kid growing up in Chicago. We all know the size of a city lot, but my parents owned …

Before listing your house, you need to view it through the eyes of your potential buyer. The first thing folks do is look at pictures of a listing and that first impression can make or break their decision to look further. Your entire house needs to be ready for its closeup. The first step is to clean your home. Make sure to eliminate all clutter and give every room a good tidy. Professional cleaning is a good option here. It’s also important to make sure the outside of your home is clean. It has to have “curb appeal.” Your hard …

With COVID being such a big part of our lives for so long, it’s hard to say when annual events will return in full force. Could the Pullman Family Picnic be the only regular scheduled celebration to take place this summer in our neck of the woods? If so, let’s make the most of it! Almost everyone has been vaccinated and mask wearing has become optional along with the relaxing of other restrictions. After so many months of life lived at a distance, the Pullman Picnic looms large. Always an important gathering, it means even more this year as we’ve …

From the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, as case numbers multiplied with each passing week, it was apparent there would be only one solution to this global health crisis. The answer fell in the domain of what I believe is the single greatest advancement in modern medicine — vaccination. Over this last year, we all witnessed what our world looked like when a vaccine didn’t exist for this highly contagious illness. Worldwide, there have been nearly 200 million cases of COVID with nearly 4 million lives lost, more than 600,000 of these in the U.S. alone. I received my first …

The verb mancare has many meanings: to miss/to lose/to lack/to be lacking/to omit/to fail. Perhaps the most common way to use mancare is to convey the idea of missing someone, so it is important to learn the conjugation and sentence structure for this verb for everyday speech. To start off, you should know that the sentence structure used for mancare is the same as for the verb piacere, the prototype for Italian verbs that only take an indirect object pronoun. You should also realize that this group of Italian verbs works differently from its English counterparts. Therefore, the English translation will not match the Italian …

Let’s begin our discussion of the important phrases “he said” and “she said” by looking at how to use the verb dire — to say —  in the past tense. The past tense for “he said” and “she said” in Italian, a one-time event, uses the passato prossimo, and is “ lui/lei ha detto.” This Italian past tense verb also translates into the less commonly used English past tense, “he has said” and “she has said.”  Since the subject pronoun is generally left out of an Italian sentence, we are left with “ha detto” to describe both what he said …

Each step of the home buying process can be time consuming. On average, it takes four and a half months to shop for a home along with another 1 to 2 months to close once you are under contract. The time required can be longer or shorter depending on different factors like time spent in preparation, the time of year, the current market and the state of your finances. This year is unusual, which is why it is important to be prepared. Home prices are expected to increase. They are not expected to increase as much as they did in …

“Ciao, boccia!” I was always greeted by this simple phrase in the Venetian dialect whenever I arrived at Panozzo Brother’s Funeral Home. Those words were uttered by Larry Panozzo as he sat on his stool beside the door greeting everyone who entered. To many, they were welcoming words of comfort that instantly took one back to the old days of Roseland and Kensington. Larry was a gentleman’s gentleman. His calm and unflappable demeanor was always reassuring, whether you had lost a loved one or you were merely seeking a refreshing dip into the nostalgia of days gone by. The mere …

The Italian verb riuscire has a wide range of meanings and its use lends a bit of sophistication to one’s Italian phrases. It’s important to learn the nuances of the verb to create sentences as we would in our native language. When linked by the conjunction a to another verb, riuscire means “to be able to” or “to manage to.” The meaning is similar to potere, with an important exception: riuscire lends a dimension of personal effort on the speaker’s part. Hence the translation into English as “to manage to.” In the negative sense, the use of riuscire a implies that …

Dining out in Roseland came under two headings. There was actually eating out in a restaurant, which was something generally done with the family, as in after mass on Sunday or on Dad’s payday or in celebration of a family event. The other type of dining out was the more casual “hanging out” with friends in a favorite local snack shop or restaurant. Local fine dining in Kensington centered around two restaurants: Pesavento’s on 115th and Parise’s on Kensington. These places had tablecloths and that qualified them as “fine dining” in young Roseland eyes. Of course, after mass on Sunday …