Tex spends most of his time roaming freely across the Texas plains. When he's not roaming the plains, he resides with the Navaho. (Tex is apparently a half-breed, like me, which means a diverse and healthy genetic makeup.) He's also a widower, but Renato cannot tell me what happened to his wife. She's just conveniently disappeared. Otherwise he wouldn't be allowed to roam the plains quite so freely.

In a recent issue, Tex helps round up a bunch of renegade Confederate soldiers who don't want to believe the Civil War is over and their side lost.

Renato wants me to make sure I include this link to the "Tex" home page (it will help if you can read Italian).

"Paint and Polish, Firearms and Ammunition," reads this sign (at right) on the hardware store. Sounds mighty combustible to me. We only need some cord to tie a few young trees to their props, but this is where to get that, too. 

These should be sufficient to blast those pesky quails to kingdom come. If shooting birds with these big guns is not enough of a challenge, you might try this crosssbow (left) instead:

Okay, enough consumption already. It's time to do our part for the environment and recycle what can be recycled. In Italy (and apparently elsewhere in Europe) you can recycle batteries. That's good to know, as the camera I've been using requires about 2 dozen a week.

Above Renato sorts out the recyclables. We've done a preliminary pre-sort at home, but there's confusion when we arrive at the recycling center.

Okay, plastic -- that's easy enough. And the big green glass bin is also clearly labeled. It's when we get down to the paper bins that we start experiencing panic.

Carta Differenziata? Different paper? Different from what? We toss it all into the first bin since it all seems pretty much the same to us.

It feels so good to recycle! It's just like confession -- as soon as you do it you feel purged and ready to go out and sin anew. So now we're ready to start consuming again.

But maybe we can consume without buying anything tangible. For instance, we can go see a movie. Summer brings "Cinema Sotto Le Stelle" (literally "Cinema Under the Stars") to Pontremoli. I love going even when the movies stink. Since they mostly come out of Hollywood they usually do. This year they had some good films -- my son won't stop talking about "Gladiator" -- but I missed them all. Tonight they're showing "Notting Hill," starring my least favorite actor, Hugh Grant (I hate that smirking, simpering, British cutey-boy face) and Renato's least favorite movie star (he won't call her an actress), Julia Roberts.

The projection van is already set up and the crowd gets settled. This year the audience seems more polite than in the past. One year, no matter where you sat, somebody inevitably moved their chair in front of you.

It was like a great game of leap frog until eventually the entire audience was squished up against the screen.

After 90 minutes of predictable story-line, over-done music and way too toothy smiles, I'm ready for something that's easier to digest. Gelateria Alvaro is right around the corner, and there is nothing left over to have to recycle.