Yet another lazy day… Simone wanted to go to the beach but I found the wind pretty cold and didn’t want to go. We lazed around till evening, when I decided to go with Franco and Patrizia to visit Manuela in the hospital and see her new little girl. Simone stayed home to make dinner. He just refused to go with us to the hospital no matter how I persuaded him. I think he just feels it’s not his thing. On the drive to Grosseto, I thought it’d be nice to visit the hospital on good tidings for once instead of associating it with sickness and death. When we reached the main entrance, we ran into Franco’s cousin whose mother had a heart attack. I couldn’t help wondering which type of patients the other visitors were there to see.
4.32kg! That’s how heavy Baby Ilaria weighed. She was sleeping peacefully when we went to see her, and was very big compared to the other babies in the nursery. Manuela looked very tired… Patrizia said she had spent more than a day in labour before the doctor would make an incision in her tummy to take out the baby.
Simone had cooked chicken with rosemary, potatoes with beans, and rice for me. There was also roast pork ribs and cutlets in the oven, and Patrizia set to deep-frying some french fries. After dinner, Simone, Francesco and I played poker. Simone won the first round, then Francesco and I battled it out in the second round for the longest time. We were both very defensive, though he had a lot more chips that I did. Funnily, the Italians refer to the chips as ‘fish’. Simone was playing croupier for us and got tired of it and wanted to play on my behalf. I knew he would lose it in a matter of minutes cos Francesco wasn’t about to risk anything and Simone has the rash ‘all-in’ attitude. So I made him buy my chips from me… and indeed, he managed to lose them in about 10 minutes.
When the game was over, I went out to the balcony to see if there might be any more falling stars. But they seemed tired of diving from the sky. I must come next year to make my wishes again. 
