Happy Birthday Vin!

Today is my brother Vincenzo's birthday. Just a week and a half ago, Vin finished a three week quarantine after a tour of duty in Liberia constructing medical infrastructure to deal with the Ebola breakout (which has seemed to disappear from the media gaze). Vin said that his quarantine was worse than his deployment... he received a warm welcome from the grateful people of Liberia and came back to a military base that hadn't even provided him with a change of clothes to wear during his three week confinement. He also complained about the poor quality of the chow he was served while in quarantine.

Thankfully, he'll be celebrating his birthday and Thanksgiving simultaneously, along with a crowd of his Italian neighbors, who are wonderful, generous people. I had the pleasure and the privilege of being at last year's celebration of Vin's birthday cum Thanksgiving, and I quickly came to love everybody in Vin's Italian town. Buon cumplianni, Vincenzo!