la strega (m)

The word for "witch" in Italian is "strega."  It generally connotes someone with magical powers versus the Halloween-type witch.

My brother Phil called our mother yesterday.  He caught her while she was engaged in her favorite activity...reading the phone book.  It's her way of seeing who among her long-ago acquaintances is still living.  She figures if they are listed, they are still with us (on Saturday nights, she pulls up a chair at my computer and has me do a People Search to find out the age of her neighbors).

"I found Joe C." she said.  Joe C was the last person to see her cousin Vito alive.  They were 17 year-old boys when Vito drowned while they were swimming in a quarry.  Joe C didn't realize Vito was drowning, he thought he was fooling around...until Vito did not resurface.  Joe C has lived with this his whole life. 

"And just after I found his name, don't you think Lillian called me to say hello?!"  Lillian is her cousin....the sister of Vito.  Lillian lives in Connecticut and calls once per month.

What made you think to look him up? my brother asked her.

"I don't know, it just came to me," she said.

Just this morning, when my mother was reading the obituary section of The Boston Globe, she found Joe C's name among the deceased.  Eerie coincidence?  Not according to her.  "I'm a witch.  I sometimes see these things," she said.

"By the way, the other day, I had a dream you got thin."

Bring it on.