More Pictures from Rome

Exquisite Marble statues everywhere.

This is where the chariot races were held-Circus Maximus.

I peeked into a child's toy shop.

All these clocks had swinging pendulums.

This odd face caught my eye at the Vatican museum.  It stood at one side of an archway across from another similar face.  Later I find this face on wall hangings and refrigerator magnets and other souvenirs.

I think it would be hard to sculpt a human form but even harder to sculpt gauzy fabric.

Older than Old

How old is old?  I mean for an object or a building; not a person.  In Minnesota, 150 years is old.  Heck, stuff from the 1970's is old.   Here is Sicily, stuff is older than that.  There are ruins and archeological digs where they have to ruin stuff from the 16th century to get to the stuff from the 15th century.  Today I visited two sites that were both BC.

We visited the remains of a fortified Greek castle from 400 BC.

Archimedes was involved in the design of this castle.  Archimedes was a mathematician and engineer.  He discovered the formula for pi and designed compound pulleys.

But this temple of Apollo is even older.  This is from the 6th century BC and is located right in downtown Syracuse.  This place is very old.

What To See In Rome

Walking around in Rome is amazing.  There is so much to see you can't see it all.  If you look up you'd miss these gold cobblestones.  Some apartments had one gold cobblestones and others had more.  I didn't realize each gold cobblestone indicated a person who was removed from that apartment building during World War 2.

We saw this sparrow while eating breakfast al fresco (outside).  Typical breakfast in 2 ounces of hot thick coffee sweetened with sugar, a pastry glazed with sugar and a granitas (a fruit flavored sugary ice drink).  That amounts to a very sweet breakfast.

While walking toward a tourist attraction we saw this building.  See the flags about halfway down the building?  That marks the balcony from where Mussolini gave many speeches.  Those pine trees are called umbrella pines.

Everywhere I look I see giant beautiful churches with extravagant architecture and marble statues.

Here I am at the Roman colisuem - the place where gladiators fought.

A horse waits for hire outside the Gates of Constantine.

I walk around inside the Vatican museum, the Sistine Chapel and Saint Peter's Basilica.  I wonder why they let us walk on this beautiful mosaic tile.  I love mosaics.  If i tried to recreate this pattern I would have to have a very large surface area.

It is hot and we are thirsty.  Rome has ancient fountains where the water always runs.  We fill our water bottles.

This is the Pantheon.  Inside is a round building with a hole in the top.  I would think a hole in the center of the building would not last but obviously I am wrong.  This one has been around for two thousand years.  This building has the largest unreinforced concrete dome. Again, I can't believe they let us walk around on the mosaic tile floors.  Inside here are the tombs of two Italian Kings and the painter Raphael.

My traveling companions likes fountains and animals. She calls them Bow wows.  I try to see Rome through her eyes because my eyes are overloaded with magnificent building and marble statues of muscular men and women.  There is too much beauty for one person to appreciate.

Trying New Things

On this trip to Italy I have tried new things.  I tried to speak Italian and sometimes I did okay and other times I sucked.  Once the bell hop at our hotel greeted me with, "Bon Jour!"  I asked why he spoke French to me and was told because I had said "Merci instead of Grazie."  I tried new drinks such as Marsala wine (fortified but not with vitamins but more booze instead), Aperol spritzer, Limoncello, an apertif that tasted like pistachio and another one that tasted like a Hershey squirt and goat milk.  I tried prickly pear cactus fruit, kumquats, a yard long zucchini gourd, endive, and cannolli.  Everything I've had to eat or drink so far has been good.  My Italian speaking skills are still at the point where I think the Italians would prefer I stick with English.

A Great Trip

Outside Saint Peter's Basilica where the baby's hat flew under the fence and Offspring #2 had to crawl through the fence to rescue it.

I Felt The Earth Move

The day before yesterday was an exhausting day.  We got up early and walked an hour to get to Vatican City by 9 a.m.  Having a child along allowed us to pass the hour long wait to buy tickets so that was lucky. We toured the Vatican museum, the Sistine Chapel, and Saint Peter's basilica.  We took a bus ride around the city to see the sights.  I was exhausted and feeling a cold coming on so I took 2 Nyquil and went to bed early.  In the night, I believe around 4 a.m., my bed started rocking and rolling.  Was I having  a Nyquil moment or was this an earthquake?  The bed was really shaking.  I am in a room with 4 adults and 1 baby and it's totally dark but I think I'm in an earthquake.  What do do?  Offspring #2's phone is on the nightstand and the screen turns on. Should I wake everyone up?  Seriously, it was tough to get that baby to sleep.  But an earthquake!  Maybe we'll be safe in this building.  Wait, how old is this hotel again?  15th Century or 16th Century?  I can't remember.  Is a really old building good or bad in an earthquake? I'm on the fourth floor.  Do they feel it more downstairs?  What is the best thing to do?  Stand in a doorway?  Go out in the street?  Before I can formulate a plan the event is over.  THAT WAS AWESOME!  The shaking has stopped and the baby starts crying.  She gets comforted and i go back to sleep.  Later, maybe an hour later, it's still dark, I am awakened again with a less violent and shorter aftershock.  This must have been an earthquake if it has an aftershock.  I wait until everyone is awake before I ask, "Did you guys notice the earthquake last night?"  No one noticed except for the baby and I.  News confirms it though.  It was an earthquake, not a Nyquil moment. I have always WANTED to feel an earthquake (but not get hurt).  I got what I wanted and in Rome, no less.  It would have been cool to experience it in the day time and to be able to share the experience with others.  Best. Earthquake. Ever 

Feast Days

Yesterday was my fifth day in Catania and my second religious holiday.  The first one was last weekend and it was the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary.  Stores, gas stations and restaurants were closed for three days.  And last night as Offspring #1 and I drove to the airport to pick up Offspring #2, we drove at sunset.  The lights of the homes situated up the slope of Mount Etna added yellow dots to the looming volcano.  A full moon light up the sky. As we turned south toward the airport fireworks lit up the sky.  We saw a full 10 minutes of firework display.  This time the feast day was for Saint Agatha who, it turns out, was born in Catania.  The cathedral in Catania is named for her.  She is also the patron saint of breast cancer.  As part of her martyrdom her breasts were removed with pincers.  So, in her honor, they sell round dome shaped sweet bread with a cherry on top.  Honestly, I am not making this up.  If the frequency of feast days continues at this rate, I should be here for 6 of them.

Here is a photo of Saint Agatha with her body parts on a platter.

 

A Trip To A Farm

Visited a Sicilian farm today and met a horse.

And a friendly cow plus two pigs, four other horses, three goats. two dozen chickens, four dogs and a cat.

We picked fresh figs.  Turns out I do like to eat fresh figs.

I like to eat purple figs and

I like to eat green figs too.  The birds planted these fig trees growing randomly in the farm yard.

This is a farm with a nice view.

The farmer told us all the tractors here are Lamborghini's.

Hardware

Today, as we were driving through the orchards of olives, oranges, lemons, limes and prickly pear cactus, my hostess worried that this would be boring for me.  We were going to buy supplies for a raised bed garden. I assured her a trip to Sicily's version of Home Depot would not be boring.  I do not want to spend all my time in Sicily doing touristy stuff.  I want to live like a real Sicilian so off we went to the big box hardware store. It was a lot like Home Depot.  The aprons were green but they still had the same stuff for sale - ladders, power tools, 2x6's in 8 foot lengths.  We only know they were 8 foot lengths because we brought a tape measure.  It's too much work to convert metric into feet.  Things for sale at this hardware store that I don't usually see are electric cement mixers, glass blocks in varied colors, and stepping stones shaped in, off all things, maple leaves.  We bought our lumber and soil and manure.  My granddaughter got bored and hot at the store.  I kept handing her items to inspect.  Look at this box of screws.  She looks them over carefully and hands them back.  Check out these pliers.  She likes pliers and holds them for a long time before handing them back.  What about this board?  She inspects both ends of the board with her fingers and pushes it away.  I put her stroller close to a roll of plastic so she can inspect it carefully.  One thing different about this hardware store and hardware stores back home is that the cashier will take several minutes to smile and wave and talk to the baby in the stroller.  I prompt her to say "ciao" and to wave but, as usual, she does it after we walk away.  Because of all the lumber I have to sit in the front seat on the way home.  I see we are much closer to Mount Etna than before.  We're actually up part of the slope of the volcano.  I see a farmer walking through his orchard with a sprayer in his hand and a yellow container of something strapped to his back.  The container is too small to hold water so I would guess he has fertilizer, pesticide or herbicide.  This is a big field.  Now it is 3 o'clock in the afternoon and there are no clouds to block the hot sun.  This guy is working hard. Some of the fields still have elevated cement aqueducts for irrigation but most fields have hoses.  We all drive downward toward home singing a rousing rendition of Old MacDonald Had A Farm.  Ee Ie EE Ie Oh!

Sunset

Today the sky was clear of clouds and I get my first view of Mount Etna, an active volcano. We took my granddaughter to the park to play with other kids.  This is the view from the playground a block away from home. After dinner, when the dishes are done and the baby is in the bathtub I scurry back to the park to snap this photo.  The setting sun makes the volcanic plume of gas appear pink.

Shopping Day

Unlike my three previous days today I did not wait in line at an airport and I got to wear something other than jean capris and a green linen top.  Today we went shopping.  First we went to the street market in Catania.  It was like a flea market.  For sale were  shoes, clothing, purses, toys, books, movies, music cds, electronics, phones, vases, figurines, paintings, giant glass bottles, rusty tools, bicycle parts, and the metal heads of axes.  I saw a few nightmare inducing items like the plastic head of a boy with a plastic skeleton body in a tub, a stuffed life-size naked ten year old girl doll, and another doll will very little blonde hair on her head and creepy eyes.  I guess dolls creep me out more than most items.  A man followed us closely yelling loudly. On his body he had pockets of cigarette lighters and cell phone cases.  Were we his target market?  We'd stop to let him pass and soon enough he'd be behind us again with the yelling. We did see a couple interesting tables for sale but did not buy anything.

Next stop the shopping mall.  This mall had two stories of clothing, jewelry, and electronic stores plus restaurants and a grocery store.  For lunch I had aracini (a big brown lump of rice, cheese and spinach deep fried).  I can tell you, aracini will stick to your ribs for a long time.

In the grocery store one and a half aisles are devoted strictly to pasta.  Pasta comes in all shapes and sizes and colors.  The black pasta has squid ink in it.  Each region of Italy has their own pasta.  I am learning.  I believe biologica means organic.  Actually it is a little difficult to not be able to understand the signs or the language.  I am glad not to be driving!

Things Roman

On Thursday I left my home about 11 a.m. for a trip to Sicily; not without problems.  The flight from Minneapolis was scheduled to leave about 5:30 p.m.  Yeah, that didn't happen.  Hydraulic leak problems.  I guess it is better to know before we leave that the plane has hydraulic leak problems.  We sat on that plane for over an hour and I was about a third of the way through the latest Jungle Book movie when we were asked to disembark and move to another gate.  We all trudged down to the new gate where there was no plane.  "Did my luggage make it?" I asked myself as I waited for the second plane to arrive.  We left about 9 p.m. and made it to Rome at what time I do not know.  They don't have a lot of clocks in the airport in Rome.  Somehow, I looked for round clocks with Roman numerals.  Is that so crazy?  This is Rome.  If any airport uses Roman numerals this would be the one.  I couldn't find any clocks.  I had no idea where to go because I missed my flight to Sicily.  I went to information. She sent me to Alitalia airlines.  When I got there, and after standing in line for a full hour, she asked me why I came here.  But she helped me out and told me to stand in the Alitalia ticket line.   I said "Grazie.  Mucho Grazie" which was a terrible mix of languages but I hope she understood I was grateful.  I stood there for another hour feeling my ankles swelling and wondering where my red suitcase was.  I got on a flight for Sicily and landed safely in Catania.  I went to the luggage carousel and surprise, surprise, no red suitcase.  I anticpated problems and packed an extra pair of underwear, my tooth brush and tooth paste and my vitamins in my carry on bag.  Today we went back to the Catania airport. I waited in line for 30 minutes.  One person before me got their bag and the other one didn't.  My chances were 50/50. I got my bag!  Grazie!  Grazie! I am here.  My stuff is here.  All is well. PS The Jungle Book is totally worth renting.  

The Nineteenth Wife

What a lively discussion we had at book club last night about The 19th Wife by Dave Ebershoff.  Our poor reviewer - or lucky maybe (depends on how you look at it) - she never had a chance to go over her material.  At 9 o'clock (a full half hour after we're supposed to end) we asked her if she had anything that had not been said yet and she thought we covered it all.  I've never seen such a lively discussion!  I've read books about the Mormon faith, about Warren Jeffs and books by Jon Krakauer before.  But this book hit me hard.  The first paragraph grabbed me by the throat and would not let me go.  The author stated that all prophets have things in common; they're good looking and charismatic.  She, no, it's actually a he but I kept forgetting the gender of the author, wrote about Joseph Smith as a con-man.  Also Brigham Young - according to this author was a con-man.  Were both Joseph Smith and Brigham Young sinister, lazy, horny con-men? And if so, why are there so many Mormons now?  I believe 5-10% of Americans are of the Mormon faith.  And although the author writes of these men as con-men, the faith they engender in their followers is not much different than those of other religions.  Golly, this discussion brought me back to a road trip in 1973. Five girls in a cherry-red VW van travel to downtown Salt Lake City.  We stop at the Mormon temple. We go inside. We're not allowed to go all the way inside.  As a 19 year old I walk around the Mormon temple completely unaware of the Mormon faith, the Mormon history, Joseph Smith and Brigham Young.  I was sheltered. I wasn't as sheltered as some Mormons but I was sheltered.  I went back to Salt Lake City in 2005 and didn't stop at the Mormon Temple.  If I was to go back to Salt Lake City today, I would visit the Mormon temple, the Lion House and the Bee Hive House and Anna Eliza Young's house with the stained glass window.  One of the members of our group grew up in Utah.  She always introduces herself with her name and the tag, "I'm not a Mormon."  Growing up in Utah as a non-Morman can be a lonely existence.  Possibilities for advancement in your chosen profession or academia are (or were) limited in Utah for those who are not Mormon.  Utah is the one state where it is illegal to reside in a house with more than one woman who is not your wife.  Hence the tv show, Sister Wives, had to move to Nevada.  Both Joseph Smith and Brigham Young took advantage of the law that allows alimony only to legal wives.  If a woman is not legally your wife, she can't have alimony.  If a judge allows her alimony, it must be legal to have more than one wife.  I remember nine years ago when I travel to Kenya. I talked to a Masai warrior.  His wife was in the hospital with complications giving birth to his child. If I remember right, both mother and child had malaria. While she was in the hospital he wed another wife.  We asked him about that.  He said, 'You have polygamy in the United States, right?"  My fellow travelers disagreed. I had read John Krakauer's book about Warren Jeffs and said, "No, he's right. We do have polygamy in the United States.  It's limited but real."  And this was before the tv show, Sister Wives. In Kenya, however, with a high maternal and child death rate, it makes more sense to wed more than one wife to ensure your genes are passed along.  In the United States?  It seems perverse.  That's my opinion, anyway.   From what I know about the Mormon faith, it is more pliable and modernized than other faiths.   Our book club member who grew up in Utah is sure, in the next five years, Mormon faith will change to include women as church leaders just as they changed to allow black leaders a few years ago.  She might be right.  If you want to know more, read The Nineteenth Wife, it's quite a story.  Part of the book includes actual excerpts from a book written by Brigham Young's 19th wife, Anna Eliza Young.  Her entire story can still be checked out at the library.  Her passion was to end the practice of polygamy in the United States. She talked to President Ulysses S. Grant about the issue.  The whole book makes me wonder - are we any more evolved than the lions on the savanna?

Dear Committee Members

My book club read Dear Committee Members by Julie Schumacher a couple months ago.  I love my book club and I love reading.  But I am also a tightwad.  Why buy a book when you can borrow it from the library for free?  Well, it's hard when 23 other people are ahead of you in line to read this book. So I look to Amazon for the Kindle version.  Am I willing to pay $12 for an electronic book of only 193 pages?  No, I am not.  I am a book lover and a tightwad. This time the tightwad won the battle and for the first time, I faked it in book club.  I went to the discussion.  I listened to the comments.  I smiled.  I nodded.  I had no idea what they were talking about but, as far as I know, no one but me knew that.  When questions were asked and opinions solicited I raised my eyebrows and looked up as if I was formulating my thoughts but I didn't have any because I didn't read the book yet.  Now, the book was available so I read it in a couple of hours this weekend.  I remember quite a bit of the discussion and things make more sense to me now.  This book is a series of emails and letters written by a very angry, possibly pathologically angry, English professor at the University of Minnesota.  If you enjoy sarcasm and sincerely passive aggressive shenanigans, you will enjoy Dear Committee Members. 

The Corn Was As High As An Elephant's Eye!

How would you describe a perfect summer day?  Wake up without an alarm clock?  Check.  Chores you can put off until later in the week?  Check.   High about 80 degrees with low humidity? Check.  Puffy white clouds lined up in shapes?  Check.  Minnesota weather can be great once in awhile.  Family gathering in Harris, Minnesota?  Check.  Cousins, cousins, cousins, I got a million of them. Good looking, successful cousins, too!  What is really good is that I am not the only one who can't remember their names.  As I have aged, I am less self-conscious about my lack of memory and that is good because I'm not the only one.  I think about my Grandmother and my Grandfather.  I loved them so much. We all miss them. Descendants of Leona and Edward, here we are, all gathered together for one of their son's 80th birthday party.  I learned much today.  For one thing, when my uncle was 18 I came into the world.  I guess I thought he was older. I teased him about the Navy flag and the Marine flag in his patio area.  Turns out he was is the Army and stationed in  Stuttgart, Germany in the 1950's -another thing I didn't know.  When I arrive my aunt tells me she has tabbouleh! She seems proud of tabbouleh to complement the sloppy joes and pulled pork sandwiches.  I am pleased to the core to know she remembers I don't eat meat. She is so cool.  I gobble up the tabbouleh and am happy to do so.  I watch the potato sack races and laugh as the older folks try hard to win and jump too far and fall to the ground.  The egg toss goes on and on.  A 4 year old princess gets yolk on her toes and she's upset but she lives. We sit in the shade of a willow tree and talk about our heart stents and hip replacements.  And butter - is it good or is it bad? We pose for a photo next to the tall corn.  A shirtless toddler runs away from the group. He's about 13 months old.  I don't know his name.  We all call him back. He comes back but leaves again - it seems he likes a crowd of people beckonging him to come back.   Relationships - it is what life is all about.  In the photo I am in the left third wearing a red shirt in the second row of people celebrating my Uncle George's 80th birthday party.

This Project Took A Lot Longer Than I Anticipated

My chicks were ready to move out of the blue box in the garage to the great outdoors.  Some things needed to be done in preparation of their arrival.  The hinges on the coop door had rusted solid so I needed to replace those.

Chickenson Caruso seemed lethargic.  She hasn't been moving around much lately.  Was she depressed?  Ill?  I didn't know.  But when she didn't move as I replaced the hinge on her door, I picked her up and moved her outside. I come to sincerely regret that decision. She clucked and clucked in a panic for about 5 minutes.  Then she took a dust bath in the sun.

Once I had the coop door secure and the new run attached, it was time for these 9 chicks to journey east to Zion.  Ok, maybe not Zion (and Zion was west, not east), but I'm reading a book about the Mormon Church of the Latter Day Saints called the Nineteenth Wife.  I don't know how many of these chicks are male so there may be some polygamy in the future for these chickens.

The chicks are ready to meet their foster mother.  Is she interested?  No, she is not interested. She has no intention of assuming motherly duties. In fact, she eludes me.  She hides under the bridal veil shrub.  I go around one way and she goes the other.  I tell her, "I'm not a monkey and you're not a weasel and this is not a mullberry bush," but does she listen?  No, she does not.  Instead she hides out in the big blue stem. I can see you!

She enjoys her sun bath and running away from me.  I am not the chicken catcher I used to be.  How frustrating is it to catch a chicken who does not want to be caught?  VERY!

There she is, just behind the coop with the new run attached and the chicks still peeping in the blue box. She is not ready to assume her duties as foster mother.  I give up and go in the house to drink a glass of wine.

About 7 o'clock I hear the winged rustle of a chicken climbing to the railing of my deck.  The chicken has come home to roost.  I got you, B___h!

Once Chicken Caruso is in the pen I can add the other chicks.  For some reason I thought it was important that she be in there first.  Look at the beautiful cuckoo Maran.  Those black and white variegated wings are so handsome.

Nine chicks move out of the blue box existence into the great outdoors.  I know I have to get them inside the coop and shut the door for the first night at least.  I grab one and put it in the coop.  Before I can grab a second one the first one flies out.  I do that five times. Exercise is futility. I'm glad no one is here to see this.  I use the blue box to herd them all into the coop.   Chickenson Caruso is tired and doesn't even stir. I was really worried there would be turmoil.  I wanted to be there to, I don't know, provide crisis intervention or family counseling.  But since it took all freaking evening to catch Mrs. Caruso, all is well, at least until morning. What would family counseling be like anyway?  What I hear you saying is, "Peep peep peep peep."  

My Neighbor Brought Me A Bag Of Weed

Dried nettle, she said, is good for me. Use it like spinach or in tea.  I'm grateful.

What Am I Missing?

I come home from work. As I pull up to the garage I see 4 turkey polts and at least 6 adults moving through the yard away from the driveway. I must have disturbed them from sitting in the sunshine by the garage door.  I didn't know turkeys nested around here and I wonder where the nest was.  I go to check on my chicken and I see someone has dug a big hole in the grass near the bird feeder. The hole is 5 inches in diameter and 4 inches deep.  The sandy soil was flung to the west side of the hole. Why was this hole dug?  Who dug it?  Squirrels dig holes that are usually smaller but about that deep.  Was it a feral cat?  I've seen holes they dig in the sand under my bedroom window to cover their droppings but they're not as deep as this and they dig sand; not sod.  Was it a stray dog after a vole?  I don't know. I see the level of nuts in the peanut feeder is down three inches.  The blue jays, wood peckers and nuthatches were here today.  The black sun flower seed feeder is down two inches.  Black capped chickadees had a field day.  I missed a lot being away from home and working for a living. Comedy.  Tragedy. Why do I see four holes dug in the yard instead of one?I know what happened at work (and that was plenty!) but what happened at home?  

Every Picture Tells A Story, Don't It?

A friend of mine from work is going to Vegas today. On Sunday he and his wife have plans to see Rod Stewart perform.  Their tickets are in the sixth row.  The sixth row!  It is entirely possible that a beat of sweat of Rodney's forehead could land on them.  You can ask anyone, I am a huge Rod Stewart fan. Since my college days Rodney, with his skinny pants, his "stick up in every direction" hairdo, his "Whoo!"  have done it for me.  Oh, Rodney!  Closer to 70 than 30, Rodney, you still got what it takes.  Would it be wrong for me to ask them to mention my name during the show?  Just in case we meet in the afterlife I mean?

Once Upon A Time

Once upon a time there was a fairy.  She lived all alone in an underground cave with a round red door. She likes to give nectar to the hummingbirds. Was she a sturdy Hobbit shaped fairy or a slender Tinkerbell type fairy?  We don't know. She has never been seen.  But we suspect that either her red chair is too big for her or her red door is too small for her.

On this fairy's property is a spruce tree, some thyme, and lots of moss for her farm animals to graze.  She keeps goats, rabbits and chickens.

The fairy's cave has a sturdy pink granite ledge. Sometimes the baby chicks sit on the fairy's lawn chair.



If my sibling has half as much fun with this fairy garden as I did making it, I know I gave a great gift.