Oh ... Goodness! ... did I sleep through the fun ... again? About something atop a tree? That is judged/claimed to be 'G" rated ... that'd be as in "Grownup", do ya figger? Some reference to "Adam and Eve" and as I consider possible ramifications, I don't recall what the names given to the purported two initial individuals were in the Torah for Jews/Hebrewand Greek scriptures for Christians ... .. but whatever names they carry in English would have to be aliases, wouldn't you think? I remember some discussion a while ago about painters in an earlier period portraying them as carrying belly buttons - tsk! tsk!. And some (well, at least one) of the distressed ones were so incensed that they said you shouldn't even have it in your own home?! Have you heard that China's selling quantities of their advanced surveillance equipment to a number of countries who recently have been moving toward becoming more autocratic? The capped, moustachioed creature? Doesn't seem to be any connection to the purported snake in Eden. The guy with the flying reindeer and sleigh? I heard some time ago that his jacket was brown until he got connected with coke, as in the makers of drinks, rather than as companies that make a gray product by de-gassing some kinds of coal by using limited heat, the coke that's often used in steel-making. That was when he began sporting a (guess what) ... ... red coat! Hi Lars, Where've ya bin, buddy? Haven't ya heard? Santa doesn't bring even one tooth to folks wot're gonna ... ... grow their own! ole joyful ... (all of whose teeth have departed) p.s. the "helpers" sure didn't like that "wot're" much - sometimes persistence pays! o j

This is my little self-aware patio lizard. She is very taken with the mirror. She has stopped attacking the mirror and now she just checks herself out. So cute.

Driving from Venice we picked a random spot for lunch in Bologna and it turned out to be a 20 acre sort of food theme park called FICO Eataly World. We stopped at a booth that said - Here we make pork, then we tried one that said - Here we make pasta. It was fun, I wish we had a few hours there. The parking reminded me of Disney so that should have been my first clue that it was not an ordinary lunch place.

Arch of Constantine, dedicated AD 315 I missed this yesterday, but I wanted to add some information regarding columns and piers: <A column is a freestanding round shaft. A square column is called a pier. When a round column is attached to a wall, it is called an engaged column; and when a pier is attached to a wall, it is called a pilaster.> (Note: Pilaster is pronounced with the accent on the second syllable.) I've seen other definitions online, but this is what I was taught in architecture class at UT, and it is also the definition in my History of Architecture book. I think that civil engineers may use different definitions from architects, however, and this can cause some confusion, but for architects, piers are square or rectangular and columns are round.