It's hard being dumb - HJW update

So, I went out last Saturday and climbed up the hills behind Santa Marinella and collected some wildflowers, taking along my new Mediterranean Wildflowers book, and took some lovely pictures for y'all...

...and have forgotten to bring to the office the cable I need to hook the camera up to the computer to show them to you.

Sorry. I'll try to get my act together tomorrow.

Plus, sorry for having been away for a while, and for the phoning-it-in ambiance around here lately. Reasons unmentionable.

But also, just slow of mind lately and don't really have much that is comprehensible to say. Getting mentally ready to move again, I hope this time will be the last for at least a few years. Any number of things could go wrong with the new flat, but I am rather hopeful about it. It's closer to the train and the beach and the other Santa Marinellans, larger and brighter and generally better. Dunno. Maybe the neighbours will turn out to be noisy or the landlord will be crazy or impossible, or some other thing. It's something I really dislike about life: you never know how anything will turn out, and just have to keep gambling on things. Big, important things. Gah.

Been reading Ruskin on the train. Got a lovely little Oxford Press book of essays on poetry by the Big Names of 19th century poetry and criticism. He's pretty good on the difference between good poetry and bad, and why. I'll share soon. It's good stuff about the meaning of life and beauty, truth and goodness and all that. Ruskin was a philosopher of The Real, and the things he says about art in general can be taken as part of the big instructions for living in The Real, about which I have been thinking a lot. At least, on the days when I've been capable of rational thought.

Rome and the Romans continue to be very annoying in myriad tiny and large ways. The weather has been better this year than last though, alternately rainy and sunny-but-not-too-hot. I might wish for a couple of unequivocally bright warm sunny days to go snorkeling but I remain conscious of the danger of wishing for hot weather in this country. The evil gods are always listening and ready to give unwary mortals exactly what they ask for.

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention. I've bought a snorkel and mask and plan on getting a few more bits of underwater gear, and hope to find a decently priced underwater camera and dazzle everyone with the neat underwater things I find. Those who hang out on Facebook already know about this.

Anyway, I guess I'm just feeling boring lately. Not bored myself, but lordy, I'm not much fun to hang out with.

I'll leave you with another musical discovery.

Alison Krauss.

Still pfaffing about

A Statue, St. Peter's Basilica


Nativity scene in St. Peter's

Sorry. Regular blogging will not resume for a couple of days. I'm back in the office, and have hundreds of pics to get onto the internet of all sorts of interesting Rome-related things, but am utterly snowed under.

One indication that I have had the first two-week holiday in years is that I seem to have forgotten how to type.

Sorry

Things are probably not going to speed up here for a while. I don't have internet at home and the time I spend in the office is going to be focused very heavily on work, of which I suddenly have a great deal more. It is also a great deal more interesting and involved than ever before, so good for me but bad for the 'blog; sorry.

But I will be putting up pictures fairly regularly, and they should be dillies. Although I've been struck with some kind of dreaded lurgey (and have been so run down that I'm wondering if I should not go see a doctor), I'm having a wonderfully interesting time and my liturgical life has really picked up. The solemn high Mass at Sanctissima Trinita dei Pellegrini for All Souls last night was wonderful, though I was half in a coma for it. JP Sonnen was there taking a video so I expect there will be some nice pics at Orbis Catholicus or NLM. I can't bring myself to take pictures at Mass, so you'll just have to go over there to look. The vestments were worth the plane fare all by themselves.

There's lots on the plate. On Saturday, a friend and I will be visiting the Capitoline museums and having a nice easy wander around and the camera will come too.

So, stay tuned, but keep 'blog expectations low for the moment.

PS: I must be fitting in. I've been given girl-work to do by the parish. When I start work on restoring a cloth-of-silver faldstool cover, I'll put some pics up of it and the vestments that are stashed away in the sacristy. Buried treasure.

V. Busy

Too much to do today and not enough time to do it.

Stuff arrived safely this morning with not a single teacup broken and no "carrying fee" demanded by the rather surly driver and only two days late.

I am sure everything they say about Italian workmen is true, but all I can say is that St. Philip must like me best.

Have not yet unearthed typewriter, or the little computer gizmo one uses to take pictures off one's camera and put them on the internet, so...

patience.

Glorious pics to come.

Now. I'm busy so go away and read a book or do something important.

Go on. Shoo.

Facebook status update

Hilary is wound up so tightly that if you plucked her, she would emit a sound that would bring down buildings.

Hilary is listening to Hendrix and feeling slightly better.

Finished freaking out

Word of advice.

Don't move to a foreign country.

Or at least, do it only when you've got such a large bank balance that you can solve every problem by throwing money at it.

Not fishing

Am definitely freaking out now.

Is there some rule that says moving and shipping companies are dens of thieves liars and swindlers?

And if there is, why didn't I get the memo?

I think I'm coming down with Tourette's.

Not freaking out

Nope.

Not one little bit.

And I am definitely not watching Matt Harding "Regular-Bloke-Makes-the-World-Smile" videos over and over again to make myself feel less freaked out.


Not even a titch.


How to get people to dance badly around the world.

The man with the best job in the world.

The outtakes are pretty good too: