Highlights

...from our first holiday season in Rome...

Many small streets populated with pedestrian shoppers are lit for the season. It does make for a kind of magical feeling.

The days are short on light, but still mostly sunny...

Piazza Navona was once known for its creche market, but it is now the site of a few vendors' stalls and an otherwise fair-like atmosphere, complete with a carousel.

The ever-present chestnut roasting stands offer up this treat that we have to import in the Eastern U.S., since we have no indigenous chestnut trees (well, that last to maturity) anymore.  Some dedicated people are working on this though.

I love these things, but they do suck all of the moisture right out of your mouth...

...some work has come to an end....

For Thanksgiving, I joined the students I taught here during Fall term.  They made a LOT of pie.

...new-for-me, old for here, visions of seasonal developments...

The installment of a large menorah on Piazza Barberini

Near the U. S. Embassy complex is a street lined with orange trees.  They are heavy with fruit right now.

...holiday food adventures...

A friend said:  join us for brunch at a place in your neighborhood.  They have pancakes.
I will not lie:  I was ecstatic for this.  And I was right to be - even with bacon that is not, as the English would say, 'streaky.' 

So I thought I'd try my hand at baking my first loaf of bread here. 

You remember that episode of I Love Lucy where she and Ethel bake overly yeasted bread? My loaf got so big in my little European 'Barbie Dream Oven' (it's not called that, but if you saw it, you'd understand why I call it that) that I thought I was going to have a similar incident.

My first Italian rustic loaf turned out pretty well, even if it was approximately the size of an infant. I put 2/3 of it in the freezer.

...Romans have tightened their belts and yet, still have expressed warm generosity.

On the blunt end of the otherwise paper-clip-shaped Piazza Navona is one of the many museums of the city of Rome.
And look what they brought me for Christmas:  an Artemisia Gentileschi exhibition. 

I cannot describe my joy at being able to see the painting that is visible through the far doorway.  Painted when the artist was very young, it was long misattributed to her father, who was also a painter (and who was her principle teacher). Here it is in its full glory. 

Heard (and seen) from my apartment kitchen on Christmas eve, carolers in the streets of Rome.

And from my Italian teacher - with whom I've bonded on the topic of baking - I received a 'pet.'  He gifted me with a piece of his own lievito madre ('mother leavener')- a yeasty bread starter that I have to feed with a high protein flour and water every 3 or 4 days.   In many instances,  a singular lievito madre may be nurtured for years.  Some are 100 years or older. Given the season and our present location, 'Maria' seems like a fine name for my new pet. Here she sits, having been fed and watered, waiting the requisite hour before returning to live in the fridge until another 3 or 4 days pass and she gets another 'meal'.  For now, her house is a Nutella jar.  Yay for jar savers!

...family visited....

The Spouse and his mother, walking through the interior of St. Peter's Basilica.

This was their view.

And here is a view of the church and its piazza.

For my mother-in-law's birthday, we took her to a restaurant in the Testaccio neighborhood.  Testaccio has a sizable hill that is made entirely of broken pottery fragments from the ancient era.  This restaurant is built into the side of that hill, and has handily provided a way to see a cross-section of the pottery.

So maybe they're artfully arranged...

If I'd thought about getting a closer shot, I would have filed this twice - once under 'family' and once under 'food adventures.'  I baked the best chocolate cake I've ever tasted (all recipes - for cake, ganache and frosting - from this baker and her fabulous book <just scroll down the webpage I previously linked>), and after layering on a ganache first, I topped it with a true buttercream (the kind that does not contain confectioner's sugar) and gave it ganache 'kisses.'
I've been thinking about coming up with reasons to make another one...and I don't even really like chocolate cake.
Wow, it was good.

A late afternoon Christmas day view from the rooftop of Hotel Minerva, where we had a spectacular lunch. That's the Pantheon roof on the far right.

And on the last day of the year:

The best sunset over the Tiber river.

Dear readers, I wish you beautiful sunsets in 2017, and with them, a sense of satisfaction over days well lived.  That is my only intent for the coming year:  to seek out good experiences and to try to remember to enjoy them.  The palpable, lingering melancholy related to my previous entry spurs me onward.  Life feels pretty precious. 

Fearless

The Northeast Georgia Humane Society employee who retrieved this guy for me to take home -on an August day in 1996 - asked me:  do you have any children?  Any other small pets?

(once again with the children question!)

No, I replied.  Interesting questions, I thought.

Ok, she said, visibly relieved.  That's good.  Here he is!

And I brought home a not-quite adult cat.
A wily, energetic, pretty fearless friend.
I began to understand why I was questioned that way.
Discipline issued? He would rear up and swat at me...even at my face.
He would wait for me around corners of interior rooms, and reach out with Ninja accuracy and speed to smack my ankle with a paw. It occurred to me that I might be seen as a large...toy?
Little toys briefly amused him, but were no match for his eventual size and power.  Pet store employees started recommending dog toys because they were more resilient.

I could be working in my studio at one end of an old, rented hardwood-floored house, and hear him thumping around from room to room - doing what, I didn't know.  A case of the 'cat crazies'?
And then, a happy little trill behind me.  A round-eyed face, looking up at me in earnest.

Hello kitty! What is that in your mouth? Is it...moving?

Hi Mom!  I caught a Palmetto bug.  He's still wriggling.  Here, let me put him down for a second.

Ugh!

We spent a lot of time together.  Learning about each other.  He was hyper-everything: curious, tough, affectionate, demanding.  Such a rough-and-tumble boy.  He watched people's faces when they conversed, as if he understood them.

He snuck outdoors once.  Wandered over to the next-door neighbor's front porch, where I found him: a little disoriented in this strange, vibrant world, skulking and uttering a low, chatty 'wow-wow-wow.' Rather than risk his running away from me because I tried to pick him up, I instead talked him through a short stroll back home.   We walked together, very slowly, and returned inside.

That day, I realized that we really trusted each other.

He didn't like treats, and he didn't know what to do with soft food.  Kibble and water, thanks, and don't mind my strange eating habit of conveying kibble bits to my mouth by fishing them out of the bowl with a paw first.

In spite of his spartan food choices, he packed pounds on an already large frame.

When visitors sat in the living room, he would sit on the floor in front of them, raised up on his haunches, wave his front paws in the air in a peddling, slow motion. Like a circus bear. A head scratch for the kitty was the request. How could anyone say no to that plea?

He slowed down a bit, over time, thanks to that inexplicable girth.
Yet, he was still prone to chasing a bouncing tennis ball down the length of the house, or a softball rolled across the floor. Softballs were better for grabbing with the front legs and hugging to the belly, so as to free up the hind legs for kicking the ball.  There was a lot of aggression to work out, apparently.

And when I adopted a feral stray that I (absentmindedly, so forgive the lameness of it) named Smokey, he spent a lot of time and energy notifying her repeatedly that this was HIS house, and she was not welcome.  For years, she lived in the periphery around his large personality.  I knew she was not adoptable, and so we were going to have to progressively work out our differences.

For Salvador, those differences were never worked out: no peace agreement was ever struck between himself and The Interloper. I will always wonder if she was, in fact, a key piece to his longevity.  Life is still more interesting if you have someone to occasionally yell at: 'Get off my lawn!'

We had our sleeping rituals, which usually involved his 19 pound self wedged between my knees or on my ankles.  I would wake up in the same position in which I'd first fallen asleep, because I was anchored by a dense, warm weight at my feet.  But after a particularly bad car accident with a drunk driver, in which I broke my hand and dreamt repeatedly about the moment of impact, startling awake every time, Sal wisely moved to sleep with his head on my shoulder.

And that's when I realized that he did, in fact, understand what I needed.

When he was first introduced to the man I now call 'spouse' - who happens to be a veterinarian - Salvador calmly looked at this stranger with his large green eyes, and my date for the evening reached out to stroke that soft, soft fur and said, with some measure of awe, 'that's the largest cat I've ever seen.'

One year into our marriage, he was predictably diagnosed with diabetes. Early in the treatment regimen, when we rushed him to the emergency vet for a late night blood sugar crash, we all stood and looked at him on the examining table, and the vet said, 'you know what I think?' - to two people who were freaked out at this stumbling, robotic cat who behaved like a complete stranger.

What? we asked.  What advice or declaration will he make? 

'He makes a GREAT foot-warmer, I bet!'

For five years, we administered insulin. Twice a day.  We provided him with some of those carpet-covered cylinders intended for cats to scratch and hide in, but in his case they were meant to ease his access to sofas and the bed.  It was becoming tougher to ascend on his own.

As he grew older, he slept more.  But if he was awake and you entered the room, he never failed to greet you, either with a murmur or a sharp mrowr! You could leave the room momentarily and return to yet another greeting.  Lather, rinse, repeat.

He slowly became deaf, but he never stopped talking.

At some point, his weight dropped a little.  And we had a wobbly, unsteady kitty at the clinic again. Was this a signifier of The End?

He was, after all, 18 years old.

Oh - diabetes in remission?  X-rays revealed his advanced arthritis.  In the lower back and knees.
The new regimen: twice-daily pain medication, in place of the insulin.

At age 20, he had 9 teeth extracted when an also-fearless veterinarian said she was confident that a cat his age would still get up from the table after all of that business.  And it was true.  After a quick recovery, he was back to eating dry food - which he still preferred.

As we readied ourselves and our belongings for the move to Rome, he suddenly struggled so much with lower back pain that we thought this might signify The End.

We mourned and twisted our hands with worry.  We made The Appointment for him, and mourned some more.

And he rallied.  Righted himself, somehow.  Resumed his normal, if still creaky and slow, state.
We moved forward with our original plans, and brought him with us. He managed the trip like a champ. I was happy to have my best buddy here with me.

In our new home, we made adjustments to the height of the bed.
Fashioned a kind of makeshift staircase made of gymnastics mats so he could get up and down with some degree of ease.
Little area rugs set up between bed and food station and litter box, because the floors are slippery and it's tough to make your old limbs behave sometimes.
Lowered the walls of the litter box.
We administered medicines for pain, for inexplicable infection, for slowly degrading kidneys, a recent return to a diabetic state.

We existed like this for 6 months.  He slept between us, resting his head on someone's arm.  Through the bedroom window, he watched the pigeons alighting on the rooftop of the church directly behind us.  He snuggled in next to one of us as we sat and read, invariably placing a paw on his human.

He recently lost control over his back legs for some inexplicable reason.  For the first time, he seemed afraid of how his body would not obey his wishes. The Spouse was gone on work travel for most of November, and so my schedule was orchestrated around Italian language classes, grocery acquisition, occasional meetings with students, and just spending a lot of time with Salvador.
We administered additional treatment for suspected spinal infection and orthopedic coordination.
The Spouse handled the chemistry side of this enterprise.  I was the physical therapist and coach.
And when Salvador seemed ready to take on the challenge, I put him through a workout.
Placed him on a yoga mat (good grip for old toes) some distance from me.  And waited.  Called to him. Over and over and over again.
He complained.  He murmured.  He complained some more.
And he struggled.  Struggled through getting up on arthritic hips and knees that didn't want to cooperate.

Once he got upright the first time, I scooped him up and called it a day.
Once he got upright and took a couple of steps, I scooped him up and gave him a break.
Once he got upright and walked several steps to me, I moved the target again.
And once he got up the gymnastic mat "steps" to the bed - on his own - I thought:  we've really done something here.  It looked as though Sal would be around for at least one more Christmas.

Any cat living for 21 years is an amazing feat that nothing can erase. 21 is winning, everyone wants to proclaim.  And all of these paragraphs attest to the brave battle, fought alongside our running commentary about quality of life: was he eating, drinking, purring and generally bright-eyed?  What if some days were better than other days? How bad are the bad days, exactly?

I have not-so-jokingly commented to The Spouse that doctors like him can have 'God problems,' that scientific knowledge emboldens them to push things, to fix things, that should perhaps be left to develop on their own, because it's time, for crying out loud.  Sometimes, it's time to let go.

But letting go takes bravery.  The kind that Salvador Cat Looney (the name that the pharmacy placed on all of his insulin bottles) has had in spades.

I have done some pretty brave (and maybe occasionally stupid) things in my life, especially if you consider where I came from and what I once knew.  This season in Rome, I have navigated a dense bus system to a wide variety of new places to take students for a class that I quickly - without thinking too much because there was no time to do that - applied for as a last-minute appointment.  I have traveled on the Italian rail system to another town by myself.  On a daily basis, I confront my very limited language skills in service of living here. Previous visitors to Rome would argue that I'm brave for stepping out onto a busy street here, given the nature of the traffic.  I can't argue.

And I am still not nearly as brave as Salvador Cat Looney.
For his sake, though, when he finally had a truly bad day, I had to pretend to be.

When its time to go, the body gives signals, and if we're lucky, the owner of the body tells us that the signals are there.  And of course, Salvador communicated.

The Spouse and I tried very hard to listen, and to somehow make a heart-rending, brave decision just last Wednesday.

Salvador Cat Looney was with me for almost half of my life.  A fixture like no other.  Twice as old as my primary relationships with any person.  A bond that the The Spouse attests he has rarely seen between an animal and their human.

My most beloved friend.

The bravest entity I have ever known.

The length of this post is, relatively speaking, a tiny testament to the depth and the span of love and, upon reflection, awe at such fearlessness.

And I now walk the streets of Rome, putting one foot in front of the other, but not because I'm really present or fully into any kind of holiday spirit.  My heart aches, or it has a hole in it, or it is just broken.  I can't decide.  I am relieved for him, but I never, ever wanted to be relieved of my responsibility for him.  At least once every hour, my mind reverts to the track it's been on, with ever-increasing frequency over the course of 21 years:  is he o.k.?  How long have I been gone from him? What does he need? Is he waiting for one of us?  How is he feeling? What should I be doing to take care of him right now, given how he took care of me, as a great and wild companion, for so long?

And then I remember that there is no more worrying for him.

And the heart aches anew.

So I persist.

I put one foot in front of the other because just one week ago, Salvador did.  For me.

For us.

Salvador, 1995-2016

post-script:
A massive, heartfelt thank you to the following people is issued for the care they extended to my best buddy, and therefore, me:

Animal Medical Care in Gainesville, Georgia
Briarcliff Animal Clinic, Atlanta, Georgia
Veterinaria Fleming, Roma, Italy
Dean Adams, Gainesville, Georgia

and finally, to this person (here with 'his' Smokey):

Dr. Doolittle, you gave everything in your power to give - to me - and him - for more time with Sal. I'll stubbornly try, but I'm certain that I can't thank you enough.  And yes, I know, it's because you love us. Our family is smaller, but your heart may very well be the biggest thing in it. I am so grateful for that and the fact that while you mourn with me, you still are a source of strength as I grieve.

I have been - and continue to be - unbelievably lucky to know two wonderful guys.

Borrowing Priviledges

"How are your kids settling in?" I was asked at an event to welcome American newcomers to Rome.

"I don't have children," I flatly stated.

"Oh," the questioner responded, a little flustered at her own sense of awkwardness.  She floundered a bit for what to say next.  It seems that for many people, children literally and figuratively fill social spaces.

Not typically known for my gift with small talk (I am the first to admit that I'm just horrible at it), I helped her out anyway.  I talked about my four-legged, furry children, and the conversation didn't go down in flames.

The funny thing is, I feel no awkwardness about this subject.

Oh, just chilling with a student and The Spouse under the Pantheon portico.

You can call me childless, or you can call me child-free.  Plenty of people take issue with either term. I don't.  The circumstances around anyone's status as either is fodder for others to explore or pontificate.

The matter-of-fact point here is that I am not an actual parent, and I'm not distressed about it.

As an educator of both high school and college students (who are now all ages, by the way), I have witnessed a wide variety of parenting styles.  I sometimes think that if my circumstances were different AND I could magically take the phases of my life and rearrange them, I would want to parent children after years-long observations and reviews of how how others do it.  Hindsight and all - it's beneficial. Many of you would probably agree with that.

Greece study abroad trip with university and continuing education students - 2010

Grandparents might say that in a way, they get that option - with limitations.  

Aunts and uncles and godparents might say that they get that option - also with limitations. 

I have none of those roles either. 

I don't see myself as an especially good candidate for them, as current parenting/child-raising trends seem to dictate.  I'm not much of a hugger.  I'm lean with praise.  I'll hand you a tissue, but would prefer appealing to your intellect instead of your emotions.  I'm terribly practical.  Students' evaluations of my classes and my advising capacities include things like 'sarcastic,' 'blunt,' 'not very sympathetic,' and 'demanding.'  

The upside: those assessments are sometimes balanced out by indications that the absolutely most important thing that is supposed to happen in class - or in the advisor's office - is actually happening. 

They learned something. 

In the Challenging the Food Pyramid (Reacting to the Past) game, a Health and Human Services character raises her hand to speak...

A little journaling outside Herculaneum, near Naples, 2012

Roman 'senators' plot and scheme in the Beware the Ides of March, Rome 44BC (Reacting to the Past) game

So perhaps I know my place in this world, as it pertains to other people's children.  

Here is where I will not go down the path of pithy sayings about the value of education or the educator.  I won't add to the already immense amount of dialogue out there about the nobility of teaching others.  I am struck sometimes by how polarizing that topic is, today, and I also worry a lot about the pervasive commodification of something I love and cannot personally quantify.  I cannot tell a student that her student loan debt isn't important.  I can only tell her instead that her education is the one thing that no one can take away from her.  I cannot justify the fact that for several years, legislative measures 'awarded' funding to schools that 'performed,' test score-wise, better than others.  I cannot rationalize the fact that many, many undervalued teachers in the States must take on extra means of income because their primary one - the one they pour so much of themselves into - does not garner a true, living wage.

I didn't choose to do this because I wanted to make a lot of money.

I think that -  despite my protestations to the contrary ('what will you do with these degrees?' they asked me, as I was earning them, "teach?" And for a little while, I said 'no.') - the profession chose me.

And while I've learned a lot from doing this for over twenty years, what I want to emphasize here is how this occupation informs me.  

Every day I perform the role of teacher or mentor, I learn more things about myself.

A specialist from the Atlanta Art Conservation Center visits my art history class and shares some thoughts about a 19th century American landscape painting in the University collection

They rightly call me demanding, but they may not realize that the person working to fulfill the longest list of demands is that aging person I see in the mirror every morning.  

They rightly call me a perfectionist, but they have no idea how much of that tendency I direct towards the work I'm performing.  I care so much about that elusive activity - learning! - that I am in fact monitoring *my* cultivation of it far more than I am judging them for not performing at some anticipated level.  Bad set of tests?  Pervasive misunderstanding of information or directions? I ruthlessly ruminate:  where is my culpability? If I can identify it, I will stubbornly tinker with that stuff until I think I've solved it...until something tells me that it isn't solved, and the process begins again. 

They rightly call me sarcastic, but they do not know how I want my hands-off approach to be a key to liberation.  They see me as both serious and funny, but they do not know how often I have been moved to pure and raw emotion at the sight of surprising growth, the revelation of insight, the joy of being engaged in the enterprise, their wonder at the world.  

The big self-portrait assignment..a source of much grumbling and eventual pride.

A big registrarial and curatorial project  from 'soup to nuts,' for two studio majors, finally installing the show in 2012 

The truth is:  I have the best seat in the house.

A Color Course group project underway.

And this is pretty simple stuff:  I just like knowing that I had some hand in those steps.  

A tableaux vivant for the endgame of Greenwich Village 1913 (Reacting to the Past) in an honors class.

A tiny but mighty group of travelers in the Paris and Belgium travel abroad group of 2014

decision-mapping a game character

a student presentation in the Capitoline Museum of Rome, 2016

I have been and will continue to be chastised by well-meaning friends for attempting to sustain this side of my life - even after having moved to a foreign city and it has been declared by The Spouse that I don't 'have to,' but I DO have to. It might be nice (for others) to be a lady who lunches, but I just don't function properly that way.  (I tried it one day, and it just didn't do anything for me). 

I thrive on this sense of purpose.  

I am admittedly pretty useless without it - in some fashion.

So today I want to thank all the people who have loaned their people to me. 

A last visit at the airport with an international student.

pizza and some laughs

A 'full-circle' person:  first a student, and later, a colleague.

A number of them have become friends, post-learning experiences or post-graduation.  I keep in touch with so many.  Sometimes they tell me what mattered when we were teacher-student.  Sometimes we just deal with the here and now.  And sometimes we still talk about futures - minus the office setting.

And if I really contemplate how massive and incredible it is that someone wants to know what I think, or what I might recommend, or what my opinion could be...or that I am entrusted with their thoughts, opinions and hopes...I am overwhelmed and can't put words around that feeling.  I poured a lot in, and got so much back out.  So much more than I expected.

I am confided in and favored and remembered and honestly, gifted with this growing collection of individuals who are remarkable and colorful and real.  It's a responsibility, yes.  And it's a big famiglia, and it turns out that it's the kind that I like.

When someone asks me if I have children, I say that I don't, and it's not a problem, because I teach other people's.  My adult life has been populated by an abundance of 'children.'

So, copious thanks to the parents and families and friends and partners who loaned their people - of whatever age - to me.

It was - and continues to be - a privilege.

Venice

 It was my extraordinarily good fortune to have a friend invite me along on a quick sojourn to the Gateway to the East:  Venice.

The general opinion was that just in case it was really sinking (and it is, but at a very slow pace), it should be regarded and even enjoyed before it can't be. 

A 3 hour (speedy, really) train trip north from Rome, up to the crook of the back of the knee-high boot, and there we were.  

All the better to arrive in style, courtesy of a water taxi.

Down the Grand Canal we went. 

The first thing you notice, aside from the celadon green water - categorized as 'brackish,' so a mix of salt and fresh - is the number (and types) of bridges spanning the canals.

But because you've been so busy rubbernecking, you temporarily forget that this is a rather nice boat for a water taxi, and it is being commandeered by some pretty cute taxi 'drivers.' 

back to rubbernecking...

Venetian architecture is most assuredly Gothic in feeling, if not outright style.

Once we alighted from our boat, we met our airbnb owner, dropped our bags at the place, and went looking for lunch.

And on the way to said lunch, ran by Peggy's place.

And this was our lunchtime view on a splendid day. Including a gondolier, loafing a bit while waiting for someone to ask for a (80 euros!) ride.

The view from the Accademia bridge, close to the sestiere we were staying in:  Dorsoduro. It's the artsy, Southern side of the conglomeration of islands.

After lunch, we walked.  A lot.  We walked even more than we should have, because Googlemaps is actually not really useful in the city I've always thought was THE #1 place in which to get lost.

For whatever reasons - probably cell tower positioning and little narrow streets - you're not terribly place-able, GPS-wise.  You can watch your little pin jump all over the neighborhood you're walking in, and you've only walked in a straight line.

We made it to the Rialto bridge...which I intended to visit in part because I knew that I could buy a special quince mustard somewhere near there.  Problem was, store location and hours of availability.  Navigations, poor directions, irritable Venetians...all those things aside, wouldja look at this view!

In Rome, you find Madonnas at almost every street corner (expect a future blog post about them). Here, you find all sorts of other architectural embellishments at street corners and also on doors.

The next morning, before we set off on our 'Secrets of Venice' walking tour, I took a little tour of my own:  to the southern-most tip of Dorsoduro.  This might well be my favorite image of all.

I decided to pop into Santa Maria della Salute (Saint Mary of Health).  This is a central plan church built in recognition of Venice's delivery from a vicious bout with the plague.  

Every November 21st, Venetians pay homage to this historic event by making a pilgrimage across the Grand Canal - by walking carefully over a bridge made of Venetian boats.  They visit this church on the Feste della Salute, give thanks for the collective health of the city, buy small gifts of candy for the children, and feast at home.

I walked around the tip of Dorsoduro, and along the southern side.  

So this is how you get your little boat up and out of the water. 

Across the larger body of water is Giudecca, a slightly more distant part of Venice.

As a friend of mine has often said - and he travels a LOT for a living - Venice offers a special kind of exertion for visitors.  Flat, sure, and fairly smooth surfaces...but bridges.  So many bridges.  409, to be precise.  And those are for traversing the 118 islands that make up the city.

An old, noteworthy palazzo undergoing restoration.  Look at the original, elaborate chimney tops.

I suppose that people are guilty of talking loudly on the phone everywhere, and I just happen to notice more how I'm privy to people's one-sided conversations in such intimate places. 

We call this motif the Man of Sorrows- Christ half in and half out of the tomb - which in this case is a little more than symbolic for the charity collection box. 

Street names in Venice are different from others in other parts of Italy.  'Calle' is a common street term. 'Rio terra' is a former canal that has been filled in with earth.

St. George?

Santa Maria of the Rosary, of course. Biggest one I've ever seen.

A workshop/garage for gondoliers.

Yes, they wear the straw hats and striped shirts.  So it turns out that this profession is lucrative (I had previously suspected that it was just another part of the - rather resented - tourist trade work) People who successfully get through years of training - both in gondola preparation and navigation as well as information about the city so that they can operate as tour guides - do very well here.
  Only one woman has ever joined the profession's ranks.

Come with us on our gondola ride....

"I'm hungry.  Is it time for pranzo?"

Note the artist situated on the bridge, under his little umbrella.  Venice has always been well-regarded for its unique light.

"Pronto!"
"Mama - I'm working right now!"

I've come to this city several times.  And the gondoliers always just brush past the undersides of these bridges.

Beautiful and ruinous

I imagine stress-dreams for gondoliers (is that weird?) involving gondolas too large for little bridges...or passengers too large for the gondolas.

"Ciao, friend in the window!"

And back out to the Grand Canal we go...

The Guggenheim (what I formerly called 'Peggy's place'). Not too shabby, having a palazzo on the Grand Canal.  It is now a museum that holds Peggy's collection of mid-century modern art.  She managed to obtain permission to be buried (Venetians are not buried in the city, typically) in the adjoining garden - alongside her beloved dogs.

That would be an Alexander Calder sculpture on the left (we're still looking at Peggy's place).

A sample mosaic from the exterior of the building featured in the previous shot

Venice - particularly in the era of the late Renaissance, with its strange surplus of convents, painted ladies and resulting sumptuary laws (designed to restrict overly luxurious conduct and attire) - was, and is!, a place to not only see but also be seen.

Lunch with a lady and her French bulldog. Snoozing away.

Spaghetti all sepia (cuttlefish ink) - a favorite of mine

And a spontaneous visit to St. Moise, with its elaborate sculpture of Moses with the Tablets on Mount Sinai

And as the day wore on, the rain clouds rolled in.

Inside St. Marks...snuck a couple of shots...a priest in some nice lighting conditions

Impressive floor pavement

Outside, more reliefs here and there, such as the Madonna of the Misericordia (Mercy)

And inside the now defunct church Santa Maria Gloriosa dei Frari, a few masterpieces, such as Titian's Assumption of the Virgin

Elaborate choir stall

(Sorry my Madonna of the Pesaro Family photo didn't make the cut...too blurry under such low light conditions!..here she is)

Antonio Canova's tomb - crafted by his students

And off to the legendary Harry's Bar for a Bellini...or champagne.

The Bellini cocktail - prosecco, peach nectar, a little sparkling water - was invented here. I imagine the dapper Don and white-gloved Betty Draper in this bar.

The vaporetto (water taxi) back to the train station...Crowded!

On our walking tour of Dorsoduro, a visitor asked our native-born Venetian guide whether Venetians hate tourists.

This is a tricky question, as tourism is the main source of revenue for the city, and the main irritant for residents.  Imagine trying to go about your daily business - in a city where you can really only walk! - and experiencing the crush of over 25,000 visitors per day.  Our savvy tour guide navigated that delicate issue well by saying that while tourism is indeed a necessary component (and guess which nationality comprises the greatest portion of that crowd?  Americans) of living in a city like Venice, the situation for a rapidly declining native population would be eased considerably by imposed regulations on the number of daily visitors.  Most tourists are 'day-players,' who stay on the mainland or have a cruise ship or bus drop them off for a single day's visit to the city.  So, in both large and small crowds, they see sights, they consume resources, they buy souvenirs and they leave.

We were asked if we were day-players.  Fortunately, we weren't.  So as true visitors who stay for a bit, we were contributing something - however minor - by paying taxes on our air b&b.  While this is a positive, it bears mentioning that locals who truly live full-time in the city also resent the rather large proportion of property owners who rent their properties to tourists most or all of the year.  Such practices create a different kind of impact on structures and infrastructure.

That reality is distinctly felt, as you walk the little winding streets of Venice.  It is already an eerily quiet place because there is no motorized traffic save for the occasional vaporetto or similar water conveyance.  But it is, I think, additionally quiet during weekdays when other cities would have quite a bit of locally manifested foot traffic of residents conducting daily errands and shopping.  You can walk off the beaten paths between Piazza San Marco and the Rialto bridge, and explore very, very empty streets and even whole piazzas.  The residential population of Venice is dwindling; in the last 65 years, it has shrunken by over two thirds, from 171,000 to 55,000.

The question of whether Venice is sinking is less of a concern than the question of whether Venice is disappearing.  Will it become like Disney World some day:  an entire simulacrum?  Will it merely be a contrivance of what once was a major city with power and prestige?  Will there only be 'stunt residents' who actually live elsewhere in their real - and not performative for the sake of gawking tourists - lives?

Our tour guide was surprised to learn that I have visited her fair city about 4 times.  To her, that is three times more than most visitors, who take the established trails from big attraction to big attraction, take the token gondola ride, and take home pictures of this city of impossibilities.  To me, it is endlessly fascinating, and I am already scheming ways to revisit so I can see the parts I haven't.

It is a challenge to reconcile that wish with the knowledge that I - and so many others - are not especially welcome.

I want to visit the Venice that is off the beaten paths, and I want to tread lightly, so that she neither sinks nor diminishes for want of value or lack of investment.