Cat Naps

I’ve mentioned before about the feral cats that roam the neighbourhoods of Roma and the ladies who attend to their feeding and care. In our previous area there was the little lady with the limp, more noticeable in the bad weather, who showed up without fail every morning to leave food and water at various locations along the street. At Villa Torlonia there are two ladies who go about refilling plastic bowls and plates for the numerous strays who live in Il Duce’s former residence. On Via Nomentana every morning at 10 the cats wait patiently inside fence of the derelict Villa Blanca for the security guard who unlocks the gate to admit the elderly lady with their daily rations.

Our current neighbourhood is no different. Every morning on the way to work I pass plastic plates – most of them empty indicating that the local “cat lady” has been by earlier to feed her charges. However she – I am assuming it is a she as I have yet to see a “cat gentleman” except at the cat shelters – has gone one step further and built a shelter for those under her care.This rather elaborate structure takes half the sidewalk but has remained in tact, unmolested for the past few months. Given the driving rains and violent storms we’ve had this past few months I’m sure the felines in the neighbourhood have been pleased with this extra bit of caring.

17 marzo - San Patrizio

Parlo del Piu e del Meno - Internet Discoveries

• Our friend Larry, who's moved to Rome to be with his partner Vincenzo, is a recent arrival from North America. Like us he's experiencing that settling in process that can be exhilarating as much as it can be exasperating, as fascinating as much as it can frustrating. And like me he's writing about his experiences here in his blog: AMOROMA (I love Rome.)
  One of the frustrations are the number of stray cats in the city and one of the fascinations are the Cat Ladies - every neighbourhood has at least one. Normally older women, unmarried or widowed, they have taken it as their task to see to the needs of the street cats in their area. They put out food - water is not a problem as it is ready available from the constantly running communal pumps - and tend to the wounds that street cats are prone to. Often they are the only people the cats will let approach them - justifiably given the number of people I've seen kick at the strays. And in some cases the Cat Ladies set up Sanctuaries to look after the strays; Larry has adopted a blind kitten at the Torre Argentina Sanctuary, Emily Bronte, she's a beauty.

• A few weeks ago on one of the chats I ran into Paolo and he mentioned he had a website featuring his photography and video images. Since then I've made frequent visits to Light and Colors; his most recent update (October 6, 2007) includes some incredible photos of one of my favorite cities in the World - Venice. Paolo doesn't only love to capture Italy - though understandably it is the focus of much of his work - he obviously has a closeness to France and Paris. I enjoy his work immensely and find his black and white studies and portraits remarkable.



• I received a comment from Giorgia Meschini over at Opéra Bouffe on the Forza Nuova poster that appeared around town last Sunday. Like many Romans she was disturbed by both the content and the organization sponsoring the rally. I'm still not sure if the rally had a big turnout or not as I didn't see anything on television about it and I'm still struggling with reading the newspapers. Honestly I have a feeling I will struggling with Italian for the next four years - the old brain just isn't what it once was.
  
  Giorgia's blog is in Italian and I've warned her I'm going to use it as a learning tool. She combines classical music, a love of Robbie Burns, a big crush on Antonio Pappano, a love of English history (at least from what I can see on her Guy Fawkes post) and hot pictures of the cutest nephew this side Tiber. And she's promised she'll keep the local idioms down for the dumb Inglese (my words not her's) or better yet explain them.
  
  10 novembre - San Leone Magno