Lunedi Lunacy

Cats can be such drama queens!



07 giugno - San Candido

Trieste - Felines

As with any city here in Italy, Trieste has its stray cats. This little group seem quite content with their lot.

However this feline at Miramare was not happy to have her drinking session interrupted by the clicking of a camera. That is one disdainful look.

05 giugno - San Bonifacio vescovo

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

Cats Amongst the Cloisters

I'm working on a slide show of the Cloister of Santa Chiara with its beautiful garden of majolica ceramic but I found this bench in the centre of the garden particularly delightful.

Every place you go in Italy you are confronted by stray cats, as I've posted often there are cat sanctuaries in almost every major city. And every neighbourhood has it's "cat lady," or even ladies, who leave out food and water for the strays in the area.

Well it appears this is nothing new - and what under the sun ever is? Back in 1739 a tile maker working on the adornments for the Cloister garden took inspiration from what he saw around him. This is one of the few benches in the garden that reflects convent life.I love how the unknown artist has capture a bit of a feeding frenzy in the felines as they head towards, what is obviously, their source of daily goodies.That one cat in the middle looks like he may have been in a few battles in the neighbourhood. They all look very well fed and is it me or do a few look more like rats than cats?

06 febbraio - San Paolo Miki

Cat Amongst the Angels

Last Saturday was the first full day of sunshine we had since all week so, morning marketing done, Laurent and I decided to explore our neighbourhood.

The main cemetery for the city, Cimitero del Verano, is located a 10 minute walk along Viale Regina Margherita from our place; so we decided to hike down to Piazza San Lorenzo and give a look see. I have mentioned in the past that we both enjoy visiting cemeteries - when I said this to an Italian friend he thought it was morbid in the extreme. But we find it a great chance to explore another part of our adopted city's history.

Like any cemetery Campo Verano has its share of kitschy monuments and this reclining angel must be amongst the kitschiest.
And being a Roman cemetery it also has to have cats - and if this sleek and well fed feline is anything to go by there must be a cat lady or ladies who feed and look after them regularly.At first she approached us with great interest but when there was no food forthcoming decided we were best ignored.Though her disdain for the treatless humans was nothing compared to her opinion of that angel.And I tend to agree with her.

23 gennaio - Sant'Emerenziana

Lunedi Lunacy

Michael, my old (well actually he's young) friend and former work colleague from Warsaw days, is planning to get himself a cat. But like any responsible person who wants to be owned by a pet he's been researching first. One of his resources has been on YouTube for a while but appears to be a sensible (?) guide to owner petship.



19 gennaio - Santa Faustina di Como e Santa Lierata di Como

Contentment

It was a sunny, warm autumn day when we visited Villa Torlonia last week.



24 ottobre - Sant'Antonio María Claret y Clará

Content

28 marzo - San Sesto Papa

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