Category Archives: photography

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What martians drink

The Ragtag Daily Prompt is traipse. I looked up Tiny Tim’s Tiptoe through the Tulips, but I don’t want to post it. So instead, another Peter and Lou Berryman. I saw them live while I was in college at UW in Madison, Wisconsin. Once I got my MD, I can especially enjoy the chorus about Dr. O.

And yesterday I really enjoyed watching the Osiris land. How exciting! Gravel from Bennu, the asteroid! Space and science geeks are high as kites, me included!

My photograph is from the Vatican Museum. Look at that ceiling, they were space geeks too.

Let’s traipse to Wisconsin, hop on Dr. Otto’s rocket ship and find out what Martians drink and when they close the bars.

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Sexually active

At a clinic visit this week the Medical Assistant screens me. “Are you sexually active?”

I say, “Um, what do you mean?”

“Are you sexually active?”

“Um, I do not have a partner.” By now, I really want to laugh.

She still looks confused. “You are not sexually active.”

“Ok.” I try not to giggle. Apparently her question series does not cover um, solo sexual activity and I resist telling her about the downtown sexual health and toy store. The new multispeed, multipattern suction toys are, well, enlightening and INSPIRING and EXPLOSIVE.. Or, um, something. Snort.

Let’s just study the dome. This is from Venice and tells the story of Adam and Eve.

I have sent a message to my physician saying that they may want to rephrase the questions. “Do you have any sexual partners?” would be more enlightening as far as sexually transmitted disease risk. Heh. The whole thing cracked me up. My blood pressure was still 108 over 70. Ha, so there, heart disease. My English/Scots father’s family is adapted to tobacco and alcohol and my father ran a low blood pressure even with 55 years of unfiltered Camels in his lungs.

Heh.

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: dome. This is the Basilica San Marcos, which has multiple domes. This one tells the story of Adam and Eve. I now want to paint one of my ceilings. The bathrooms have too much moisture. I suspect this will not enthuse future realtors.

Alone and lonely are not the same thing.

Fantasy is good.

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Fashions

I did not sort out Italian fashions in the two weeks I traveled with my daughter.

For one thing, we were mostly in tourist areas. It was hot, though not as hot as August. Very thin straps on tops and short shorts or skirts were to be covered to go in to the big churches and the Vatican Museum. Having to cover up is just a little ironic since so many of the sculptures are nude or partly nude, both male and female.

I took a black skirt and a pair of pants that are loose and flowered and cool. These proved to be very good guesses for my age group. I had washable travel button down shirts, which worked well. I never used my fleece jacket or rain jacket, on this trip. My feet complained and I might choose different shoes next time.

One recurring theme that I noticed is leopard prints. Dresses, skirts, shirts, blouses. I saw them in each of the five cities. There also is a recurrence of rompers. My daughter comments, “There are very few people that look good in rompers but mostly people don’t.” I didn’t like them in the 1970s and I don’t like them now. We did see a very few either tall or thin or both women who carried them off.

Tourist wear is all over the place but mostly is driven by the heat. Hats were for sale to tourists and large scarves to double as a skirt to cover short shorts or skirts.

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: unclear.

This website seems to think leopard prints were in this year. I really do not know. Do you?

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Farm tour

I realize that tractable is not about tractors, but I still am thinking about tractors and the Farm Tour. I went to five farms and it was really fun. Not many tractors at the farms I went to. Beautiful Arabian horses at one.

The pig farm is quite wonderful. Lots of piglets. This mom maybe is having a nursing break.

These were only five days old.

And there were sheep and flowers and chickens. And skulls, too.

I’m not sure what was going on with the skulls. I did not get any pictures of tractors. I don’t think the large pigs are very tractable, but they are interested in their visitors.

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: tractable.

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No waste

My daughter and I hike in Cinque Terre, Italy. There are five villages along the coast and a trail from the first to the last. Lots of stairs! And look at the terraces, built to farm the area. They grow mostly grapes and olives.

No cars in the towns.

Here is a map.

Here is a stairway from the path to a terrace.

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: waste. No waste here.

A view from the path.

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Diversity

This is the Trevi Fountain. We can curate the photographs so that we can’t see the crowd. Here is the crowd.

There are lots of changes from 43 years ago, 1980, when I traveled there. More people. We were traveling in January and February 1980, so that’s not a fair comparison. But the crowd is more diverse. At that time we ran into Australian travelers, the same people in hostels as we traveled. We were mostly Caucasian. Now the crowd is much more diverse and I also do not know what language a person will speak. Race is a messy construct anyhow, very unscientific, but I really like the diversity and not knowing what language a person will be fluent in until I hear them speak.

Here is the Vatican Museum. Also crowded and diverse.

Here is a park near the train station in Rome with some “Olympics” for both kids and adults.

We were staying in hostels and only did one formal tour. I wonder if the expensive hotels have the same diversity.

Let’s end with the fountain again.

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt.