Dear Gentle Reader

H and I are just derevealing from our trip to Rome, and even though we were not away for very long, it was rejuvenating and it felt as if we were in the Eternal City for quite some time. In fact, though I had no issues of separation-anxiety with work and emails, I felt that I had been away for so long that I felt remiss with giving my readership, my followers, a much awaited update. I'm never certain what LonelyGal_Winnepeg wants to hear about first... Rome was breathtaking and I didn't realize beforehand that downtown was peopled was mammoth ruins like that. In the movies, one sees vespas circling the Colosseum but one cannot really imagine the entrenched excellent rubble. Years ago, a piece I read by Joan Dideon on the then new Getty museum--an apparent eye-sore in its day. She posited that there was a point in the age of any monument's life when it makes the transition from tacky to distinguished. The Baths of Caracalla and the Imperial Fori probably looked like audacious symphonies when brand-new, different than a modern shopping mall but not by much, and needed to reach a certain vintage to inspire awe and wonder.