little creatures

Rome has few non-human inhabitants, but the ones who reside here have a lot of personality. I heard the seagulls first, though I thought they were crying babies. Actually they sounded not unlike the squealing 3-yr-old who sat in front of me on the plane ride over the pond. Her father seemed to adopt the "man-servant at beck and call" approach to parenting, though that may have simply been a strategy to keep her from going ballistic at 40K feet. Not that it worked. She was long for her age (the concept of height and airplane seats don't really go together) so I judged her immediately to be a poorly managed kindergartener. When we learned, at the end of the trip, that she was 3, I was (only) slightly embarrassed at my too-quick assessment of her behavior. I have learned to make tentative judgments of little children lest their sins be visited upon me someday one hundredfold. Still, I make them (doesn't everybody?). The beautiful thing is that I got to say a big old good-bye to her and her doting papa - who has a Wikipedia page all to himself - after only 9 hours.

Not so with the seagulls, who make different noises depending on the time of day. Mid-day is their baby time. At night they turn into wild animals, and the morning they sound like actual birds. Together with the Italian chiacchiarare (chatting), Vespa buzzing, and near motor/pedestrian collisions, my little piazza is quite a symphony. Probably in 3 weeks that will change in my estimation to cacophony.

Other animals: I saw out of the corner of my eye a little lizard sunning himself, right after climbing these steps:



Until a rat sighting, I was telling myself that Rome had only seagulls, lizards, and cats. Oh yes, the cats of Rome are famous, enough to have a movie about them available on Netflix. Not that I can't get Netflix here: no, tried that last night and got a very nice message that due to licensing restrictions I can't use Instawatch (my name for internet viewing) outside the 50 states. No matter, Eclipse and a bunch of old films with expired copyrights will keep me busy.

ANYWAY. The cats. There is one who guards the door, if you can call lying on top of a tiny 4-wheel-drive all day guarding. When he's not on top of the vehicle he's on the ground near it.

This is not an animal but it's a funny picture I took at the Tempietto. I couldn't help taking this one by means of reaching through the heavy iron gate barring the way to San Pietro's tomb on the spot where he was supposedly martyred and snapping a picture of what turns out to be a possessed looking cherub. Those Renaissance architects had some sense of humor.



I'm getting hungry but here is one more of me eating fava beans, little creatures themselves, on the Passeggiatta del Gianocolo. I love me some fava beans, especially when they're the closest thing I had to lunch. Big plate of pasta, here I come!