La Serenissima

I know it has been forever, but I have some really good excuses...like three conference talks in as many months.... (Two were supposed to have been the same, but that will not be happening.) I will be leaving for perhaps my favorite city tomorrow. I'll be looking for an Orion-sized mask, with bells (per request), and yet another keychain-sized screw--mine always falls out right before another trip--maybe this is fate telling me I need another dose of Venice. I'll be living in a studio apt for almost two weeks, near San Toma, Scuola Grande di San Rocco, and the Frari (halleluiah); this is a part of town I don't know well at all. My talk will be on a work published in Venice, so that's cool; and I'll also do some library and perhaps archive work. I'm a little scattered (where IS that library card I procured last time!?) and I do not look forward to being tutto da sola for such a long time. Sure, I can attend Easter Mass in San Marco, but I'll miss Orion.

A little update--he has become quite poetic and musical. He can find "C" on the piano--"two b(l)ack (n)otes e down!" and has expanded his "thoughtful singing moments" from his one-hit-wonder, Tinko Tinko Itto Sa, to include snatches of Hot Cross Buns, Oh my darling Clementine, I've been working on the Railroad, Down by the Station, the Mulberry Bush, Hi Ho it's off to work we go, BaaBaa Black Sheep and the alphabet song, and probably others that I can't remember right now. He continues to drop the first letter off of many words; he has infinite-seeming homonyms; and a huge vocabulary. He is a terrific potty master (still in diapers at night), and still can't really jump, although it is cute when he tries.

His imagination is super right now, but the combination pretending to do something and many homonyms makes it sometimes hard to know what he's doing. He did, in a moment of poetic genius, pick up the rind of the orange-eighth (the "astronaut", in our family's terms), hold it upside down, and say Rainbow! "Ain-bow!" Yes indeed! Then he held it up high and tilted and said "Moon!" Why yes, it does look like the orange crescent moon.

Another favorite is tearing around the house saying Get the Monster! Get the Monster! (Getta Mossa! Getta Mossa!). After a recent hearing of Berlioz Symphonie Fantastique, in which I narrated the story (somewhat censored--I didn't stress the beheading....) of the Witches' Sabbath, he replaced it with Getta Itch! but I think he's back to the monsters now. One of his funniest recent sayings is "Ucky Boy!" that is, Lucky, especially after eating the chocolate found during a neighborhood Easter Egg Hunt.