Orion sayings and creative outlet

Crashing a party at a Master's house at Yale, and providing some entertainment...
One of his favorite tricks: "A-pane! A-pane!" Airplane, flying on the floor.
Orion's vocabulary and sentence-forming have exploded in the last two weeks. I went to get him up from his nap yesterday, and he fully said, "Mama, please can I get up now?" Which is cute and unusual both because it was a full polite sentence and the fact that we've converted his crib to a toddler bed, so he can get up whenever he likes. No one has enlightened him of this fact, and that is fine with me. We also made fresh lemonade for the first time this week, and he calls it "mamanade", which is appropriate, since I did the bulk of the lemon squeezing. It was worth it, though; a perfect taste of summer. Orion has also been singing more songs, such as O my darling Clementine (chorus), Doggydog Dover, Rainbow Connection/Somewhere Over the Rainbow (his favorite requests for bedtime songs: "ainbow shjong? Oder ainbow schong?" I have to sing them both).


He also loves taking pictures with the camera. Here are a few of the many examples, which I have titled.
"Afternoon Light, Ghost-Bride Curtain"


"Waiting for Dinner"

"Untitled: Chandelier"

"Red Clock"

"Daddy Prepares Dinner"

"Mama"


"Study in Yellow, Blue, White: Tipsy Yellow Galosh"

Spring photos

Hi, Dan here. I'm adding a number of photos of Orion from this spring. Here are a couple of him going down a favorite slide, near the Whitehall apartments in New Haven. Ain't he handsome?

Here is one of Orion posing with Eva's flowers in our back yard.



He really loved a butterfly garden that we visited in central Massachusetts.

"BubbaFyes! BubbaFyes!" Here he is with Mama among the butterflies. There were lizards and birds and tortoises too!


He is a child of the 21st century, already learning how to work an iPhone.
A favorite phrase right now is a very clear "That's so amazing!"

And nothing is more fun than spraying water on a hot day. Here he is being useful, watering some new grass seed.

And a ride on Daddy's shoulders, following a windy picnic at the beach.

Boats in Venice

Orion loves large vehicles of all types. His love of "gucks", as those of you with small boys in your life may know, is completely and strongly self-motivated--a fact that I did not believe was possible to this extant before having my own son.
One wonders to what extant trucks and the like fascinate Venetian toddlers, as there is no way to drive any cars or trucks through the streets of Venice. Instead, Venice has the equivalent in boats, that must travel through the canals to assist and transport the citizens of the Serenissima. (This post is mostly for Orion, for now, although Italo Calvino is not far from my mind.)

Instead of fire trucks, you have fire boats (luckily still red):Instead of taxis with wheels, water taxis:
Here's the police station, with blue police boats:
This was far away, but there is a barge with a cement truck and another construction truck traveling through the Giudecca canal (leaving no doubt as to how high construction costs are in Venice):
Here is a shipyard, with gondolas on the mend:
An ambulance:
A water bus, or vaporetto:
And, my favorite, the produce boat, with particularly good fruits and veggies:


This boat has always been there during my visits, near Campo Santa Margarita and a wonderful gelateria (try Cherry and Tiramisu mousse--always order two flavors--at least--at a time).

Venezia

View from the Rialto, my first day in Venice in April.

Dan and I always take our picture together by the Tetrarchs when we're in Venice together....although I was by myself, I thought I'd keep up the tradition. (None of these pictures are very good--I only had my phone camera with me. But many more before me have given Venice her due in photographs, so I show here only a minimum of my trip.)
Even more than the few months I spent in Venice, living on the Giudecca, I tried to live like a local, shopping at the Rialto (above; I forgot to take a picture of the fruit stands and my fish and cheese stand pictures are even worse), commuting via traghetto, or a gondola shuttle across Canal Grande (below; one stands during the ride), patronizing gelaterie and pasticcerie, and visiting friends.

I just can't get enough of Venetian Renaissance facades of colored marble, as in S Maria dei Miracoli (below) and the Scuola San Marco, still a working hospital.
Venetian Gothic, too, is lovely, as in Tintoretto's parish church, S Maria dell'Orto (below) and Ss. Zanipolo, just to the right above (where the Bellini family was buried).
He's buried in the church; here's his memorial. I saw plenty of wonderful Tintoretto paintings and Bellini paintings and scuplture and prints and drawings and altarpieces; that's why I was there, and why I love my job.
I also visited San Michele, the island cemetery. I'd wanted to go for a decade, but never had the chance. It is really beautiful, an extended garden, with graves of veneziani and a few famous people. I said hello to Stravinsky and Diaghilev.



A few more pictures, from Ca d'Oro, with its funny collection but the last Mantegna; the university, where I spoke for a conference (the Renaissance Society of America), my primary reason for the journey; my apartment was just behind Goldoni's house; this apt gave me access to a Grand Canal door and view; watching the boats from my slippery little platform eating a gelato was a pretty amazing experience.









And finally, a hint for you, dear reader, on what else preoccupied yours truly in Venice. (And no, it is not that Italians spend a fortune on their kids' clothes, although that is true.)


(For another hint, see my trench in the photo above, and for the last hint, see my posts for the last time I was in Venice, Sept. 2007.) Any guesses?

Orion Pictures, Easter and Silly ("obe")

I took pictures of Orion for Easter but then forgot to bring the camera to the Egg Hunt. Oh well. Doesn't he look smashing?! What a charmer.


And some silly pictures of Orion wearing his lion towel, which he calls his robe ("O-adan's obe").


I know you're actually waiting for pictures from Venice....

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.

orion is saying right now: airplane up, up in the sky with clouds!

"Ah-pane up up ina schy couds! voom voom!"

Earlier this evening, inside an empty box:

It's not a box, its an oil truck [delivering] oil to the house!

"not-a-dots, azha guck azha a 'ouse!"

(zh is the j in bonjour) (he also says "wow" "hzow" it is pretty cute. Ws are definitely difficult to say/hear for him, as well as Ls. He says "mamas Nute! Pay NUTE!" When I take out my lute to play. The best part is the imagination--and I can get him to eat anything if his baby tiger (badey Giga) "tastes" it first.