Monthly Archives: March 2006

A new word: gloaming

Posted by —

5

Words
“Words”
Blogging in Paris

 

Learning new words is always thrilling!. I found gloaming, my new word, in of my favourite Tuesday reads, Donald Murray’s column in the Boston Globe, A Warm Welcome Brightens Gloaming
To my non-native ears (or is it eyes?) gloaming made me think of “gloating” and of “gloomy”, two rather pejorative words. But then, the first line of the article:

Grandmother loved the gloaming, that time when afternoon faded into evening

explained it all, as if Donald Murray had known this non native reader needed an explanation :)
I can never resist a Google define, which indeed turned out a synonym of twilight!
Do read Donald Murray’s column, a beautiful piece on the gloaming of the day or is it on the gloaming of life?

# 1500

Posted by —

6

Photos
“Photos”
Blogging in Paris

 

Italian politics
Squircle #1500

 

I’ve just uploaded my 1500th squared circle on flickr. I joined the squared circle group at the end of May 2005, urged by friend LeoL30.
Am I a monomaniac? ;)
Definitely, although, some of my friends could tell you that I have more than one obsession! But I “only” uploaded 1500. Leo is the undisputed champion with over 4000 photos.

All my squared circles here
Little by little, I am updating my Florence posts. You can check out Blogging in Florence (3)
Don’t miss Mort’s Memoir about when he was in India at Octogenarian. As per usual, it’s a gem!

Getting sleepy after eating

Posted by —

218

thisandthat.jpg

 

Sleeping a little
Asleep in the métro

 

Savtadotty at Cousin Lucy’s Spoon wondered why she felt sleepy after eating fruit. It made me laugh as I get sleepy after I eat something, anything, a fruit, a sandwich, a light meal, a heavy meal. I know better than have lunch and then go to a movie. If I do that, I just take a nap at the cinema, no matter how good the movie is, no matter how uncomfortable the seat is.
I never have anything to eat if I am going to be driving, it would be dangerous.

When I was in highschool, I studied Russian, and we all loved our Russian teacher. As she was the only teacher of Russian in the school, after a while, we really got to know her well. Whenever she gave us a test, we knew that she would get bored and fall asleep. I am not kidding you. I remember the way her eyelids would drop, her eyes would roll up and down, how you could see she was fighting sleep, and how she finally fell asleep. And THEN, her naughty pupils would start cheating. Yes, me too!
At the time, I thought that she was just old. Now I wonder if maybe she suffered from the same ailment as myself: she had had something to eat and it made her sleep.

Once, about ten years ago, I had promised my students to show them a Hitchcock movie after studying a couple of scenes with them. I showed them the video, right after lunch, sat at the back of the class with them, and… fell asleep. When I woke up, the students were totally absorbed by the suspense in the movie, but I knew that at least twenty minutes had passed when I had been in deep sleep. Of course, this wouldn’t have happened if I had been teaching, but sitting in a chair, I just couldn’t fight it.

I don’t think it has anything to do with age since I have been like this for years, but I am afraid it’s not going to get any better with ageing…

Daylight saving time?

Posted by —

6

This and That
“Blogging in Paris”
Blogging in Paris

 

Sketching at the UffizziSketching at the Uffizzi

 

Almost missed my dentist appointment today as I had forgotten to set my watch on the right time. A good thing the computer does it on its own or I would have been late. I was happily processing my photos of Florence when I realised I had to go.
I have added links to Blogging in Florence (2), and have updated it with photos and photosets.
Of course taking photos at the Uffizzi was forbidden so I took a photo of this lady who was sketching on the Terrace. I always envy people who can do that but my fairy godmother has totally forgotten to endow me with this gift, which must go together with map-reading ;)

On a daily basis, I upload quite a lot of photos onto my flickr account, but I choose one a day, which I blog at Claude’s Daily Snap

Back home

Posted by —

3

This and That
“Blogging in Paris”
Blogging in Paris

 

In the rainIn the rain

 

Got back home this morning, and started processing my photos. I started posting to flickr and updated my first Florence post with links and photos. I found Paris just as I left it, in the rain! And I hadn’t realised it, but it’s the beginning of what we call l’heure d’été, also called daylight saving time. It may save something, but not my sleeping balance. I just hate this. I feel like they are stealing some precious time from me, not saving anything!

I took this photo in Florence on my first day there. I can tell you that no grocery store in Paris looks that colourful in the rain!