Somewhere along the way

I've been trying to offload some of my things. Sure it's a raindrop in an ocean but I figure every little bit helps!

This set of aluminum tumblers were from our childhood. I remember drinking out of them at summer BBQs, drinks cooled with ice cubes which made the tumblers sweat.

Found these on my macbook. Not sure who took these, or where the originals are.

I don't remember all the steps involved in finishing the mosaic, but I think they were as follows: We placed the stones in a temporary base, then pasted a cloth over the stones (using a glue made of rabbit skin?!). Once the glue was set, we rinsed the temporary backing away from the stones. Then we were able to set the stones in a frame and fill the now void spaces with permanent grout from the backside.

I think this photo shows the artwork after the permanent grout dried and we the glued cloth has been soaked off.

Here are my classmates and Angela, our instructor. That's Megumi in the front, and Angela in the blue dress. I don't recall the names of the others, and in fact, only remember the guy being in my sessions.

As I get older, I think about all the people I've known, and how many of them have fallen off my radar (and I theirs). Some of them I would even consider as good friends, so it's sad to think how easily the loss of the connection happened.

When I was in Florence in April, I reached out to the woman who taught me my first mosaic lessons. After 26 years, we met up and it was wonderful catching up!

Angela Ceri is a very talented artist, and seems to be doing very well for herself!

I had a crazy idea to introduce her to American breakfast and she was game! We met at Rooster Cafe and split a benedict. Thank goodness we were smart enough to share, because the servings were typical American style--more than a person should eat in one sitting.

Found these photos taken on a quick jaunt down to Palm Springs (December 6, 2014). I needed a few more flight segments to maintain my United frequent flyer status (I can't remember now which level it was), so I booked a four-segment flight to Palm Springs (the cheapest and shortest distance I could go to get four segments).

It was a gorgeous day. Even LAX looked nice!

What was funny was that in Palm Springs I had a one hour wait and then reboarded the same plane back to LA. I recognized a man on the flight and found out he was playing the same game, although he needed dollars. He spent $1200 to go to Palm Springs and back!

I’m impressed with how far the Italian train system has come in these past years. The FS app will show you highly accurate data on train status including platform numbers and delays. And when you’re at a particular station, it will show you a list of all the next departing trains. So useful!

I don’t know that I’ve seen Franz Marc before, but I loved these. He died young, at the age of 36, fighting with the German army.

I may be odd, but one thing I like to do when I travel is experience some of the daily life challenges. Here I am at the Posta Italiana in Mantova, waiting to get stamps and inquire about sending a package to the U.S.

First you have to pull a number, just like at a butcher counter.

And then you wait (and wait...and wait...) until your number shows up on the board, with an indication of which window to go to.

In theory, it's efficient. In practice, it still takes a long time to get served. Ticket pulled at 10:27am, called to window at 10:52am, and then it took several minutes to get the stamps.

The guy actually weighed my postcard! I've sent enough postcards to know that there's one stamp for postcards to the U.S. At the PT in Florence, the same lady has been helping me for a few years now! It's always a quick transaction.

Anyway, still a joy to endure "le cose quotidiane." Every so often.

Here’s a memory from forever ago. My ID from Tiscali from 2004.