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mental mosaic: pick up your pieces; make something pretty!
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An American woman living in Naples, Italy shares photos & writes about her impressions of the culture & her experiences learning the language and discovering the rich history of Italy. Sometimes silly, sometimes serious, mentalmosaic has an emphasis on o
Recent Posts Tagged With 'nablopomo'
Sparky’s Dashboard
I moved my home office today, but you don’t want to read about that, nor do I want to blog about it. I still can’t find my wireless mouse – argh! Anyway, it’s a great space. From here I can look out and see the backyard. Ther...
Bubbly Clouds
I’ve decided to see how far my ’shots from the passenger seat’ obsession will take me this month. Before I explain today’s pic, however, let’s take a moment to grieve together over the ones that got away. I was not qui...
Worth a thousand words?
I don’t know if I should even attempt to explain how this photo came about. Last night was Halloween, and the neighbor’s adorable kitten tried to adopt me, but that hardly sums it up. Perhaps I should just say something like, ‘I c...
Deadline Looms for Wet Berries
Do you ever wish you could tell if something was poisonous just by looking at it? I have a weakness for berries… I’d write more today, but I have a deadline looming, and I can’t decide if I’d be better off staying up late to g...
Little Fluffy Clouds
I don’t know if these clouds are what The Orb had in mind when they composed Little Fluffy Clouds, but this photo makes me think of that song just the same....
Inspiration Cafe
How do I take my coffee? With a little cream, sugar and a side of Engrish. “Source inspiration of new creation,” eh? That’s quite a confident claim to make about one’s cafe. Interestingly enough, the word inspiration, when use...
Which came first, the chicken or the egg?
Seriously, pay attention now. You may be on “Who Wants to be a Millionaire” someday and have this question come up. It’s no longer a Zen koan, it’s a fact, at least according to this article. In other news, I was happy to rea...
A Dangerous Weakness
One of the books on my ever-growing “to read” list is Lorna Page’s debut novel A Dangerous Weakness. Why? Because Ms. Page is 93-years-old and used the advance to buy a house big enough for family and several friends to live with he...
A Quacktastic Round-up of Random Links
I wasn’t sure what to write about today, so I snagged 5 recent bookmarks and thread them together. Here you go: Yesterday’s local paper ran a story saying it was National Adoption day. Not surprisingly, it was a heart-warming article. Whe...
Me in the Morning
I’m a sentimental person and it doesn’t take much for me to get teary-eyed. I’d like to think that I hide this fact really well from people, but I probably don’t. It’s hard to know. (For instance, I sometimes avoid good-...
Herb Alpert in the Sky
Let’s see… what was I thinking while frying eggs in a bleary-eyed state of mind this morning that made me laugh out loud? Oh yeah, it all started when I noticed the sun was shining. Big deal, you say, the sun shines every day. Well, if yo...
Parody and Polka Dots
When people ask me about Italy’s prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi, I often sum him up as “Italy’s Denny Crane” because he is well-known for his thoughtless comments, sexist gaffes and general buffoonery. Of course, if youR...
The Eagle has Landed (or, at least, has perched within range of my zoom!)
I’ve been using the auto-upload feature since my connectivity has been erratic and I wanted to keep up with NaBloPoMo. So I was surprised to see that yesterday’s post never made it online. Turns out I had somehow clicked “private...
Eagles on Seal Rock
Several months ago my mom and I witnessed an unusual sight: a dozen eagles hanging out together on the rock you see in the picture above. Locals call the spot “seal rock” because that’s what you usually see there - seals - not eagle...
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They say Nature abhors this place, but I always liked it just fine. Even the windows across the street resemble a face with a gleeful expression, wouldn’t you agree? Speaking of vacuums, did you know that peeling Scotch tape in a vacuum emits x...
Perspectives on Perspective
I once read about an African tribesman who was so used to living in dense jungle, that when an archaeologist gave him a jeep ride in open country, the tribesman thought that antelope he could see on the horizon were bugs. His brain perceived the anim...
It’s been a long day…
Besides the commute, one of the nicest things about working from home is having a kitty keep you company. Pictured above is the Neapolitan cat, Pezza, whose name basically means “Patches,” because she has scars under her fur from being ca...
Ready or not!
In light of the USA’s big election today, I’m posting a photo I took in Naples back when the Italian government revamped itself earlier this year. Trucks towing billboards like these were a common sight. Another common sight was cars blar...
Yup, we did!
All the chanting of “Yes, we can” yesterday reminded me that even the Italian Democratic party used a version of that slogan as you can see in the photo on the left; “Si, puo fare!” (They didn’t fare too well, though; It...
Perfectionism versus Insecurity
A few months ago I came across a great quote. I think it was by Marianne Williamson. Trouble is I can’t find the quote now, but the topic was perfectionism. The gist of the quote is that perfectionism is really a form of insecurity, a way of tellin...
Ghouls in the Garden
First we took my nephews to an Octoberfest party, which to my mind conjures up images of schinitzel, beer and lederhosen. In this case, however, it’s their school’s politically correct version of Halloween. Kids aren’t even allowed ...
Shaking Hands with the Governor
First we spotted a camera crew, then we saw Washington state’s governor strolling the sidewalk yesterday afternoon. Without hesitation, my 12-year-old nephew ran up to her, stuck out his hand and said, “Pleased to meet you, Governor Grego...
Happy Halloween!
Happy Halloween to all you guys and ghouls! As you can see, I’m back in the blogosphere just in time to bid October adieu. You’ll be seeing a lot of me in November, though, because I plan to do both NaNoWriMo and NaPoBloMo again. I met a ...
No Mo NoNoWriMo or NaBloPoMo? Whoa!
NaBloPoMo and NaNoWriMo are over until next year! Did you participate in either? If so, how did it go for you? Aside from learning to just go ahead and post something when it’s ‘close enough for jazz,’ I made some new friends (Elizabeth, Prof....
Temples of Damanhur: Eighth Wonder of the World?
I was looking up a street name today for work when I stumbled onto this amazing place. While the street I was looking for is in Arizona, the place I accidentally discovered is in northern Italy, near Turin, where an insurance broker has spent years...
Italian TV Ads
I’ve gained a new appreciation for advertising since spending time in Italy. For one thing, commercials are a great way to learn new Italian words and phrases, because they are repetitive, focused on one subject, and often have their slogans p...
Thanksgiving Leftovers
The title of this post is a double entendre, because although I have some creative ideas for using up Thanksgiving leftovers, I also have some leftover feelings about the holiday menu itself. Judging from the responses to this post, I’m not the onl...
Ho, Ho, Homonym
It sounds like a bad joke, but it’s true: this holiday season, Australian Santas are being urged to say, ‘ha, ha, ha’ instead of ‘ho, ho, ho.’ Why? Because ‘ho, ho, ho’ might offend women and scare kids. I think Don Ho should do a b...
Close Enough for Jazz
I love taking photos, and although I can appreciate folks like Ansel Adams who literally see the big picture (then take it, ‘cuz it lasts longer!) I’m the type of person who, as much as I love a big sweeping landscape, can look down and enjo...
A Virtual Thanksgiving
Here’s wishing a Happy Thanksgiving to my fellow Americans. Hehe, I can’t write ‘my fellow Americans’ without picturing Richard Nixon’s face, can you? Anyway, before I head off onto one of my infamous tangents, let me j...
