Musings

As a child, I lived in a house without porches, and spent much of my summers in a house with two porches. One functioned as an entry and utility room, and the other was a sun/screen porch, definitely part of the small cottage’s living area.

Neither had the architectural stature of the porches that are attached to each apartment in this enclave.

When I was younger, I would have loved to live in one of these upstairs apartments, to lounge and read and generally waste time in the shade above the street in the fresh air.

We generally use the term porch for a space that’s transitional between the building and the not-building. It’s from the Latin for colonnade, which refers to an architectural roof extention that offered the ability to walk along a building passing by each room without going through them, although stopping and sitting was an option. The walking action was more along the building, while our modern porches are more for crossing from outside the building to a doorway. At least that’s how it seems to me. The upstairs porches here are an exception, as they are intended to be a fresh-air room.

Posted at 5:36 PM | Comments Off on (Way too much) On porches

Out and about, you know, those last-shopping-weekend-before-Xmas kind of chores (even though it’s not the actual last weekend). This stop was at our neighborhood fancy-grocery. The shopping center managers have installed these little metal trees on various architectural details to ward off pigeons and I don’t know what other birds. Still, the sandwich-board sign for the pet store on the sidewalk below was decorated with…droppings, soooooo unhygienic. Although maybe the splats came from storage elsewhere? Either way, I didn’t find it encouraging about the cleanliness of the pet store….

Posted at 10:22 PM | Comments Off on Defensive metal trees

Look at those flags….

My day was focused on my civic self. I went downtown to report for jury duty, got chosen in a jury group, but not selected to serve. I would have been happy to (more or less), although I admit that I was happier not to have my week (the estimated length of the trial) rendered unknown.

After I was dismissed, I ventured across the street and contemplated our state’s gold-leafed dome, a gleaming symbol of civic-ness and plenty more. I kept it simple, focusing on the shimmering state bling.

Posted at 8:53 PM | Comments Off on Wing ding bling

Three bridges.

Let me decode this photo. It’s taken from the west end of the Ponte Palatino, looking slightly northwest, then north, and finally east—a pano, hence the strange distortion. On the left, the bridge from the west bank of the Tiber to Isola Tiberina (Rome’s island), the Ponte Cestio. On the far right, the bridge I’m standing on, the Ponte Palatino. And next to the latter, also far right, is a single arch that remains of the ancient Romans’ Pons Aemilius, now lovingly nicknamed the Ponte Rotto, broken bridge.

For me, the Aemilius is the most interesting; core parts of the ruin, sources assure me, date to the 2nd C BC. The last updates came in the 1500s. The final insult came in 1887 when one end was removed to install the Ponte Palatino.

Construction of a bridge to this bank from the island was intentionally delayed by the Romans for centuries, we are told. While they long had a bridge from “their” side (the east/south side), the Ponte Cestio, anciently the Pons Cestius, was not built until about a century after the Aemilius (if I have it right). Thus, crossing the river using the island as a stepping stone was not prioritized, although we are told ancient Rome’s location was important as a crossing spot. It was or it wasn’t. Or, it was, but they didn’t want to make it too easy, as enemies and marauders lived to the northwest.

In the late 1800s, when the Tiber was channelized and walled in, with retaining levees built, they widened this part next to the island, I think to force more of the water on this side(?), and the ancient bridge wasn’t long enough any more, so, geeze, it was just an Ancient Roman Structure, so The City’s Wisemen ordered it replaced.

Enough about bridges. Here is a particularly comely city entrance, the Porta Portese. This was roughly the location of the former Porta Portuense. Both names refer to Rome’s port at the river mouth, and the road to there along this bank of the Tiber. The river-mouth was early important as a salt-producing zone, and major trade routes went inland from the sea flats on both sides of the Tiber, as well and up and down the coast. Later, this became a major port area, serving Rome and inland. Major engineering modifications kept it useful (e.g., the massive six-sided basin constructed under Hadrian’s watch and now just south of the airport—see satellite images).

Two other bits to note. We found this sign on the wall of a particularly narrow alley—about one wide shoulder-width at one end—in the original neighborhood of Trastevere (meaning: across the Tiber), south of the Isola Tiberina. Today we first visited that area, and discovered that although unfailingly described as charming and old-world in guides, it is a tourist mecca, and thus a mecca for sidewalk salespeople of all stripes, and not quite an incubator of Roman life as lived by present-day Romans. As to unofficial the English sign, I love its formal design….

Now a bit of action. We also saw a speed-trap setup with four cop cars earlier in the day, with someone getting a ticket and not looking happy about it. Plus, right after we saw this towing (love that lift! a bar on each side of the front tires, spanned together—up and away), we saw another tow truck ready to pull out all loaded up a block away. Since these three aren’t far apart, I guess the cops were targeting this area today. ??

Posted at 10:22 PM | Comments Off on City life

We shifted geospatially.

We socialized in the best way.

We slid through a power outage. (I emphasize we.)

We are a happy duo!

Posted at 10:10 PM | Comments Off on Lots going on

I love that the maps app I have advises on the “best” route from here to there, but its algorithms and my ideas of “best” do not always match. Today we got a device “best” that matched my “best.” And life was good. The photo is from a detour during the sunset-afterglow. [You know I’m not up early enough to catch this marginal light in the morning (usually).]

Posted at 10:20 PM | 1 Comment »

JCB & JPB went to DragonCon. And I did not.

JCB took this photo. And I did not.

Used with permission.

Apologies to Tommy Roe. Architecture and a gal are not in the same league in the potential for creating dizziness. Why? Because a building, even a Portman structure, in this case Atlanta’s Marriott downtown, cannot love you back. BTW, no whirlpool in the atrium….

Posted at 6:34 PM | Comments Off on I’m so dizzy…

At some point in the distant, dreamy past, I decided I’d love to live where I had a second-floor porch with REAL columns, overlooking a shaded street. Today I enjoyed such vicariously, for a few exceptional, delicious hours. Note the egg-and-dart detail accompanying the iconic Ionic column-top, a conventional and lovely pairing.

Posted at 11:54 PM | Comments Off on You imagine the rest

There are Sundays and there are Sundays.

On this one, we had rain; real rain, not pop-up summer showers. Rain that interrupted my sleep, and also will make the weeds easier to pull. (Chore for the coming week.)

Also, the last of the legendary striped sofas moved on to a new home, a first-apartment-after-college. Now we have an empty spot.

Other activities that come to mind were the meaningless drudgery of household life.

Posted at 10:22 PM | Comments Off on Diary day

Did a wee (and I mean wee) bit of thinking about the power of the Internet in connecting people who otherwise would not encounter one another. Not ground-breaking, that thought, but worth contemplating for several reasons. I was considering how/whether it makes for a significantly different dynamic when considering how civilizations and societies function.

Meanwhile, back on Planet Earth, is this broad, empty hallway in a busy well-populated office building this size mostly to satisfy fire regulations? That’s a lot of square footage that can never be rented….

Posted at 7:44 PM | Comments Off on Connections