Been missing the sunset light. We also don’t have the sunrise light here, but I’m not always up for it…. And in the UP, we see the sunset sky, but not the actual sunset. Unless we walk over the hill. Which we sometimes do.

These days, we have the option of sending up Droney!

Clean may be a first-world value/endeavor/goal…but, geeze, in my leetle POV (point-of-view), our car is clean, we are clean, our laundry basket is mostly empty, and, well, clean feels good. It’s not everything, I know. Still.

Low-rent musings today: light through colander.

And light on tile.

See, nothing earth-shaking.

I’m repeating myself, photo-wise (if there is such a term; light’s different though—chair, too—hah!).

And, in the time I was out getting this photo (and several discarded ones), a darned aggressive mosquito tried to invade my skin. Officially, summer is here, no?!

Apologies for yesterday’s Taxus (genus) shot. With today’s raindrops, I’ve upgraded the image. MUCH more interesting now.

We took the Foot and Droney to a monadnock south of the big monadnock, that is, Stone Mountain. We picnicked just over the crest in this view, in the shade of a pine tree. Just lovely.

Here I am taking the Foot to the summit. We could see the tops of a few of the tallest downtown buildings, and several closer watertowers over the treetops from the high point.

This is Diamorpha smallii.

Everything had a thin dusting of yellow pollen, and we could see a distinct pollen line above the current water levels in the puddles.

We have heard Dr. King talking about a mountain repeatedly over the last few days, so maybe that was part of the motivation. The particular destination was because of glowing reports from neighbors C and D, who visited separately during the last week…and the fact that Diamorpha is blooming.

Now we can say: we have been to the mountain.

I’ve been thinking about the daylight times…not so much the time change, but my inner sense of the rhythm of light, night, and the transition between.

Certainly, the daylight arrival portion of the day is different than it was in Paris*. I notice that it’s dark later and burrow into the warm covers and drowse a bit before getting up to make coffee. I’m a slacker!

France’s seasonal time change isn’t until the end of the month, if I have it right.

Still discombobulated from the cross-Atlantic time-change. Managing to fall back asleep when I awaken at appropriate France-time, yet feeling rather listless, languid, and lethargic as evening rolls around. Like now…time for another episode of Counterpart anyway.

These two images are both of light-above at the Louvre, in a gallery and in a stair? connecting? area. As we took escalators from this floor to that, I distinctly thought…this is a change? I may be wrong, but I felt that there had been a major architectural upgrade to the visitor experience since we last visited.

Enjoying the sunshine from a bench with a stupendous view, the sounds were of a light wind, a mowing crew, and crows. Here’s a crow duo. Such photographic timing!

Finally, we set off, keeping an eye on the tour. Tower is tour in French.

Aha, tower, backlit, again with birds. The iPhone goes all drama with strong backlighting.

From this bridge, the tower is great background. We saw four bride–photographer groups here. Same time. One group had a Mercedes limo waiting for them, parked illegally.

There’s a narrow island down the Seine, I assume something to do with navigation and bridge engineering…engineering, anyway. Great view upstream of the tower.

We crossed back to “our side” of the river…one glance back at the tower before heading into the side streets back toward “our place.”

The tower isn’t the only striking architecture here. Loved the tube-mesh surrounding this hobbit-trail.

This tilework was in the arch over the main doorway of an elementary school built in 1912. I think the blue tiles (bottom) have faded and clouded with white in the intervening century.

Our home-bound route took us back through the Champs de Mars, so here’s one last look at THAT tower.

Food pic of the day: beef tartare starter (entrée in French—yes, slightly confusing—also can be used for entrance, that is, place to enter). We had a fancy lunch out…. Total yum. Our tour helped us justify the chocolate-lava dessert, no?

In an amateur way, this post with many photos of the same subject honors Claude Monet’s Rouen Cathedral series….

Back to the Louvre neighborhood to “do” the Louvre…that is, to browse a few galleries. There are three main sections, and we only hit parts of two. The Louvre is huge, and my poor brain can only take in so much.

Bam! First objects: caryatids. They are gigantic. And the ladies’ breasts are at armpit level and consequently look strange…from today’s display angles, maybe not when they high on a building.

Called Wounded Gaul or Gauloise blessé, (the original of) this statue came from the Acropolis in Athens. It commemorated the victory of Attalus I, king of Pergamum, over Celtic warriors who threatened his territory in what is now Turkey in 200/199BC. This is a Roman copy of one figure from the lost bronze Greek statue group. Love the wild hair.

Called Aphrodite of Milos and Venus de Milo, this statue of an unknown goddess compels the eye. The aesthetics of the features and pose seem to date it to the 5th C BC; however, the elongated body and the sinuous pose are later—3rd to 1st Cs BC. So says the Louvre‘s specialists.

This bit of Coptic fabric dates to the 6th/7th C. Always amazed when organics are preserved, so against the odds! The fibers are linen and wool.

This carved vessel type is a pyxis; a pyxis is cylindrical, with a separate piece as a lid. The earliest are of wood (hence the shape, I assume). This one is of ivory and dates to the late 700s. It is Islamic style, and came from Spain. The figures are picking dates, and this likely symbolized the dynasty of its owner, back in the Levant. So says the Louvre’s specialists.

This scene is atop the famous basalt stela that is carved with Hammurabi’s code and dates to the 18th C BC. It portrays Hammurabi being awarded his royal insignia (aka investiture) by the solar deity Shamash. Hammurabi is holding his hands over his mouth, signaling that he is praying or honoring the deity. Most of the stela is covered almost everywhere with small symbols that are cuneiform script in Akkadian, then the dominant language in Mesopotamia (e.g., Babylonia).

Switching gears: scary cat!

This is King John II of France, aka Jean le Bon. He lived from 1319 to 1364. The Louvre’s people note that this is “believed to be the oldest conserved example of an independent portrait since antiquity.” I guess that means in the Western world. Since he isn’t wearing a crown it probably dates to before he ascended the throne in 1350.

Okay, enough of the energy-intensive art objects! On to…see the logo to the right? Yup, on to the Apple store in the shopping area underground west of the museum.

A time jump, and we entertained! Relatives! Such fun!

I had stuffed morels, very dainty and exceedingly tasty. Thankfully, my SIL had a huge platter of coq au vin that she shared, or I would have been…well, not hungry exactly, but definitely not as sated. Of course, the dessert souffle trio would have helped fill me!

Lovely meeting up for the evening!