"Get A Grip, People!", "Le chat est mort."

Fresco from dome of Florence Duomo.

I've returned to the land of jellabas, mopeds, trash, ocean, sunshine, moaning cats, howling dogs, averting my eyes, that moaning eerie call to worship, I mean that interesting call to worship,  and covering my bum. After having seen the current fashions in Florence, where women barely cover their bum with a short sweater, it is quite a contrast to see women covered, scarved and slipping home before it's the men's time of day to be out alone. I imagine the women are heading to the kitchen to make the evening meal. It would be fun to be a part of their time in the kitchen and hear what they are laughing about or sad about.

Graffiti on a Florence side street.

The EasyJet flight was uneventful, except for the jockeying for position on the part of rude travelers and one wandering little girl on the plane. The flight attendants had to basically say over the intercom, "We cannot land until the little girl is in her seat." The hapless parents were smiling all the while, thinking the little one was so, so cute.


My highlight on the plane was when the nice gentleman, Italian maybe, but Crystal says Moroccan, helped me hoist my book-laden carry-on into the overhead compartment, and then the golden bracelet clad pregnant Moroccan woman helped hoist my suitcase out of the overhead bin. I said, "You shouldn't be lifting anything!" as she helped me. You never know where help will come from. 


With all my acquired books from my trips, I'm thinking of starting a lending library in my neighborhood. Wait. I need more books in Arabic. 

So the wash is spinning in the seemingly toy washing machine, and I am thinking of new art projects for my students in the weeks before Christmas. I'd like to introduce 2 or 3 new terms with projects to flesh out those terms. We'll have to make Christmas trees as well, just for creative fun. Moroccans celebrate some aspects of Christmas, so it's a good time to have some conversations.

The local accordion player by the B and B in Florence

Oh, and why the title for today's blog, you might ask? Well, in all honesty, I did not transition well back into my crazy neighborhood. The cats were moaning so I yelled out my window for the cats to hush, and then a bunch of loud, yelling neighbors raced through the street as babies were crying alongside the moaning, sounding like dying, cats, so I yelled out the window quietly, "Get a grip, people." and "Le chat est mort." Right after that, the guy at the mosque sang out that it was time to pray. He got that one right.


Morocco is noisy, fascinating and culturally amazing in a different way from Italy. Both have very special people I enjoy so much! (But, I left my heart in Italia.)