First Glance

My new store

" How you look at it is pretty 

much how you'll see it."

~ Rasheed Ogunlaru

I'm sure we all do this, but there are times when I glance at something and see something else.  If nothing else, we do it with clouds, don't we?

1.
When we were in Lucca two weeks ago, we were walking home from the market, and I looked up at a building and saw arches that seemed to be an homage to Bozo the Clown (Below). Whoever built the place obviously didn't intend for the arches to mimic the famed clown's head since the building is 300 years old, and while Bozo is ageless, I doubt highly that he was around that long ago.

Bozo Building in Lucca

2.
 The same evening that I saw the Bozo building, we were walking down another street in Lucca, and I thought I saw my name on a store (Top photo). For those of you who didn't know me pre-marriage to Mike, my maiden name was Lodyn. Lodyn is not a common name.  (Actually, it wasn't even my grandparents' last name. I always heard the story that the "real" last name was too long, had too many consonants, and was unpronounceable by Americans, so it—like so many other ethnic names—got changed.  I have no idea where they got Lodyn, although in doing a little research, I found that Lodyna is the name of a town in the Galicia, Austria, region where my father's parents were born.)

All that is beside the point.  I was the only Lodyn with the first initial "C," so seeing CLODYN on a store window sent an electric shock through me. The gal who was working in the store was of little help as she had no idea where they got the name. Darn.

Call me with questions

3.
Right after I got to Bologna, I was walking with a friend, and we saw an interesting store on a side street.  It wasn't open, and at first we thought that it closed for the August holidays.  Then I saw a handwritten sign on the door (Above):  Sono al bar  345 4322 348  (I'm at the bar. 345 4322 348). Of course, bars in Italy mean coffee bars, but my still-American mind was thinking a different kind of bar.  I loved, though, that he gave his phone number so readily on the paper in the window.

By the way, , , Just by looking at that paper, I can tell the owner of the store is not Italian. Anyone have any idea how I know that?

Madrid front window

4.
Our flat in Madrid was on the ground floor of a building in the Lavapies area. The windows were in the front wall (above), and the owner had put frosted, double-paned windows in so passers-by couldn't look into the flat.  I loved the shadow of the plants in the windows, but then it dawned on me that the buildings were right on the sidewalk and that there were no trees, bushes, shrubs, flowers, anything in front of any building on Calle Doctor Piga (Photo below). (Our building is halfway up the street on the right.)  The closest tree was in the little plaza at the end of the street.

Calle Doctor Piga

"Those aren't real plants," I said to Mike when it dawned on me that no trees in front meant no tree shadows on the windows.

"Of course they aren't," he replied. "She stuck silk flowers between the panes."  He opened the inside window so I could see the silk branches stuck between the inside and outside.

"I'm crushed."

"You'll live." Mike can be practical at times.  He doesn't care about things like that, but I do.  I still enjoyed the "view," but my spirit was a little dampened to know the leaves weren't real.

"Ah," I said. "It's like the dudes selling knock-off purses down the street. It's all fake, but I guess she's trying to fix the view." I'm sure Mike rolled his eyes because he wouldn't see the similarities.

"We don't have a view."

Duh.