Pinocchio

Pinocchio abounds in Italy!  He's like the national mascot!  Once we picked up on this, we found him everywhere--always delightfully charming and unique.

On a carousel...

or a bookshelf,

or even mass produced, he has a certain adorable charm.

This rustic puppet appeared at a street market in Florence.

Black strings

or white.

He even works as a gumball machine!

Soft and cuddly,

contemplative,

whimsical,

Flanked by glasses and flasks

and even hanging out with expensive candy,

he

is ever the gentleman.

In Venezia we found him in carnival masks,

and in Rome just a few doors from Trevi Fountain, he got his own whole darn shop complete with

stacking toys

and pull toys too.

High budget

and even higher budget,

he never failed to put a smile on our faces.

I'm going back for this one someday...

Yes, even Murano glass!

Meghan and I both brought one of these little guys home.

Just a simple story about a wooden boy--actually quite a naughty wooden boy--who learns through trial and error.

Pinocchio has stood the test of time.

Gotta love a classic...

"We interrupt this program..."

I heard a rumor that the blog police are on a witch hunt.  They're gathering up slacker bloggers, and it won't be pretty--bonfires, guillotines--parts will sizzle; heads will roll.  Beware.  I, for one, will not be caught with my guard down.  I'm cranking it back up...er..er..er...errrrr...err....errr...rummmmm!  I've been in this position before.  I take a long break.  It becomes easier every day to ignore that little voice--Madd, Madd...this is your blog.  Where are you?  What about me?  I don't think I am unique.  Most bloggers have retired.  Perhaps some other  fancy social medium calls them away.  I'm not cool enough to even know what those mediums might be, so I button up my high top boots and carry on--a victim of my own best intentions gone awry.  No penalties if you stop really.  I just plain wonder what happened to the bloggers I used to follow.  What about that gal in NYC who had the handicapped child in an institution that she used to visit all the time?  Her marriage bit the dust, and then the blog stopped.  Or what about that gal with the 6 kids?  She sloughed off her husband as well and moved to Texas.  From there it was a quick trip to complete silence.  I think she was even an award winner!!  Who said that a husband was a prerequisite for writing a blog?  And Miss?  Baby # 3 sucked her right out of cyberspace.  That pediatrician who was such a dynamite writer???  My daughters???  My sons???  One by one.  Gone.

Actually the truth is that I'm writing this for my drooling days--when I sit around and knit and fixate on days gone by when I could still put a noun or two with a snappy verb and make coherent thoughts.  Those days will end, and I'll have my published blogposts to remind me of this and that.

So it's a new year.  Paco and I are still in China.  We teach first year PhD students at Peking University--China's Harvard.  That ALONE should make me giddy to blog.  Plenty of material.  For instance:

Topics Covered in Oral English Classes on American Culture
jokes
racism
GUNS
GUNS
GUNS
movies
student life
national parks
medicine
sports
tennis
literature
music
dance
government
Amish (yes, they are VERY interested in Amish!)
aging
law
cars
copyright
food
child raising
Impressions of China

We go deep.  For a whole week we talked about Life's Greatest Questions--where did we come from, does God exist (light on that or I get in trouble), is there life on other planets?  In return, they talk to me all about China, their homes, their fields of study (philosophy, geology, biology, chemistry, environmental science, Maoism, botany, folk medicine, ecology and some hybrid studies like high energy theoretical physics or even biochemistry.  And so it goes.  Sometimes we close the door and discuss dating, sex, and marriage. They love that.  I've conditioned them.  When I start walking for the door they move forward in their chairs and are all ears.

The students are charming.

I hope I've done due diligence to the witch hunters and at least bought myself a little more time.

On the Road Again--Revisiting the Silk Road

Fares in a muslem bazaar in Urumqi.

Turpin.  Jiahoe Ancient City

Here's an interesting mix of castle designer, cookbook writer, West Indies humanitarian missionaries, and fruit farmers!  We're all equally overwhelmed and awed by finding ourselves in China.  What the ???

The faces tell the story.

 

A couple of old geezers just traipsing around.

Stopping off at a private vineyard.

One of my readers (with whom I also share a gene pool) complained that my blog is fixated on mops, brooms, kids, and camels.  I'm thinking of focusing on snouts for awhile.  Here's at least one.

The kindest eyes!

School's out!

No seatbelts, and that driver looks what?  Ten?

We were on the tour bus when we passed this semi full of sheepskins being unloaded.   Simultaneously we yelled, "STOP THE BUS!!!" and were given a 10 minute photo break,

or we would have missed this!!

Mogao Grottos.  Pictures were prohibited, so I pirated from google.

These little sisters were jumping around down below us trying to get out attention.

Step Aside, Superman!

This is the Shanghai Magnetic Levitation (Maglev to his friends) Train which we took from Pudong Airport to the station near our hotel.  In a little over seven minutes we reached the world record (until last week in Japan!) speed of 431 km/h which is right around 268 mph.  We flew!!!!!!!!!!!  Actually we reached capacity speed in 2 minutes and didn't get to fly too long before we needed to decelerate.   Those tricky Japanese got theirs up to 676 km/h.  How did it feel, Mad, you ask?  Blurry and a titch nausating.   Rumor has it that it won't be long until Maglev takes on the 800 mile trip to Beijing.  That presents all manner of engineering challenges, but at least it would alleviate the crying babies, loud-talking Chinese mothers, snoring seatmates, and nervous leg NONSTOP ANNOYANCES which we endured coming home on a regular fancy dancy old bullet train from Shanghai for a little under five hours, thank you.  I'm going to catch this blog up tomorrow.  Come back.