Caturday! I ain't afraid of no cats.

We're back from our WONDERFUL trip to Italy and I've been sifting through the photos for the last week. That has been something of an overwhelming task, of course. I took a lot of pictures and once the fuzzy ones and doubles are deleted, then comes going through the rest of them one by one. If I were a more focused person, this might happen within a certain time frame. But I am not. 

At any rate, I do have a fair number of photos of lions, which are appropriate for "Caturday." The lion is a frequent subject in classical sculptures and there are lots of lions in the city of Venice owing to the connection with St. Mark (the Evangelist whose symbol is a lion).

This particular lion, however, lives in Florence, in the Palazzo Vecchio at the base of a 16th century statue of Hercules and Cacus, by Baccio Bandenelli. As I walked by and noticed all the pigeons walking on its head, it seemed as if the pigeons were asserting their power while the lion was looking a little uneasy.

Meanwhile, you may be wondering about Bella and Sally. They survived being without us for two weeks none the worse for wear, although Bella appeared to have become a little lax about grooming. They quickly forgave us for being away (apparently they were happy with the cat sitter who came to feed them every day and spent a couple of nights at the house as well) and now we are all back to normal.