It’s Friday, time for the Afternoon Challenge! Today’s challenge: The Back Story

[CTyankee]

All of the works below have a different “back story” to tell. Your challenge is to figure out what it was! I have provided helpful hints above each, in the “voice” of each work (as it were!), so please, no Goggles guesses.
1.
Ci piace qui. Lasciateci in pace!


2.
Firenze pianse...


3.
Che cosa è una ragazza di fare?


4.
Ce que je fais dans une salle d'audience?


5.
I tedeschi per QUELLO che mi ha usato?!


6.
Perche cosi tanto tempo?

[Scuba]

1. Look under the horse's tail. Eric Cantor.

[CTyankee]

2. terrific!

[rosesaylavee]

3. #6 is

Taking of the Christ by Carravaggio (sp?) (just read a book on this)... As for taking so much time, what came to mind was why was it taking so much time for the arrest of Cheney?

[CTyankee]

4. What did the book say about finding this painting? (I think I read the same one).

[rosesaylavee]

39. The book told the story of finding a long lost masterpiece...

Sorry - but I am not getting the clue here. :( Maybe someone else will. :shrug:

Jonathan Harr's The Lost Painting. If you haven't read it yet, it's a great read. Subtitle: The Quest for a Caravaggio Masterpiece. It reads like mystery all the while giving a glimpse into the art history world.

[Patsy Stone]

5. #4 -- Brancusi Bird in Space

Spawned a SCOTUS case which determined art for art's sake. It was taxed on arrival and not allowed into the country as art because it wasn't' representational but abstract.

[CTyankee]

6. I don't think it was SCOTUS but otherwise, CORRECT!

Are you an attorney or just familiar with the art here (or maybe a google challenge "art on trial")?

[Patsy Stone]

9. I'll have to confirm SCOTUS later when I'm not typing on my phone

Not a lawyer, but a former Art History student who is a little obsessed with this piece. I try to see it wherever it is, and my husband and I have a running joke that if it's not in the museum we're in, it's not a real modern art museum. :)

[CTyankee]

14. Bird in Space is so fabulous! I'm glad Patti Smith made him famous.

He was a crazy little guy...did you know the story about him and one of his original castings of this work?

He had to sell it in 1940 (altho he HATED selling any of his works)because the Germans were nearing Paris. Peggy Guggenheim, whom he knew well, was in Paris as the German's bombs were falling in the suburbs of the city, buying up all the art she could for her own museum in NYC. She met Brancusi's price for his casting of this work and as she was loading it into her car with the motor running (so she could get to Marseille and a ship back to NYC) she turned to say goodbye to Brancusi and noticed that tears were running down his face...

[elleng]

75. Oh my goodness.

:cry:

[horseshoecrab]

7. #3

#3 is "Costanza Bonarelli" by Gianlorenzo Bernini.

The backstory here: Costanza Bonarelli was Bernini's mistress who also happened to be his assistant's wife. She is caught, in disarray, perhaps having just rolled out of bed! "What's a girl to do," indeed!

The pope at the time, I can't remember which pope, had to intervene so that no one would be killed as a result of this indiscretion. Bernini married another woman, Bonarelli had his wife back. All's well that ends well.



Good to see you CTyankee! :hi:


horseshoecrab

[CTyankee]

10. The story is different...it is Costanza (of course!) but the ending was not "well" at all for her!

The pope was not involved (you may be thinking of Fra Lippo Lippi and the novitiate, Lucretia).

Costanza cheated on Bernini with his brother! In a fit of rage, Bernini sent his servant to slash Costanza's face, which he did. It's all dramatized on Simon Schama's segment on "The Power of Art" which you can find on youtube. I think it's the second one in the series. Very dramatic...

Not a good thing for her at all. As for her husband, well...that guy was really screwed...

[horseshoecrab]

17. wow...

Who knew? That's amazing Ctyankee.

I knew it was Bernini's lover. A site that I googled to get her name had that happy little fairy tale story, with the pope, Urban VIII, all but arranging a marriage for Bernini! No mention of the fate of poor Costanza or her husband! That's terrible.

I'll look into the dramatization on The Power of Art on youtube, for sure.


horseshoecrab

[CTyankee]

19. I think Bernini was already married! But anyway, that wouldn't surprise me about those popes at that

time. ACK. Poor Costanza. She paid dearly for her sins. No man did...

the Power of Art video on youtube is terrific...you'll LOVE it...

[joeybee12]

8. I know where the first one is...

It's the basilica in Venice...not sure what answer you're looking for...these outside are not the originals...those are up inside in the loft area.

[CTyankee]

11. what's the back story?

[CaliforniaPeggy]

12. I only know the first picture...

The horses are saying leave us in peace. Every time they're moved, a war breaks out.

Usually a world war...

[CTyankee]

15. Unfortunately, it was a war...but it had a happy ending...

Can you guess who was behind its removal from Venice? Think of the map of Europe in the late 18th century...

[KittyWampus]

13. #4. is Brancusi's "Bird In Space" but I honestly don't know the backstory

[Divernan]

16. # l.The 4 horses of St. Mark's Basilica: "It appeals to us here. Leave us in peace!"

Fascinating, ancient and so well traveled - not unlike myself, LOL.

Legend has it that Alexander the Great admired them as works of his favorite sculptor, Lysippos. They are similar to a sculpture of Alexander's horse, Bucephalus. Emperor Nero is said to have brought these 4 horses to Rome. After Nero's suicide the horses disappeard & didn't show up again until Constantine returned them to the east in the mid-320's to adorn the starting gates ot his new Hippodrome in Constantinople. There they stayed for almost 900 years, until the time of the crusades.

The Crusaders contracted with the Doge of Venice to deliver them to their destination to Outremere in the Holy Land, in exchange for a big chunk of the loot. The fourth crusade was diverted to Asia Minor and Constantinople fell to the Crusader hordes. The Doge claimed the horses along with other treasures still displayed at St. Mark's. They were warehoused in Venice for 50 years before being put on display as a symbol of Venetian power. They remained undisturbed for 500 years until Napoleon swept through at the end of the 18th century. In 1797 they were set atop the smaller triumphal arc, the Arc du Carrousel, on the Tuileries end of the Champs-Elysees.

The 1815 Congress of Vienna returned them to Venice where they were reinstalled on the St. Mark logia. In 1917, during World War I, they were removed to Rome for safety, but returned to St. Mark's after that war. Similarly, in WW II, they were sent to a Benedictine abbey in 1942 and returned to St. Mark's at the end of that war.

During all these moves over almost 2400 years, the horses stayed in pretty good condition, aside from the removal of some of the gold coating by enterprising scrapers. In the early 1980s, a major touring exhibition took them to Mexico City, New York, London, Paris, Milan and Berlin. After that last trip, however, they did not return to the Basilica of San Marco, because they were being damaged too much by modern air pollution. They were instead taken to a museum and, after they were cleaned and treated to cure the "bronze disease" that was weakening them, replicas were created which took the place of the originals on the logia of the cathedral. You can climb a steep inside stairway to where the replicas stand on the Basilica today. The originals are now kept inside a room on the same upper level of the cathedral as the replicas. They are in the small museum accessible by the same stairway.

The strange composition of the bronze in the horses has led some experts to question whether they really date back to Lysippos and the Alexandrian period: they say that the ancient Greeks simply didn't know how to make such mixtures, and their evidence of this is that no other examples of the mix are present in classical Greek works. This school of thought dates the horses to the late Roman empire, shortly before the time of Constantine and says that the stylistic similarities between these horses and the Marcus Aurelius horse show that they all were made about the same time, possibly using works by Lysippos as models. This "bronze formulation" argument falters, however, when you consider that this particular mix also does not appear in works from any other period either -- and yet, there the horses stand.

[CTyankee]

18. Oh, that is a fascinating piece of art history....had not seen it!

what a great history on these horses...

[Divernan]

21. Tell you something else interesting I noticed.

There is a Quadriga (a chariot drawn by 4 horses) atop the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin which Napoleon is said to have also removed to Paris. Based on the photos I found, and particularly on the unusual shape of the horses' ears, it appears to have been copied from the Quadriga at St. Mark's.

http://berlin.barwick.de/sights/famous-places/brandenburg-gate.html

"The current Brandenburg Gate was constructed between 1788 and 1791 as part of a programme of building works to improve the wall and many of its gates. The Brandenburg Gate was designed by Carl Gotthard Langhans in the classicist style; in 1793 it was complemented by the Quadriga, the triumphal statue of the winged goddess of peace driving a four-horse chariot.
Quadriga on the Brandenburg Gate
The Quadriga In 1806 the Quadriga was stolen by Napoleon following the occupation of Berlin by the French army and it was removed to Paris. It was returned to Berlin in 1814 following Napoleon's fall from power, and the statue's olive wreath was exchanged for an Iron Cross."

If you look at the photos of the horses at St. Mark's and the copies currently atop the Arc du Carrousel, you will see that the two horses on the driver's right are leading with their right forelegs, while the two horses on the chariot driver's left are leading with their left forelegs. When I say "leading" I mean that those legs are lifted higher. Horses are trained to use left leads or right leads. (My daughter rides dressage - you don't want to know more.) The St. Mark's horses present a balanced composition, albeit in reality, the horses would have been trained to all be on the same lead.

But the Berlin horses alternate leads, which is neither balanced artistically, nor accurate in terms of realism. The far right horse is on the right lead, the next on the left, the next on the right and the last one on the left. It would have made for a very uneven, jerky appearance if chariot horses actually did that. I'm thinking Langhans copied the St. Mark's horses correctly, but in the course of the work being disassembled and moved to France and then returned to Berlin, whomever reassembled the sculpture was no horseman and got it wrong.

On edit: I just LOVE art history - never studied it as an undergraduate, but now that I'm retired, have taken 6 classes of it through the OSHER program at the University of Pittsburgh.

[CTyankee]

22. What a fantastic story! Thank you so much!

I absolutely LOVE art history...this is wonderful...

[Divernan]

23. Too funny! Great minds think alike.

I was writing on edit that "I just LOVE art history", at the same time that you were writing "I absolutely LOVE art history."

[CTyankee]

36. This is why I changed my sig line from Wallace Stevens to Robert Edsel.

Edsel did the book and the film on "Rape of Europa" altho the book was originally by Lynn I just kinda liked Edsel's quote in his book "Rescuing Da Vinci".

[CTyankee]

20. So now we have #2 and #5 and a bit more explanation on #6 left...

OK...any ideas???

[suffragette]

25. #2 Cimabue

http://counterlightsrantsandblather1.blogspot.com/2010/06/florence-from-craft-to-art-part-2.html
Time has not been kind to the work of Cenni di Pepi, better known as Cimabue, a nickname in old Florentine dialect meaning “ox-head.” His great painted cross that once stood on the tramezzo of Santa Croce in Florence was severely damaged in the 1966 flood. Some of his frescoes in the ceiling vaults of the Upper Church of San Francesco in Assisi vanished forever in the disastrous 1997 earthquake.
Vasari began his Lives of the Great Italian Painters and Sculptors with Cimabue. He considered Cimabue’s career to be the beginning of the grand progress of Florentine (and thus Italian) art toward the High Renaissance summit. Cimabue was not a beginning, but an end. Cimabue was the last great master of the centuries long Italo-Byzantine style. He was one of the great conservatives of art, breathing new life into traditional formats. His work combines the expressive emotionalism of Coppo with the grandeur of form created in Rome. Even in its now ruined state, the Santa Croce cross has a tragic emotionalism expressed through abstract form that comes out of Coppo.


http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_CijcaA9yq58/TCKcQsbV2-I/AAAAAAAAGFc/wil_CQF8roI/s400/Cimabue,+Santa+Croce+Cross+before+flood.jpg
Cimabue, Painted Cross from Santa Croce, Florence, ca. 1285 (as the cross appeared before the 1966 flood)

[Divernan]

27. I agree. You beat me to the answer while I was searching for it.

I wasted time searching for a crucifix by Andrea de Verrocchio.

I did find this, though:
Legacy

History has long regarded Cimabue as the last of an era that was overshadowed by the Italian Renaissance. In Canto XI of his Purgatorio, Dante laments Cimabue's quick loss of public interest in the face of Giotto's revolution in art:<2>

O vanity of human powers,
how briefly lasts the crowning green of glory,
unless an age of darkness follows!
In painting Cimabue thought he held the field
but now it's Giotto has the cry,
so that the other's fame is dimmed.

[suffragette]

32. How interesting

I was actually sidetracked by Giotto when looking for this.

Great quote from Dante.

[CTyankee]

49. giotto did a fabulous "crucifix" if I am not mistaken, and it is in the Santa Maria Novella church

in Florence. It's big...

[suffragette]

71. Yep and I was totally sidetracked by it for awhile

[CTyankee]

46. Cimabue "turned the page:" as the art historians put it....

[suffragette]

30. #5 Ghirlandaio Adoration of the Magi

Ok, now you're messing with my mind :)

I looked at the picture and immediately thought of Botticelli, though at the same time it was clear it wasn't Botticelli.
Still, looked very familiar.
Found it fairly quickly by searching for Adoration of the Magi.

Then saw it is in the Botticelli room in the Uffizi, which solved both where I've seen it and why I connect it to Botticelli.

http://www.virtualuffizi.com/uffizi1/Uffizi_Pictures.asp?Contatore=11

[KittyWampus]

33. Ah... I had the same thing happen to me. I knew it wasn't Bottecelli.

[suffragette]

45. Yes. So interesting that after all these years my mind

connected it to Botticelli simply from seeing it in the same room while at the same moment my mind was recognizing that it was not done by Botticelli.

I did spend quite awhile in that room, though saddened that Primavera was being restored while I was there so it wasn't on view (of course, what I most wanted to see).

Still no clue what the quote is, except the Google translation having something to do with Germans.

[CTyankee]

69. I had no idea the Ghirlandaio was in the Botticelli room!

I don't recall that, and I've been to the Uffizi twice...but I'm not an expert on that museum.

A major hint on this question is the shape of this painting...

[suffragette]

73. I'm coming up empty

A table?
A frisbee?


On a more serious note, here's a link on it being in the Botticelli room:
http://www.virtualuffizi.com/uffizi1/artista.asp?Autore=Domenico+Bigordi+called+Ghirlandaio

[KittyWampus]

31. #5 isn't Botticelli. So I had to look it up... won't tell. But I did recognize several

of this artist's portraits. And from his self portrait- he was a good looking man.

[TorchTheWitch]

24. how are hints helpful if they aren't even in English???

Bad enough these Friday challenge thingies are always about obscure art stuff few people would have a clue about.

[CTyankee]

29. I know. There is Google Translate, tho! just sayin'.

[CTyankee]

40. Oh, I'm sorry. I thought thelanguage would be a really great hint!

Maybe I was wrong...oh, my bad....

[TorchTheWitch]

76. Perhaps you missed the point of it not being English

I have no idea what language it IS in the first place much less know what it says, so how could they possibly be hints?

But then since I'm not a painting or sculpture aficionado with a masters in art history it makes these Friday challenge threads rather useless anymore.

[CTyankee]

77. Not every one is an art thread...but I see your point about this one.

I think (not sure) that if you just select/copy the foreign language used on Google, it will translate for you even if you don't know the foreign language.

As for the art, I know some of it's a bit obscure. I try to make them interesting. We have some pretty savvy art history buffs here on DU so I never fool everybody with my Challenges!

Actually, I do not have a Master's in Art History. I became fascinated with art history after I retired and do a lot of research simply because I love to do it. My goal is to study and surround myself with wonderful art until I die. A real passion of mine...

I hope you'll try another of my Challenges in the future...while most will be art related, not all will be...you might find one of interest to you!:hi:

[Divernan]

26. #2: Appears to be a stylized Byzantine crucifix - Giotto Ciambue?

[CTyankee]

38. which one?

[horseshoecrab]

28. #5

#5 is Domenico Ghirlandaio's "Adoration of the Magi" 1487. Not clear on the backstory yet.


horseshoecrab

[suffragette]

34. Ah, you beat me to it!

[Divernan]

35. 5 is very similar, but it is different from the one attributed to Ghirlandaio at this link

http://www.artbible.info/art/large/248.html

Did he paint this subject more than once? On edit:

At the above link, there are "related pictures". He apparently painted one in 1487 and the other in 1488.

[CTyankee]

37. Hmm...could that be? well....

[Divernan]

41. Yes, the link I provided shows both in a montage of his work at the bottom of the page.

Your example is round:
Domenico Ghirlandaio 1449 – 1494
The Adoration of the Magi (1487)

tempera on panel (171 cm diameter) — 1487 Museum Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence

This work is linked to Matthew 2:11

Images of the virgin and her young child were very popular in the early years of the Renaissance and could be found in many homes in Florence. Wealthy Florentines often ordered a version of The Adoration of the Magi – a subject they strongly identified with and were willing to pay generously for.

These round paintings are called tondos, after the Italian word for circle.

The other Adoration he painted is not round, but an altarpiece:
Domenico Ghirlandaio 1449 – 1494
The Adoration of the Magi (1488)

tempera on panel (285 × 240 cm) — 1488 Museum Ospedale degli Innocenti, Florence

This work is linked to Matthew 2:11

Please scroll down to read more information about this work.

Tags: Adoration of the Magi | Altarpiece

[CTyankee]

42. what happened to this masterpiece...(look at the quote again)...

[horseshoecrab]

43. Yes, painted the subject twice...

Hi Divernan. :-)

Ghirlandaio painted the Adoration of the Magi that you link to in 1488. The round painting Adoration of the Magi was commissioned by a prominent family and was done in 1487, as the Roman numerals in the foreground of the painting say.

horseshoecrab

[CTyankee]

44. And what happened to it? Why is there any interest at all in it?

And what would it have to do with the quote in the Challenge question? (Think 20th century...)

[Divernan]

47. "Florence Wept" - this crucifix was serious damaged in a flood

In Florence, one can visit two Cimabue masterpieces: il Crocefisso di Santa Croce, seriously damaged during the 1966 flood, currently located at the Museo dell'Opera Santa Croce, as well as the Maestà, commissioned for the Church of Santa Trinita, currently located at the Uffizi.

The symbol of the devastating effects of the flood is the almost complete destruction of the huge Crucifix by Cimabue. The crucifix, painted in distemper on wood (around 1272) by one of the most significant painters of the 13th century, had lost the majority of its layer of paint. The first action taken was to move this work of art from the former Santa Croce refectory to the Limonaia in the Giardino di Boboli. In 1976, the Crucifix underwent a major restoration, during which it was possible to conserve the remains of the layer of paint.

Cimabue, Crucifix (detail), 1268-71, tempera on wood, 336 x 267 cm, San Domenico, Arezzo

Vasari and others cited this crucifixion as an example for Cimabue's innovation: for breaking away from the Byzantine style and achieving a powerful new connection to Christ's humanity and emotion. Time damaged the piece badly, and a flood invaded Santa Croce in 1966 and removed much of the paint.

[CTyankee]

61. This was a huge deal in Florence at the time...very sad...

I was in Florence last September and saw the croficisso. Very sad, no matter how you have to explain it.

You would think they would have known about the Arno all along. It was always flooding. Leonardo had a plan in one of his notebooks to spare Florence from the raging torrents of its flood...but nothing came of it...too bad...

[horseshoecrab]

48. " the Germans for what use me"

Has to have something to do with WWII? Was it confiscated by the Germans during WWII?

[CTyankee]

51. You have a clue there, horseshoecrab!

[Divernan]

53. That was the quote for No. 3?

[CTyankee]

54. well, sort of...lost in the translation is "they used me for what?"

[KittyWampus]

64. Just guessing- Did the Germans steal it during WW II?

[CTyankee]

66. Probably, since they stole a LOT of art, but this was kind of worse than just stealing...

[horseshoecrab]

70. hmmm...

The Germans used the concept of the Adoration of the Magi as printed propaganda, with Hitler himself as the Christ Child?

[Divernan]

50. No. 6 Translation: Why So Long?

[CTyankee]

52. Yep, Well, why?

[Divernan]

55. Because the Jesuits had no idea it was a masterpiece - thought it was an old copy!

Quite a coup that the National Gallery of Ireland was able to get this on indefinite loan. I'd have expected the Vatican to have snapped it up.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Taking_of_Christ_%28Caravaggio%29

By the late 18th century, the painting was thought to have disappeared, and its whereabouts remained unknown for about 200 years. In 1990, Caravaggio’s lost masterpiece was recognized in the residence of the Society of Jesus in Dublin, Ireland. The exciting rediscovery was published in 1993.

The painting had been hanging in the Dublin Jesuits’ dining room since the early 1930s but had long been considered a copy of the lost original by Gerard van Honthorst, also known as Gherardo delle Notti, one of Caravaggio’s Dutch followers. This erroneous attribution had been made while the painting was in the possession of the Roman Mattei family, whose ancestors had originally commissioned it. In 1802, the Mattei sold it, as a work by Honthorst, to William Hamilton Nisbet, in whose home in Scotland it hung until 1921. Later in that decade, still unrecognised for what it was, the painting was sold to an Irish pediatrician, Marie Lea-Wilson, who eventually donated it in the 1930s (there is no evidence to suggest 1934) to the Jesuit Fathers in Dublin, in gratitude for their support following the shooting of her husband, Capt. Percival Lea-Wilson, a District Inspector in the Royal Irish Constabulary in Gorey, County Wexford, by the Irish Republican Army on 15 June 1920.<2><3>

The Taking of Christ remained in the Dublin Jesuits' possession for about 60 years, until it was spotted and recognised, in the early 1990s, by Sergio Benedetti, Senior Conservator of the National Gallery of Ireland, while he was visiting the Jesuit Fathers in order to examine a number of paintings for the purposes of restoration<4>. As layers of dirt and discoloured varnish were removed, the high technical quality of the painting was revealed, and it was tentatively identified as Caravaggio’s lost painting. Much of the credit for verifying the authenticity of this painting belongs to Francesca Cappelletti and Laura Testa, two graduate students at the University of Rome.<5> During a long period of research, they found the first recorded mention of The Taking of Christ, in an ancient and decaying account book documenting the original commission and payments to Caravaggio, in the archives of the Mattei family, kept in the cellar of a palazzo in the small town of Recanati.

The painting is on indefinite loan to the National Gallery of Ireland from the Jesuit Community, Leeson Street, Dublin who acknowledge the kind generosity of Dr. Marie Lea-Wilson. It was displayed in the United States as the centerpiece of a 1999 exhibition entitled "Saints and Sinners" at the McMullen Museum of Art at Boston College,<6> and at the 2006 "Rembrandt / Caravaggio" exhibition in the van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam.<7> In 2010 it was displayed from February to June at the Scuderie del Quirinale, Rome, for the 400th anniversary of Caravaggio's death.<8>

On edit: Love the National Gallery in Dublin - great docents.

[horseshoecrab]

57. ya beat me to it! What a great find! Great story! n/t

[CTyankee]

58. Isn't that a great story? I just love it!

Oh, man, it was in their freakin' dining room all these years!

Well, at least it didn't come into harms way in WW2 with bombs falling...

[horseshoecrab]

56. Why so long?

I'm reading about this beautiful Caravaggio now. Oh my! Imagine being a conservator in Dublin in the 1930s, called in by the Jesuits to restore and evaluate some art for the Fathers.... The beautiful painting hung in the Jesuit's dining room.

The Taking of the Christ had been wrongly attributed for two hundred years, and was thought to be painted by one of the Dutch (Utrecht) Caravaggisti, Gerard van Honthorst, aka Gherardo delle Notti.

What a find!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Taking_of_Christ_(Caravaggio)


horseshoecrab

[CTyankee]

59. Yep. Two hundred years...amazing...

[CTyankee]

78. Jonathan Harr's recent book on this is a good read. I think it's called "The Lost Painting."

Came out a few years ago.

The guy who tried to restore it came damn close to ruining it...a little scary, but he didn't and it's fine...but what a story that is!

[horseshoecrab]

80. Excellent!

Just ordered this one from my local library! Can't wait to read it!

[Divernan]

60. Great challenge, CTYankee - most fun I've had on a Friday night in a long time!

In case any of you are fans of Torchwood, the new series is on STARZ tonight - the first two episodes, and the first episode has already shown in Britain to great reviews.

I called up Verizon to see how much I'd have to pay to add this premium channel, and they gave me a free three month trial of all the STARZ channels. Pretty sweet, as my son would say! And much appreciated.

See y'all next Friday!

Nancy

[CTyankee]

62. Thanks for joining in! See you next week!

Have fun with Torchwood!

[CTyankee]

63. Well, folks, we don't know exactly what happend with #5!

What in the world did the Germans use that painting for?

[KittyWampus]

65. Hostage during WW II?

[CTyankee]

67. Yes, but what was it they DID to it?

[CTyankee]

68. Answers tomorrow...also a an extra tidbit I had to leave out of this one...so be sure

to check in tomorrow morning for all the answers...I will torment you further...just kidding, of course...

[horseshoecrab]

72. aaaaaaaarghhhh

jus' kiddin' ...

Thanks for a good workout CTyankee!


horseshoecrab

[elleng]

74. Sorry I missed you earlier; was on the road.

What's a girl to do???

:hi:

[CTyankee]

79. How are things going? When is (or was!) the wedding?

[elleng]

81. Sept. 2, Philadelphia.

Friday fitting for my outfit, in Georgetown (DC).
61 out of 300 invitees have accepted so far, some disappointing 'regrets.' Daughter frazzling herself, as expected. She asked me to help select music for ceremony; string trio found, so I had fun w music last week.

Was 'on the road' btwn SilSpg/Hagerstown, normal 'commute,' including packing and gassing up, saying temporary 'bye' to Penelope Poodle, who I'll be 'sitting' for again Tues + Thurs. Mosquitoes during our walks. ICK! Lovely weather now, has 'cooled down' a bit.

Still haggling w 'husb,' so constant source of aggravation remains.

Thanks for asking.

:hi:

[CTyankee]

82. when do you expect this nonsense from the guy is going to end?

Isn't there some end point...?

[elleng]

83. Oh my dear, if only there were.

Will p.m. you.
:hi:

EDIT: Sorry for sounding so dramatic; Watching Sherlock Holmes!
Dress-maker just called, working on IT!
E