Eye of the Beholder

There are so many things to see and do in Florence it is almost impossible to begin.  From our hotel terrace we can see the Arne River and the Ponte Vecchio.  Just outside our bedroom window is the San Stefano Church where we attended a concert one evening, and where each morning swifts circle between the tall buildings that make up the cul de sac.  When we step out our door, we encounter excellent musicians, art students reproducing Botticelli and DaVinci classics in chalk on the sidewalk, incomprehensible street theatre, vendors of every stripe and color, a gelato stand about every 50 feet or so, masses of tourists and swarms of tour groups wearing matching hats and following the ugly umbrella of their guide.  We are less than a block from the Uffizi Gallery, the Palazzo Vecchio, the Galileo Museum, countless churches with enormous domes (there seems to have been a competition for size back in the day), several piazzas and that bad-ass replica of David that stands where the original stood before it was removed to safer domain in the Accademia.

We can walk from attraction to attraction, stop for a rest (or a bath, or a conference call) back at our hotel room, and go again.  And, after Venice, it seems incredibly easy to find our way around.

Still, if you know Catbird and Physicist, you know we have a history of losing one another.  There are many folks with whom Catbird can shop or visit Museums and never get seriously separated.  Without benefit of cell phone or pre-planning, we can split up and reunite many times over an afternoon.  My Physicist is not one of those folks.

On our honeymoon in England, way back in the day, Catbird waited for two hours at the prearranged meeting point, then frantically executed a floor by floor search of Harrod's department store, describing her Physicist to the Bobby on each floor.  In high school Catbird had read a short story about a man being killed on his honeymoon while his bride waited at the hotel, and that tragic story played with increasing intensity through Catbird's head for those several hours until the great purge of customers as the store closed generated our reunion.

Ten years later, Catbird cannot count the times we've lost one another.  When we are thinking, we hang onto each other and confirm very specific plans for rejoining if we plan to part for even a moment.  However.  

Catbird and Physicist are equally likely to become distracted by shiny objects, though Catbird gravitates toward shoes and purses, while Physicist leans toward cars and other mechanical equipment.  (On Safari, in Tanzania, while scanning lion prides, Physicist said "Look:  five, six, seven heads!"  Catbird looked for the pride of 7 lions, but--no--Physicist had identified a big Landrover with seven people inside...)  

One evening in Firenze, as we returned to our hotel after dinner, Catbird crossed over to the Ponte Vecchio to watch the sunset, and suddenly noticed her Physicist not in attendance.  Scanning, Catbird spotted him half a block down, fixed on a shop window.  Catbird watched from a distance, thinking he would notice her absence, see her and catch up.  After several minutes, he did look up and notice Catbird missing. Though he methodically looked left and right, he did not see her and did not hear when she whistled, so Catbird retraced her steps.

What was he looking at, you might ask?  A Botticelli print?  Venetian Glass?  Marble statues of angels, saints or random Medicci?  Oh no.  Maybe even hydraulic lifts moving artwork around?    Nuh-uh.  Our physicist was looking at the exchange rates for Korean currency in the window of the bank. Fascinating.