Getting Your Children Outdoors - Baby Cages?

"With these facts in view it is the purpose of the present invention to provide an article of manufacture for babies and young children, to be suspended upon the exterior of a building adjacent an open window, wherein the baby or young child may be placed."

~ Emma Read's Portable Baby Cage U.S. Patent #1448235

What I Need in My House

One Week in Southern France - Roman Ruins and Nuns in Cars

Three days in the gorgeous Aix en Provence and a road trip to Arles is now on the menu. Why, you may ask, in a city as vibrant and beautiful as Aix, do you feel inclined to leave?

Because Arles still has functioning elements of the Roman Empire, thank you very much.

I don't mean aqueducts or municipal policing by centurions (perish the thought). I mean a coliseum that hosts bull-fights in the evening, and a Roman theater still used for contemporary concerts. It's also only an hour away.

So, a short trip by car - which includes toll booths and passing a car full of nuns (awesome) - and we arrive. Not joking about the nuns. They were flying down the autoroute in their habits, the driver with her hands at "10 and 2" on the steering wheel. I took a picture. I digress.

One Week in Southern France - The First Days

Eleven hours of travel, and a quick car ride from Frankfurt airport, and I find myself in the small town of Aix en Provence, Côte d'Azur, France. Ruddy-clay buildings, tall and crowded and unplumbed, along cobblestone streets with peeling platan trees. 

The air is sweet, dry, with pine and grapevine and juniper. I set up home base in a clean, cool basement apartment with a backyard and swimming pool. Well, make that half-a-swimming pool as it seems to have been sized to suit. Maybe that's a good metaphor for the trip here: the idea of sizing.