Seems to be a prime example of the old saw, if it ain't broke, don't fix it. The new "format" seems not to have a format. Just list everything in some undefined "order." Sorry for the quotation marks but as far as I'm concerned, the random listing is unusable. I'll check in for the next few days (as I have for the last many years), just to see if we've returned to what has worked so well. If not, regrets, but so long. Life's too short to have to slog through everything submitted to find what used to be presented so conveniently.

My 8 month old son didn't want to sleep, so I took him downstairs and while rocking him put on the tv--the Dick Cavett Show, which as I recall ran at 11:30. It was the day Janis died, so he replayed his interview with her from a couple of months earlier. He interviewed her often and despite how different their self-presentations were, there always seemed to be real affection between them, and this made the interviews seem so spontaneous and intimate.
The whole interview was moving, of course, since she seemed so alive, but at the end of the show, he asked her to sing a song, and as it happened she sang You Gotta Get It While You Can. Seeing her sing this particular song a few hours after she died was unforgetable.

Part of the interview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=irJ4QsacyyY&t=13s

I have to wonder about the unwanted Italian children for sale when the sign is in French. The photos are great fun, though.

Would it be possible to just upload the photos to Google Drive or Google Photos? Then they should be accessible from computer, tablet or phone. Haven't tried it myself.

I realize I should have added a couple of links. First, the uniforms:

https://news.sportslogos.net/2021/04/06/red-sox-wear-yellow-nike-launches-new-mlb-city-connect-uniform-series-for-2021/baseball/

Then, the marathon finish line at the celebratory parade:

https://www.google.com/search?q=2013+red+sox+duck+boat+finish+line&sxsrf=ALiCzsblalIgy1xYEVPQ9sJ71ueJm7RHlg:1662736090031&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwibi4HQ_of6AhUwEGIAHXnsDI8Q_AUoAXoECAEQAw&biw=727&bih=367&dpr=2.64

Baseball and Nike entered into an agreement last year to put out "City Connect" uniforms, eventually one per team. The idea is to move away from the team's traditional uniform style, but come up with an alternative to be worn occasionally that speaks to the unique culture of the city in question. I think it's safe to say that the San Diego unis may have been a swing and a miss.

On the other hand, last year the Boston Red Sox were one of the three teams chosen to inaugurate the program, and their uniforms were by contrast a home run and have set a very high bar for other teams. At first glance, they seem weird, blue and yellow, colors closer to the UCLA college teams rather than something associated with Boston. But the "connection" is that they're the colors and font of the Boston Marathon, with a sleeve patch that looks like a marathon runner's bib bearing the number 617. The Red Sox are now forever connected to that event. The Marathon bombing in 2013 took place just as the team was concluding its "Patriot's Day" game, and before their next game, they had a team uniform made up with the number 617, the city's area code, on the back between the words Boston and Strong. The uniform hung in the dugout for every game that year, with players touching it before going up to the plate, right up until the time the team--good, but flawed and definitely not great--surprisingly won the world series.

Boston celebrates major sports championships with a parade through the city on Duck Boats, World War II inspired amphibian craft, and as the parade approached the marathon finish line, the parade came to a halt, and two players came down from the Duck Boats. One carried the world series trophy and placed it in the middle of the finish line (painted in those blue and yellow colors) and the other draped the 617 uniform shirt--the one that had spent the season in the dugout--over the trophy, and the crowd lining the streets spontaneously burst into a singing of God Bless America.

The uniforms recall all of that and have become extremely popular. Players and fans love them, they have clearly connected to the city, and if they're making some money for MLB and Nike, it seems a small price to pay.

Your grandparents probably came from the Abruzzi region of Italy where this contraption supposedly originated, though it may have been available in other regions of the country before they emigrated. It's called a "chitarra," literally a guitar, obviously because of the way the wires are strung, and the classic Abruzzese dish you make from it is called Spaghetti alla Chitarra. You can buy modern mass-produced versions, but the one your grandparents brought with them may have looked more like the one in the video below. I like this one because the way the carpentry seems entirely assembled with pegs and rawhide and the patina of the wood makes it look like the woman is using a beloved family heirloom from generations gone by.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f_B8JTqvwoI

Both excellent, but I'd go with number 1 because of the eyes. How did you ever get catch lights in both eyes from that distance!?!

A lot of good options out there, but since you mention Olympus and since I'm close to your situation (a young 77 in my case) I'll add to the positive reviews of Olympus. About 5 years ago, I switched from Canon and have never looked back. Way lighter, and the in-body stabilization is jaw-dropping. I rarely think of a tripod or monopod any more, since I can often hand hold for a second, sometimes more. And that's with the e-m10 mark ii. The newer versions claim to provide even greater stability. Another consideration (which I gather any mirrorless will provide) is focus peaking. I figured this would be a gimmick until I tried it. If I'm in a museum, for example, and want to take a photo of an object protected by a glass case, the camera focuses on the glass. All I have to do is turn the lens, the edges of the in-focus area light up yellow (the color I chose), and when the object I want to photograph is in focus, I trip the shutter. You can do the same isolating a bird through a tangle of branches. With my failing eyes, I could never nail focus that well with an SLR--and probably never could have. If I were in the market now (and I'm desperately trying to resist the GAS attack), I'd opt for the e-m5 mark iii--most of the features of the e-m1 mark ii including weather proofing at about half the weight, 2.6 vs. 5.1 pounds. On sale through the month for $999. Finally, they have a lot of well-reviewed Pro lenses, but a few years back I took a flyer on the 25 mm 1.8 that Olympus offered refurbished for $200. Couldn't be happier with it. Much sharper than my old Canon 50 mm 1.4 and impossibly small at about 2.5 inch diameter, 1.5 inches long, and less than 5 ounces. The light weight lenses are the other, and maybe biggest, selling point of the micro 4/3 systems.

You could make a case for any of the Yankees teams of the late 30s. The 1939 team that won 106 games is a common choice, but that was the year when Lou Gehrig played only 8 games before retiring with ALS. I'd prefer the 102-win 1936 team, when Gehrig was MVP and Joe DiMaggio was a rookie. In addition to Gehrig and DiMaggio, two pitchers, Red Ruffing and Lefty Gomez, the catcher, Bill Dickey, and the second baseman, Tony Lazzari, are all in the Hall of Fame, and the third baseman, Red Rolfe, hit .319. The team batting average was .300.

Full disclosure: I'm a Red Sox fan so I say all this with some reluctance.

The team's baseball reference page: https://www.baseball-reference.com/teams/NYY/1936.shtml

And this version from the Modern Jazz Quartet's European Tour double album:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OtFZZDQAOyg&feature=emb_title

The Oscar Peterson version reminds me of one of my favorite radio shows of my high school years. In Rochester, NY, the local TV weatherman, Will Moyle, also had a jazz radio program that was the background to my homework. Peterson, a friend of his, wrote the program's theme song, "According to Moyle." The show featured interviews with musicians who often passed through town, and every year he'd make a long-distance call to Peterson in Montreal for an on air conversation. Some of the talk was about music, but much involved getting caught up on each other's families. Rather than feeling voyeuristic, it just made clear what nice people these were.

The date for the celebration of International Nurses' Day was presumably selected because it's Florence Nightingale's birthday. Yesterday was a landmark, her 200th--born April 12, 1820, in Florence Italy, source of her name.

Can't pretend to have any expertise on this, so I checked snopes and found lots of debunking of Dr. Mercola's ideas, especially in the 4th item down in this entry:
https://www.snopes.com/news/2020/04/01/covid-19-bioweapon/

Also interesting info on Dr.Mikovits whose research forms the basis of Mercola's argument:
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/scientist-vaccine-jailed/

Okay, let me try again, since I got that so wrong. I shouldn't write anything before coffee. I was driving to the supermarket and, "Doh!"--how could I have written that? I hope nobody notices before I get back to correct myself.

Beatrice comes into the poem canto 30 of Purgatorio (in one of the most dramatic and unforgettable scenes in the whole poem) and the character with Dante on the shore of the river Lethe is the ancient Roman poet, Virgil, his guide since the first Canto of Inferno. Lethe marks the limit of Virgil's ascent and it's from the other side of the river that Beatrice takes over, so here's the corrected description of the scene represented for Jay Pat's benefit:
_____________________________________________________________________

I can identify the subject of the first puzzle. In Dante's Purgatorio, the second part of the Divine Comedy, the ancient Roman poet, Virgil, guides Dante up the mountain of Purgatory, and at the top he comes to the site of the garden of Eden. He and Virgil stand on one side of the river Lethe (which you can see flowing down the middle of the image), and on the other shore they see a woman picking flowers. The passage in question can be found in Purgatorio, canto 28, lines 22-42 or so. The woman stays with Dante right through to the end of Purgatorio in canto 33, where she's identified as "Matilda." This doesn't help much, since people still disagree about who this Matilda might be.

I can identify the subject of the first puzzle. In Dante's Purgatorio, the second part of the Divine Comedy, his old flame Beatrice guides him up the mountain of Purgatory, and at the top he comes to the site of the garden of Eden. He and Beatrice stand on one side of the river Lethe (which you can see flowing down the middle of the image), and on the other shore they see a woman picking flowers. The passage in question can be found in Purgatorio, canto 28, lines 22-42 or so. The woman stays with Dante and Beatrice right through to the end of Purgatorio in canto 33, where she's identified as "Matilda." This doesn't help much, since people still disagree about who this Matilda might be.

I usually wouldn't be so pedantic (I taught Dante for 35 years), but I thought Jay Pat would want some detail about the image.