Merry Christmas

From us to you, have a happy Christmas. xoxo

Dolce Far Niente

Just a sweet photograph of Giulia doing what she does best: relaxing. Or dolce far niente. Visit Michelle in Calabria at Bleeding Espresso for further instruction.:) Have a wonderful evening.

ciao/xo

Photo Finish - Edit Your Photos

If you use Picasa & haven't updated lately, you ought to. There are many new features & if you don't have Instagram, these (& Pixlr-o-matic) can prevent you from going crazy until you can have a smartphone like the other cool kids.

If you don't edit your photos at all, GG's editor encourages you to consider it. It's fun & easy & you can make a good photograph out of a less-than-stunning original. We see lots of photos on Facebook & Twitter (& some blogs) that could be so much better with some (free) editing software.

While these photographs aren't terrific, the originals are, in fact, awful. But slap a few effects on & they're presentable. The effects used on Giulia's photograph are Lomo(ish) & a drop shadow. On the human servant: an Orton(ish) effect & drop shadow. Those are 3 of 24 new features, including cinemascope, infra-red, Holga, posterize, & duo-tone.

ciao-cheese-meow/GGCM

PS: Here are 9 great photo tools for new & occasional photographers.

My Funny Valentine

Happy Valentine's Day a bit early from Julie the Cat aka Giulia Geranium. (Do you see the two hearts?)

ciao-meow/GGCM

New Year's Eve Day

As usual on New Year's Eve Day, GG's editor is running late, running out & running last-minute errands. And Giulia is asleep, though quite sparkly. Back tonight! (Happy New Year to our Antipodean amis!)

PS: There will be a live webcast from Times Square starting at 6pm EST. Cheers!

Merry Christmas

From us to you. xoxo
GG & her editor

Christmas Eve Day

Giulia opened a present without permission thereby reassuring her editor that the house feline is feeling good. Carry on. We'll be back tonight (North American time). Halloo friends in Australia, New Zealand, & Asia. Merry Christmas! ciao-meow/GGCM

Kitchen Flowers

We are in the midst of a computer crisis here (since early Tuesday). While we sort it out, here's a link to 7 Spots to Display Flowers (besides the kitchen table) for a little inspiration. The photo is our kitchen window with some Pixlr-o-matic effects; the flowers salvaged from an aging fair-trade chrysanthemum bouquet.

Don't forget to visit links here & on bricolage. If you plan to post on IKEA's Soft Toy Aid campaign, let us know in the comments over there, OK? Hope your week is going better than ours. Ugh.

ciao-meow/the Management

Cat Naps While Editor Snaps

Giulia naps while her ever-suffering editor tries to make deadlines among other duties. It's the blog's third anniversary not that a certain pink-nosed orange & white cat seems to notice. Consulting the National Geographic domestic cat page about mysteries of the feline. Anything to put off cleaning the apartment. We shall return!

Here are 10 tips for taking great photographs of your cat. Obviously we read it after we snapped this shot.

ciao-meow/GG

GG's New Year's Eve

That's right - the party girl is asleep. Happy New Year to our friends around the world! You can leave a message for Giulia's editor here, if you like. xoxo

Giulia - The Harmless, Necessary Cat - Week's End

Giulia & her editor wish everyone a lovely first autumn weekend. The Harvest moon is still very large & beautiful. We hope you've seen it (this is it until 2029). We've been hanging upside down & backwards on a bed to look through a large window. It's very exciting. Less exciting, by far, is the hunt for the masses of brown marmorated stink bugs (see here) marching into our apartment. We add that this is futile, this effort of theirs. We have an arsenal of tissues at hand & a great cat huntress on alert. (When she's not hanging upside down like a bat looking at the moon.)

Back to the sky, the following is via SPACE.com: Jupiter, Uranus and the nearly full Harvest Moon met in a rare cosmic lineup late yesterday (Sept. 22), just two days after Jupiter made its closest approach to Earth in nearly 50 years. Wednesday night's sky show also occurred on the equinox, marking the official start of the fall season in Earth's Northern Hemisphere, and spring in the south. If you missed the sky show, don't despair. Jupiter will continue to be a bright skywatching target for several weeks, according to the skywatching website Spaceweather.com.

There are so many photographs of the moon to see elsewhere, but where else can you see GG? (Well, on her editor's blog, bricolage.) This is GG doing a little sky-watching. Until next week,

ciao-heavenly-meow/GG Central

Cinnamon Girl - Week's End

A rare shot of GG. She how she's contemplating going to the Human Rights Art Festival this weekend? Actually, this was taken on Easter weekend...& GG seriously, really, no kidding perks up every time she hears Neil Young's Cinnamon Girl. Which is just about every day. She expects to fly & dance, too. She's one cool cat & her editor will never compare.

Maybe we'll see you at the fair. If you have any questions or comments, feel free to visit the editor's blog, here. Have a great weekend, whatever your plans.

ciao-meow/GG Central

[personal photograph & scan from Mirror Ball]

Ah, the geraniums of Strasbourg, part 2

[original post 3 September 2009; somewhat altered though we've no time to search for better geranium images; we've learned a lot in a year but we cannot use that knowledge today. See here for The Clever Pup's gift geranium for GG's first-year birthday, it's so pretty & inventive. Also The Clever Pup has many images of her paintings on her site. Do visit, you won't be disappointed.]

Many posts coming up about automne en Alsace, le vendange, la Route du Vin, the museums, the université, & food, food, food (and drink!), flowers, le vélo de GG's editor....we are homesick for France!

bisou, baci, xoxo
GG Central

Bird in Jerusalem

A bird in a mosaic (detail) in Jerusalem, but we can't remember exactly where. We thought of Yehuda Amichai's poem Lying in Wait for Happiness but it's not available online (as far as we can tell). We'll ask for permission to post it. Meanwhile, a bird for GG. At a safe distance.

ciao-meow/GG/mgmt

Greek Wildflowers for Earth Day

A quick collage for our readers. Still under storm threats & therefore computer meltdown. These are from Santorini & Crete; the basilica in the center is in Oia, Santorini. We didn't have the advantages of digital cameras & fancy stuff...so decidedly amateurish. But that can be charming (we tell ourselves...)

a ciao-green-meow/GGCM

Friends & Inaugural Week

How adorable are our friends Isabelle, Lenny, & their little Phoenix? A bilingual, French-American famille living in Washington. These are from Inauguration Eve & taken on Pennsylvania Avenue. GG can't wait for Phoenix to come over soon--she adores him (& he speaks French so much better than her editor:)

ciao-meow!
GG Central

Scarf Chic, la huitième partie, Mont Blanc

Though you can barely make out the off-center, rakishly tied scarf-bow, believe us when we say that then-7 year-old Anne-Sophie was already adding a personal twist to her daily ensemble. Oui. Would we lie? GG's editor was so impressed with A-S's insouciant, charming manner (& her excellent manners, too). Click here to go to Garance Doré's Les jolies choses...this is where scarves go to grow up. The hike was in the Alps, on the Mont Blanc side. We don't want to slight the Italians, so here is a recipe for the gorgeous Monte Bianco. (Nigella Lawson's lazy woman's MBianco, here. Marcella Hazan's still-very-easy-classic, here.)

For good measure, here is a New York Times interview with Marcella & Victor Hazan in September. We look forward to her soon-to-be-published memoir. Finally, here are some cute kid photos by The Sartorialist.

baci, bisou...

Persuading the Paperwhite

Dreadful photos, sorry. The late great darling Oliver & bulbs. Recently read Persuading Bulbs to Bloom by Anne Raver in late October & finally checked out some bulb prices. Wow, have the prices gone up! The days of four pots (minimum) blooming are not making a return (this year), still a few pots through the winter are uplifting. There's a much wider choice of bulbs to "force" nowadays. Not just paperwhites, but all the minor & major bulbs. Try to get them soon though...many websites are sold out. There are still some in the stores.

ciao, bisou,
GG's editor

Isabel's Birthday Berry Trifle

Happy Birthday, Bella Isabel!

It is just like our dear friend, the sophisticated September-born Isabel, to have berry trifle for her birthday instead of the expected. GG Central has about 5,000 pix of Isabel & wouldn't you know it, we're in the midst of a reorganization of all photos. (Out-of-date, slapdash collage will be replaced in a break with GGCM editorial policy.)

Also, we owe an apology to the lovely Imogen, Isabel's sister pictured in the Christmas photo, as her birthday was last week. GG's editor promises to get back up to speed as soon as possible. Meanwhile, a wonderful evening & weekend to Isabel, Imogen, & their parents K&J. We'll publish K's personal berry trifle recipe soon, along with an all-about-Nigella post.

xoxo, baci, & happy birthday, darlings!

GG & her overworked editor