Your Cherokee words for today. The top word is English followed by how it is written in the Cherokee language followed by how it is spelled in English then how to pronounce it phonetically.

How cheerfully he seems to grin How neatly spread his claws! And welcomes little fishes in With gently smiling jaws. #LewisCarroll #crocodile #Venice #Venezia #spazzini

People give you book recommendations. But only Jason @jasonnoiles.bsky.social drives across half the continent and delivers his recommendations to your doorstep. The Broken Shore by #PeterTemple is a revelation. #Booksky 📚

My website #ReadingVenice is back online! #Weebly deleted it for months (no reason was ever given) so I’m ready to migrate to a new #CMS (preferably w/ hosting) – recommendations welcome! readingvenice.weebly.com

Come to me, you pretty leafy green things, come to me! #farmersmarket #Venice #Venezia

Carnival doesn’t start in #Venice for another 2 weeks but heaps of festive golden #frittelle can already be seen in pastry shops all over the city #Venezia

Today several #Stolpersteine were placed on the streets of #Venice – these poignant markers indicate where people used to live before they were taken to concentration camps and exterminated. #Shoah #WW2

Reading A Winter Book by #ToveJansson with @lizoksbooks.bsky.social. The book features enchanting pictures from Jansson’s life, including her childhood. #ToveWinter26

#Venice is running an ad campaign encouraging people to drink #tapwater and use refillable bottles to reduce #plasticwaste. And there’s water fountains all over the city, which is really handy.

Taking off from Tivat is just magical! Under Mount Lovćen covered with snow you can see the #Kotor bay, the Tivat bay, the #Adriatic in the distance

A dusting of #snow has appeared on the mountains around the #Kotor bay

Swirl appreciates it’s #Caturday but she’d rather stay under the duvet thank you very much #CatsofTwitter

I made #bubbleandsqueak for the first time and was so scrumptious I *may* just have to make it again tomorrow. #vegetarian #plantbased

It’s almost like they scheduled this for #ToveWinter26, @lizoksbooks.bsky.social!

We understand the assignment. Keep documenting. Keep sharing. Keep speaking out. 🤝 Threads by @jason_whitman

Srećan badnji dan! Wishing a happy Orthodox Christmas Eve to those who celebrate. Like many Serbian Orthodox people in the ex #Yugoslavia, my friend is offering guests priganice (basically donut holes) and dried fruit - and much rakija

It’s been a rough week for Tiger but he made a recovery on time to show off his whiskers and sparkling eyes on #Caturday #CatsofBluesky

While staring out the window at falling snow, thinking of #ToveWinter26, I happened to see a fox running through neighbors' yards. What a perfect day to start Tove Jansson's "A Winter Book"! ❄️📖 Feel free to join me & @petipaw.bsky.social if you have a copy. Or even read TJ's "Summer Book" instead!🌞

The moon also rises

As the year draws to a close, I’m signing off 2025 with a magical find! An ancient amber bear. Carved some 10,000 years ago, it washed up on a beach at Fanø, Denmark, from a submerged Mesolithic settlement in the North Sea. ✨ Happy New Year all! ✨ National Museum of Denmark 📷 by me #Archaeology

I’m finally catching up! I’m reading A Dance to the Music of Time by #AnthonyPowell and I’ll never again see a sugar dispenser without thinking about Winderpool… #Booksy 📚

A friend was going to church this morning. I walked with him lit a candle. I need the light inside.

Happy Boxing Day! This autumn, @petipaw.bsky.social & I decided to read Tove Jansson's "A Winter Book" in Jan. 2026. Please join us! This will be very low-key: read what & when you like. I'll start Jan 1, read 1 story a day & post a bit. ❄️📖 #ToveWinter26 en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Winte...

The Embassies of Germany, Great Britain and France performed "Shchedryk" in the Kyiv metro on Christmas Eve For over a century, the legendary Shchedryk by Ukrainian composer Mykola Leontovych has been heard around the world as a symbol of Christmas #Ukraine #Russia

I spent part of my childhood in a country at war, where fresh food was *really* hard to come by, so it drives me crazy to see trees covered with #fruit that’s left to rot…

#Armadale by #WilkieCollins is every bit the page-turner @iolantherosa.bsky.social had promised me it was!

Just because your name is Fox doesn’t mean you shouldn’t strut confidently into #Caturday. #CatsofTwitter

I love to be told that feminism has failed women by women whose careers and ability to flourish in public life, let alone have a credit card, only exist because of feminism

Waiting for his cue in the wings – it’s #Caturday!

Blue, as far as the eye can see #Kotor

A friend dropped off a jar of #honey from his hives…

A long nap the day before is the key to a brilliant #Caturday performance #CatsofTwitter

It’s the time of year when I do my Christmas auction. This mouse icon is up for auction and it’s to raise money for Shelter Cymru & Doctors without borders. 100% of the money raised will go to these charities on a 50-50 basis.

Stop the presses! A friend has brought #kumquats from his garden! This is not a drill!

December, from Maurice Sendak's Chicken Soup With Rice, 1962 Merry once merry twice merry chicken soup with rice.

For those of you who are a tad sun-deprived, here is a pic from my walk near #Kotor today, as the morning mist rises from the sea

By the time this is posted, my lemony #beet soup with lentils will be simmering on the stove – I will conquer the #lemon tree’s bounty through cooking

So far #DoctorThorne is not as delightful, hilarious and all-around brilliant as the previous Barsetshire volumes by #Trollope – though the cover (a William Morris wallpaper design) is exquisite. Thoughts, @nonsuchbook.bsky.social? #Booksky 📚

To celebrate #Caturday, someone is helping me with my reading… #CatsofBluesky

My friend’s #lemon tree is covered in fruit so I’m making #marmalade (or rather a kind of jam which uses the entire lemon – it’s an Italian recipe)

I love looking out an #airplane window – today I went from Venice to Tivat via Belgrade

Here is some peaceful golden foliage to make up for my last 2 posts’ stilted highbrow vibe (which is actually very me, I admit…)

At the Peggy Guggenheim Collection, I discovered the wild works of Argentine ceramic artist #LucioFontana (1899-1968). Here are one early work & one late piece.

My friend Marianna, whose gifts always expand my horizons, sent me this fascinating #autobiography of translator Lilianna Lungina (1920-1998), whose life pretty much coincided with that of the #USSR. Much of it is chilling.

On Nov. 21, #Venice remembers the end of the 1631 #plague with visits to the Santa Maria della Salute basilica – I’m not a Christian but I’m willing to hedge my bets, so I lit a candle too… #Venezia

I can’t resist a book about/by #ballet dancers – and Karen Valby’s The Swans of Harlem is positively enlightening to boot

This golden #gingko is for @sparrowpost.bsky.social, who always comes across magical trees on her walks

Terrific panel at the #VeniceNoir festival about how realistic murders are (and should be) in #crimefiction – featuring a legit British pathologist surrounded by lively, fiery novelists @annamazz.bsky.social @ianrankin1.bsky.social @tombenjamin.bsky.social

Like writers’ work, the work of professional translators has been pillaged by #AI companies to train #LLMmodels so it’s disheartening when a wonderful #bookfestival features an AI translator (with an awful output at that)… #VeniceNoir @annamazz.bsky.social @davidhewson.com

An appropriately eerie, foggy #Venice hosts the #VeniceNoir festival as of today – the Trial of Casanova panel was brilliant, both fun and thought provoking #Venezia #ReadingVenice