Apologies and Promises... and a Little Kitten!

I am so very sorry for my failure to post much this season. And I have promised a certain someone (Et voilà, Sylvie, je tiens mes promesses!) to post this weekend! Perhaps this will create some blog momentum for me...

So many topics, but I must begin with the story of the kitten rescue that happened about a week ago. Artist Keli happened to be at the right place--outside Medinet Habu, at the right time--just when some adults (not kids!) were nonchalantly abusing a teeny tiny kitten. A woman, one of the vendors outside the temple, picked the kitten up and was showing it around, and then she tossed it into a donkey-cart carrying sugar cane. The three men with the cart then proceeded to throw the poor little one onto the road. Keli yelled at them and whisked the kitty from the road and into the care of the Chicago House Crazy Cat Ladies!

Kitten seems to be in good health, is eating up a storm, and is into extremely heavy kitty sleep. She loves being around (which really means being held by) people. And there are plenty of willing kitty-sitters here. Keli, as kitty rescuer, has naming rights, but since she has not chosen one yet, I have taken to calling her "NoNa", short for "No-Name". This name comes courtesy of my Daily Challenge friends (Thanks, SueSea Q!).

Enjoy the photos!

Keli and Kitten 

Sorry for the poor quality of the photo but once NoNa was ensconced, I couldn't budge!

Tuesday Morning in the West

Hard as it may be to believe, until this Tuesday I had not been into the Medinet Habu temple precinct this season. Some of us had the opportunity to join one of Bill Petty's Museum Tours to visit the tomb of Nefertari in the Valley of the Queens, and got to hang out at MH until they picked us up. I only walked around the small Amun temple, inside and out.

View of the main temple from the small temple

This visit gave me another chance to test how the new camera performs in low light. I continue to be impressed!

Detail of kilt in previous photo

If you would like to see really professional photos of the interior rooms of the small Amun temple, you should check out the free downloadable file at http://oi.uchicago.edu/research/pubs/catalog/oip/oip136.html 

After we visited the exquisite Nefertari, always an emotional experience, especially since one has to make the most of the ten to fifteen minutes groups are allowed in the tomb (no photos permitted), we returned to MH to wait for our ride. So I will end with a couple more photos from that great temple complex.

Beautifully carved flagpole recess on the exterior of the main temple

Ptolemaic Pylon with giant winged disk