What's New?

I don't really mean what's new in the literal sense of the word, but my brain has been feeling very active lately, and I can only explain it by cataloguing all of the novel stimuli it has been getting. The obvious ones, like food and language, are on the list, of course, but there are also more specific things. For example,  the girls and I walk home from school on sunny days and look for the tiny lizards  that warm themselves on the stone walls of the nearby cemetery. It's autumn, so the trees (don't know what kind they are)are dropping interesting looking pods onto the sidewalk. There is a vendor selling roasted chesnuts in the town square. Haven't tried one yet, but I could probably gather enough of them myself  to roast if I felt so inclined.  I bought a bunch of sunflowers in the same square ('tournesols', answered a  fellow shopper when I asked for the French word)  for the appartment last week. The quiet in our neighborhood on weekend mornings is wonderful, but so is the chatter of school kids going home for lunch at noon. The smell of olives at the Sunday market is enough to make me swoon with pleasure. Ha! The name of the business on the side of that truck is a pun, and I got the joke! I guess I am feeling like a newborn, but the difference between me and an infant (aside from the wrinkles around my eyes) is that I am aware of the fact that my brain is behaving like a sponge, and it's a fantastic sensation.