MJ and I have become members of the St. Louis Art Museum. We parked in the parking garage for the first time after having visited the Museum for over 30 years. What a difference a parking garage makes in July heat. We saw an exhibit from ancient Rome. The St. Louis Art Museum advises that, to truly enjoy the exhibits, visitors should focus on one at a time and return another day for the next. I read the explanatory cards and lingered over each statue and painting to ensure maximum immersion. I know more than I did this morning. We enjoyed watching an older couple around our age attempt to back their vehicle into the parking garage space next to us. Each attempt made their vehicle more crooked in the slot. The gentleman driving reminded me of myself. We were at the door of the Museum three minutes before opening. The crooked driver and his wife said that usually the guard lets them stand inside the air conditioning rather than stand outside in 100-degree heat. Before sitting for lunch at the Panorama Restaurant, our friends were ahead of us in line. MJ asked the lady what was good, and she responded that she always gets the same thing but could not think of the name of it, to which her husband offered Waldorf Salad. MJ did not think she wanted Waldorf Salad, and I did not as well.

There was Trajan’s Column, ‘Built by the Senate to celebrate Emperor Trajan’s decisive victories in the Dacian Wars.

There was the sculpted head of a Barbarian. Barbarians was the title Romans used as a catch-all for anyone who did not speak Latin or Greek and was outside the culture of the Roman Empire.

‘Caligula is most famous for his extreme cruelty, megalomania, and bizarre extravagance during his short reign (37 – 41 AD).’ Caligula supposedly made his favorite horse a Senator. He declared himself a living god. ‘His four-year rule cemented his legacy as the archetype of a mad and unpredictable tyrant.’

In Metamorphoses, Narcissus was a hunter known for his unparalleled beauty who cruelly rejects the nymph Echo, preferring to gaze at his own reflection in a pool of water.

The Bullfrog Quartet has been practicing their song of Narcissus. They pull Narcissus from his reflection in an attempt to save him from himself.