File Under "Architectural Ornamentation, Unlikely"

The dogs and I, in the course of our daily 6:00 a.m. morning constitutional (a time I generally devote to heartily missing the Villa Muscato's small but exceedingly convenient garden, a household feature that rendered 6:00 a.m. morning constitutionals an extremely rare feature of life), regularly pass this formidable gentleman.

A good three feet high, he is the sole feature of interest decorating what is otherwise an austerely plain, slablike hunk of '70s unattractiveness, an apartment high-rise that recalls nothing so much as the side streets of Pyongyang.  It's on a hill, this eyesore, and the visage - a Titan? a rustic godling of some kind? - is placed for reasons unclear on a side wall on the lowest side of the building, an eye-catching object indeed on an almost untrafficked stretch of road.  While he looks like a fountain (or drain), he appears to have no useful function of any kind, and one can only wonder at what odd circumstances brought him here.  There's not a single other Fountainebleauische sort of thing in sight.

When the light is just wrong, something about him freaks the hell out of Boudi, who is skittish about many things, although fearless when it comes to anything where caution might come in handy, as for instance cars or large dogs.  It adds color to the morning, but I have to confess I'll be pleased when it's not pitch dark at 6:00 a.m.