Our artisan cousin

"Venetians must be drawn to the impractical," Urban Sophisticate Sister said as we entered the glass museum on the Glass-making Island. "They built a city on water. They make lovely, breakable glass."

I couldn't help but think of my youngest son, With-a-Why, as we walked through exhibits of glass and looked at glass chandeliers above our heads. He's always been fascinated with glass. In fact, he has a collection of glass, mostly animal figures, that we refer to as his glass menagerie, and we've taken him to the Famous Glass Museum in our state back at home.

In one of the gift shops on Glass-making Island, Urban Sophisticate Sister looked at the tags and suddenly said, "Hey look at this!" There it was — the name my great-grandfather brought from this country many years ago. The shopkeeper laughed as we explained to her that we'd just found a relative, and she pointed out other pieces of art in the shop made by the same person. She even dug out a tag and gave it to my sister. For the rest of the trip, we kept referring to the artist as "our artisan cousin." And now we are thinking that perhaps With-a-Why's love of glass art is in his blood.