Etc...

And this will be your room

UPDATE: Perhaps you recall an item in this space Sept. 1 about Giorgio Angelozzi, the elderly widower from Rome who put himself up for adoption because he was lonely and hoped that a nice family somewhere would take him on as a live-in grandfather. One has. He was deluged with offers from as far away as New Zealand. But he chose the Riva family in Bergamo, Italy, because Marlena Riva's voice "reminded me of my wife" and her two teen-agers already "call me Grandpa Giorgio." His new home also includes a pet beagle.

Speaking of life-changes, Branson, Mo., resident Andrew Wilson, has made one, too. Last week, he won a court's OK to assume a new identity: They. Just ... They. Why? For amusement, yes, but also because now his name will be on everyone's lips each day, as in, "That sounds like something They would do." Oh, by the way, They is a successful inventor and holds 14 patents.

The Smithsonian Institution's Museum of the American Indian, the latest addition to the National Mall in Washington, opened Sept. 21 to much fanfare. Its founders project that 4 million visitors a year - from every corner of the US - will take in the extensive collection of films, paintings, photographs, jewelry, masks, and many other objects housed in a striking, rounded limestone building designed to depict the curves of the Earth, sun, and moon. In fact, native peoples today live in all 50 states. Those with the largest numbers of American Indian and Alaska native residents, by population:

1. California 680,000
2. Oklahoma 395,000
3. Arizona 320,000
4. Texas 209,000
5. New Mexico 199,000
6. New York 184,000
7. North Carolina 138,000
8. Florida 129,000
9. Michigan 125,000
10. Alaska 122,000
- Bureau of the Census/AP