I wanna be a part of it

New York, New York . . .

I’m becoming quite the traveler lately with my frequent visits to the city. I left Maryland very early yesterday morning to meet Lauren at Daryl’s place in NYC. Daryl wanted to show us the newly opened High Line.

For the first time in my life, I rode in a taxi. There’s even a tv in the back seat.

The High Line is a unique elevated park that just opened a few weeks ago. Lauren just e-mailed me and told me that it’s featured in today’s New York Times in the Style section. [Click here] and then click on the multimedia link “On the Street / Elevated”.

I’ll post more of my High Line pics later this week and tell you a little about it. But for now, here are a couple of glimpses. There’s Lauren in the background, there.

The park is on an old train line that ran above the city for years. We’re almost at the end of the line in this shot, and you can see Lady Liberty in the background there. She’s far away and very tiny, right in the center of the photo.

Here, I’ll point her out. There you go.

I also got an added treat. I’m not sure you know this, but I’ve got sort of a thing for firemen. For some reason, there was a small congregation of them (be still, my heart) having a pow wow here at the end of the Line and some of them graciously let me take their photo.

We visited several shops and boutiques and had lunch in a really cool restaurant that had a courtyard in the center. Afterwards, as we strolled through the West Village, Lauren pointed out a pet shop and suggested I buy a birthday gift for my favorite best friend.

So I went inside and picked out this cool turtle that I know Maria of Gardening With Turtles would really love.

And George really enjoys his new present. When I arrived home around 6 pm, he ran to the car to greet me, jumping up and sniffing the bags I’d brought home. He sniffed out the birthday bag and wanted at it, as if he knew it were for him. (I don’t make this stuff up, you know).

We had dinner al fresco and a game of fetch the turtle at the same time with the birthday boy. What a great day!

Oh, and here’s something funny. When I arrived at Daryl’s apartment, she re-introduced me to her husband (the famous Ray of Toonsday Husbandisms). He shook my hand, saying that it’s so hard to keep track of all his wife’s friends but good to see me again.

“Honey,” Daryl said, “You know Kate. She’s the one with the dog. The border collie you like.”

At that, Ray’s face lit up and he said, “Oh, George! I’ve seen George’s blog!”

I swear, my dog is going to have to start his own blog.

Not really.

Until tomorrow, my friends . . .

PS ~ To all those who were saddened that George couldn’t go with me on the ride in yesterday’s post, please know that he was more than happy to have stayed home that particular day. My husband played with him practically the whole time. When the weather is hot, I can’t take him in the car if I’m going to be inside for any longer than just a few moments. Not good to leave pets in a hot car!

UPDATE: The statue I pointed out looks exactly like the Statue of Liberty (especially when viewed large in my PS2 program), but unless she got her island to move up the river a ways, then it couldn't be. A gentleman taking photos pointed it out to me and I happily clicked away, thinking it was. Thanks, Daryl and Ray, for straightening me out!

And then it was quiet

I had myself a merry little Christmas, and I am hoping that you did, as well. Our sons have left and all is quiet here again at the manor house on the hill. Yesterday afternoon, there was lots of laughter and lots of family at my in-laws home in NJ. In fact, it was a bit too much for my husband, as he prefers the quiet here.

But it was just what I needed.

Today, my husband called me to the window and pointed outside. And there, sitting on one of the large branches of the dogwood tree right outside our kitchen window, was a beautiful hawk.

I went to get the camera. And then to get the long lens, and then . . .




the hawk was gone. The little junco above was taken about an hour later from my bedroom window.

This was all I captured of the hawk.

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This afternoon, I watched a Netflix movie that I’d never seen before. And I watched it from my tv. Our son gave us a Sony media streamer for Christmas and then set it up for us. It’s so cool to be able to stream movies on the big screen. Today, I watched A Christmas Carol (2009), the Disney film directed by Robert Zemeckis and featuring 3D CG animation. Jim Carrey voices Scrooge, plus all of the ghosts. Colin Firth, Bob Hoskins, Robin Wright Penn, and Gary Oldham, to mention a few, round out the cast. At times, I felt like I was on a Dickens Disney ride, as I swooped over the snow-covered, bitter cold streets of Victorian London. I was surprised at how much I enjoyed this version of Charles Dickens’ classic tale.

And it’s on stream at Netflix. Here’s the trailer:

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I am not particularly fond of this trailer, however.

My husband bought me new hiking shoes for Christmas and they’re really very nice Solomons and although I would have never bought shoes this color, they’re excellent on the trail. I tested them out today.




The skies today were sometimes sunny, sometimes cloudy and always interesting.




And the sunset this afternoon. Can you see the moon? This is another photo opportunity pointed out to me by my husband.

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On Tuesday afternoon, I am leaving for New York City to visit friends, so I won’t be posting until I get home Thursday evening. I’ll be taking the train with {her}, then meeting {her} at Penn Station, then meeting {her} for dinner on Wednesday. I can’t wait and am so looking forward to having some fun in the Big City at Christmastime.

I’ll try to get some photos to share ~ but here are some from last year:

New York City at Christmastime

Toto, I have a feeling we're not in Kansas


Hope your holiday week is a good one, my friends.

I love my new camera lens

I am loving my Nikkor 60 mm lens for taking extreme close-ups. My son sent me a link today to an article in the New York Times that featured a woman who is an exceptional photographer and very inspiring to me with her artistic photographs of flowers in extreme close-up. They're breathtaking. Thanks, Matt. You can view her gallery by visiting her site at http://www.rivaberkovitz.com/-/rivaberkovitz/default.asp

Time Wastes Too Fast: An artist’s tour of Monticello

While having coffee this morning and visiting my favorite blogs, I stumbled upon an absolutely wonderful link provided by Jeannelle at Midlife by Farmlight. After visiting the link she posted, I wrote her and told her that I was going to shamelessly steal it and post it here.

Click on the words below to visit an article that was published  in this week’s New York Times, and was written and illustrated by artist Maira Kalman. Prepare yourself to be enchanted and enlightened.

And for all those out there (you know who you are) who are crushing on Mr. Thomas Jefferson, you will not be disappointed.

 

Time Wastes Too Fast

 

I hope you enjoy. Until tomorrow, my friends . . .

I love a good movie

Visiting a fellow blogger today, I was vividly reminded how much I enjoy the movie, Amelie. It's a French film (2001) directed by Jeanne-Pierre Jeunet and stars Audrey Tautou as Amelie Poulain. Basically, it is a human comedy about love.

Amelie grew up lonely and isolated from other children. Her distant and taciturn father, an ex-army physician, mistakenly believed her to have a serious heart problem. Her mother died in a freak accident, which caused her father to withdraw even further into himself. Amelie is left to amuse herself and consequently develops a vivid imagination.

As a young woman, she happily lives alone and is employed as a waitress at a small cafe in Paris that seems to be a magnet for misfits and is owned by a former circus performer. Amelie spends her free time enjoying such simple pleasures as sticking her hands in sacks full of grain, cracking creme brulee with a teaspoon, skipping stones, and trying to guess how many couples in Paris are having an orgasm at the same time ("Fifteen", she announces).

But things get really interesting when she discovers a broken tile in her apartment wall. Behind the tiles, she finds a very old tin box full of treasures left by a little boy. She decides to try to find the person whose treasure this was, and return to him his prized possession, telling herself that if it makes him happy, she will devote her life to bringing happiness to others.

There are many wonderful characters in this film, which weaves a tale of a sweetly poignant, intricately detailed and beautifully filmed motion picture. It was nominated for five Academy Awards in 2001, won the People's Choice Award at the Toronto International Film Festival  and was selected by the New York Times as one of " The Best 1,000 Movies Ever Made".

The first clip is the movie trailer. I added the second clip because I just liked it.

 

I hope you do, too.

Until tomorrow, my friends . . .

A slice of life

I have been so inspired by Riva Berkovitz, a photographer who was recently featured in the New York Times. I love going to her site and reading her blog and just looking at her gallery. My son sent me the link just after the holidays and I used it as one of my first posts on this blog.

If I'm feeling frenzied, or frustrated (as I often get with my internet provider) or just plain not quite right, visiting her site always seems to set me straight.

The colors and the shapes of the petals calm me down, like they do here with my white rose. I've also been experimenting with the picture inside of the picture like I've depicted above. I just like how it looks.

There are so many wonderful sites out there, but I don't have the time (or the patience!) to visit as many as I'd like.

Another reason to get a faster internet provider. Can you tell I'm lobbying here for it? Can you help me convince my husband to pay more than double than we're already paying for dial-up? Nah, that's ok. I don't think I need any help convincing him. He's a pretty reasonable man. Usually.

Anna’s shells

I am one of those lucky women who was blessed with in-laws with whom I actually enjoy spending time. I have heard the sad tales of friends whose in-laws leave much to be desired and every time I hear one of these stories, I remember just how blessed I am.

We went to see my husband’s mother today, stopping at the hospital to visit my brother who is finally going home tomorrow, if all is well. (He looked good and actually giggled a couple of times).

Anna (my MIL) is a lover of the beach and collected these shells on the gulf coast of Florida earlier this year.

 

We have been to see my husband’s folks several times since they returned from their winter sojourn on the gulf. But each time we visited, I had forgotten my macro lens. This morning, I remembered because I wanted to take pictures of the beautiful shells Anna has on display in a little basket.

 

Anna loves to tell a good story and has a fun sense of humor. Godfrey is quiet, like the son to which I’m married.

And he reads my blog.

(Hello, dad.)

 

Anna and Godfrey instilled a love of nature into their three children, taking them camping and visiting as many national parks as they could after their emigration from the UK in the 60’s. I don’t remember ever going camping as a child and it wasn’t until I met my husband that I began my life-long love affair with sleeping outdoors in a tent.

It was terribly chilly here in Maryland today and although the wind has died down some, it’s still quite brisk.

I’m in the middle of watching a movie on Netflix and it involves a series of letters written back and forth between people in London and a woman in New York City in the 1940’s. It’s ‘84 Charing Cross Road’ and I’ve never seen it before.

This is a sea urchin shell and it’s covered with something but I have no idea what it is. Here’s another photo of a sea urchin that I took while visiting Maine last summer.

All of these photos were processed using Florabella’s Vintage Summer II action and lowering the opacity considerably. On some of the photos, I added texture.

I love shells.

Have a beautiful Monday, my friends. Until tomorrow, then . . .

Every which way but loose

I know, I know. You’re totally shocked, aren’t you? Here I am posting three days in a row. Will wonders never cease?

It’s Friday evening and it’s been a good day. Aside from the fact that I caught a not-so-flattering glimpse of myself in the full-length mirror that our director at school has installed on her closet, it’s been a fine day. I got off early from school and oh, my gosh, was it ever cold. The wind was wicked and the air was frigid so I elected not to take George for walk and ended up watching Dr. Oz instead. Is that ever an informative program. And I’m this close to starting a low-carb diet, I tell you. This close . . .

Regardless, I’m always about the photos on this blog and today I have several to share with you that have nothing to do with each other. Well, other than the fact that they’re on the hard drive of my laptop at the moment. Yes, I am a loser because I still haven’t purchased a new external hard drive. I don’t want to talk about it, so let’s not.




This was taken earlier this month by my husband with our old D80. It’s a Straight Out Of Camera (SOOC) shot of one of the most beautiful sunrises which occured January 6. Everyone at school was talking about it that morning because we all come in at 7:30 am and we all witnessed the amazing skies on the drive to work that day.




Pier 1 on the Hudson in New York City. I took this over the holidays. The cloud action was pretty awesome.





Also taken over the holidays, this is my friend, Peg, with her darling little granddaughter. Peg, I just want to tell you that the guest room is ready. Bring wine. And bring Karen. I miss her.





My favorite window in the late afternoon. This is the window in my kitchen that faces west and has the most amazing light. I’m not too sure about the amaryllis plant there. It was a Christmas gift and when I opened it, it was pretty dried up. We’ll see how it goes, though. I bought some stones and a nice white pot for it to dress it up some. And I love that the geranium is blooming. On the left are some little spider plants that fell off when I was transplanting the parent plant this fall.

And yes, on the right you can see my pomander balls, made over the holidays, which still smell wonderful although they’re hard as a rock now.

The view out that same window.

Weird self-portrait.

I completely suck at these. And it’s so hard to focus.

I like the blur, though. And geez, my hair is really getting long.

And finally - tonight’s dinner. Friday night is take-out night and sushi makes me happy. My husband prefers a good cheesesteak and some onion rings, but give me sushi any day and I’m a glad girl. These are from Bamboo House in Newark, DE. On the left, we have Mexican Roll which consists of Kani mixed with wasabi mayo on top of shrimp tempura avocado roll. On the right is what they call the Brandywine Roll – Shrimp tempura, covered with avocado and topped with eel sauce. It was like a party in my mouth.

“And I find chopsticks frankly distressing. Am I alone in thinking it odd that a people ingenious enough to invent paper, gunpowder, kites and any number of other useful objects, and who have a noble history extending back 3,000 years haven't yet worked out that a pair of knitting needles is no way to capture food?”   ― Bill Bryson

No, you're not alone, Bill. I, too, have a problem with chopsticks. I've tried to overcome my affliction to no avail and all I can say is thank God for forks.

Hope your weekend is wonderful ~

Mine will be three whole days which may or may not have a lot to do with my happy mood. That and the fact that my husband ate a regular dinner tonight (see cheesesteak above) and I think I saw him smile several times. Life is good ~

Up, up and away

I've finally ditched the dial-up and have faster internet! I'd love to say I'm thrilled, but I'm kinda confused. Maybe it was just Blogger tonight, I don't know. I had to reboot my computer about 3 times and when it works, wow! My pictures upload at the speed of, well let's just say it's a lot faster than the dial-up that I've had for too many years.

While I was outside talking with the installer, who had just arrived and was unloading his truck, I happened to look down towards the pond and saw a great white heron wading at the edge on the far side. So I went inside and grabbed the camera and switched to the zoom lens.

I had just come home from work and still had my good clothes on, and I probably should have changed, but I walked down there anyway and sat at the edge of the pond for a while and snapped a few pictures. Ok, well 44 pictures. But I ended up deleting a lot of them. And even though I got a little goose poop on my Jones New York slacks, I managed to get a couple of decent shots.

Do you notice how the water is so blue in this last shot? It started out gray/green at the top, then green for the next two shots, and now blue. I noticed when I was looking at them on the computer. I think it's the way the light was hitting the water as the bird moved from the right to the left.

And look at the second picture. Do you see the trail in the water that was left by his legs trailing it during take-off? I just found it interesting and had to point it out to you.

So here's to faster speeds, and flying high. And yes, tj I'll give you that raspberry iced tea recipe. It's really really good! I'll post it here later this week. I'll take a picture or two. Or 42.

Random thoughts on a weekday evening

It snowed again the other day and I’m hoping that this is the last of it for this winter. It was pretty, I’ll give it that. Luckily it didn’t snow enough to close the schools. We already have enough days to make up on the calendar.

It only amounted to a couple of inches although it came down in blustery swirls all night.

 

Checking my photo files, I saw that on the same date the previous year, it had snowed enough to cause school closings. I shot the photo below from my bedroom window on March 25 of last year.

 

We had about six inches then. So this year’s end of March snow was nothing.

I just hope it’s the last of it.

 

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A co-worker gave me a present today. It’s a really pretty wireless mouse. She said that she knew I liked birds. She bought it {here}.

It’s sitting on a mouse pad I made several years ago that I bought from Shutterfly. I used a photo I had taken while visiting Deer Isle.

 

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I took this because it caught my eye while walking in Baltimore last weekend.

I was hoping to see some firemen, though.

 

Inserting gratuitous firemen shot.

Taken on the High Line in New York City back in 2009.

 

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Today the children in 1st through 5th grade were rehearsing for the Spring Concert in preparation for tomorrow evening’s show at our school. I went out to listen to them a couple of times because it makes me glad, but I got this one song stuck in my head that has become impossible to shake loose. It’s the The Lonely Goatherd from the Sound of Music. Maybe sharing it with all of you will finally get the monkey off my back.

I apologize in advance.

 

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I shot this through my kitchen window late one afternoon this week.

I thought it looked kind of dreamy.

 

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Respectfully submitted,

A walk in Central Park, Part 1

Today, because I felt like it and I can do what I want, I drove to the Big City to meet blogger friend, Daryl and then meet up with my son for lunch.

I’d been wanting to visit Central Park, as I’d never been there before. Since my son moved to NYC in the fall of 2007, I’ve visited the city several times and have a rudimentary knowledge of where I am when I’m there. And now that I have the added bonus of meeting a blogging friend and visiting her when I’m there, it makes it even more fun.

So let’s visit the small section of Central Park that I was in today, shall we?

We’re going to the Conservatory Garden. We’ll pass the brick wall that bears the inscription “Girls Gate”, on 5th Avenue & 102nd Street. Did you know that there are 20 gates to get into the park? [link].

It’s a beautiful September day in New York, a little warm when walking about, but cool breezes to be found everywhere plus plenty of shade.

We come to an ornate gate.

This is the Vanderbilt Gate, which originally stood at the mansion on Fifth Ave. & 58th St.

I cropped the crowd below out of the picture. There was a bridal party as well as a Canadian tour bus that had just pulled up. The park is a busy day on a beautiful Saturday in September.

The Italian style garden is directly through this gate. The conservatory consists of 6 acres and is divided into three different landscape styles: Italian, English and French.

Upon entering through the gate, the expansive lawn of the Italian garden greets you. What a beautiful oasis this is. Note the steps on either side of the fountain. They lead to a pergola that is absolutely beautiful.

The Italian garden is bordered to the north and south by allees of crabapple trees. But something’s not quite right with these trees. Besides the fact that the ivy is climbing up their trunks, there’s dying off of the top branches.

Still, it makes a nicely shaded walk with the ornate benches waiting for you to take a quick rest.

To the north is the classical style French garden, with sculptor Walter Schott’s beautiful statue, ‘Three Dancing Maidens’ at the center. This is the Untermyer Fountain, donated to the park in 1947 by the children of Samuel & Minnie Untermyer.

I’ve made a collage of the fountain on my Picture A Day Blog because I was just so taken with it. More to come tomorrow of my walk in Central Park! Check Daryl's blog also, as she and I saw the same things and have different perspectives.

Until then, my friends . . .