I’m originally from northeast New Jersey, and spent years working and playing in New York City. I had a love-hate relationship with it (I lived there back in the 1970s-80s when the city was falling apart and violent crime was rampant), but I miss it a lot, and this beautiful photo makes me all nostalgic. Sometimes I wonder why I ever left.
Tag Archives: photography
A beautiful dinner with friends
I haven’t been able to upload all the photos, but here are a few of the incredible dinner my daughter’s boyfriend Paul made at his home, and the first “selfie” I ever took. I ate so much I feel like I’m ready to explode!
Appetizer: salad and toasted rolls with olive oil and cilantro dressing
The dinner! Turkey, gravy, yams, stuffing, and lots of Merlot
Cool spiral staircase at Paul and Molly’s house.
The first selfies I ever took, and I’m ready to explode!
My roommate Stacey
A family album: Molly and more
I don’t have a scanner, so I couldn’t scan baby and very young photos of my daughter because those were regular paper photos taken back in the days before people could upload photos to Facebook or other social media. I gleaned these photos from her Facebook account (with her permission). They show Molly (not her real name) at a few different ages.
These two photos show Molly at about age 12, on a school trip to some underground caves. She is the girl in the purple velour hoodie.
The photo on the left is Molly (with the pink streaks in her hair) at her 8th grade graduation in 2007; the photo on the right was taken about 2 years ago, when she was 19. She is the girl on the left.
Molly with a color-manipulated photo of our fat cat, Chunks!
Bonus photo of Sheldon when he was a tiny kitten and my Bassett mix, Daisy, who passed away 2 years ago on December 23rd, 2012. That was a sad day. 😦 The second photo is Sheldon and Cleo as kittens not long after we adopted them.
Tomorrow I will post a “family album” of my son, Ethan.
A Sunday drive along the Blue Ridge Parkway
On one gorgeous Sunday afternoon back in June, my daughter, her boyfriend and I decided to take a drive along the Blue Ridge Parkway in western North Carolina, which is close to my home. I thought I’d share some of the photos we took. The view was breathtaking, even though it was very foggy (at that elevation, you’re actually in the clouds). It was coolish and cloudy up there, but very hot and sunny when we returned to lower elevations.
The bookshelves: a better photo
The photo of the bookshelves in my last post cut off the bottom rows of shelves, so here’s a better photo. Although I sold or gave away a majority of my books, I still have a pretty big collection!
Post #100: my surviving book collection.
Books and reading have always been my passion. As long as I can remember I always had my nose stuck in a book. I actually used to “cut class” in third grade to go to the school library (I hated 3rd grade the most because I was not only bullied by the other kids but was also bullied by my teacher Mrs. Morse, who had it in for me through the whole year and actually encouraged the other kids to gang up on me.) Reading was my escape, my middle childhood version of creating my own imaginary friends and worlds, and I read on a 7th-8th grade level in the third grade.
My two favorite books as a child were (1) Louise Fitzhugh’s classic “Harriet the Spy” (read the book but skip the movie –Harriet is not your usual female heroine–she’s feisty, neurotic and isn’t even all that nice–she is part villain, part hero, and that makes her have so many dimensions for a kids’ book) and (2) Scott O’Dell’s breathtaking survival story, “The Island of the Blue Dolphins”. How I longed, like the young heroine in that beautiful story, to be stranded for 18 years on a desert island, swim with the dolphins, commune with nature and wildlife, fashion my own hut and raft for fishing, and most of all, spend almost two decades not having to deal with people at all. .
These two bookshelves pictured below contain almost all my remaining books. I keep a few others in the reading room bathroom and a few more on a smaller shelf next to my bed. I used to read an average of 3 books a week but lately I haven’t been reading nearly so much, because I do so much reading on line now.
Yes, that is a Salvador Dali inspired melting clock dripping off one of the shelves on the left hand side. It was given to me as a gag gift last Christmas, but it was the perfect gift for a person like me who loves the random and unexpected when it comes to gifts. The clock works too! (Click photo to enlarge).
I used to own more than 3,000 titles (hell, I could have opened my own little bookstore!) but lack of space and financial necessity obliged me to sell most of the books or give them away to charity. There’s a few books I regret giving up; here are most of the remaining titles that either didn’t sell, or I refused to sell.
And now….(drum roll please!)…I have reached 100 posts. 🙂
Meet my pets
I meant to post earlier about my pets, but I had to make some space on my phone to take new photos. This morning I finally got the opportunity. I have 5 kitties and a dog, Dexter. Each of them has their own unique personality and hopefully these photos capture some of that. I’m posting the cats in the order I acquired each one.
Chunks:
Chunks is about 9 or 10, so she is the oldest of the group. Her original name was Ione, but it didn’t stick and Chunks is who she became, and from these photos you can see why. She looks like a meatloaf! Chunks spends most of her time sleeping, and (surprise!) eating. At night she likes to sleep at the foot of my bed and sometimes licks my fingers. I think she must be part Siamese because of her bright blue eyes and and loud meow.
Babycat:
Babycat is 5. She was adopted by my daughter as a tiny kitten whose mother had been killed by a car. You can’t tell from these photos, but Babycat used to look like a Maine Coon and had gorgeous semi-long fur and a bushy tail. But she is very nervous and jumpy, and has a habit of chewing her fur until she pulls it out. I think she also may have a skin allergy because she is also missing fur in places she can’t reach, like the back of her neck. When I have the funds I plan to take her to the vet and find out what can be done so she grows back her beautiful fur. But Babycat is also very friendly and affectionate, as long as you don’t pick her up (she will squirm to get loose). She gets along well with Chunks, but seems to prefer to keep her distance from the other kitties.
Sheldon:
Sheldon, my black and white tuxedo cat, came to my home at the same time as Cleo, but they aren’t from the same litter. He and Cleo are about 4. Of all the cats, Sheldon is the most people oriented and can be downright doglike in his demands for attention! He will follow you around meowing and he announces himself when he walks into a room, chirping and trilling like a bird. He loves my dog, Dexter the most and wrestles with him more like a puppy than a cat. Sheldon’s also the most likely to get into trouble, knocking things over (for attention I think!) or scratching the furniture. He’s a funloving guy who loves to go out, and will not leave you alone until he gets his way. The first two photos show him begging to go outside. It was very hard to get him to stay still long enough to get a good photo!
Cleo:
Cleo is an easygoing kitty and very small. She still looks like a kitten. But don’t let her delicate appearance fool you. She is a world class hunter and often brings home a “surprise.” She has even captured rabbits and other animals much bigger than a mouse! She can run up a tree faster than you can say “Boo” and knows how to get herself back down too. She gets along well with everyone and while not as affectionate as Babycat and Sheldon, doesn’t mind being pet and occasionally even carried around. Sometimes she jumps down from a perch on the cat tree and rides around on my shoulders. The first photo is one I took of her during the summer.
Mr. Biggles:
Mr. Biggles is about 3. He is a handsome guy and as you can see, he’s the most photogenic of all the kitties. He knows how pretty he is because he’ll actually stop and stay still for the camera. He’s an easygoing, chill guy who gets along well with everyone but he’s terribly clumsy, and often misses when he tries to jump to a high surface. Nothing phases him though, and pretty soon he’ll try again. He’s fearless. He also loves his beauty rest.
Dexter:
Dexter with Mr. Biggles:
Dexter is a very pretty black lab/Dachsund mix (he mom was a Doxie) who we adopted from a neighbor when he was about 4 or 5 months old. He’s a very sweet, affectionate boy and loves car rides more than anything. He likes all the cats, especially Mr. Biggles and Sheldon. He will whine for attention and loves to run. He’s a terrible watchdog though, and rarely barks unless he is playing.
Here’s a couple of bonus photos I took of the cats on the cat tree in the living room, after I sprinked some catnip on it. The brown and white cat in the bottom left side of the photo is Isaiah, a friend’s cat we are watching while he is away.
Click on the photos to enlarge.
Spooky Coon!
HAPPY HALLOWEEN!
Click to enlarge.
Kelp hair extensions
My son was at the beach again today and tweeted this photo. For some reason I’m reminded of “Wilson” in the movie Castaway. Click for a larger view.
Ethan’s hair is the exact same color as the “extensions.”
Post #50: on the beach
My son is a talented photographer and filmmaker. Today he shared a few photographs he took of an approaching storm and the sunset (not on the same day) off the beach on the coast of the Gulf of Mexico, which is five minutes from where he lives outside Port Richey, Florida. I thought these deserved to be shared here. There are a lot of others, but I’m not able to upload the file type.
Click the pictures on for larger views.
The water looks like liquid gold. Those are his feet.
There’s something haunting about the child’s swing in the approaching storm, and that’s what makes the photo.
Sunset off the Gulf.
Lucky Otters Haven 