SSDD
Look close. Same headline – different day. It’s reality. No fake news. He’s indicted. Wake up. It’s a new day. You did not dream it. Spin it. Lie about it. Deny it… INDICTED. Big bold letters. History… will remember you as an orange buffoon. National embarrassment.
Another question
No, she is not on a cellphone call… Sarcophagus? Ok!? There was a room displaying the medieval art regarding sarcopaghus – sarcophoghi or sarcophaguses?
The question? Where did/how did the museum get them? Rob a cemetery? And where are the remains? Inside? Ok!? A lot more than one question….
So, the guide answered, somewhat bewildered and bit disdainfully – no remains! The sarcophagus was acquired when old families needed monies. Ok!? You’d sell out a relative? Anything is for sale at the right price?
Changing headlines
SSDD – same shit different day. Two headlines within the hour. Next…indictment, please!
I got a question
Question:
Most crucifixes show Jesus’ chest wound on his right side, which is opposite from the heart cavity. Do we know for certain where he was pierced, or is it a pious tradition that the spear entered his right side?
Answer:
John the Evangelist tells us that Jesus’ side was pierced (John 19:32–35) but does not say which side. Crucifixes are artistic renderings, not exact reproductions, so the depiction of Christ’s chest wound on the right side may be artistic symbolism. In Scripture, those on Jesus’ right are the ones to be saved (Matt. 25:32–33) and they are saved by the blood that he shed for them (Matt. 26:28).
There is much crucifixion art depicting a chest wound on the right side of the body. Ummm… the heart is on the left… But in this instance, there is no real info. But everyone has agreed the wound was on the right. Symbolic? Whatever! It was agreed and everyone does it that way. Did they want to kill him twice?
In the presence of greatness
Would you believe… I was in the room all by myself… with greatness. I mean there are millions of people in NYC. There was no one else but me in this magical moment.
The Hunt for the Unicorn – a famous series of tapestries in the Cloisters – were mine for a few precious moments. Go figure!
Iconic! The rest of the day the room was always full of admiring tourists. I have seen these tapestries elsewhere displayed on loan but never in the original location within the Cloisters. Amazing! Breathtaking, it was a wish come true for Colleen. What a day!
Two birds
It seemed a waste to drive to NYC in a round trip of more than 500 miles without getting more from the drive than a long ride in the car. So, we arranged to visit a museum Colleen has been wanting to visit. The Cloisters, recently affiliated with the Met (six years). It made it a lot less lonely than a solitary drive. She smiled the whole time we were inside the museum.
What’s the first thing you do when you arrive? … bathroom.
Shoot
Oh boy! Six dead. School shooting … thoughts and prayers.
Meanwhile, the Congressional representative for the district where the school is located published his Christmas card this past year. Oh fun! Some days you just can’t make this shit up.
Happy ending
It’s a lot of pieces that had to fall perfectly into place…. A five hundred mile plus driving day some of it in a driving rain!
I should not have answered the phone… Covid! It culminated in dinner in an old haunt on Staten Island with an old friend.
Long story? Short! The kid got Covid. He only had the sniffles. An abundance of caution later and he was ++. Isolated in a nearby hotel, he now needed a ride to the airport for his flight home – spring break. I am not close by. … a trip to the museum, the pick up, and the drop off. 500+ miles later we were home. We made lemons/lemonade by having dinner on the way home. Ginny and I have been friends for too many years to honestly say…. So I won’t. The food? No! … the company of friends. not the food. Priceless!
Dinner at five
No constraint. No restriction…?! Oh boy!
Are there any straight meat and potatoes people? Vegetarian. Diet. And so on and on….
Two entrees – beef stew and vegetable stew… two noodles too. Two desserts. There has to be a cake for a birthday party. And a fruit tart for the diet conscious. At least the birthday girl put on the tiara without too much squawk. It was a good meal. No one went away hungry. The big lesson for me is that I am learning to cook with portion control…. Not too many leftovers.
Thank you
I’ve been meaning to thank my audience for a while now. I do it in my “About.” And, a single shot. Hmmm? … too many pictures, so little time.
Meanwhile, I started this blog a long long time ago. It continues onward. Much has changed in my life and in the world since I began. There are many followers and other casual viewers. I am happy to share my goofy humor and the pictures I take. Colleen likes the writing and the pictures. I write to fill in the back story behind the pictures. Sort of.
I take a lot of pictures. Photography has been my avocation. I think it must come from the internal need to share and preserve my life experience. The kids (my kids?) will eventually appreciate all the pictures? The grands (children?)? Who knows? It does not take too long to compose.
Most of my family (curiously) are not aware of this blog. I make no effort to promote myself. Jules’ early comment was too many posts. I was posting multiple times a day. Ok ok! One post a day of multiple pictures…
Minimalist, we are not, as you can readily ascertain from the cluttered background. It’s my life. Everything fits in. No worries – over neatness – I got plenty of worry, but at least this is not one of them. We live life fully! This is one occasion you see our table cleared for cat pictures. I do not expect to see an empty surface again til Christmas.
For those of you who read my posts, thank you once again.
Cherry blossom time
Hold the press! I’m inserting an additional post today, breaking my usual rule for one-a-day. Timing. We did the cherry blossoms yesterday. It was a gloomy, dreary, rainy day until it cleared and became sunny and 84 degrees. We took pictures. Lots. We did four museums. Ambitious itinerary. We saw the sights. A quintessential shot? Too many opportunities, too little time. Close up, wide angle, monument, selfie… oh my! The choices?! Throw in a pretender – weeping cherry. We did it all yesterday…
Line up
Command! At my command, they line up and pose for the family picture.
Hey! I finally did it. Colleen did not allow me to do it sooner. Mo was too new in the household. Black cats are notoriously difficult to photograph. Tillie! The rest do what I tell them. Oh sure! Paraphrasing Roy Scheider in the movie Jaw – we’re gonna need a bigger table!
First you clear the table – it was covered in spinning materials. Then you grab each cat – easier said than done. Shoot multiples, one will surely be serviceable. Everyone objects. No one smiles – except us. Then composite. It’s seems my table is not large enough. Oh well, I guess we will need two tables for nine cats…
Patience
In lieu of a group composite shot – the table is completely covered with stuff – I hunted down each cat and got a shot. Eight cats. Yeah, nuts! They don’t take up much space. They don’t demand much. We have our own individual relationship with each. They are dependent upon us. We get lots of love and affection from them. Characters, one and all. No group shot?! We got a selfie instead. …no posing was involved with the taking of these pictures.
Old typewriters
I shoot old typewriters and Republicans too. Oops! Did I just type that? No no no, I say, I did not type that. I get three views of a typewriter now: top down, keys, and logo view. I shoot sewing machines and adding machines. I shoot Republicans too, if you would count Ginny… with a camera! Duh! Telephones? Not so much. Who has one any more? – roatary, touch dial, and no key. I once had a 4 digit phone number when we lived in Elkins. And the operator came on the line to connect you whenever you picked up the receiver. My my, that’s old. None of our kids currently has a hard line phone. We ditched ours years back when we got rid of the cable TV company for poor service. It’s all iPhone nowadays. Wow! Suddenly, it is unusual for anyone we talk with to not have an Apple phone. Yes, there are plenty, but they must mostly be Republican.
Who do you believe?
It recalls to me “eating your young.” Hey hey! The truth will set you free. It’s sure fun to watch the infighting and the finger pointing start up. When you tell a lie… and then another…”lying sack of shit” comes to mind. And, Fox filed a law suit right back to keep her from filing law suits. Tucker, you suck. Really. And you don’t look so good any more. But, Fox loves you dearly… all the way to the bank.
Snow Day
The weatherman and the New York Times have been on for days…. It’s gonna snow!! Big! All over the United States, coast to coast, a deluge. A storm for the ages! Eh!? When was the weatherman right? Ever? Last? … not this time either. Here is our snowy day. Early spring is in the air everywhere I look. No snowflake? There is an insult in this somewhere I fear. But, alas, no snow.
Just like a broken watch is right twice a day, it did snow!
Shit show
No matter how you shake and dance, the last few drops go in your pants.
They still love him… til, they don’t. LOSER.
You may readily guess my political persuasion. Is everyone (Republicans) really as dumb as Fox news thinks they are? Someone is laughing all the way to the bank. Propriety, truth, decorum, honesty, integrity… deafening silence.
Lap top
Laptop? A play on words? Nope. Cat in my lap. Ha! Their closeness is apparent, and they fidget. Try and hold a squirming cat whose claws are extended. Fun!? It was a photo op I don’t usually have. Eh? Do not end a sentence with a verb or preposition?
There is little in the world better than having a cat in your lap. It’s calming. It’s better than meditation. Or did I mean mediation? No matter. Try it! I consider myself one lucky guy!
Thoughts
Are you/am I …composing a blog post before I shoot? Or, are my posts inspired by my shots? Hmmmmm? Chicken or the egg? Do I/you care?
You see a shot… try to capture it. Technology lets me capture much of what I see. Given enough time… good enough equipment… I can get a picture of anything. Do I give up too soon? Sure. I did not get the shot of the spider web. It would have required a macro lens and manual focus. I did not have sufficient motivation to get up… but the cats in front of my laptop…. Shoot it with … flash!
There is luck involved. For sure. Subjects do not sit around waiting for me. I have to be quick. Camera at hand, I am fortunate to snap a few shots before everything changes and the moment is gone. I miss a lot of potential shots. I get a lot of shots I did not deserve to capture.
Colleen says I write well. Do I? Or is my writing inspired by her encouragement? Or, it is my photography? Do I like photography or writing more? Chicken or the egg, again? My blog was suggested and inspired by long lost cousin Amy. We are long since out of touch. I write from the heart as was pointed out by my freshman college instructor who was seduced by my words. Interesting to know and to observe, but nothing came of it until I used words to shamelessly woo Colleen decades later. I was already an accomplished photographer then.
And now I write and photograph, or perhaps, the other way ‘round. Colleen remains my muse. I am inspired to connect with an audience I do not know. But you readers are all appreciated. I have been at this since 2011. There is a lot of water under that “bridge!” Thank you all. I toil and persevere.
Squirrels gotta eat…
…too. Bird feeders, a free meal for the… squirrels. Smart creatures, they have broken into every bird feeder we have. How? Ingenious?! Ya gotta laugh. Hey! Squirrels gotta eat too.
We have trained cats. I whistle. The musical notes beckon Nutley and Tillie to come to the door. Out they scamper to chase the squirrels to no avail. But the cats know the drill and come right to the door. The squirrels run. The cats get exercise. The birds eat. All is right with the world order. How did that squirrel get inside the metal cage? Really?!
Cardinal in flight? Try it! It ain’t easy. Purely a lucky shot. I must have had my eyes closed.
Quick… how old?
I need a shot of Ginny. She’s retiring. How old?! Old enough. We … I know her for many more years than I care to admit. We are… not young. There have been many hospitals… too many to count. It seems like we followed each other…. Yes, it has been a good deal of water under and over the …. And there’s Don and Pat… and Terry. He and Terry have split. Colleen and I are joined. Ginny has been the glue, holding this motley group together and keeping us all in touch. Sentimental? Happy birthday kid!
Origin
Zen. I could go on for a long time. I won’t because I favor brevity.
The “…” you put on this morning…. Take wool. It starts as a sheep. The sheep is sheared which becomes fleece, which is washed, which is carded, which is spun, then dyed, then woven…. Socks!?
It’s a “zen” thing to spin. Repetitive, sameness, it gives you plenty of time to ponder. Wonderful! I am not patient! I am type A personality – go, go, go. No sitting and pondering please! Sorry, it’s just my nature.
I seek the “zen” of spinning, that rhythm, the rhythmic movement, repetitive moment, the constant peace one achieves as the yarn spins out ….endlessly between my fingers.
You may skip to the end and just don the socks to your feet. Or, you may shear the sheep and process the fleece through the many multi step process – fleece, to roving, to yarn, plying, and then weaving.
I am party to the process, partially, and wholly in the presence because Colleen has taken this as an avocation in her retirement.
I spin. I seek the “zen” of spinning, the conversion of a “mess” into a spun yarn which is then woven into “product.” Product? None to illustrate, we use it or Colleen gifts it. Ha ha.
As I have said in a few words… it is a process. Mastery? … a lifetime. Ommmm….
Eight
I met Colleen. I had never had a cat. Well, for about ten minutes when I was a kid in Elkins… I had a black cat named Pepper. My parents made me give it back.
But… three, five, seven, six, eight, seven, eight – cats. Colleen came with three cats. Feather and Spice came as twin Maine coons. Ray and Nutley followed when Ray latched onto my shirt at the pet store. Patch died. Tillie arrived to take Patch’s empty bowl and Peas came the next day when we found out the sister had been left behind in the pet store. Ray died. And now… tryouts… Mozart had joined the band of cats. He is on probation. Stay tuned. Colleen has doubts. He passed tryouts in the pet store. But… it is a long way to discover whether he fits into our home full of cats. Seven was a lucky number! But, I had eight bowls to feed. Somehow… But we are whole again.
Try and catch your cats. Get a picture. Yeah, right! I chased them all down. Easy and hard. But I got a shot of each, one the same day, within the same hour. It was quite the feat. They don’t exactly cooperate. No one smiles on cue. In fact, chasing them down led me on a merry chase around the house. I gotta clean. We got a lotta dust.
Eight!? It also happens to be the number of years we’ve been together…. oops, it’s nine. But, it is our anniversary, married – our fourth. Happy anniversary dear! (shhh! I almost forgot.)
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