Do you have photos that haunt you?

Are there photos that sick in your mind and you pause everytime they show up in your screensaver or you flip past them in an old album?

I have several. I keep coming back to them over and over thinking there is something else I could do with them. Most of them are from my past and my parent's lives. I have combined them into single pictures like the one I used in the Holga-ized pictures. I still stare at those two pictures, me as a child and my mother as a young woman and wonder what else I could do with them. There is another picture of me that has a similar effect.. I was the first born, so there are a LOT of pictures of me...but this one also sticks with me...

I don't know what I was doing or thinking, but it is pure me, I have no doubt.

Another picture that haunts is one from much later in my life, when I was a young, broke, single parent. I had a roommate and ultimately she got married. I was big on photography even then because it was cheap entertainment.

This one is of the roommate on her wedding day. I LOVE it and have played with it endlessly in photoshop. Two things I have done with it follow the original.

In the middle one, I combined it with a photo of her soon to be (and still is) husband that I took on the same day, and in the bottom one.. Subway angel.. she is combined with an empty NY Subway car wearing wings that were decorations on a building near where I lived. I have made a full size negative of the bottom one, printed it from my computer, and printed it as a cyanotype. The finished product there looked like this:

Does anyone else have a "haunting" image? Show it on your blog, I am dying to see what intrigues you.

the look

This is "the LOOK". It happens when one of us feels they have been ignored too long. It also occurs between 3 and 4 pm, when a walk SHOULD be taking place if the human was paying attention and again at 10:30 when another walk should be taking place.

It can preceed or follow the laying on of big fat paws that could be construed to be a slap....by those more sensitive to such things.

If nothing happens within 4 minutes of "the LOOK" and the slap, there occurs the chasing of other smaller animals, since it must be THEIR fault that the walk has not taken place. If the cat has a score to settle too, then the chasing can drag on a bit because the game becomes tag and involves cat slapping dog and dog attempting to force cat to eat dog's favored stuffed animals. Cats do not eat stuffed animals, no matter how hard dog may try.

On VERY cold, bitterly cold days, a lot of chasing and slapping occurs. Today is such a day.

Sienna is determined to make friends

I glanced into the bedroom and realized that Sienna was contemplating.....her toes? her navel? She is not generally very contempletive. But what struck me is WHERE she had chosen to do that.



Several years ago I created a raised bed, and made it tall enough to put 2 stacked flat files under it. In the last apartment there was a skirt around the bed to hide the stuff under it, but I haven't found the right fabric yet for this one.

The height of the bed means I need the "ladder" to get up into bed every night. Clementine lives on the bed during the day. She thought it was safe from marauding dogs.

Guess she is rethinking that idea. I guess Sienna thought that since she had conquered the remote and Romeo she needed to see if she could get on Clem's good side. Clem does not appear to think so.

Hudson Heights

This is the first post about the fading glories of Hudson Heights. The buildings up here, while many have seen better days, still have wonderful detail and little touches. You have to look way up to see most of them though. It is rain-snowing today, not quite cold enough to snow, and too cold for just rain. Sienna had a complete bath yesterday from the mud and a half bath today from the spatter. We are BOTH exhausted.

shrines

An old friend visited several years and apartments ago and said that she had finally figured out what it was about my "decorating style".

She said I had filled little nooks and crannies with a series of unrelated shrines.

It took me a while to realize that she was oh so very right. Everywhere you look in my place there are little groupings of things.

Rarely are these "precious" things in the sense of cost or value, but they are all high on the Content Scale.

The Content scale requires that I can immediately call up where I acquired the component parts of the shrine, AND that there is a story related to each item. No story, no ranking on the Content Scale.

These are all pictures of my central shrine. The only one I actually CALL a shrine, though there are others around the house. It makes me smile just to look at it.

The Pinoccio from Florence is sitting on a mangifier hand made by my father back in the days he worked in the camera factory in upstate New York.

The Santa Fe Bears with the medicine bundles are tied together and carry turquoise for good luck.

I hate to dust, but I WILL rearrange.

socks vs books

All my sock knitting books.....Or at least most of my sock knitting books. It is funny to me that I have all these books and all the great patterns and I keep going back to a simple sock. Toe up, eye of partridge toe and heel, not much pattern on the foot, sometimes pattern on the leg, twisted rib top. The goal for this year is something different in the way of socks. They sure are fun, and since whenever I go downtown I am looking at a 30 minute subway ride in the best of circumstances, this has to be a fancy sock year.

2008 the year of the fancy sock.

The other thing is that I have to work out a way to read and knit at the same time. The problem is holding the book and having it readable. I am not the sort who can sit and read off a table while I knit. It needs to be a way to hold the book so that it can sit on my lap... sigh.

ideas? I think there are people out there reading this.. opinions?

here today, gone tomorrow

the snow here above midtown hangs around a while longer, and it stays white longer, but the snow from yesterday is on its way out already. While here, it does something wonderful to the Heights across the river. It reveals the bones of the rocks and the trees...

Finally snow

It took a while to get here, but 6 or 7 inches is not inconsequential. But then, I'll let it speak for itself. It is gorgeous.

Altered Slides

A while ago, I found a box of slides that I had originally taken to make Polaroid Image Transfers. Some I just didn't think would work, so I got to playing with them and made altered slides. I scanned them, and these three stood out as fairly successful to me. Feedback anyone?

and yet LESS heating

SO ... today the Super arrived with another heater. "You have a 2 bedroom, right? You should have 2 heaters!!!? Take ...it is free!"

I do admit to putting the first one on for a while this morning. It was in the low 30's and there was a wind. I really did attempt to reject this second one, but the Super was having none of THAT sillyness, so there it sits.

I tried again to figure out if real heat was ever going to re-appear, but he said they have not told him...

Siena likes the new packaging.

Heating

Well, the heat is still not on. It has not been bad, since it seems that the apartment is quite warm except if the wind is blowing really strongly, but .... and this may be a bad sign ..... tonight the Super and the HandyMan appeared at the door, bringing this.

Clementine is very interested in it, but so far I have not had to turn it on, so her interest is academic, not heat-seeking. They had enough for the entire basement floor.. 8 apartments, so maybe it is going to be a while til the heat gets fixed?

I tried to get that information out of the Super, but he wasn't sharing. At least we can be warm if we want.

On the weather channel it said...

The weather channel said that this was what it looked like. We are just slightly north of the white east/west line above the airplane symbol where it meets the two parallel white lines. Well.. it looked like this on the ground..









It was a little more purple than this, but that is the across the river portion of the bridge...



















and then it looked like this for a while





and then like this.. this is the part closer to me and you can't even see the other side of the river.

It was just that fast, the whole thing took about 6 minutes start to finish and now look at it...

and then we...

First, Romeo has decided that the crate in which Sienna has spent many of her formative years is really his. This has happened since it is generally vacant in the day and he just moves in as soon as she leaves it in the morning.





All well and good, but tonight I went out to eat dinner and mentioned to Sienna that it was crate time. She thought that was fine, but Romeo had decided not to move. So there they sat, the two of them, sharing the crate. I couldn't shut him up in there with her, and when I tried to prod him out he whined! I finally got him to move and shut her up, but I forsee trouble ahead. Or 2 crates..

Then we went to YUII for dinner. I forgot to take a picture til after we had devoured a lot of it but it was REALLY good tonight.

and after we got home and Sienna went out for her walk, Romeo got back in the crate.
the end///

New York is not for the faint of heart

This is posted at the elevator.. I guess we can huddle together for warmth? Some disaster or another is always keeping life interesting. I THOUGHT it was cold in the apartment, but then I just shrugged it off. Forecast for tonight? 28 degrees and clear with the wind off the Hudson River at 10 to 15 MPH.

Polaroid is no longer going to make their film..... doesn't mean much to lots of people, makes me sad. Fuji is still making film that can be used for image transfers, but it isn't the same. I hope someone takes it over to keep it going as a boutique film. Seems odd to have the idea of a boutique film, doesn't it?

I guess I should stockpile it???

If I can find it at all, I guess I should. Maybe a trip to B and H next week.

This children's book was written about the Little Red Lighthouse under the GW Bridge. When the bridge went up, they left the Lighthouse where it was and it is really surprising to see it nestled right up against the pylons of the bridge.



It is a 5 minute walk from my apartment. You have to go over the WestSide Highway on a pedestrian walkway and then down a pretty steep hill for a tiny bit, over railroad tracks and down another small hill and then all of a sudden you are in a park alongside the river. You are close enough to the river to stick your toes in it if you want to and there are tennis courts, picnic tables and benches and it is wide open to the broad expanse of the river.


At night sometimes you get the train whistles as the Amtrak trains go by and when it is really foggy you get fog horns...

Snow in NY

It is SNOWING! I love it when it snows in the city, but it hasn't done much of that this year. Pretty, isn't it?

looking for love in Times Square

This is just one of 17 banners in Times Square for Valentine's day..

go HERE to see the rest of them. I love ideas like this. Sets me thinking what I would do for this challenge.

What would YOU do???

It is FREEZING and blogger won't let me space my paragraphs.

The wind is coming in off the river at 30 mph and it is a very cold day up here in suburban Manhattan. No snow, bright sunshine and too cold to breathe when you go out. Blogger is not letting me put a space between my paragraphs so this page looks like one run on sentence??

I did do an Etsy update yesterday. It is always interesting to see if an update produces some new people marking me as a favorite.

I loved what Clockwatcher said about licking your plate in a subtle way, so this is the other entree from Red Cat. Go there again and listen to Willy. Or, go to the Harrison and tell me who that is and what the song is. Creedence?

This was a pork chop with almost a warm Greek Salad underneath. It was amazing, figs and greens and cheese... and a puddle of really good sauce. Next time I will have my finger in that one too.

Too cold to do exciting things today. A day for curling up and reading... I am SUPPOSED to be reading The Razor's Edge for book club, but it hasn't arrived yet, though it has been shipped so instead I am looking at John Adams. I was on a kick of reading Ian Rankin but I only had the first three in the series and I gave up and ordered them all (used) but they haven't come yet either. There are a bunch of other things on my stack too.. and then there is knitting, and finishing the pins.. too much to do, too little time.

Dinner at the Red Cat

Dinner last night at the Red Cat on 10th Avenue.
It is worth it to follow the link just to hear Willie Nelson singing Midnight Rider. I usually don't play music from sites, but this one sent me over to ITunes to buy it.

We go there because every couple of months we get a craving for the Tempura Greenbeans with Wasabi dipping sauce... be still my heart! These are among the best tastes in the city. We get them as an appetizer and won't let them take them away until we finally have to admit that we can't quite finish them. That usually happens about the time we are discussing dessert. BIG sigh.

At the bar before we ate.. I was of course LATE, thank you NYC MTA. The A train was yet again not running so there was the wait for the shuttle bus and then the wait at 165th Street for the A train, the trip to 42nd, the transfer to the C and the trip to 23rd street. It is like going to Atlanta without involving the airplane!

But this drink, whatever it was, was just what I needed. Maybe Nicki can add a comment and say what was in it besides something sparkling.

I can never remember the name of the liqueur that is in it. There are also French Radishes and salt on the bar. And of course the cookbook. I think it has the recipe for the green beans in it, but I just wouldn't have the patience.
The special was Red Snapper on a "stew" of couscous with Greek seasonings and scrambled eggs and I would have licked the plate if I would not have been a little embarassed.

For the cheese plate picture.. it is worth it.. you have to go here.

We actually decided against the desserts for the cheese, and were glad we had. It was exactly what we wanted.

Today is an add listings to Etsy or else day. By 8 tonight or so, probably not before... I have stuff halfway there, nothing really finished, but I like what is on the table and the wind is REALLY blowing out there, so a trip to the dogpark is unlikely.

I've been trying...

I have been trying to organize "My Pictures" .. the folder in Windows where all the pictures go. Seems there should be logic there, but each time seems there is something that is in 14 places or just doesn't fit. Then I have to take the Photoshop pictures into P'shop to see how they are different other than date. Man.. there has to be a better way. I use Picassa, I LOVE Picassa, but I am still drowning in photos.. pictures of knitting, of drawings, of books I have made.. the list is endless..

To avoid a pictureless post, here are a couple of the oddities I found...This was a memory book I made for a friend's 60th bithday party.

and a Hello Kitty pocket jotter that I made from a Pocky box ... after, of course, I emptied the contents. I loved the little jingle bells. That way you knew it was in your purse somewhere.

Hmmmm

I get lonesome here with no comments...she said... blatantly soliciting some.

This is a closeup of one of my Etsy pins, I am madly working on more..pins, not closeups ...

Check out the other blog, I have presented you with a challenge. After the Giant Girl of yesterday, today sort of goes in a different direction.

It is gorgeous out ths afternoon with bright sun and a brisk breeze. That's a euphemism up here where the wind comes flying off the Hudson on days that aren't windy elsewhere. It means it is not blowing too hard to stand up. Sienna and I are going to go out and climb some hills.