Blue Chair

Helen Suzanne has started a blog using "titles" as a stimulus for creating something.. very loose and fun whatever something turns you on.  This was my response to the first title.. Blue Chair.  Serendipity because I had spent so much time looking at my blue chair!!

The Chelsea Market

Last week it was cold enough to be an inside kind of weekend.  I hadn't been to the Chelsea Market in ages and ages, and it was still a great place to while away and afternoon.  It is now the home of the Food Network, so I guess you run the risk of seeing a celebrity or two ... we didn't .. though I would have loved to see Batalli or Flay!

The Chelsea Market is composed of 18 buildings that were once the home of the National Biscuit Company.  The first building you enter from 9th Ave was built in the 1890's.  The other buildings were added until the 1930's and included cast iron, terracotta and even Art Deco elements.  In these buildings were baked everything from Saltines to Oreos.  The history in detail is here, I am only hitting the highlights.  This is a fascinating place.   

Bread is still being baked here, and you can watch the process from the central hallway.  Amy's Bread gets made here and it is great looking..

Last but not least is the waterfall from an old pipe right in the middle of the walkway.  We ate at the Cleaver Company.  Their chicken pot pies are well worth the trip.  There is also a nice vegetable market, a fish market and Bowery Kitchen Supplies where I still didn't find a bread dough storage container, alas.

Last but not least, the cupcakes at Eleni's are half price near closing ...yum and I should have taken pictures, shouldn't I?  But I was busy eating one.....JUST ONE!

Lots of other places to visit, next time it is really cold on the weekend you will find me there again getting a lobster roll, oh my.

Pink is his Nose

The pink nose is one of Romeo's hallmarks.... in response to questions from his Fan Club (Gill  and Nadine in particular).  

Well, he is chugging along .. literally with his portly self .. and he seems to be better. I force fed him for a couple of days, but it seemed to me that he was liking that a bit too much, so I cut him off on Monday and he is eating slowly, though not as much as previously.  

The big worry for me was drinking .. his, not mine .. and he is drinking just fine.  I know that because everytime I enter the bathroom he is standing in the sink just as fast as he can get there demanding running water. 

He is still acting as though there is nothing wrong and his superior attitude is untouched. As to what was going on for the week he didn't eat, no one has a guess. The vet says this is just one of those questions where if they won't talk you may never know.  Since I have always thought that Romeo is a bear of little brain, I doubt he is going to learn to talk any time soon!  He just stopped eating and drinking for 10 days, got two trips to the vet in a cab, started drinking again and seems to be starting to eat. 

So, barring unforseen complications I am going to assume he is cured of whatever he had.  Clementine is goinig to miss the additions to her diet that he wouldn't eat, so I sort of think she will go on strike next. 

I have no new pictures, I barely have words...

I sat around in my pj's most of yesterday after I walked the dog and watched what I am praying is a world changing event.  I teared up several times and after the change was complete I was left to wonder.  I haven't spoken to anyone who wasn't moved by the experience.  

I got a text message from the Netherlands celebrating the event too.  The world is small and getting smaller. Delight and hope are shared and there are optimists everywhere.  I hope that enough change happens to keep the optimism flowing.  

The bridge was lit up and the flag flew for 2 days in a row, first for Martin Luther King and second for Barack Obama.  

Finally it appears that the Lion of the Senate is home and doing well.  For this moment, at least, all's right with the world. 

better, we think

Honestly, the photo is unretouched, except for the frame and the note. 

We are thinking he is better... at least a little.  Of course he never thought he was sick, so he is just fine anyway.  I am still force feeding him but he is not vomiting and he actually chose to eat a couple of bites of dry food.  He isn't doing a lot of eating by himself yet, but I feel like a corner has been turned.

Thanks for all the good wishes.  I think it helps, I really do.

and then there was a plane in the Hudson

It is hard to believe that this really happened.  That plane must have gone right past my window since it only cleared the GWB by 900 feet, they say.  However, since there were no engines, it went by silently, and though I was sitting here I wasn't watching out the window in the seconds it must have taken to go by.

I'll tell you that I couldn't believe what I was looking at whe the TV started playing pictures of people standing on the wings of a plane in the middle of the Hudson River.

Isn't it nice to have a feel-good experience with a plane crash?  I can't remember one this feel-good ever.

I can't help but love it that the ferries were there in just a couple of minutes and some of those people were getting onto a ferry within 5 minutes.  They are interviewing ferry passengers today who are equally amazed that one minute they were on their way home and the next they were helping wrap people who were soaking wet in blankets.  It is the New York I know and I am so glad to see it again. 

No pics, but the link in the first line takes you to a great one.

DIet

Forgot to mention that we are down from 18.3 to 17.6.  Romeo did need a diet but there are other ways to do that.

Romeo, page 2

Looks just fine, doesn't he?  Acts just fine also...purrs, rubs his head against you, plays with Sienna... does EVERYTHING a cat should do.  Except eat and drink.  That he does NOT do.  And if you force him to do it by making food or water go into his mouth, he barfs.  End of story.  

The vet - today -  did an xray.  It looked just great.  Everything is in place where it is supposed to be, nothing is enlarged, nothing looks odd.  We are now at the $700 mark - even with my senior discount - and he is still not eating or drinking.  So we did fluids under his skin so he wouldn't get dehydrated and we forced some food.  The cab driver on the way home was not particularly happy, though none of it got on his cab, when that food came back in a return to sender kind of way.  

Clementine regards this as a Christmas situation, since we try all sorts of things to tempt him to eat and after he spurns them all she gets to eat them.  She is REALLY happy about this.  She is the only one. 

Think good thoughts please

So poor Romeo has been sick since Sunday.  Or at least he hasn't eaten or drunk anything to speak of since then and every once in a while he decides to empty his stomach, though there is nothing in it....(Probably too much information for the non-cat focused among you). 

SO since the weather is iffy for the rest of the week .. really really cold .. I called the vet and tried to talk him out of suggesting that I bring him in.  The thing is, he ACTS just fine.  Wanders around the house, chases Sienna, sits in my lap, purrs etc. He just won't eat and drink.  Vet said bring him in.

Lugged all 18.3 pounds! of him into a cab and down to 76th street.  Don't even ask about how much that was, and the vet poked and prodded and looked and drew blood and took temperature and found .... exactly nothing....  

The bloodwork comes back tomorrow, but he thinks it is an irritated stomach, gave him fluids and peptin and cat food that is supposed to be easy on the stomach.  I am letting Clem try that too since she is the upchucker of the century.  

He came home, walked in the door and puked again... who says cat owners don't have it made?  He did look at the cat food and the water.  He is just not having any of it right now.

The little escapade so far has cost me nearly $400.  I hope we are done.  

Oh, and I cracked a tooth yesterday.. don't ask when THAT is in the budget.  

Etsy

I updated my store with some new pins and I am going to be posting new ones several times over the next week or so. 

I am moving into more constructed things, but some of these are just too pretty to keep for myself.  Take a look and pass the link on to anyone who might be interested. They are all made from what is now "vintage" plastic, bakelite, celluloid and some Victorian glass and metal accents.  Very light, and easy to wear, and also soft to the touch.  A very different feel from "modern" plastic. 

As an afterthought..

I think the main problem with the Koigu yarns is that whatever they want to be.....

They DON"T WANT TO BE TOGETHER.

I have granted them a divestment.

sometimes the best laid plans etc etc...

Gill has blogged about the loverly cowl she is making with yarn she bought last summer when she came to visit. We were at the notorious Purl and I bought the yarn above. I love the colors, however, it is cursed with a strong desire to be something and a total inability to tell me what that something is!

I bought the two colors thinking they would make one of those great Noroesque striped scarves that everyone is making out of Noro. I alas find Noro too scritchy to wear so I bought Koigu.

When I cast on to make the scarf it had no striping in it and as a matter of fact made something relatively confetti like and not in a good way. After 6 inches (I kept hoping it would resolve itself into something I liked) I frogged it.

Then I thought I would make one of those modular scarves from Iris Schreier's book. It didn't resolve then either though I did give it almost 3 triangles before I gave up. (see note above about optimism.)

THEN I thought well, there are always socks, so I divided the big blue ball of yarn into 2 and set out to make socks. These at least LOOKED good and felt fine but I somehow thought I remembered how to make short row heels, and I did, but I remembered wrong and when the heels went so did my urge to knit those socks. Frogged again.

I think I will put them away for now and watch what Gill produces. Maybe the yarn will become aware of what it wants to be and tell me. In the meantime, I'm knitting socks from Jitterbug. 

Lunch at the Modern

Went to MOMA to try to see the Van Gogh exhibit last weekend.  After deciphering the 7 or 8 lines in the lobby, all full of people asking each other if they were in/on the correct line, it seemed there was not any access to the Van Gogh and we left.   RE: the in/on thing.  If you are from mostly anywhere except New York City in the US, you wait in line.  If you are from New York City you wait ON line.  Why I do not know.  If anyone does, please enlighten me. 

SO, since we couldn't see that show we went to the American Folk Art Museum down the street. They have a show called The Seduction of  Light: Ammi Phillips/Mark Rothko Compositions in Pink Green and Red.

I don't know what inspired the show other than availability of the included paintings.  I LOVE Rothko.  I go out of my way to see his paintings whenever I can, but the ones here were generally not stellar, though they were in the selected color range.   The Ammi Phillips paintings were, though not totally new to me, fun to really see close up and personal.  That is one of the nice things about this slightly wacky museum.  You really can see things because it is generally nearly empty, even when MOMA is so packed that it is not worth the effort to get in because you know you won't be able to get close enough to see anything.   That said, the Phillips paintings in the Rothko color range?  That is a little like saying that Gilbert Stuart is like Degas because they both use paint!

The Phillips paintings, with their odd perspective and strange inclusions were great fun.  The little boy standing there dressed in his better than Sunday Best (He looks a little bit like an escapee from Picasso's circus performers) stands in front of a shelf on which sits a peach!  I ask you.... how much fun is that to look at?  Lots of fun in my estimation.  Anyway, all of that was the prelude to an early dinner/late lunch at the Modern   the Danny Meyer restaurant that is housed in MOMA.  Danny Meyer is the brains behind Union Square Cafe, Eleven Madison, Tabla, Gramercy Tavern etc etc etc.  Union Square has for as long as I have lived in NY been my absolute favorite restaurant.  The Modern is another sweetheart of a restaurant, as you can see from the dessert menu above.  Everything we had was really well perpared and full of interesting flavors.  We had fun, despite missing the Van Gogh show.

I have to learn to not let them all drift but to go in the middle of the run.  sigh.

Sienna and Romeo are at it again

They are playing some sort of a game, but how Romeo achieved this particular hiding place has eluded me.

He seems to be enjoying it, though

Sienna wants to share her toy with him. She wants to do this every chance she can make.

It usually ends like this.

subway art again Spring Street Station

This is at the entrance of the Spring Street Station and is called New York Subway Station, by Edith Kramer done in 1994. According to the Subway Authority, it actually shows the Union Square Subway station, (Go figure, typical New York).  I love the red and white poles marching in a row and the way the subway tracks seem to be above the platform.  Sometimes it feels like they are bearing down on you like that.

Oh Sweet!!!

I was trying out a new recipe last night. The brioche dough from Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day Recipes. Then of course after it had sat in the refrigerator for the night, I HAD to make something from it.

This is them turned out of the pan. Sweet rolls... oh my goodness.
and they taste good too. Really good. I didn't have pecans called for in the recipe, so I used Whole Foods Cranberry Trail mix.

and I have half the dough left.. brioche anyone?

2009 here we all come.....

Have I told you lately how much I love the "warshrag" afghan? Well, I am not the only one who loves it. As you can see, at least 2 out of 3 residents of the fur persuasion also love it. If I get out from under it I have to push the homesteaders off it when I come back every time.

Working from home has made it hard for me to structure myself, and I have been unhappy with how I am spending my time and feeling self indulgent.

I have been doing the Morning Pages from The Artist's Way every morning for the last 6 years at least, maybe longer. They are really a habit at this point that I rarely break, but since I moved here and was doing them in the living room, somehow the computer and the tv were generally on by the time I finished and then things got rapidly out of hand. What was suffering was time in the studio actually working on my pins and the other ideas I had.

SO.. This morning I did the morning pages in the studio, looking out at the frigid river and the snowy, blowy FREEZING outdoors. I am committed to staying there for 3 hours as many days as possible, at least 5 days a week. This morning I got half the studio cleaned up and re-organized and I really feel like this is a good solution for me. Simplify.... if you start in one room it is easier to stay there and I can drink coffee anywhere. Besides the view is better! Let's see where this one goes and Happy New Year to all. I am really waiting for the end of January. The year of the Ox is supposed to be a good year for Monkeys....