I'm sending this out as a separate post, because it was another side of Paris--not the usual one you see in the postcards. I will let the images speak for themselves.
Read moreParis!
Great to be here on Sunday, 14 May, 2017, the day Emmanuel Macron took office
J'aime Paris!
Read moreRaising The Roof (and everything else)
Home sweet home, under major renovations
This post is a blast from the past...Inspired by all the houses I've seen being raised in Long Beach.
Read moreVisiting The Twins
I am so lucky to have this branch of my family tree growing nearby in the Hudson Valley now, instead of hours away via jet plane in Florida. Last week I went up for a visit and it was non-stop fun. Because what is more fun than one toddler? TWO toddlers, of course!
Read moreGeorgia O'Keefe at The Brooklyn Museum
I went to the Brooklyn Museum with my friend Jude to see the Georgia O'Keefe show.
I went to the Brooklyn Museum with my friend Jude to see the Georgia O'Keefe show. The mosaics below are in the Eastern Parkway subway station at the museum. What a fabulous use of architectural elements! I wonder if they're from buildings that were being torn down?
Read moreGrammie Tuesdays
Here's three of the reasons I came back home to NY
The family schedule is just a bit complicated on Tuesdays, so I take the railroad out to Long Beach, NY to help out.
Read moreSelling The Beast
The Beast in her new home.
Read moreHere Be Dragons
We know that really only one ancient map has this actually printed on, and it's not in English
Hi Folks
You know I’ve made my way back to my apartment in The West Village. But it must seem like I fell off the edge of a map marked ”Here Be Dragons.” Once you’ve written a travel blog, it seems strange to write about “my stationary life here in NYC.“
Read moreHomecoming
One of the important things about any journey is the homecoming.
I drove up the hill of the George Washington Bridge, and when I saw that Manhattan skyline, I began to cry. Tears of relief—I’d done it—and returned safely, tears of joy and pride—there’s no place in the country like it—my stinky old New York. I imagine I’ll have some moments of “when did this happen?” Like Bilbo returning to the Shire, but rather than being able to correct what seems wrong, I’ll need to adapt.
Read moreTraveling Solo
Party of one...
I used to drive people crazy when we were quietly reading, or working in the same space, because I talk to myself a little bit. At the completion of a task, I might mumble, “Alrighty then,” or, “Okay!” or “Moving right along,” or some silly phrase from an ancient Monty Python episode. I also have an impressive collection of “Hmm’s, Umm’s,” and “what the hells?”
Read more"Youpers" or "UP"
I loved the Upper Peninsula. My friend Steve is a Michigander, and he sent me an email with lots of suggestions for things to do and see when I’d visit his state. Including:
Read moregichigami (Ojibwa) Lake Superior
Satelite image of Lake Superior
• Lake Superior ... the statistic that floors me, is that the surface area of this lake is roughly the same size as the state of Maine!
• the lake holds 10% of the world's fresh surface water that is not frozen in a glacier or ice cap.
• is the largest freshwater lake in the world by surface area and the third largest by volume (Lake Baikal in Siberia and Lake Tanganyika in East Africa contain more water).
Epic |ˈepik| noun
epic |ˈepik| noun a long poem, typically one derived from ancient oral tradition, narrating the deeds and adventures of heroic or legendary figures or the history of a nation.
Read moreOrcas Island
After my Interstate 5 exit lane zebra stripes visit with Tony, I got back on the road, and finally made it to the SEA-TAC airport to pick up my pal RJ. We drove up to the dock at Anacortes, and were ferried over to Orcas Island where we had four nights in the West Beach Resort. It was really sweet to have a friend from home come out to join me, since I was becoming a bit road weary.
Read moreLunch In Choteau, Montana
Invitation posted in local newspaper!
I had lunch in Choteau, Montana the other day, at the Elk Country Inn. I did not have the elk, or bison that was on the menu. The waitress brought the paper over for me to read while I waited. I guess diners out here don't all sit with their eyes glued to their iPhones.
Read moreGlacier National Park
After two days of low clouds and torrential rainstorms while I was over in Whitefish Lake, Montana, I awoke here in West Glacier, to bright blue skies, and a weather report that promised thunderstorms around noon. I had a very fast breakfast and got on the road right away.
Read moreTony
I had my third rear blowout today on Interstate-5. Since there are dual wheels in the rear, there is a bang, and I feel the blow out, but I can just slow down, put my flashers on, and move to the right, find a spot of relative safety, and get off the road. I was on my way to the SEA-TAC airport to pick up my friend, RJ. Fifteen minutes away, and an hour early, but still, I knew it was going to be cutting it close. I’ve never had a roadside assistance guy show up in under an hour. So I contacted the Good Sam number, gave them my location and settled in to wait.
Read moreMount St. Helens
North Face
I don't expect that I'll be traveling to Hawaii any time soon, so Mount Saint Helens was an important stop for me on this trip. Volcano. Check! I was mighty curious about what it would be like to stand in the dangerous zone of an active-ish volcano. The 1980 eruption was a powerful piece of history that I witnessed via the six-o’clock news, and I always wondered what it must be like to live with that omnipresent danger on a daily basis.
Read moreGo find Maria Poppova's Brain Pickings blog. It's a weekly treasure trove!
Notice bird on left is hopping--hoping to impress bird on right?
Reposting this paragraph from my weekly delivery of the Brain Pickings Blog, written by the amazing Maria Poppova. If I get in touch with something well enough to give it voice, it's interesting how The Universe responds.
Artist Louise Bourgeois on How Solitude Enriches Creative Work
"Nourish yourself with grand and austere ideas of beauty that feed the soul… Seek solitude,"young Delacroix counseled himself in 1824. Keats saw solitude as a sublime conduit to truth and beauty. Elizabeth Bishop believed that everyone should experience at least one prolonged period of solitude in life. Even if we don’t take so extreme a view as artist Agnes Martin’s assertion that “the best things in life happen to you when you’re alone,” one thing is certain: Our capacity for what psychoanalyst Adam Phillips has termed “fertile solitude” is absolutely essential not only for our creativity but for the basic fabric of our happiness — without time and space unburdened from external input and social strain, we’d be unable to fully inhabit our interior life, which is the raw material of all art.
Ted, Jack, and Charlie with friends and nineteen spider crabs
After my last post about feeling lonely after ten months on the road, I remembered how drained I felt while teaching in a NYC high school, and living in the city, with 24/7 electronic stimulation, 24/7 connectivity, the public transport system, the crowded streets and shops. My perspective shifted, and this solitude feels absolutely blessed today. I also had a quick flight home to see my family, and had my emotional batteries re-charged.
Here's a link to this wonderful blog:
Brain Pickings – An inventory of the meaningful life.
https://www.brainpickings.org/
Maria Popova
An inventory of cross-disciplinary interestingness, spanning art, science, design, history, philosophy, and more.
I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4WXYjm74WFI
Hear the lonesome whipporwill/He sounds too blue to fly/The midnight train is whining low/I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry.
I never seen a night so long/When times goes crawling by/The moon just went behind a cloud/To hide its face and cry…
Read more