I am a native in this world And think in it as a native thinks

Monday, August 29, 2011

Welcome to the working week


After the deluge.

We got very lucky, and flooding wasn't as bad as it could have been. I never lost power, and by yesterday afternoon I had a serious case of cabin fever. The way the trees were still whipping around in the wind (not really captured in the photo) convinced me to suck it up and stay inside. Because experience has taught me that if anyone is going to get conked on the head by a flying tree branch it's going to be me.

So here's hoping for a seriously less Biblical week for us all. We had the earthquake, we had the hurricane, we had the flooding. Let's hope there are no plagues of locusts on the horizon.

Saturday, August 27, 2011

The waiting is the hardest part


We're all just waiting now.

The stores are closed, the trains and buses have long since stopped running, and almost everyone has scurried inside, even though the storm won't be here for a few more hours.

The skies are gray, heavy with unshed rain, and there's not even a whisper of wind yet, so the humidity is oppressive. This morning, when I went out to run a few quick last errands, it looked like any other summer morning (below).









Except for the line outside the hardware store.












I thought I might stop by Amy's and grab a loaf of bread. Or, on second thought, maybe not.



Fortunately I got groceries last night as the checkout lines in the Food Emporium were even worse today, and they closed at noon. I heard one poor woman asking the clerk at the corner deli if they sold candles or flashlights.

Here's hoping she won't need them and it will just be a really bad storm.

Saturday reflections



Some nice sharp Manhattan angles in the dappled light of early morning on Sixth Avenue.

It doesn't seem possible that in a few hours all of this will be getting pounded by Hurricane Irene. The lines at the grocery store last night were insane, snaking down every aisle all the way to the back of the store, where they all curled around until there was no longer any way to tell which line was which. People were buying cases of water, canned tuna, milk and bread, but also smoked salmon, salamis, cheeses, good olives -- if we're going to be stuck in our apartments for two days, at least we're going to eat well!

I'm going to make a big pot of pasta, recharge my Kindle, put some duct tape over the windows and just wait it out.

Saturday, August 20, 2011

Saturday geometries abstracted


Just for fun: after a series of truly hellacious weeks, I'm sometimes so cross-eyed by the time I leave the office that Equitable Center looks more like this.


Saturday geometries


Another view of the Equitable Center in New York. All of those angles and colors are a little unsettling, which is appropriate when things are so, well, unsettled.

Sunday, August 14, 2011

Sunday bird blogging


My internet was sporadic yesterday, and today I devoted all of my bandwidth, mental and otherwise, to trying to deal with a huge backlog of work. (Work work. The kind I get paid for, rather than the kind that's fun or fulfilling to do.)

And it was gray and gloomy, with rain most of the afternoon, so here's an appropriately mundane bird shot: a grackle in the Ramble.

I do try not to anthropomorphize birds, because I'm pretty confident I don't have a clue what they think, but I can't help thinking of this bird's expression as baleful. And that seems somehow appropriate to the day.

Monday, August 8, 2011

Welcome to the working week


The Banco Espirito Santo in Lisbon.

I thought it was funny naming a bank after the Holy Spirit, as religion and finance seem to be two areas that really, really don't mix. But this morning, bracing for the market fallout from the S&P downgrade, part of me wishes my money was in the care of some divinity. And haven't the battles we've been watching the past few months had their own brand of magical, almost religious, thinking? Tax cuts create jobs! Funny how the Bush tax cuts didn't create any. It doesn't matter if we default!  The ratings agencies beg to differ.

All we can do is keep our heads down, and head off for another working week.

Sunday, August 7, 2011

Sunday bird blogging


Here's the mate to the mallard I posted last weekend, and another picture of the pair watching the waves break on the beach at Loch Lomond.



Saturday, August 6, 2011

Saturday reflections



Sticking to the theme of the photographer reflected in the picture, here are two fairly recent shots where I show up in the photo, one obvious and one not so obvious.

The photo on the left is a door in Copenhagen in June of last year. My walking tour group had disappeared around a corner and I took this picture in a hurry before running to catch up. I ended up missing too much of the door frame to make for a decent picture, but you can see me taking the shot very clearly.












The picture on the right is from Venice in April. You can see one arm, one leg and my purse double reflected on the left side of the windowpane.

Monday, August 1, 2011

Welcome to the working week


Welcome to the working week, welcome to August. Here's a picture that seems appropriately languid and summery, although I took it last April in Lisbon.

I try to stay away from politics here, preferring to leave it to the many expert bloggers on the topic, but this entire debt hostage situation -- where a President who is more of a centrist conservative than the flaming socialist the wingnuts have taught us to fear has been insisting that the legislative branch of government do its fricking job and legislate already, has conceded more than the Republicans dared to dream of and still been rebuffed, while the Tea Party insouciantly leads the global economy towards disaster -- has had me singing Dylan all weekend.

Idiot wind, blowing like a socket around my skull
From the Grand Coulee Dam to the Capitol....
Idiot wind, blowing through the dust upon our shelves,
We're idiots, babe.
It's a wonder we can even feed ourselves.

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