More Grand Place

That's the City Hall on the left. The jumbled wood canopy on the right is an art installation.

Another Grand Place

This is in Mons, a charming town southwest of Brussels where I spent the night with a friend before going to Ghent.

Saturday reflections

Waiting for the bus on 42nd Street, on my way to get yet another CAT scan.

This is maybe the fourth or fifth scan in the past two months. Between the scans and the x-rays and the radioactive isotope injections, if you plugged me in, I would probably light the Eastern Seaboard.

Urban poetry

And we're back in Belgium.

This particular restaurant was in Mons, but I saw them in Ghent as well. Alas, I did not get a chance to sample their offerings, but the name made me laugh out loud. It's the perfect example of globalization: a restaurant chain with an Irish-sounding name selling what it claims is the original French version of a Mexican dish.

Update: And, I neglected to add, with a slogan Original French Tacos that's in English.

Astronomy Tuesday

PGC 42871 doesn't look like your typical galaxy. Those ghostly shells contain globular clusters of stars whose varying ages suggest that there have been multiple collisions with other galaxies in this one's past.

I love the way this strange galaxy looks like a giant silk organza flower, but as always what I like most in this Hubble image is the background, all those other tiny nebulae and galaxies and smudges of light. I know they're impossibly huge and impossibly cold and impossibly far away, but when I see these deep space images I always feel as though I've caught the universe dancing.

Image Credit: Hubble Legacy Archive, NASA, ESA; Processing and Copyright: Domingo Pestana

Sunday bird blogging

Mourning doves don't move that quickly and even a less than agile photographer can manage to capture them on camera.

Still using the point and shoot, which doesn't get the best quality for birds, but each picture still feels like an accomplishment.

Saturday reflections

Another picture after the rain last weekend -- buildings on 44th Street reflected in a car window.

Urban poetry

Brussels, away from the touristy Centre Ville.

The poster on the old church reads Life escapes us, but art gives it back.

Happy Halloween!

I haven't actually worn a Halloween costume in at least 20 years, when I went to a Bob Dylan themed party as the Sad-Eyed Lady of the Lowlands, and the plastic tears I glued to my cheeks took a few layers of skin with them when I tried to peel them off -- I still have faint teardrop-shaped scars.

But this variation on crime-scene tape on 44th Street made me smile.

Astronomy Tuesday

Here are some ghosts for Halloween: IC 59 and IC 63, in Cassiopeia.

Image Credit and Copyright: Ken Crawford (Rancho Del Sol Obs.)

Headlight in the rain

It's been a long time since I posted a picture of a headlight. I may not be up for lugging telephoto lenses through Central Park yet, but yesterday I took the baby camera out on a walk around the block after the rain and managed one good shot.

I do feel more myself with a camera in my hand.

Sunday bird blogging

This is appropriate for a final picture from Rwanda: an unidentified bird.

I couldn't find this bird in any of my field guides or in the online databases. It's possible it's a juvenile and the spots will go away when it matures, but for now we'll just call it the Gray-winged Spotty Breast of Western Rwanda.

The unidentified Nauseated Cold-Sweats Jelly-Knees illness I picked up in Central Rwanda is long gone, and my only souvenir at this point is a sluggish heart, which the doctors assure me will probably just get better on its own. I'm learning to live with it, and though very, very, grateful to be feeling better than I did a few weeks ago, I wish I could manage a hike through Central Park with my camera to see what the local avians are up to.