Willy-nilly Friday 5: Birthday Edition

1.  So yesterday was my birthday – which one is not really relevant.  It’s enough to say that I’m not getting any younger.  We had tickets for a day game at Fenway Park to watch the Red Sox.  In baseball, as in life, hope springs eternal and I was hoping for a win to add to my scorebook.  (Yes, I am a baseball nerd and I do keep score when I go to the games.  My scorebook is one of my favorite things in life.) Well, there was no luck at Fenway yesterday since the Sox lost 8-6, but it was a good day at the ballpark nonetheless.  And as the famous line goes, “There’s no crying in baseball,” which is a damn good thing, because otherwise we’d be crying a lot this year.

2.  The other day I saw on Facebook that the Boston Museum of Fine Arts had a photography exhibit that I really wanted to see.  The exhibit is called In the Wake:  Japanese Photographers Respond to 3/11.  In case you can’t recall the date, it is the day, March 11, 2011, that the tsunami hit the coast of Japan leaving so much devastation behind.  I was interested in this because I recently did a bit of research on the subject for a talk I gave in April as part of a Sunday service at our church concerning radiation in our everyday lives.  The continuing damage resulting from the meltdown of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant is frightening and horrible, but that is beside my point here.  Going to see the exhibit, which was very touching and well worth a visit, encouraged us to park at the museum and walk to Fenway.  It’s a pleasant walk through a beautiful part of Boston.  On the way, I managed to snap this picture of The Prudential building reflected in one of the fens.

3.  After the game, while we were walking back to the car, I noticed this plaque embedded in the sidewalk next to tables with chess boards embedded in them:

A little research got me an explanation of why it is there.  David Woodman is a young man who died during the celebration of the Boston Celtics winning a championship.  They say that he was willing to give up his coat to the homeless he encountered and loved playing chess with them.  I think we would all benefit from remembering that, at the end of the day, we do all end up in the same box.

4.  Speaking of boxes, on the way out of Boston we passed by the House of the Harvard Club of Boston.  There’s a box I wouldn’t fit in either now or at the end of the day.

5.  Because of some pretty nasty Boston traffic, we got home much later than anticipated, so to cap off the night, Greg and I took the five minute drive over to our local Uno’s Pizzeria and I celebrated getting older with an Ultimate Margarita and half a flatbread pizza.  The good thing about that is that our friend and expert musician Jared Fiske was performing there that night.  That was the icing on my non-existent birthday cake.

Oh, by the way, here's me in a pretty bad selfie that I took while sitting in traffic in Boston yesterday.  I was pretty beat from all we did during the day so I look a little on the put-out side, but I wasn't unhappy -- just tired.  But today I am a very happy person thinking about the Supreme Court ruling allowing gay marriage in this country.  Even though I've been around for a good long while, I still feel that life is too short to deny  all consenting adults the happiness of love and marriage if they want it.  Thanks, SCOTUS!

Linking up with Around Roanoke's Willy-nilly Friday 5!

Willy-nilly Friday 5: Maybe it’s a sign…

1.  When we were in the Great Smoky Mountains, we passed through Pigeon Forge and Gatlinburg, Tennessee.  These are tourist destinations of the extreme variety and there is no shortage of signs there, but the best signs we saw when we were on our trip we found in the Cherokee and Bryson City, North Carolina areas.  These signs are throwbacks to the past and quite charming in my humble opinion.  Like this one for the Pink Motel.  Isn’t it great?!

2.  This one has seen better days.  The Teddy Bear Motel appears to have been closed for quite some time.  But that teddy bear still believes that “Life’s Good!”

3.  Here’s a sign for Granny’s Restaurant in Cherokee, NC.  Someday I might eat there if I have a chance.  Both of my grandmother’s were good cooks, unlike my mother who really didn’t much like cooking, in general, so I tend to avoid places that claim they serve meals like mom used to make.

4.  This was my very favorite sign of all.  Seems to me that the Warrior Motel has it all – remote cable TV, electric heat & air, picnic area AND a flower & water garden.  How many places can boast a flower and water garden??  Can you imagine how great that sign looks at night all lit up?

  To me, that sign is a real treasure.

5.  I get up early these days and figure that is free time for me to do what I want.  So while I drink my first cups of coffee of the day, I’ve been churning my way through Foyle’s War on Netflix.  Well, was I disappointed when I realized earlier this week that I finished the series.  I really enjoyed it.  I think they are still making new episodes, so I imagine that they will show up on Netflix one of these days, but until then…any suggestions?  Maybe this is a sign that I watch too much TV and should be doing something useful instead.  On that note, here’s a sign that’s definitely seen better days.

Linking up to Around Roanoke's Willy-nilly Friday 5!

Thanks, Tanya!

Willy-nilly Friday Five: Paint, water and fantasies…

1.  I mentioned last week that I was going to Brush It Off Paint & Sip Bar in Sturbridge for a night out with the girls.  It was a fun night.  We painted wine bottles that can be threaded with fairy lights and used as a night light or something like that.  Here we are with our bottles:

I think we did a great job!

2.  While I was standing around waiting to leave Brush It off, I noticed that the paint aprons were pretty cool and I took photos of a couple of them.  I think this looks like an intentional modern art painting.

3.  We’re having a very dry spring.  While our problems in the water department are dwarfed by the problems they are having in California, I think it’s interesting that the record-breaking amount of snow we had this year was not enough to keep us from having a spring drought.

4.  On Tuesday this week, I got up early to let the refrigerator repair guy in for the fourth or fifth time in a month.  Our Samsung refrigerator that we bought in August, 2011 had been on the fritz for more than a month for the second time in its short life.  This time, I think he fixed it, but I have no faith that the repair will last.  My Facebook friends have heard all about this travail so I won’t go into the ins and outs of it.  Living without a convenient refrigerator is bad enough, but I am distressed that major appliances, while being so expensive, are so shoddily made as to have a short shelf life.  I know that sadly we have become a “throw away” society, but throwing away something as large as a refrigerator is so very wrong!  It’s not just the “fancy” appliances that this applies to.  We bought a very simple fridge for a condo we own and rent out to our daughter.  It lasted about one month past its warranty and the repairs were so expensive it didn’t make financial sense to do them, so we had to buy a new one.   We shouldn’t have to take this, people, but I’ll be damned if I can figure out what to do about it!  Every time I think about this, I can feel my blood pressure rising.

  Okay, rant over.  I need to take a deep breath and clear the air…

5.  Well, I guess it’s fanciful to imagine major appliances that might last at least ten or eleven years.  But one can dream, can’t one?  How about this?  I think I will petition Congress to install a coffee pipeline from our kitchen downstairs to my office upstairs.  Or actually, wouldn’t it be nice if it could just come directly from Dunkin’ Donuts to my office piping hot?  That way I wouldn’t even have to grind the beans.  It’s a thought.  Congress has been known to spend money on stupider things than this, but I’m not going there.  It's a crazy world!

Hooking up with Willy-nilly Friday Five!

Late Edition:

Joining up with Friday Greens, too!

Willy-nilly Friday 5: Resurrecting words…

Yesterday while I was going through my notifications on Facebook, one in particular caught my eye.  Its title 15 obsolete words we should still be using really flipped my switch because next to photography, I really love words.  So I decided to willy-nilly a few of them here today and link up with Tanya's Around Roanoke Willy-nilly Friday 5.

1.  Here is Olive, the pug, as she basked in the sun by our slider today.   It reminds her of the apricity (a) she missed this year during the everlasting snow storms we endured.  Looking at this picture reminds me that we must be in denial about spring being here, because Greg’s snow boots still sit there behind her.

2.  Maybe I’m a cockalorum (b), but I think I did a stand up job on this photo.  In reality, I’m just fudgeling (c).  It’s really Mother Nature who did all the work.

3.  Tonight I’m going out with the girls.  We’re going to Enrico’s Brick Oven Pizza for dinner and then on to Brush It Off to paint pussy willow lighted wine bottles.  While at Brush If Off, I will probably restrain myself on the wine consumption, but at Enrico’s I’m planning to be crapulous (d) because they make a fine pizza there and serve a pretty good Chianti.

4.  The magnolia flowers on our tree in the back yard gorgonize (e) me.  I can stand awestruck and stare at them for hours.  Well, maybe not hours, but you know what I mean.

5.  Our two younkers (f) are coming home on Sunday for Mother’s Day.  I want no gifts except the presence of their company.  I will definitely deliciate (g) that evening with my family because we are having another nice meal at our favorite place here in town – Cedar Street Grille.

Whether or not you are a mother, there is probably someone in your life you have mothered...be it human or canine or feline or other. Whether or not you are connected by blood to your mother or your child, may the sun shine on you this Mother's Day!

a.  Apricity – noun.  The warmth of the sun in winter.

b.  Cockalorum – noun.  A boastful person.

c.  Fudgel – verb.  To pretend to work.

d.  Crapulous – adj.   Characterized by excessive eating or drinking.

e.  Gorgonize – verb.  To have a paralyzing or mesmerizing effect.

f.  Younker – noun.  A young person.

g.  Deliciate – verb.  To enjoy oneself; to indulge in feasting; to revel.

Willy-nilly Friday Five: Fits and Starts

1.  When I took Olive the pug out this morning, I couldn’t believe it.  It was downright cold with a rather biting wind.  It made me think that I had under-dressed for the occasion and should have worn my winter coat or that maybe I accidentally time traveled backwards and it was really February.  But, no, there is no snow on the ground.  It’s definitely April.

2.  Well, I’ve lived here long enough to know that spring comes to New England in fits and starts.  I was out yesterday buying a new toaster but couldn’t decide which one to buy.  In order to put off making a decision, I decided to check Facebook instead.  On Facebook, there was post after post of people complaining that it was snowing.  I missed it yesterday because I was in Target trying to figure out what toaster to buy.  But I wouldn’t be a bit surprised to see it snow here today.

Some things are blooming here....really!

3.  Speaking of toasters, Greg and I have been married for close to 35 years and have had terrible luck with toasters.  I think we’ve owned six or seven in those years and we don’t eat that much toast.  We’ve had expensive toasters and cheap toasters.  I don’t see much difference between the two.  The best one we’ve ever had was a middle-of-the-road toaster pricewise.  It was the Oster that I was replacing yesterday.  I bought it at Target about ten years ago and it toasted our toast until a few months ago when it didn’t want to keep the toast down to finish the toasting cycle and had to be coaxed with curses and kind words.  I got sick of babying it.  So, off I went yesterday hoping to find the exact same toaster – the best toaster we’ve ever had – but unfortunately, they’re selling a new model of that Oster there now.  I bought it anyway and am hoping it lasts ten years like the last one, but I’m not holding my breath on that.

I got sick of waiting on the forsythia, too.  I brought this into the house and forced it.

4.  You know, we could probably get by in life without a toaster, but they are handy to have around.  The toaster I bought yesterday is red.  I consider that a kind of bonus.  Yes, I’m happy about that even though my favorite color is blue.

5.  Earlier this morning, I was sitting here at my computer with a blank expression on my face trying to think of what to write about, when I heard a great racket coming from the front yard.  There were six crows in the pines crowing louder than a Counting Crows concert.  I finally had to get up to see what it was all about and looking down, I saw a fox crossing the yard.  I believe the crows must have been warning the whole neighborhood that the foxes were out and about.  They kept at it for about five more minutes and then dispersed one at a time.  I think that crows are about the coolest birds going.  As a matter of fact, they are my favorite bird.  They may not be colorful and flashy, but they are sleek, elegant and intelligent and infinitely fun to watch.  What is your favorite bird?

Linking up with the crowd at Around Roanoke's Willy-Nilly Friday Five!

Willy-nilly Friday 5: Recycling the Blues…

1.  I’m posting the last five weeks of my 52 Weeks of Blue today and since Willy-nilly Friday 5 is back, I’m being otherwise random.

2.  When I was a kid, I remember my Grandpa Oscar playing music.  He could play pretty much any stringed instrument he picked up, but my favorite was the banjo.

  I still love listening to banjo music to this day.

3.  Last night, I got a real treat.  My son Evan drove over from Worcester and we piled into the car and joined my daughter Carrie for dinner in Northampton at a nice tapas place called Ibiza.  Then Carrie left for her photo club meeting and Evan and I went to the Calvin Theater in Noho and got to hear the great banjo player Bela Fleck and his equally talented wife Abigail Washburn.  What fun!  Mark Twain said, "A gentleman is a man who can play the banjo, but doesn't." If that’s the case, I’m glad I wasn’t in the company of gentlemen last night.  The opening act was Rhiannon Giddens and the Carolina Chocolate Drops.  They were fab, too.  A terrific night all around.

4.  When I looked at my calendar today, I saw that it was my cat Clouseau’s birthday.  Clouseau was the first cat that Greg and I adopted after we got married.  I loved that cat!  He was a gorgeous Tuxedo cat with a great personality.  He would have been 35 today.  I don’t suppose any domestic cat has ever lived that long, but it doesn’t mean he isn’t missed…still.

5.  The snow is gone almost completely.  Spring has sprung.  Still waiting for the forsythia to pop, but that should happen any day now.  Have a great weekend!

Linking up with Tanya's Willy-nilly Friday 5!

Just for grins, I thought I would throw in an old photo of my Grandpa and his twin brothers Hobart and McKinley.  Grandpa is the one in the middle.  I love this old photo!

And here's one of me and the birthday boy.  This was probably taken in 1981.  He was the best cat ever! Even though he doesn't look too comfortable in this pic, he never complained.

Willy-nilly Random Stuff: Fending off the Devil…

1 - They say that idle hands are the devil’s workshop.  I’m not sure I agree with that completely.  I believe that it is good for the soul to take a little time off now and then and just do nothing.  But I must say that it is difficult for me to watch television if I don’t have something to do with my hands.  I’ve quilted in the past, but these days I’ve been crocheting.  It’s just a bit easier and more portable than quilting.  I’m going to show off some of my latest projects here.

  2 - This is a scarf made from Red Heart Boutique yarn.  The color is "Parrot."  I like this yarn quite a lot.  It’s soft and comes in wonderful variegated colors.  This particular scarf is done in the alligator or crocodile stitch.  It’s a fun, easy stitch and goes together quickly.  I’m donating this project to an auction in May.

3 - A little while back, I picked up a book called Contemporary Celtic Crochet by BonnieBarker because I love the look of Aran knitting, but I don’t knit.  This book has some great projects in it and the instructions are clear and precise.  I’ve only managed to finish one project so far, but I had a great time doing it.  I used Caron Simply Soft yarn for this project.  This one I’m keeping for myself.

4 - Now and then, I go with my daughter Carrie to Webs Yarn Store in Northampton, Massachusetts.  OMG!  If you like yarn and you’re ever in Western Massachusetts, you have got to go to Webs.  Of course, you can order from them on line and here’s the link, but being there in person is just a yarn lover’s dream.  The colors alone knock me out!  And, of course, I have to touch everything.  The problem for me is that I can’t afford a big project with the yarn they sell there, so when I’m in there, I buy a few balls of something for a small project.  The last time I was there, I picked up this gorgeous Plymouth Yarn Monte Donegal to make yet another scarf.  It feels like heaven and it’s hand-dyed, so the color is fabulous!    I will continue to have the warmest neck in town next winter.  I decided that I would do it in a Tunisian stitch.  When it gets long enough, I will stop and go on to something else.

5 - Sometimes I think that Olive, the pug, sheds enough that I could probably make a blanket or something out of her leftovers.  She thinks I’m full of soup!

Linking up to A Rural Journal's Random 5 Friday!

And Around Roanoke's Willy-nilly Friday Five!

Willy-nilly Random Stuff: Spring? Maybe not...

1.  They say it’s the first day of spring here in the northern hemisphere.  While that may technically be true, it’s snowing here.  So what else is new, eh?  Well, to me that calls for a trip back to the Smith College greenhouse.  Sure it’s snowing out, but I’ve got my memories and my photos of those gorgeous flowers to hold me over until the local thing feels safe to pop its head out of the frozen ground.

2.  I love orchids!  They are such happy flowers.  Before I read the book The Orchid Thief:  A True Story of Beauty and Obsession by Susan Orlean, I had no idea how crazy people could get over a flower.  But when I look at orchids, I can kind of understand it.  By the way, the book is a good read and the movie based (loosely) on the book Adaptation is worth a look, too, in my humble opinion.  I think I have a new favorite orchid and it’s this one:

3.  One of the things I truly love about spending time at a place like the Smith College greenhouse is seeing the grand variety in nature. Apples and oranges...succulents and orchids.  It's all good and it’s nice when people have taken the time to pull all these great elements together.  I appreciate it.

4.  But going from the relatively cool climate of the spring bulbs to the tropical area can cause the camera lens to fog up and the need for a bit of creativity in the photo editing department.

5.  No matter where your hallways lead, I hope you have a great Spring!

Linking up with A Rural Journal's Random Five Friday &

Around Roanoke's Willy-nilly Friday 5.  Thanks, kids!