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Early morning, the sun not up yet.
The street lights still glow.
At Penn Station the wage-slaves are off to the salt mines.
How they rush and rush !
One man rushed quite out of his shoe (lower right)
Then some serious art work before Henry gets dressed
then back to bare branches
waiting for spring
I so rarely get over to the East Side where I get to look at buildings from a different angle.
A water tower. Workmen doing important things on the roof.
A building with a great deal of glass
and the trees of Union Square glimpsed through the jungle of buildings.
I go to tea with my friend the artist Margaret Gosden and we chat about books and art and techie apps like Camerabag, OldphotoPRO, Hipstamatic and Colorsplash and all the fun things that purists despise (and I enjoy).
Margaret's fern rendered antique!
One of her prints with a lot of the colors taken out
and quite a lot put back in.....
What fun we have!
On the way home I go to the post office at Union Station
and find that the side door is a sort of metaphor for the state of the poor old PO...
The first snow this year (unless you count the freak mini-storm in October).
At seven in the morning it's still pretty dark.
The trees look mysterious
with the two men returning from walking their dog.
Our dog ( suitably booted against the ice-melt they throw down)
the dog's friend Enzo
a horribly chilly looking bench
and heading home with miserably icy hands.
Amongst a jumble of stuff in my desk: postcards documenting my husband's grandparents' annual winter escape to Florida.
In the 40's, 50's and 60's Frank and Josie Schmid drove from Long Island to West Palm Beach where they had a house. The Colonial Motor Court in Portsmouth, Virginia cost $6 a night including tile baths and free radios.
Along the way they stopped at all sorts of motels often becoming friends with the people who ran them. This is Danker's Motel Court in Miami. The managers, Fred and Henry Danker originally came from Asbury Park, New Jersey.
The Camden Motor Lodge was also $6 a night -- the post card annotated "Very Good". Arrow points to their room.
This little restaurant has bags of charm. They ate here on January 1st 1948
Mr and Mrs. Henry Rueger were the owner/managers of Rueger's Cottages in Gulfport. "Hi Son, Hope everything is going along smoothly. Will syay here til Sunday morning. Seen Mr. Eichelberger and the Reugers so far. All our love, Mom and Dad."
I want those lawn chairs.
The A&A Tourist Court, one mile north of Claxton, Georgia sprang for fancier postcards even if the restaurant resembled a shoebox.
Not quite sure what the attraction was with the rather grim looking Bancroft Motel in Virginia
or why the Skyway Motel in Fort Pierce, Florida was a steal at $4.50 a night on January 7th 1952
These are the Twin Attractions of the Highlands of Central Florida. (I had not realized there were any highlands. Robert says if you stand up straight you can see across the whole state.)
Be that as it may, in 1948 you could visit Cypress Gardens * "a paradise of beauty and a Mecca for nearly a quarter million visitors a year.....Photographic models pose for your pictures in hoop skirts among the flowers...." The Singing Tower was a "gift to the people of America from Edward Bok, a man who loved nature and all beauty."
* Now Legoland
Went to tea at a friend's house.
I like the blue in her fruit bowl. I like looking round other people's houses to see how they live, how they interpret the world. L. still had her Christmas tree up because she said it kept her cheery through dull January.
I tried to explain about Twelth Night and bad fairies and all the rest of it. If she enjoys the tree, all power to her. Her chessmen look Japanese and martial.
Her tray is bamboo and the (delicious) shortbread gluten-free.
What quirks we all have! What very small rituals make us happy.
I've just finished reading Tim Bonyhady's Good Living Street about his absurdly wealthy Viennese forebears who made fortunes from gas mantles and patronized Klimt and the Wiener Werkstätte and ended up in Australia. Similar in some ways to Edmund deWaal's wonderful The Hare With Amber Eyes but in others very different. What a sucker I am for history and family histories in particular.
Other than that, the day has turned chilly.
Excellent reading weather.
Top layer: Robert works on a glass palette and the water and/or thinner makes natural inlets and mountains and waves.
Middle: Paper used for cleaning brush. Random.
Lower: Plastic spread on floor now floor has been sanded.....
Dog.
Building that somehow got inside a car on 22nd Street.
Flower that has lasted over a week.
I often take the dog for a walk at twilight which is a much more interesting time of day than noon.
I rarely go uptown at night so it all appears magically full of potential.
The globe at Columbus Circle shimmers with possibility. This is about all the excitement I get. For people whose lives are much more exotic see Ruthie's tribute to Rauf one of the best photographers and most exciting bloggers ever, and Janelle's wonderful writing about Zanzibar and other adventures.
Yesterday at the dog park (where I'm known for watering the concrete) I was given a late Christmas present. I hadn't seen anything like it since 1956.
So I rushed home where where my family were forced to take a break in watching the Twilight Zone marathon and coopted into setting it up. Very exciting indeed.
Well......
It looked like some sort of surreal crown. A miniature paper world of mountain, trees and garden.
By this morning a new world was born.....
Happy New Year
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