bricks

glass bricks & regular bricks

Seafood anyone?

There are actually windows amongst those signs...!

the 'hood where i work

northern liberties, philly

Hotel Bathroom

View from the bathroom window of a hotel in Brighton, England. This was the scene on the street around 'closing time'.

Dirt n' Alley

On an alley between Stoke Newington and Newington Green London. I often walked down this to get away from the main street on my way to the Newington Green bus stop where I departed for work in the City.

dipping into the past

langeland, denmark

it's getting to the point where i think that there are cobwebs starting to grow on my camera.

day late, dollar short

aero, denmark 2003

bleh

irretrievable, completely and totally unforgivable consumed and busy and stressed and want to run away, far, FAR away BUSY and cranky and no fun.

i promise to try and upload something later when i get home from work. but it certainly isn't going to be anything fresh. nothing but stinky old archives around here these days.

Faces

Whoop! Looks like I'm not the only one who forgot yesterday was Wednesday!
This photo was taken from an El platform in Chicago.

double shot

these are both from last week when we went for a walk in rittenhouse town, which is about 10 minutes from our house & is a part of the wissahickon park that runs all through the city.

Grates, Bike and Bubbles

Brighton, UK. 2005

Steed Fills the Gaps

I adopted Steed somewhere between the years 1997 and 1998 in Chicago, IL. I don’t remember the exact date because that particular time in my life is kind of a blur. Another story for another time. I was looking for a black cat. At a shelter I was shown Emma, Steed’s sister, who is equally lovely in different ways and was about as black as they come. I watched her walk around the room, curious but cautious. I could write another entry about Emma, but this one is reserved for Steed.

Steed was introduced to me as Emma’s brother. Seemingly care-free and playful, he was very different from Emma. They were living in a far too small cage for the both of them on the ground floor of a small house converted to the cat shelter. It seemed that this room was where the young cats were kept. Just as human babies, I suppose people out to adopt cats really want to adopt kittens, the tinier the better. Upon asking if there were any other cats to see, I was led to a basement where cages filled with cats were stacked floor to ceiling. This is where the older cats were sent when no one adopted them. It was as sad a sight as I'd ever seen. As far as I could tell, Emma and Steed were a short time away from this fate, as they were about the biggest kittens on the ground floor. They were about 6 months old or so when I saw them.

The shelter owner preached the virtues of taking two cats instead of one, a theory I was dubious about, but in the end I suppose I was an easy sell. I picked up Steed and held him in my hands against my body. Soft as a rabbit, it was easy to forget that if I was to take him his light-colored fur would be omni-present on clothes and furniture from that moment on. In moments I fell head over heels. I had on a favorite jacket, my orange quilted hoodie that I’ve long since worn to bits and had to dispose of. He didn’t wriggle or try to get away. He simply sat in my hands and began to paw and play with the tag of my zipper. He might have played all day and night if I didn’t stop him. I had to have him, and he came as a package.

Sometimes I joke that I got Steed by default, because I was looking for a black cat originally. But in truth it was Steed who won my heart first, and Emma who captured me later. Through the years he’s brought me much love and laughter, comfort and happiness. He continues to do this, from across the sea, and at the same time is bringing joy, along with his lovely sister, to my parents in Syracuse.

These special times include, but are in no way restricted to:

The way his purrs fill up the room the moment you look his way –-

The way he thinks he’s about 6 inches long even though he weighs about 18 pounds and barely fits on your lap. --

The way he still meows the tiniest kitten meow – and responds when you look at him and say ‘Hi’ --

The time he jumped from the back of the toilet, lost his footing and went straight IN, then out quicker than you could say Friskies –- ( lovely trapped in the bathroom kitty bath-time ensued for the next hour or so)

The way he headbutts your fist if you point it at him –-

The time he had a little poopie problem and I only noticed because he was dragging his butt for about 30 feet across my wooden floor -- (bath-time again)

The time he decided to venture outside onto a tiny 5X5 foot roof on the second floor of my coach house and was too terrified to crawl back in –-

The way he greets you at the door and follows you around the house --

The time he wouldn’t stop eating the poinsettias I was desperately trying to photograph for that year’s Christmas card –-

How he still finds the laundry basket the best seat in the house, and will sit in a box that is half his size --

How he always seems to know just when you need a cuddle most --

:)

spelling bee

in the year nineteen hundred and eighty one i was 9 years old, which means i was in the 3rd grade? (those elementary school years are kind of a blur.) when i was in grade school i was really into the spelling bee. i was a good speller, and i remember very clearly that every year my school passed out a sheet of official spelling bee words so that we could practice. (does anyone else remember these?) as soon as we got these practice words i would immediately start cramming, memorizing, asking family members to quiz me, etc...

to make a short story long i competed and won the primary level spelling bee at my grade school. the primary level was grades 1-3 or something like that and the intermediate level was for the older kids. winning the primary granted me the honor of competing in the intermediate level bee with the big kids. i won't go into how i got to the final 3 and was ROBBED because i either did not enunciate, or the "judge" was going deaf. i swear to this day that i spelled grandfather: g-r-a-n-d-f-a-t-h-e-r and not g-r-a-n-f-a-t-h-e-r, as they claimed. i was insulted and horrified to be eliminated on such an easy word, and one that i KNEW i had spelled CORRECTLY.

anyway this is not the focus of the gap i intended to fill. the object of my focus is a dictionary. as the winner of the primary spelling bee i won this dictionary.


during this period in time i had a comprehensive sticker collection. the main focus of my collection were stickers that featured any or all of these elements: rainbows, hearts, unicorns, cats, bears, stars, candy....you get the idea.

so, i had this sticker collection and i didn't know what to do with them. i didn't want to stick them on anything that i might lose or get rid of or decide i didn't like anymore. my prized and carefully curated sticker collection needed a proper and worthy place in the world. but they really did need to be stuck on something, didn't they? they were stickers after all? wasn't that their purpose?

so i decided that this dictionary that i won at the spelling bee would certainly be a cherished possession for decades to come, and was definitely a worthy of being the permanent home of my sticker collection.

i also taped in my spelling bee name tag, and it looks like i traced over my name with one of those metallic paint pens, that were all the rage

i think that it is hilarious that i (not so) very carefully traced over the teacher's handwriting with a pen. what's that about? i also traced around many of the stickers with a pen.

i remember thinking this one was very special

so this dictionary was clearly the perfect choice for immortalizing my collection . it has lasted through the years, through many moves and many, many, many, purges of crap. i have never been able to get rid of this thing. if i hadn't plastered the inside of it with stickers i'm pretty sure it would have been edited out a long time ago. now it like a little peek into the mind of a nine year old me.