City Views, Country Dreams

Happy Halloween from New York.

This is a beautiful afternoon, but oh, so very windy! It will be very chilly for folks who might want to attend the annual free form Halloween Parade up Sixth Avenue later on this evening. I decided to venture out earlier, in the sporadic warmth of the sun, to take a few photographs.

We will start with a splendid array of pumpkins at the farmers market. Some might yet turn into jack o' lanterns before nightfall.


Leaving those pumpkins, I strolled over to a brownstone-filled neighborhood street that goes all out every year with its decorations. Around twilight today, the street will be closed to vehicular traffic and will become a magical place for little ghosts and goblins. There will be a street party. I imagine that the shrieking and laughing will be quite loud.

Here are some of the decorations adorning the steps and entrance ways to buildings on this block. The small round pumpkins in the following photo will be lit after dark.

These two Dracula characters are competing to see who is scariest.

This fellow gets my vote. (Ahh, our election day will be this Tuesday.)

I am not sure if this display will or will not actually spook children climbing these steps in search of candy.

Brownstone houses usually have a entryway to the "garden" level of the house, and this entrance way is located under the main front staircase that leads to the "parlor" floor. This little fellow must be busy with his garden at this time of year.

The following photo shows a bit of a mish mash (or is it a Monster Mash) attached to the wrought iron gating over the garden level window. Sometimes, less might be more in the frightening stakes.

One house along the street was decorated tastefully with seasonal plants. These stairs serve as a bit of a palate refresher between the spooky bits.

I began this Halloween post with some pumpkins and will close with another sort of pumpkin. I could not resist taking a picture of this adorable little girl and her mom, whose long shadows echo some of the shapes of the trees along this walkway just behind the Museum of Natural History.

I hope that your Halloween will be filled with many treats.

City Views, Country Dreams

Good evening from New York.

This has been a beautiful late October day. Sweater weather. Blue sky. And from my point of view, even better that all that, it has been a day off.

The past week has been a bit too full of activities that have left me searching for extra hours of sleep, and for more time for pursuits of my own choosing. In other words, work has been demanding. I am glad that it's been busy on the work front, because that situation might signal a continued improvement of our economy. At my age, I am glad to be employed, and to have the energy for that employment.

I will now tell you a bit about some places I visited on my time off. Let's start with Fifth Avenue and 42nd Street, absolute midtown, and the location of the main branch (and total architectural gem) New York Public Library. The Fifth Avenue facade of the library is currently undergoing some clean up processes, but the two stone lions, affectionately known as Patience and Prudence, who guard the stairs to the library's entrance way, are definitely looking very good. I liked the composition of the following photo featuring a gent catching up on news via a printed newspaper, not via a more modern medium.

I was on my way to a sample sale of a wonderful Italian company that specializes in cashmere knit accessories and beautiful leather gloves. The giant mums below were amongst the plantings just the other side of the stone lion. At all times of the year, the library makes a point of having this little garden space full of beauty.

The sample sale was very well organized, and full of beautiful bargains, but I resisted. This company will hold two more sessions of this sort of sale leading up to Christmas, and at each subsequent session the prices will be reduced. It's a great place to find fabulous gifts.

I had more errands to do that day, and managed to get through much of my list. Some of this list involved boring bits like housecleaning and laundry. It also involved the gathering of food. I visited the big farmers market at Union Square and got some fresh veg and a vast selection of various apples. Many of these apples have now become part of a yummy apple crumble.

My local food market is located next to another food market. The other food market is a bit more expensive, and so I rarely shop there. I do, however, admire their window displays that often feature fanciful arrays of seafood. The following photo gives you a glimpse of such a window.

This time next week it will be Halloween. While gazing at this past week's brilliant full moon, I began to think about how much I love Halloween. This might be due to childhood memories of candy gathering, but I also feel it has to do with the tradition of donning a costume. It's lovely to have this annual opportunity to cast aside one's day-to-day face, and to try another persona.

My neighborhood is still traditional in certain ways, and there is already evidence of Halloween preparation. There is a little antiques shop that does seasonal window displays crowded with various vintage decorations appropriate to the upcoming holiday.

The above photo shows a tiny model haunted house, with a very tiny pumpkin out in front. I took some other photos of the same window, but the sunlight's reflection diminished the effect of those pictures.

Many brownstone houses in the neighborhood have begun to put pumpkins out on their front steps, and I will try to get some photos of these doorways for my next post.

Today, I tried to get my errands done early, so that I could have a very easy going afternoon. I continued working on my current sock knitting project, while doing a bit of reading. Yes, it's possible to read and knit at the same time. This is easy multi-tasking. I have just about finished this sock, and will soon begin work on its mate. The Trekking (XXL) yarn from Germany has a variegated colorway that gives a subtle striping to the socks. The yarn is much more of a red than is apparent in my photo.

Tomorrow, it will be back to work for me.

Before I end this post, I would like to mention that a relative dear to me lost her long, long battle with cancer this past week. She was someone whom I always thought of as the epitome of glamour, sophistication, intelligence and talent. She was a gifted poet, lived in many parts of the world, and together with her wonderful husband raised two talented sons. May her soul rest in peace.

Best wishes to you all. May you all have a grand week ... perhaps you will also enjoy celebrating the liberating possibilities of Halloween.

City Views, Country Dreams

Good evening from New York on Columbus Day.

I am writing this as I near the end of a rare occasion, a three-day weekend. The weather has been so beautiful, and the days have been relaxing.

Let me take you along to some places I visited.

Saturday, October 9, was what would have been John Lennon's 70th birthday, and I walked over to Central Park's Strawberry Fields area to add my thoughts to those of many others who crowded in to this special place all day.

The following photo is taken from the vantage point of Strawberry Fields, and shows through the trees, a view of the famed Dakota apartment building where Lennon lived.

From there, I travelled downtown to the Union Square farmers market to find some apples and a tiny pumpkin to bring home. The pumpkins below are destined for the homes of others, and might be carved into Jack o'lantern faces.

I have used my mixture of apples to make a delicious cinnamon, butter, and sugar flavored apple crumble. Yummy, and so easy to make. Just the aroma of this dish baking signaled autumn's arrival.

Sunday was another gorgeous day, perfect for a parade. New York City has two Columbus Day parades. The traditional, Italian, parade took place today, Monday, and went on for many hours as lots of school bands and polititians made their way up Fifth Avenue.

I elected to visit yesterday's Hispanic Columbus Day Parade, that honors Spain for funding Columbus's voyage. It is filled with wonderful music and costumes and dancing, and its route covers about three miles of Fifth Avenue.

There are always some wonderful mounted police officers at the beginning.

Then, the parade contingents from Spain arrive. As you might guess, yesterday there was evidence of the Spanish pride in having won the World Cup.

This fellow turns up every year, with his tie-died beard and dog, and party dress. He has a grand time, and no one seems to mind his joy at parading. I do not know which country he represents!

It was at this point that I realized that my camera's battery was not going to last for the entire parade. Alas.

Spain was followed by Argentina, with lots of graceful tango dancers.

Next in line were the representatives from Bolivia, and I did manage to click a shot of one of hundreds, hundreds of costumed dancers. These ladies were able to twirl rapidly while moving forward briskly, and this got their mini skirts whirling around waist high. No photo of that.

I am so sorry not to have a photo of the group from Chile who honored the about-to-be-rescued miners. They each wore a miner's hard hat and scruffy work clothes. The crowd applauded, and some eyes were very moist.

Another event that took place this weekend was the second annual NYC yarn crawl, organized by a group of prominent yarn/knitting shops in Manhattan and Brooklyn. Each shop had special offers, a lottery drawing, a scavenger hunt for visitors to find the hidden knitted apple (NYC is known sometimes as the Big Apple.) The event went on from Saturday through today, Monday.

I did visit some shops on Saturday and Sunday. At the Purl SOHO shop downtown on Sunday, I had the pleasure of meeting a delightful and skilled knitter, Kristina McGowan, whose new book has just been published. It is called Modern Top-Down Knitting, and is a guide to creating various dresses, hats, sweaters, etc., from the top down ... so that each garment is made in one piece. It is a very clever concept, and I wish Kristina great success with her lovely book. I bought a copy and the cover is in the following photo.

Today was another blue sky day, and I traveled across the Park to meet a friend at the Metropolitan Museum. We went up to the roof exhibition space. The Met is actually located on the Fifth Avenue edge of Central Park and so its roof garden has fantastic views. I share the southern view with you.

I wanted to visit the roof not only for the view but also to see the Big Bambu construction that has been made by the Starn twins, who usually are known for their big photos. Big Bambu will be dismantled at the end of October. Every summer, some artist has the roof space to display some sculpture that is just for the roof.

What do you think? Is this a nest gone crazy? A unnatural thicket?

Within this mass of bamboo staffs, carefully knotted together, is an actual pathway in which one can climb up inside the assemblage...a few at a time, please. I did not take the path up today.

Perhaps you can make out the lady in the red dress who did make the climb.

Here is a close up view of how the poles are connected. Would you want to climb?


Here is a mother and son debating whether they want to join the queue for the ascent.

After seeing all that we wished of Big Bambu, we went back downstairs (real stairs) into the Musuem and saw an exhibit of beautiful Renaissance paintings by Jan Gossart and others. It provided a huge contrast to the roof.

After that, we ambled through a few other parts of the Museum and then left in search of a quiet cafe for lunch and lots of chatting. It was a lovely day.

I got home in time for a few errands, and then sat down to work on one of my current knitting projects, a multi-cabled, chunky weight scarf in a gorgeous soft yarn. Project on top of Rowan pattern book. (Yarn is Debbie Bliss Cashmerino Superchunky.)

Tomorrow morning, I will return to work and hope to carry with me the relaxed state of mind that the past three days have granted.

Best wishes to you all.

City Views, Country Dreams

Good evening from New York.

On this windy evening, we New Yorkers are awaiting the next round of rain and wind that will spatter us with vertical or perhaps diagonal or horizontal rain, and wind that might do more damage to old trees around town. In various parts of our city there may be what the weather forecasters call local flooding.

It seems to me that this September has been experiencing windy weather that might actually have made time move more quickly. It was weeks ago that I took the following photo of a couple attempting to cross Fifth Avenue between the traffic lights of 56th and 57th Streets. I liked the billowing of the lady's coat and marveled at the height of her stilettos. Without the willing arm of the gentleman, she would have fallen.


Ahhh, to have the willing arm of a gentleman to guide one though turbulence.

Since my last post, I have had another birthday, and this has let me now qualify for various senior citizen benefits. So far, I have not had the time to do much research to find out what procedures might be needed to actually acquire these benefits.

I am grateful to be healthy and still able to carry on in my career. This career does have a connection to the fashion industry. Although I still do cling to the notion that I might be a painter, even an artist, I admit that the evidence of this is thin on the ground this year. I keep hoping to gather more time to my own interests, rather than following my inbred work ethic that seems to encourage me to devote my hours to the causes of others. Well. I do get a pay check, and so must not moan too much here.

Last week, friends whom I first met in the 1970's when we all worked at the marvelous, wonderful Metropolitan Museum, and I got together for a lunch. Is it not marvelous to stay in touch with folks who remember who you were decades ago? These folks and I do meet every now and then and always laugh and talk and talk and talk. And again, we never quite have enough time to catch up.

Back to fashion. After that lunch, I sped downtown to the Fashion Institute of Technology's Museum to take a look at the current exhibit there. It is full of marvelous, inventive contemporary Japanese fashion. This school has trained many of our top designers, and its museum stages delights, one after the other.


And, as September raced ahead, I fell back into the routine of work, sleep, errands, meal preparation and dining. Repeat. Repeat.

This disconcerting treadmill view of days passing got a bit of a check when I finally found time to take a walk over to Central Park to see how the end of summer might be treating my favorite place, the Shakespeare Garden.

I have shown you all this area in various seasons, and so perhaps you'll enjoy seeing it at the end of September. I love the bikes propped up against the rustic fence at the western entrance to the Garden.


Most of the summer flowers had turned to seed pods, so I let my camera turn to various foliage that showed beautiful contrasts in color and shapes.

This garden is on a gentle incline, and its gardeners always allow it to go a bit wild. I love the mixture that results.

Something that always impresses me about this part of the Park is the quiet. Another encouraging bit is that the visitors do seem to treat the entire area with the respect that these wonderful plants deserve.

My recent walk had an unexpected reward, as I found about six butterflies in complex flight and landing patterns around a particular bunch of flowers that matched the orangy tones of the butterflies' wings. I was stopped in my tracks for quite a while as I enjoyed watching this aerial ballet. I hope that you will enjoy this single photo that I was able to take, catching a beauty in a quick still moment.

The Shakespeare Garden has many roses, and a few were still having a glorious final act last week.

There is something about this part of Central Park that always welcomes anyone who lingers for a while. No matter what pressures might be facing us in our day to day existence, it is very encouraging to see that even in a huge city, nature can thrive and teach us much.

Although I was not able to take any photographs, I was also able to stop in my tracks last week and have a long, long gaze at the full moon, as I returned home from work.

And then, another treat occurred when my workmates and I treated ourselves to an evening yacht ride around the New York harbor. The sky was overcast as we set sail, but just as we passed under the Brooklyn Bridge, on our return back to the Chelsea pier from which we'd set off, the clouds parted and the almost-still-full moon showed its cinnamon golden face. We applauded it, and then the clouds again drew their veil..

I fervently hope that October might have a different pace, and that each day might have something remarkable to report.

Best wishes to you all.

City Views, Country Dreams

Good evening from New York on this first day of September.

What a hot summer day this has been. I have been rambling all over town, and even managed to get a much needed hair cut. It was a surprise to discover that it had been almost three months since my talented stylist got her scissors near my hair.

The salon is very near the wonderful Union Square Farmers Market, and this afternoon the farmers were all there, showing their end of summer season produce.

There was corn.


There was squash, in many varieties. I bought some tiny zucchini...some call them courgettes.



There were many displays of beautiful flowers. I meant to buy some flowers, but did not. Perhaps I will get back to this market at the weekend and find the bouquet of my choice.

The following photograph shows a stall selling potted plants ... lots of herbs and chrysanthemums. The photo also gives you an idea of the buildings just beyond the northwestern corner of the Square. This view looks up Broadway.

Ahhh, aren't these eggplants beautiful? That glossy finish gives such a contrast to the grainy stem hat shape at the top of each purple ovoid.

If you like fresh, fresh lettuces in great variety, the Farmers Market is an ideal place to visit.

The Farmers Market stalls are arranged around the north and west sides of Union Square. In the center of the Square are some little cafe tables. I think that the city planners are trying for some sort of European ambiance, but I am not convinced that the ambiance has been achieved.

Well, I did gather some tomatoes, peaches, and early apples to take home along with the zucchini.

On my uptown subway train, I had the pleasure of transcending the underground surroundings, as I opened David Mitchell's newest book. I had reserved this book months ago, and at long last, my library's copy of the American edition was placed into my hands.

What a treat to be able find myself in another century in Japan as I traveled under the New York streets.

And, let's see what else transpired on this day off.

I got home in time to do a bit of playing around with some crocheting. As usual, I've got a few projects underway at the same time. Not sure which of these projects might yet be unraveled, and which might just zip anlong to completion.

It's quite fun to just play around with colors and stitches.

Today's post brought a heavy, glossy fall fashion catalogue to my mailbox. A sort of dreambook as far as contemplating making any purchases. I like these catalogues for the opportunity they bring to see how top designers clothing is styled, and to investigate the silhouettes of the season.

Often, when I turn though the pages, the photographs remind me of clothing I have worn before ... decades back. The two coats shown in the photos I am sampling here are so, so very smilar to coats I remember owning. I might have to go and see these actual coats and try them on, to see if they actually feel like those coats of yore.

Somehow, I have not found time all day to switch on the television to have a glimpse of what might be happening in another part of this big city ... on the tennis courts of the U.S. Open Tournament.

Perhaps I can have a long look at tennis this weekend, although there is a certain hurricane named Earl that's whirling its way up the Atlantic coast, threatening to give us a wet weekend, and to dampen the tennis matches.

Fingers crossed for more sunshine, glorious farm fresh produce, and great tennis.

Best wishes to you all.

City Views, Country Dreams

Good afternoon from New York.

How can it be August? What has happened to July? This summer does seem to speeding past. The days are hot, some of the leaves have begun to fall from the trees. Crispy brown leaves can be seen scattered along the pathways of Central Park.

Walking along one of those pathways I saw a collection of pedi-cabs operators waiting for some customers. I cannot imagine how they can do their job in the current heat.
We have had some thunderstorms during this summer, and this caused many trees in the Park to lose branches. Actually, some people were killed by falling branches. This seems impossible, but alas, it is true.

This tree remnant is not in jail, but rather is just behind a delicate bit of fencing that bears the the Central Park Conservancy id. The Conservancy is privately funded (even I make an annual contribution) and helps to keep the Park beautiful, and perhaps also safe.



Here is another photo of some damaged tree parts. There is something a bit sad about these logs.

I won't dwell any longer on these poor old trees, but will instead take you along with me to the Sunday farmers market. This week was a wonderful week for rosy red fruits and vegetables. I bought some of these peaches.

And some of these tomatoes.

I greatly admired these plums, but did not buy any. The peaches will keep me busy for the next few days. I do not like to refrigerate peaches or tomatoes, and so I plan to eat them pretty quickly.

I also found some beautiful zucchini, sugar snap peas and cucumbers. I think that it might be too late in the season for lettuces. Some of the farmers had wonderful looking corn, and eggplant, and green peppers.

My plan was to do this marketing well before midday, so that I could have many hours left to work on some of my craft projects. I am experimenting with all sorts of yarn-related notions, and can show you how my circle in the square afghan is coming along.

There is something rather crazy about crocheting with wool in the summertime, isn't there?

At work tomorrow, I will be wearing an alpaca sweater, hoping to induce the customers to buy one for themselves. There is something pretty crazy about alpaca in August, too.

I do hope that August is treating you all very well. Best wishes.

City Views, Country Dreams

Good afternoon from New York on a very hot and humid summer day. I believe that there is to be a full moon tonight. It is my hope that before that moon rises, we might also have a quick, cooling thunderstorm.

The clouds are gathering and the wind is up. This is the July afternoon weather pattern. What usually happens is that the rain is pushed eastward to Connecticut. We have actually had very little rain. Those areas east of us have had all sorts of dramatic storms, near-tornadoes, fallen trees, power outages, etc. We just stay hot and sticky.

And so, let me stop fixating on this weather and show you a very out of focus photo of a beautiful flower arrangement I was given to commemorate my eighth anniversary with my current employers. The flowers really were spectacular, and before the hot weather (oops, another weather reference pop up) did them in, I found time to sit down with my sketch book to try a few drawings. I wanted to be able to better remember the snapdragons, asters, roses, gerberas, tiny mums, and lovely foliage. For the first time in ages, I spent many hours on an errand-free day off, just trying to regain hand and eye coordination.

Some of the drawings that pleased me most turned out to be those of some of the asters that had actually gotten dried out and spindly. I really loved the linear inspiration of those tiny little twisty, turny dried flowers. I have not taken any photos of those drawings. They were just warm up exercises (another possible weather reference there.)

The picture below is an oil painting I did quite a few years ago, during another summertime. The cups are some of my old china. The setting is imaginary.

This morning I had an early morning walk over to the farmers greenmarket, and found some super red and ripe tomatoes, a tiny kirby cucumber (to add to tomorrow's turkey sandwich,) some young, crisp green beans and a perfect peach. I was tempted by some of the other prime produce for sale, but did not linger outdoors for too long.

I wanted to get home to do a little watercolor picture that I will be giving to someone as a sort of farewell, good luck gift, tomorrow. I do lots of these fanciful watercolor teacups and thought you all might enjoy seeing the difference in my approach using different media.

I painted this pretty quickly without much planning, other than deciding on the shape of the cup.

Some of the colors are inspired by some of my old Minton china. Lots of the colors are just arbitrary to fill up the space with a summertime feeling.

Well. I am delighted to report that while I have been typing, the light in this room changed dramatically, and now we are getting that longed-for summer shower. The air is transformed!

It's my hope to keep the sketchbook handy this week, and to be able to share some more of my playing about with pencils and paint. It's also my hope that you all are having lots of fun this summer. Cheers!