I’m beginning to believe in spring

Posted on March 10, 2010 by ruthek

Not much sunshine today, but nice and warm. I've been walking (2 plus miles) most days. A new round of classes are beginning. I'm learning about the geology of the national parks (Monday was parks with caves), contemporary art as explained by grad student creators, and today a class about Carmen. Also two movies and a meeting of the "digital imagers," a group who meet to talk about digital photography, occasionally using slides for their examples–a little strange. I'm supposed to be cooking this week: two friends coming for lunch on Friday and a dish for a potluck on Saturday. I think I'll buy for Friday, cook a wonderful pear and squash crumble for Saturday. I've made it a couple of times so I have confidence in it.

We are supposed to get rain tomorrow and the weekend. Lots of talk on TV about flooding. I wasn't here for the last big flood, 1996. I think I'm on high ground here. Years ago we had a basement that flooded with increasing regularity as the neighborhood got built up. In 1967, as the Israeli's were fighting the '67 war, Richard was working for an Israeli company as their American marketing agent. We were up to our ankles in water trying to clean it up when G's cousin called asking about his Israeli cousin. All we knew was what we heard on TV or radio. All we cared about at that moment was cleaning up the mess. Amazing how a little water can change your perspective.

More snow!

Posted on February 28, 2010 by ruthek

We have had more snow in February than in all of Pittsburgh's recorded history. It's not a record I'm enjoying. I stayed home most of yesterday; today I'm going to a film about Japanese kamikaze pilots. It's being shown at a school about 2.5 miles from here. I plan to try walking. I can always get on a bus, but walking would be good. I got two good walks in last week. It all depends on whether the sidewalks have been shoveled.

Pittsburgh has a law about pavements being shoveled within 24 hours. After the big storm, now four weeks ago, the city suspended the law along with any other intelligent ideas about dealing with the snow. (Sometimes I think the mayor has suspended intelligence.) This time the city said walks have to be shoveled–tomorrow. I'll see how far I can get walking.

Here is another picture I put together yesterday. It's from a garden in Nikko, called Shoyoen, behind the Rinnoji Temple.

Beautiful, sunny morning

Posted on February 24, 2010 by ruthek

I got in a good walk. It's supposed to snow again later, and maybe tomorrow. I've been spending a lot of time working on that Gigapan. Sometimes it's extremely frustrating, but then equally satisfying when something works out. Learned lots more about Photoshop. I don't own the latest and greatest, which is what I'm using at the university, but help files for several versions are online. Very satisfying to learn all the new stuff.

Back at home I'm working on the Japanese Garden Book. Decided on format and layout design. For the most part content will be my photos and info from the Internet; layout is very important to me. I've decided to make it 8.5 x 14, with the width being 14". I've completely the pages for the gardens I visited in Tokyo, about 50 pages. I'm very nostalgic about it all and contemplating another trip. Stay tuned!

Many of the photos I took never got published, in the blog or in the book. So this is my opportunity to published most more of them. On many occasions I took what I hoped were multiple, overlapping pics. I've been sorting them out and putting them together in Photoshop.

Snow day 13

Posted on February 17, 2010 by ruthek

Still snowing. I admit to being obsessed with the snow, but I do have other things in my life, I think. Yesterday I wasn't so sure. My neighbor, David, is obsessed with Gigapans. You remember those photos you can zoom in on and see amazing detail. Last October, he and some friends went to the top of Pittsburgh's tallest building and shot four Gigapans, 360 degrees, 1000 photos in each. Now he's been trying to get those four huge photos stitched together. I helped him stitch together a quarter size version which you can see here. He insists the full size version will be better; he's nothing if not persistent. So he found someone with a computer with 64 GB of RAM. I didn't know such a thing existed. Unfortunately, it doesn't have Photoshop on it. I started the day with a meeting and lunch with David and friend. I think we have figured out a new procedure that we may, or may not, try later this week.

Back to the snow in my life. After lunch I walked, using my walking stick but still somewhat perilously, over to the Frick art building at Pitt to go to the preColumbian art class I've been auditing. Although the pavement was clear around the building there was no clear entry from the street, only those single file/foot paths where you have to put one foot in front of the other. I don't do those. I went to the library across the street, where I was supposed to meet one of my students. My phone was running out of juice so I had it turned off (it was a really bad day). When I turned it on I found a message from him begging off. Again, navigating the really awful unclean pavement, I made my way to the bus stop where I finally had to climb over one of those snow hills to get on the bus.

After a cup of tea at home I took the car out of the garage, almost didn't make it up the driveway (remember I'm from Chicago; I'm supposed to understand this stuff), and went to Whole Foods and got pears, tomatoes, spinach, a papaya and a lot of other stuff.

This morning I had to go downtown. The bus was half an hour late. I now flag it down standing in the street. There is no way I'm going to stand on the mountain at the bus stop. My neighbor at the corner of Penn and Murtland ought to be ashamed. His pavement won't be clean until May at this rate.

Do you wonder that I've become a little crazy?

Jury Duty

Posted on February 3, 2010 by ruthek

Citizens have a responsibility to participate in the political process by registering and voting in elections. Serving on a jury is another responsibility of citizenship.

This from materials I was using to prepare Abdul for his naturalization exam. When I received the summons for jury duty, although I could have opted out because of my venerable age, I agreed to participate. It was only after I arrived and the clerk began a long instructional harangue I realized I couldn't understand/hear him. I could hear the sounds, but I only got one word out of ten. He spoke very quickly, and Pittsburghers tend to swallow syllables, and I was out of it. They gave me a pass on the basis of my hearing and that was it, although I had to spend the day there. I'm not sorry I went, but I'm also not sorry I didn't get on a case.

The proceedings were held in the Allegheny County Court House, a wonderful building. I'm always happy to go there, although the upper floors are not as wonderful as the first and ground floors. Here is one of the lamps on the staircase leading to the second floor.

Here is a picture of the architect's drawing for the building. It was hanging in a lounge next to the jury room.

As usual, it's a little different than the actual building.

I've always been intrigued with this part of Pittsburgh, one of the real mysteries. At one time there was a very steep hill, called Grant's Hill, that covered the ground floors of both the court house and the Frick Building across the street. Both were built knowing the hilltop would be removed. There is a small plaque on the second floor of the Frick Building indicating the top of the hill. I have trouble envisioning it. Here is a quote from the Post Gazette which throws some light on it:

But by the 1910s, what was left of a whittled-away Grant's Hill was an
inconvenience known as "the Hump," and so the last of it went, leaving
two of Pittsburgh's best buildings with their bottoms exposed — H.H.
Richardson's Courthouse and the Frick Building that upstaged it,
walling it off from its city.

Snapshots and stitches

Posted on December 30, 2009 by ruthek

Before I fell asleep last night I thought of something I wanted to post. This morning it's gone. It's a lot easier to write when I have done something out of the ordinary. Somehow, telling you about the snow, or keeping my humidifiers filled (I like a little moisture in the air), or going to the fitness center doesn't do it for me.

I am also trying to do alterations on some of my favorite larger jackets. One, I bought on sale at Nordstrom's, I wore constantly. It's still in good condition, but now much too large–it was always a little large. I've taken out the sleeves and the shoulder pads. Next comes figuring out how and where to remove extra fabric. The jacket is lined, making it all more complicated.

One of my neighbors is involved with the Gigapan project. He wants to do a massive Gigapan from the top of the former U.S. Steel building, the tallest building in downtown Pittsburgh. We spent much of yesterday matching up the four Gigapans he (and his group from CMU) shot. This is just practice. The sun was low and there are long shadows that obscure some of the detail. He wants to go back and do it again. It took a lot of Photoshop(ping) and I became reacquainted with some of the tools I hadn't used lately. Another volunteer gig where I learned as much as I gave. Now I have to go back and apply some of this to my still not satisfactory photo collage.

Sunday in Butler

Posted on November 29, 2009 by ruthek

When I say to Renee, "How would you like to go to…" she says yes before I tell her the destination. She loves driving anywhere and sometimes get very excited about the most mundane occasions. Today we took a trip to the Maridon Museum in Butler PA. It's about an hour from Pittsburgh and mostly was easy driving. The museum has a lot of high class, very expensive ivory and jade carvings, largely 20th C. stuff. I enjoyed seeing it, but it wasn't what I had hoped for.

Butler is an interesting looking town. We spent a little time looking around. Here is the tower of the Court House.

Detail on the front of the building:

Beautiful Lutheran Church across the street:

Robin and Charna with Darcy in her favorite position: looking for belly rubs.

We did a lot of dog walking over the weekend. Renee and I both needed the exercise.

Holiday week

Posted on November 23, 2009 by ruthek

Renee came from New York today and will spend the week with me. I am delighted to have her here, but if I manage to post every day this week, I should get an extra gold star. We had a good time shopping at IKEA then going out for dinner. Even though I seldom cook for myself I don't often go out to eat. I don't like going to dinner alone and rarely have anyone to go with.

We went to a new place called Plum in East Liberty. It's supposed to be pan Asian cooking. We had great hot and sour soup, shrimp and scallops with lemon grass, baby bok choy and perfectly cooked snow peas, and an Indonesian style dish: Mee Goreng. I'm really pleased to have this place nearby. Now I have to find other people to go with me.

Teaching

Posted on November 21, 2009 by ruthek

Friday and Saturday were filled with my ESL students. My Somali refugee is scheduled to take the citizenship exam next month. I think he's pretty well prepared except for the writing part of the test. He seems to have all of the 100 questions and answers memorized; maybe he even understands them. I think he will be able to pass the reading exam. I'm worried about the writing component. For both reading and writing he has to get one of three sentences correct. I don't know if they count spelling; that will be the crucial point.

Friday afternoon I went shopping with my Swedish Russian friend. We do lots of talking but no obvious teaching. She's taking ESL classes at the community college so I think the best thing I can do for her is conversation practice. She's doing very well. Her grammar is good–just needs more vocabulary.

This afternoon I took my Chinese doctors, along with one of their wives, on a little tour of Frick Park and the Frick Art and Historical Center. We also stopped and looked at Chinese graves in Homewood Cemetery. Unfortunately the weather wasn't very good for all the outdoor stuff.

After all of my teaching duties Robin and I went to the Verizon store where she got a Droid phone. After she tests it for thirty days, I'll decide what I want to do. I'm still vacillating.

A long walk

Posted on November 13, 2009 by ruthek

Another amazing, beautiful, November day. It's hard to believe this weather. I went for another long walk with my Russian ESL student–talking and exercise at the same time. We walked around Homewood Cemetery, checking out names on the mausoleums and on some of the tombstones. Did you know that at one time you could order your mausoleum from a catalog? The model with the Greek columns on the front seems to have been very popular. I usually walk there with my neighbors, who know all the paths and how to find the hole in the fence. Without Mary and Phyllis I got lost and we walked a lot further than I wanted. I'm slightly in pain, but I think a good night's sleep will take care of it.

100 Books Before I Die

Ruthe Karlin

Category Archives: Pittsburgh