Christmas eve in New York

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Renee and I spent the day viewing art. This evening we’re staying in to watch for Santa Claus. We ought to be able to see him from her living room windows if we can remain awake that late.

We went to the Museum of Modern Art to see the Seurat drawings, which have been highly praised. After walking through several other exhibits we went to lunch at a little Korean restaurant on 56th St. Yesterday Renee was talking about a place called Soft Tofu, in Fort Lee near my old apartment. It was a cute place with a limited menu: soft tofu in very hot soup with mushrooms, or seafood, or plain, and could be had very spicy, medium spicy or mild. The Korean place on 56th had soft tofu soup, making Renee very happy. I had a soup made with Kim Chee, tofu and some meat. I never thought about cooking Kim Chee. It was good.

We went back to 53rd St. to the Museum of Art and Design, where we saw an interesting exhibit of "extreme embroidery." That’s one of my favorite museums in New York. They almost always have something I enjoy.

We concluded our day walking down to Bergdorf Goodman to look at the windows. I took lots of pictures but can’t post them until I get back to Pittsburgh.

Happy holidays to all.

Moon over Manhattan

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I never had a chance to post pictures from my last New York trip. There weren’t many, but I like this one: That’s the moon in the center, rising over the FDR Drive on Friday, November 23, seen from Renee’s apartment. The camera didn’t really capture what we saw, the moon seemed much larger, but I like the picture anyway.

I’m going back to New York on Sunday and remaining until next year, New Years day.
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A matter of perception

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SteepleI see this steeple each time I go to the health club to exercise. I
drove past the church once. It’s locked behind a chain link fence with
no indication of what it might have been. I don’t know
anything about it; what happened to it; whether anyone owns it. I took  this picture in October, 2006.

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This one was taken in April, 2007.
I am troubled by the continuing deterioration. I keep wondering how it will look when one of these towers finally falls.

Last week I had lunch with Linda and two of her poet friends, both of whom are long-time Pittsburgh residents. They began to talk about churches and I asked them about this one. Neither knew anything about it, but when I said the steeples had holes in them one of the women said she thought they were patches. I keep thinking about the difference in our perceptions. I’ve been accused of being a pessimist, although I think of myself as a realist. Do you think that’s why I immediately identified those black spots as holes? And I’m not sure what this says about the other woman.

I’m very curious about this church. It’s in East Liberty; you can see it from the Club One parking lot. If any of my Pittsburgh readers knows what happened to it, I’d love to hear from you.
I took this picture today.

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Sunday at Home

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Yesterday afternoon it snowed, then began to rain. This morning it was raining in earnest and my backyard had become a swamp. I thought I was taking a picture of it, but now I can’t find it. I have sometimes had the feeling I’ve lost some of my pictures; this is the only time I’ve been certain of it. Anyway, there was a ring of water around the maple tree and a small lake under the fir. This is what the yard looked like after Thanksgiving.
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It’s been snowing again, so my small lake has disappeared.

I’ve posted some new pictures on Japan on my Mind. As I work on making my posts into a book, I’ll try to keep posting new pictures that didn’t make it into the blog the first time.

Ink, paper and friendship

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I just got off the phone with raja who complained about the persimmons being left so long on the blog–I’m supposed to keep writing. Raja and I have been friends for thirty or forty years. We no longer see each other very often but we talk and read each other’s blogs. Good way to keep in touch.

It’s kind of a slow week. I’ve been exercising, riding buses, another form of exercise, because my car is in the shop for three days. I usually ride the bus, but it feels different when I have no choice. I’ve spent most of the last week working on making the Japan blog into a book. It’s slow work; I’m adding more pictures and retrieving some of the information from the links. I have already created 42 pages and I’m only up to October 25. Like I said: it’s slow work.

I’m still wrestling with the pictures. I love the printed page, but there are too many pictures to consider printing them all out. I have a few videos; one of these days I might even get them posted on the blog. I suppose what I really want is something like that new device Amazon came out with, but not quite that one. Something where I can put slides and videos into the printed page so I can touch the paper.

Persimmons

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While I was traveling in Japan I saw, usually at a distance from a train, trees with orange balls and no leaves. I speculated that these were persimmons, but confessed that I didn’t know how persimmons grew. Today I got the whole story about wild persimmons in this wonderful blog I’ve been following about living in Japan.

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Driving, snow and public transit

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Much of the week I was focused on snow that came on Wednesday and is continuing in wetter forms today. I was supposed to go for Hanukah candle lighting and dinner on Wednesday night, and I watched the snow collecting on the driveway with some apprehension. My car is garaged under my apartment. I back out of the garage, pull forward and make a sharp right turn up a slope in the driveway, an ideal setting for getting stuck in the snow.

I have become something of an apprehensive driver in my old age. I keep telling myself I know how to drive in snow. I come from Chicago; I’ve been driving in snow for fifty-some years, one time as 18 inches of the stuff was falling. I never let a little thing like weather stop me, until now. I persuaded my landlord to come and shovel the slope in the driveway, (he is supposed to do it, part of the lease) and I got out. On Thursday, even though it was still snowing, I took the car up the driveway without giving it a second thought, and couldn’t figure out why I am being so fearful. Aging effect, I guess.

Learning to drive and getting my own car was very important to me. I always saw the car as liberation and drove fearlessly all over this country and in some other parts of the world. I don’t feel that way anymore. I would cheerfully give it up if we had better public transportation. And while I’m on the subject: why can’t we have high speed trains like they have in Japan. In fact, why can’t we have all kinds of great public transit like they have in other parts of the world.

The distance from Tokyo to Kyoto is about the same as the distance from Pittsburgh to New York. The Japanese train covers the distance in about two and a half hours, and gets you to the center of each city. On my last trip from New York I left the city about 5:30 pm and I did not get home until 12:30 am. That was flying, not driving. Why is it that the Japanese can have these wonderful services and we can’t?

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Tai Chi is not the same without you, Grace

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I started going to the class again last Thursday. The class is huge, and I only know about a third of the attendees. But I haven’t found anyone else to laugh with. Louisa asked about you and seemed surprised when I said I spoke to you. Just want you to know you are not forgotten.

The annual Christmas party will be next Friday. I’m not planning to attend. You were the most interesting person at the last one. Also, I think Robin is doing something special next Friday night. Enjoy Indianapolis and think of us working away every Tuesday and Thursday.