I’m Getting Lost in Cotton Candy Colored Skies

Cotton Candy Skies above

“Sometimes the clouds in the sky are mistaken. They didn’t come to block the sunlight. They came to embrace it.”

I thought the clouds were pretty wild looking in this shot. What are your thoughts? This was taken with an older camera when I was initially getting into photography, thus the quality isn’t as high as some of my more recent images. Still, I believe it’s a fantastic shot, and as I previously stated, I’m a big fan of the clouds.

L’artiste

I’ve been working on some special posts coming up so stay tuned for that – all the feels! I saw that NECN shared the photo of the boat “coming in hot” that I took from the Cape so I would expect to see that on the television screen soon. Which reminds me if you’d like to have some of my work (shameless plug) adorn your own surroundings you can always just check out my store for what I consider to have been some of my best photographs which are available on a number of items ranging from small magnets and stickers to large metal prints. Scroll through and see if anything catches your eye – I tend to update it with new images every now and again as I receive some interest. I would appreciate any support – help keep me going!

Gosh darn this was one long month – I thought April would never get here! It had some great moments but also some not so great. Perhaps every month is like that but this month seemed to have some pretty big swings for me. I feel like I’m getting back into equilibrium though and that’s a good thing.

Tomorrow I have a handful of appointments I need to attend to. One is bringing our boy to the vet in the morning, which is generally an adventure in and of itself, and the other is getting fitted for some tactical equipment I need for my job. Onward and upward – that should be fun!

Don’t Tread on Me

Downward

Woke up to a flat tire. Well, it wasn’t totally flat but I could see as the car sat there that it was getting flatter and flatter. After my shift, I took it to the shop. It was suggested that all four tires be replaced because they were all worn out. I was aware that it was a bit of a sales pitch, but I consented. It was time for a new set of tires. However, it was a bit pricey. Another bill to add to the pile. On the plus side, she rides like a dream.

It made me think that we are all like tires a little bit through our experiences. Some of us are new while others are threadbare. I guess I’m somewhere in the middle, and every now and again I need a burst of air to pump me up. Life can be so deflating at times, but in my case it’s a slow leak. I need to force myself to get to the air pump.

Orleans Sunrise and the Burned Hand

The sun rises over the cliffs off the coast of Nauset Beach, Orleans, Ma.

The story behind the photo: This was taken in June, I believe, while we were staying at the Nauset Lighthouse cottage. It’s actually across the dirt road, and the fence here is to keep you from going too far over the cliff’s edge, which you can’t see in this photo. I believe I got up at 5 a.m. and walked out to this spot in the hopes of capturing these sunrise images.

The burned hand teaches best. After that, advice about fire goes to the heart.

J. R. R. Tolkien

In other news, I burned my hand last night, in addition to everything else. I removed an oven-safe pan from the oven while I was cooking dinner and set it on the cooktop to do something else, but when I returned to it, I had forgotten it had been in the oven and grabbed the handle, scorching myself. For a while, it hurt like a motherfucker. I would apply ice to it and the pain would go away, but as soon as I removed the ice for a second or two, the pain would return. On my skin, it felt like a continual scrape. I eventually went to bed with my hand on the ice pack and was relieved to see that everything had improved by morning. I knew it couldn’t have been that bad because my skin wasn’t bubbling or blistered. Just red. That was a close call. It made me feel incredibly stupid and angry with myself.

As for other walking hospital news, I finally got a knee brace for my right knee. I’ve been wearing it for most of today to try it out and it seems to be helping I think. Time will tell if I stick with it or not.

Gametime: Another version of Mahjong.

My Melancholy Monday

blah.

“My melancholy is the most faithful mistress I have known; what wonder, then, that I love her in return.”

― Søren Kierkegaard

Feeling a little out of sorts today. I don’t know if the unseasonably cold weather today, the fact that I probably have a case of the Mondays, or whatever else. Hopefully I’ll feel better and more like my chipper self tomorrow but for now I just want to shut down for the day. I’m allowed to have that, aren’t I?

Sunday Plays The Thing

A quiet day on Acorn Street

We traveled to Boston to see a performance put on by some students, and it was fantastic! So creative! The theatre was small, but not too small, which was a bonus because it meant the stage would be intimate to the audience, which it was. Because you had to be masked and show your vax card to go in, it felt completely safe. Anyway, the show was excellent, and it was motivating to see these young people, from the writer to the actors and crew members, enhance their skills. It’s just wonderful. We then went out and bought a couple of pizza slices to take home with us for the ride back.

Pink Houses For You and Me

The Pink House

The house’s notoriety is in part due to a popular local urban legend about its creation. The story suggests the house’s location was a result of a divorce in which the wife demanded an exact replica of their Newburyport house, but failed to specify the location, resulting in the spiteful husband building it on the edge of town, in the Great Marsh with saltwater plumbing. For this reason, the building is often listed as an example of a spite house.

Arranging the Angles

Angles

How many angles can you count in this shot?

I signed up for Tut: The Immersive Experience, which will be held at SOWA in Boston this summer. It’s similar to the Van Gogh event that happened earlier this year, but this time it’s about the Boy King. That’s right up my alley, especially since Covid canceled my visit to see the real treasures last spring. I did get to see many of them in New York a few years ago thankfully. I found out about this through a couple friend of ours who are probably going to go as well.

LD’s out on an overnight with her girlfriends so it’s just me and the cat tonight. Boys night in. We’ll be getting drunk on pizza, soda and catnip!

They Don’t Want to Gaslight Us Anymore?

A gaslight shines in a Beacon Hill alleyway.

I’ve been using the above image to experiment with different Instagram publishing timings, but I can’t seem to get it perfect. Even though the dashboard suggests 3 p.m. is a good time, it appears that morning is the greatest time for me. They also keep altering the algorithm, which is quite annoying. I’ve gotten to the point where I just post whatever I want whenever I feel like it. It takes too much time and effort to find out how everything works. I simply want people to see what I upload and perhaps spread the word about my photographs.

Anyways the reason behind the repost is that the city wants to replace gas lights with LED lights in areas like as Beacon Hill and Charlestown, claiming that the new lights are more environmentally friendly and cost-effective. Some residents who live near these historical streets argue that this will not happen.

What do you think. Personally I feel the gas lights give real character. I understand the reasoning behind the thought but I don’t think the LED light would give the same glow. Sure seems different in the light fixtures around the house. (I know they have various temperature color options these days). I’d be interested in knowing what are your thoughts?

Currently Listening to: Santana covering Van Halen’s “Dance the Night Away”. This is freaking awesome! This song was on the album Van Halen II which was released 43 years ago today hence why I’m including this.

The Coming of the First Day of Spring

Sunrise on the shore

We spent the first half of the day at Revere Beach, the second half in Boston wrapping up some business, and the third half of the day trying to recover from said business, which has left all of our bodies in pain. But at the very least, the job is done. Maybe I’ll go into more detail about this later.

The last of the numerous lettuce species from the hydroponic garden was finally pulled out. We gave the remainder to our friend whom we met at Revere yesterday to feed to her guinea pigs. I think they’ll enjoy them. Anyways next into the hydroponics we’re going to try a bunch of flower species and see how that goes. It is spring time after all.

Love and Kindness Spring Flings

Mystical sights
Sitting in the sun

We opted to get a variety of stuff done outside yesterday because it was such a wonderful spring-like day, like cleaning out some dead vegetation and seeing plants like tulips and daffodils start to spring up. Toward evening we even constructed a fire pit. I burnt some wood, as well as some old paperwork, which was really a cleansing experience. Picked up a few things and the supermarket. Ordered a pizza for take out last night. Trying to rest my knee at times.

Now for today’s exciting events. I was searching through my photo archives and came upon this lighthouse photo that I had forgotten about from Mystic Seaport. So I figured I’d share it with you today. I like the tones in this one, but I think it could have been a little better.

Our stickers from Random Acts of Kindness Foundation finally arrived. If you remember, you had to color in an image in order to get them. It’s now simply an issue of deciding where they’ll go! Whatever the case may be, it’s still a good sentiment.

Good day for a cat nap

I waited for the sump pump people to come over and finish up some work this afternoon. Had they arrived by 2 pm? The answer is No, despite the fact that I wasn’t certain they were meant to show up today in the first place. They need to come back at some point though, some of their stuff is still here. In the meantime Carson and I had decided to kind of lay low for a while and rest, especially me to take some pressure off my knee. I think Charles Shultz said it best: “Learn from yesterday, live for today, look to tomorrow, rest this afternoon.”

For lunch I decided to air fry some hot dogs. I haven’t done that in quite a while. It’s so easy too, just pop them in for a few minutes and it’s done – no muss, no fuss. We also prepared some pasta bake that we’re going to delivering to a dear friend tomorrow who hasn’t been feeling too well as of late – sort of like a care package you might say. The house was filled with the aromas of cooking!

Leprechauns and Ligaments

Motif No.1 once again.

Everyone have a wonderful St. Patrick’s Day. To make our own corned beef and cabbage, we got takeout from a nearby restaurant.

I appeared to have strained some of the ligaments in my right knee; perhaps it’s patilla tendinitis. I’ll just have to be a little more patient with that for a while. Things take longer to mend these days than they did in the past.

Don’t Tell Me It’s My Fault When It’s Yours

Boston Seaport

It was a good thing I spent the morning after my shift down at Earth-1 running the normal errands. I got a notice from my dental insurance in the mail, and it said it didn’t cover anything. And the reason was that they were billing my old insurance, despite the fact that I had given the new receptionist all of my new information when I went down there in January. Since I was in the area, I decided to swing by and have this corrected in person. When I showed her the information again, she claimed they will redo it and fix the issues. Then she had the audacity to tell me that the next time I should let them know that my insurance had been changed. I told her I did tell them, in fact, it was her that I gave my new card to and she typed stuff in at the time, or so I thought. Don’t make it look like I messed up when it was you who screwed up, I thought to myself. She said maybe it was a miscommunication (ok?) and I left it at that. Just as long as it’s all correct and that I’m being covered properly.

My auto manufacturer also sent me a notification in the mail regarding a problem with my particular model of vehicle. Basically, the wrong size battery could be installed when being replaced, so simply apply the sticker they supplied me to the battery holder to ensure that anyone changing the battery does not use one that is too small to fit the housing properly. That’s not a huge deal.

I also received a slew of emails advising me that I should enroll in some cyber-security training. I’m not sure if it’s truly required for my job, but I assume it is. Also not a big deal, but I’d say 99 percent of the mail I get in that inbox is spam or phishing, or a message telling me not to address the message because it’s spam or phishing attempts. Other employees, I suppose, just click on those things all the time, despite the fact that even a cursory glance at the message indicates that it isn’t legitimate. I’ll take it anyway, supposed to only make half and hour.

As for shows I’ve been watching lately, it’s been all the usual. L&O’s (I’m willing the give the new one a little time to establish although it hasn’t wowed me), Forensic Files 2, Secrets of Playboy, 20/20, 48 Hours, Dateline (hmmm, do you see a pattern?) On the subject of Dateline, I’ve been watching The Thing About Pam, although I’m not sure why they chose to make it so campy. I believe it would have been much better if it had been done more seriously, like the Dateline episode on which it is based.

Spring is in the Air

Happy Spring!

Blossom by blossom the spring begins.

Algernon Charles Swinburne

Boy oh boy, is it just me, or did the morning appear to be coming at a faster pace today since the time change? Well, no matter, I’m all for extending the daylight hours.

I went ahead and sorted the wood from the demolished old shelves from the basement which was done to make room for the sump pump. The objective is to burn the wood in the fire pit. I’m planning on doing a burn later this week, mainly to get rid of the wood, but also because it’s been a while since we’ve had a fire and I’ve been itching to have one.

I had some time earlier today to relax in the sun and clear off some old dead vegetation. It’s encouraging to see new greenery sprouting from the earth!

The First Public Beach in America

Revere Beach pavilion

We stopped by Revere Beach on the way back from dropping off supplies for a friend who lives in Chelsea. Revere Beach’s claim to fame is that it was the first public beach in America. And, of course, I had to get some Kelly’s Roast Beef while I was there. After finishing our meal, we went into Boston proper to try to get some things done, but that mission had to be postponed for the time being due to some difficulties we encountered, but we will return.

Taxing it on a Friday

I spent Friday afternoon preparing all of my tax forms and filed them. While that was going on, the guys arrived to install the basement sump pump. I even persuaded them to remove the water filtration device that had been delivered incorrectly here before Christmas, and UPS covered the expense and gave the owner a replacement. The guys will probably find a buyer, but it was simply sitting in the driveway, and we wanted it gone. There’s no harm, no foul. Now I just need to get rid of a damaged dehumidifier and an outdated exercise bike. Hmmm…

Today looks to be a wet, dreary day, so I’m thinking it’ll be a good day to just rest, catch up on a bunch of shows, maybe do some reading, and try to recover from this past week, which was actually rather hectic.

Spring Fever in the Air

Haven’t had much time to update over the last few, getting errands as such done between work shifts. I had a dentist appt. today over at Earth-1 to get a filling replaced that fell out a little while ago. I got stuck in traffic on 95 which made me about 1o minutes late due to an accident with a truck on the highway but they took me anyway when I arrived and the procedure itself only took about 20 minutes. I did learn that they are moving to Wellington Circle in about 8 months from where they are now and have been for years in Winter Hill.

All that snow that fell yesterday afternoon and made warming up and dusting the car off this morning a pain was all gone by the afternoon. I think that’s the last of the snow we’ll be seeing – fingers crossed. What a difference a day makes in New England! One day snow, the next 50 degrees. Just as well, I’m starting to get spring fever.

“With the coming of spring, I am calm again.”

– Gustav Mahler

I saw on the news a couple of days ago that you could send away from more covid tests from the government so I went ahead and ordered a couple more. I guess the demand for them is not as high as last time as this time they arrived in 2 days, and they’re the Binax ones, whereas last time took over a month and a half and was some other brand. Hopefully I’ll never have to use any but I figured why not just have some around since it’s on Uncle Sam.

Boston Has My Heart

You can see why this is the most photographed street in America! I love taking shots of Acorn Street. I never get out there enough.

The spring in Boston is like being in love: bad days slip in among the good ones, and the whole world is at a standstill, then the sun shines, the tears dry up, and we forget that yesterday was stormy.

Cob” is an Old English word for a rounded mass or lump, something that was easy to find in Boston’s rocky soil. Builders used these troublesome stones to erect walls, provide balance to ships, and of course, to pave the roads. These “cobbled-together” streets became known as cobblestone roads.

While cobs were free and easy to use, the uneven ground led to many a broken wheel and twisted ankle. Most of Old Boston’s cobblestone roads have since been replaced, but a few still exist in Beacon Hill, including Acorn Street!

Monday Monday So Good to Me

Blessed.

Spent the morning cleaning out the basement in order to get ready for the sump pump installation. Getting all the ducks lined up in a row. I figured cleaning out the area might be a big deal after accumulating years of stuff, but to be honest it really wasn’t as much stuff as I thought. It ties together nicely actually with spring cleaning time, and you as psyched as I am that we get to move the clocks up next weekend – yay to gaining daylight hours! Speaking of spring, while I was putting some of the stuff out back I noticed in the garden the first hints of plant leaves starting to come out from the ground. Ahhh! I liked seeing that.