Saturday, November 26, 2016

"There Are A Few Things In Life That Are So Beautiful They Hurt"












There are a few things in life that are so beautiful they hurt:

swimming in the ocean when it rains

reading alone in empty libraries

the sea of stars that appear when you're miles away from the neon lights of the city

bars after 2 am

walking in the wilderness

all the phases of the moon

the things we do not know about the universe

and you

-BeauTaplin

 Some things never leave us. It may seem silly that I still mourn my little white cat, Kinsey, but I do. We had to euthanize her after first her rear legs, then her front legs went. She was in pain. It was obvious. She was 16 years old. She had a good life with us, but until her legs went out, she was still pretty active. We had someone come to the house to euthanize her so that she wouldn't have to go to the vet. She was so frightened of the vet. I miss her. It's been four months, but I miss her.
 

Thursday, November 24, 2016

Happy Thanksgiving







As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words, but to live by them. – By John F. Kennedy




It's evening as I write this. Another Thanksgiving Day is coming to a close. Now it begins: the craziness and the beauty of the weeks before Christmas. I've already seen lights on some homes and some people have shared pictures of their trees up and decorated. I plan to start decorating for the holiday season. I will say up front that I'm not a Believer in the Judaeo Christian tradition. However, I do enjoy the lights, the colors, the sounds, the smells and traditions of Christmas. I've told people at times that I prefer to celebrate Winter Solstice and get some odd looks. 
 
One of the things I dread is social media postings about "keep Christ in Christmas" or "Share this if you still say Merry Christmas" or one of my favorites "Are you afraid to say Merry Christmas? Share this if you're not." UGH UGH UGH is my reaction. More than once I've said that nobody CARES if you want to say Merry Christmas, but that's mostly aimed at stores that DARE to tell their workers to wish people Happy Holidays. Because actually there is more than one holiday season in short period. 
 
Some people get annoyed when you tell them that Christ was actually born in March based on the fact that there were lambs in the fields, and that the celebration of the birth of Christ was moved to December to replace Saturnalia. If you think about it, that's a pretty masterful stroke. Don't try to wean people away from their celebration of light at the darkest time of the year. Supplant it with a religious theme. They did the same with churches which were built atop the ruins of Roman temples. Cathedrals were often built right on the same site. So there are layers and layers of history in one spot. 
 
That all begins tomorrow though. Right now, I'm going to try to enjoy that lovely feeling of having had a nice meal with my family. That's the best I can do at the moment before the mad rush of the holidays begins. 
 
On the other hand, I'm looking forward to some terrific photo ops! 

Wednesday, November 23, 2016

"Autumn Paints In Colors Summer Has Never Seen."

 

Fall color always comes late in October in the Mid Atlantic area. Despite that people always seem to be surprised. They are always surprised at the lingering warm weather, the changes in temperature from day to night. I'm not sure why. If you pay ANY attention to the world around you, you'll see that both fall and spring are times when the weather is in flux. It's normal. It really is. We'll see the same thing in  the spring. We'll see people say how the weather is crazy. No it's not. As a kid I can remember Halloweens when it was freezing and others when it was so warm that I sweated under the heavy layers my mother insisted on swaddling me in lest I catch a cold. We lived in Maryland until recently and went to a park that was planted with tulips. Some years it was warm and beautiful full of picnickers and people playing frisbee. Other times it was cold and windy. This year fall colors came in very late. The best color I saw was in November in Pennypack Park which is right near where we are living right now. It's reminiscent of a book by the found of Temple University, Acres of Diamonds. Sometimes the best things are in your own backyard. 




 

Catching Up




























I had forgotten about my photo blog, so I am catching up today with a selection of photos from March-October. Fall Pictures are not included. That's a separate post .