I Think This Says It All, Niagara Falls, Maids of The Mist

Hi Folk.

Hope you are all keeping well and safe this summer.

I think this says it all.

I'm viewing this time as stepping back and smelling the flowers.

Take care,

Christine

"Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it." George Santayana

Hi Dear Folk,

The weather is crazy they've been talking about a Cyclone Bomb, I had not heard that terminology before, but this morning was in the low thirties Fahrenheit, it is cold and windy, but I think we may have missed the snow that will fall further north.

A bomb cyclone is simply a storm that intensifies very rapidly. Bomb cyclones form when air near Earth's surface rises quickly in the atmosphere, triggering a sudden drop in barometric pressure — at least 24 millibars within 24 hours.

I was looking back on the month of May from bygone years, some happy pictures from four years ago, son's graduation from Ithaca.  Not to say we're not happy now, but we're not gallivanting.

The Lake in the distant background is Lake Cayuga, one of New York State's Finger Lakes.  Mum and son.  It's an area of great beauty, renowned for vineyards and some great wines.

With Mr. B. and I love those shell earrings I bought in Hawaii a few years back.

How are you all coping?  I've been reaching out to family and friends.  Had a wonderful Zoom meet with friends from forty years ago, some of which I have not spoken to in that long, who are now dispersed all over the States, Kevin in CA, Prince in Chicago, Jill in Charlotte, NC, Florence in FL and the others all in this area but a radius of fifty miles, so was great.  We did have some laughs and reminiscing over old times, good for the soul.

"Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it."  George Santayana

Although the Spanish Influenza affected a different part of the population, mostly younger people with strong immune systems and Covid-19 affects more older folk, many parallels can be drawn. The actions of governments and individuals have a similar ring to them, lack of unity and disinformation.

The Spanish Influenza started in the January of 1918, not too dissimilar to the Corona Virus, but what was really distressing was the second wave that began in the autumn of 1918 and was far more deadly.  I'm not a soothsayer, but this does concern me.

I think it's interesting that basically we can do no more than they did one hundred years ago, wear a mask and socially isolate.  Of course we've got better follow up once in hospital but still.  How quickly things change.

I enjoyed looking at these old photos of folk during the Spanish Influenza all wearing their masks, but  they don't seem to have been as creative as our generation.  But maybe they were and we just don't have a picture of their masks.

Take care, keep safe.
Christine

40 Years Ago This Month

Hi Dear Folk,

I ran across some old photos, forty years ago to the month May 1978.  Here we are the three musketeers, Joni, Me in the center and Nancy to the right.  We are at Kennedy Airport waiting to board our flight to the UK.  Just Joni and I, Nancy couldn't come.

I remember that in the late seventies jump suits were very popular, this was a winter green tartan one, which I wore with a red polo neck.  I quite liked that. I also made three from a Simplicity pattern that featured Marlo Thomas wearing it.  Two were shorts all in one outfits and the other jumpsuit had the long legs.

Here I am May 1978 at St James's Park, London.  You can tell it's May all the tulips.  That was the trip we, Joni, my sister BB and I travelled all over England and met my mum and dad at Clovelly.

This is two years later September 1980, now I can't remember where this was taken, I think New York State.  That was my grandmothers cameo; which in itself has a story.  It was lost for two years, and then one summer I'm digging in our family garden at home and find it, minus the filigree surround, just the cameo.  It always was a little lose in the surround.  I looked for it but never found it.  A year or so later in the USA I took it to a silversmith near to where I live now and he made a new setting for it and I still have it.  I matched the setting up with a silver cameo ring that I had, I actually bought it while on that trip, in Devon.

At this very moment the Boy and Tierney are on a dinner cruise going down the Thames.  The cycle of life.

Christine

Scavenger Hunt at the Natural History Museum, New York City

Hi Dear Folk,

Last week we traveled up to our NYC office for a Team Building Scavenger Hunt.  Here we are in the lobby area finding the groups we have been assigned to.  We were named the Clueless Group, I'm not sure who in our group chose that as I was the only Pennsylvanian.

We all had Metro passes and were on a quest to find thirty items at the Natural Science Museum which is by Central Park.  All the group had to stay together and had to take a selfie in front of the found object.

Here is our group in front of an emu. Lighting was low, so sorry for bad pic. We found twenty-seven items out of the thirty.  One had been removed, one you couldn't get to because of a special dinner event, that looked pretty swanky and one which only one group found.  So we didn't do badly.  We walked about four miles in the museum, and I think I did pretty good, considering that most my group was half my age, and you know what knowledge does count for something.

Two of our group in the Subway on our ride back to the office,  Lester and Samanta, Anna is the other side of the door.

Afterwards a private room at Jack Doyle's Pub for drinks and finger food.  I plonked myself at the upstairs bar and ordered an IPA, never tasted better.

Waiting to see if we actually won anything.

Christy

Penn Station, NYC Makes Me Cry

Hi Dear Folk,

Every time I go up to NYC by train our incoming station is Penn Station and I just want to cry for what was destroyed in 1963  See this article "What Penn Station Used To Look Like."

Even though there are thoughts (see here) to do something about Penn Station which has long dark narrow corridors, the roof leaks, no natural light and is totally not user friendly.  You do not stand on the platform to wait for your train, you have to stand in a holding area looking at the boards and when your train comes in then you all surge down to the narrow platforms.  Thus my new banner, what one part of Penn Station looks like now.  And this is what it used to look like.

In this holding area there is not a seat to be seen, unless you want to sit in Dunkin Donuts, Taco Bell or any other number of small and dinghy chain food restaurants. After a day in NYC all you want to do is sit down and you can't even do that.  It is totally beyond my comprehension that a train station that has a usage of 650,000 passengers per day, should be so ugly, and that 650,000 people per day put up with this is outrageous.

Obviously I was just up in NYC.  In my opinion Penn Station was even grander than Grand Central which did manage to survive.

Christy

911 15 Years of Healing

Hi Dear Folk,

15 Years of Healing

NYC Health + Hospitals World Trade Environmental Health Center (WTCEHC) wanted to acknowledge the 15th Anniversary of 9/11 by showcasing patient drawings from their Art Therapy Program. The program has been a source of support and renewal for the quality of life of its physically or mentally-affected patients, many of whom worked or lived downtown on or after 9/11. Works that previously conveyed anxiety and depression are now uplifting, color-rich, visual celebrations of recovery and resilience. 

My company designed a calendar, note cards and posters, using these patient drawings as key elements.  The posters replicated from the calendar pages will be on display at three 9/11 events for public viewing. 

The previous offices 90 West, where we were located in Lower Manhattan, were totally destroyed.  I believe only one person lost their life in that building.  It was an old Gothic copper roofed building that had just finished a multi million dollar renovation. For several months many worked from home and out of our warehouse in Brooklyn, until we found new premises in Mid Town Manhatten, not too far from the Empire State Building.

Christy

Rob's Ithaca Graduation Photos

Hi Dear Folk,

It only took four months to get Rob's  graduation photos transferred from his computer to mine.  Rob took all these photos on his camera with a tripod.  This is the first time I have seen them.  Will make some prints from these to frame.

I think they came out nice.

The temperature is 95 f today and high humidity and the house is so hot.  I went down to the basement and pulled out our old 1940s Hunter fan, when you start it up it sounds like an airplane taking off.  Now that is in the sitting room sending out quite a breeze.

I don't feel so bad about venturing down into the basement as we had a bit of a clean up last Monday over the holidays.  It wasn't the way I wanted to spend my day, but it did feel good at the end to get it much more straightened out.  It had been, but when Rob came back home we just dumped a lot of his stuff down there, and then he needed to set his desk up for video and camera work that he does, so the nitch that I had carved out was taken over.

We need some rain, that tropical storm that came up the coast last weekend didn't drop a bit of rain on us, and I think tonight I will have to attach the sprinkler on, as everything is so dry in the garden.

Hope your weekend is great and cooler than ours.

Christy

McIntosh, Binghamton, NY and The Finger Lakes Cider House, NY

Hi Dear Folk,

I think this was Friday evening you loose track after a while.  Mr B and I drove up on Thursday, The Boy drove up on Friday in his new/old Miata, he had a previous commitment and could not come up until Friday, the prior week he had come home as college was finished and he had the chance to catch a ride home. Yes so this must be Friday.

Mr. B. and The Boy had a prior appointment at MacIntosh Labs in Binghamton, NY.  They were to meet there at 10:00 AM for a plant tour.  So about a one hour drive for Mr. B. and a three hour drive for Rob coming from home.

McIntosh has manufactured handcrafted high-end audio equipment since 1949.  Their encounter with McIntosh was thru a friend who found an early 1970's amplifier in a dumpster; with a little bartering he said that Rob could have it.  At that time it did not work, but Mr. B. took it too a friend and he got it working.  It had obviously been used by a band and Rob was hoping it was one of ten bought by the Grateful Dead for a concert tour.  It's somewhat possible to narrow it down by the serial numbers and the shop they were bought at.  Not sure where they are on that.  They enjoyed their visit and afterwards stopped off at a Czech Restaurant for lunch.

In the mean time I stayed back at the digs being without transport, but I didn't mind because it was a lovely day, I read, and then later on walked over to the Stewart Park at the bottom of Lake Cayuga, which was a short walk across the road from where I was staying and found a lovely piece of drift wood, plus they have these delightful swing seats that I enjoyed.

By the time the boys got back it was gone three, more running around and then eventually on the road at about 6:30PM for dinner here.

And here we are at the Finger Lakes Cider House for an evening of Music and Food.  Rob and I were going to try a flight of ciders unfortunately they ran out of flights to serve the cider in, so we just went for a glass each of cider.  I had a cheese and locally produced sausage crepe the boys had a la carte meatballs and asparagus cream soup.  It was all very good along with a local band.

Here is the view out back looking down to Lake Cayuga in the far distance.

After this we drove on another few miles along the lake to Cayuga Lake Creamery for an ice-cream each.  Mr B landed up with a free ice-cream some how they made one up that nobody claimed.  If it had been coconut which is what I chose, he would not have claimed it, I love coconut he hates it.

Christy

PS:  Mr B loves the McIntosh amp because it is powerful enough to run his magneplaner speakers with, they take more power than many other speakers on the market.  So the boys are happy campers in their audio world.

Our Digs

Hi Dear Folk,

We had such fun staying here, Bob reworked the wiring on the stereo speakers which gave him joy and I was happy to chill all on our own.

The property is a former switchback to the railroad (circa 1830)  The buildings were sympathetically restored by British visual artist Paul Chambers, who lovingly restored them from a derelict state.  One building out back which is still in a derelict state, an old shed has painted across it, The end of history and I think Paul Chambers may have written that there, because he was all about preserving the old and not sweeping it away.

These floor boards are two lengths of my feet wide.

Bedroom balcony with a view of Lake Cayuga.

Above is the owner Wylie's house.

Once you got the hang of coming up and down the steps it was fine.

No bathroom or any water one had to take a little walk across to our host's house next door.  If you can live with that and we're used to camping, it was a lovely little place to stay at.

Christy

The Boy's Graduation Ithaca 22nd May 2016

Hi Folk,

Well it started out a true Ithaca day, overcast and spitting, but that is what it pretty much stayed at all day except for a two hour break of brilliant sunshine late in the afternoon, when we went back to shoot some photos on campus with Rob's camera on a tripod, at that point the campus was devoid of people.

The procession into the stadium.

Here we are at out seats on the stadium grass, fortunately we had dressed appropriately.

The guest speaker was an ex Ithaca Grad who became a journalist Adam Ellick  who first brought to light the Pakistani schoolgirl Malala Youstafzai, it was a good speech.  The whole ceremony only lasted one and a half hours, I was prepared for a much longer event, it is a smaller college so probably that is why with around 1,500 graduates.

Rob on his way back after graduating.

All together, partaking off some food and meeting Rob's fellow classmates and parents.

Ithaca College is built on just about the highest point in Ithaca, so here we are looking down across the fountains to Lake Cayuga in the background.  One of the buildings at the top is quite a few stories high and I always thought the view from the top of that building must be spectacular.

Wonder if she was in one of Rob's classes.

By the campus pond.

This is a Mexican spread put on by a friend of Rob's, Melanie's  parents were visiting from Texas to pick her up for the summer, actually she still has another year at Ithaca.  It was a wonderful meal with Mole a Mexican dish with chocolate and chicken, which reminds me of the movie Chocolat, guacamole and other good things.

I honestly think that Hispanic people are born with a hospitable gene, they put us northern Europeans to shame when it comes to showing hospitality to strangers.  We had a great time.

Melanie's dad works for Riviana.  I learnt that all Rice is produced by one company in American and that is Riviana, and Riviana is owned by a Spanish company Ebro,  the only rice they do not produce is Uncle Bens.  In fact they produce all Rice and Pasta in the USA, with the one exception, and about one third of the world's consumption of those two products.  So it doesn't matter what package of rice and pasta you buy from the least expensive to the most expensive, it basically ships out of the same hopper, it's all in the packaging.  It was a most informative conversation, the bigger world of market domination.

We made our adieus and set off to take more photos on campus and then back to The Boy's for the grand packing up.  Yes that is quite a feat.

All went well and it was a lovely day.  It is an accomplishment to finish four years of intense education, we were proud of him and he is our Boy.

Christy