I was watching the last sunrise of 2011 when I noticed Mr. Muskrat sitting out on the front stoop of his lodge in the marsh pond (looking north towards our neighbors) -
(tiny blob in lower left corner of photo below):

He studied the water for a while (his size & pose somewhere between a cat and a squirrel); then jumped in suddenly and paddled down under water; then less than a minute later resumed his position on his lodge. I watched him do it several times over - I'm guessing he was going for breakfast.


(goal in 2012: telephoto zoom lens!)

“Always remember that you are absolutely unique.
Just like everyone else.”

– Margaret Mead

and a passage from Middlemarch by George Elliot:

"Certainly those determining acts of her life were not ideally beautiful. They were the mixed result of a young and noble impulse struggling amidst the conditions of an imperfect social state, in which great feelings will often take the aspect of error, and great faith the aspect of illusion. For there is no creature whose inward being is so strong that it is not greatly determined by what lies outside it. A new Theresa will hardly have the opportunity of reforming a conventual life, any more than a new Antigone will spend her heroic piety in daring all for the sake of a brother's burial: the medium in which their ardent deeds took shape is for ever gone. But we insignificant people with our daily words and acts are preparing the lives of many Dorotheas, some of which may present a far sadder sacrifice than that of the Dorothea whose story we know.

Her finely-touched spirit still had its fine issues, though they were not widely visible. Her full nature, like that river of which Cyrus broke the strength, spent itself in channels which had no great name on the earth. But the effect of her being on those around her was incalculably diffusive: for the growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts; and that things are not so ill with you or me as they might have been, is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs."

I've never read this book, but came across this quote recently and it stuck with me. It gives me another perspective on the lives of recently deceased friends. And it speaks to me during more ambitious moments of introspection and preparation for re-invention in the new year. (...and maybe some day I will read the book)

clapping + sparkly black dress + quirky dancing = how this became my favorite video for this holiday party season! (and her French accent, ooolala)

{source: here}

So far this winter our weather has been all about bringing your umbrella

Christmas lights in the rain

tree at the end of our snow-less, puddle-ridden driveway



Sometimes the annual updates in Christmas cards bear sad news... One arrived in our mailbox today with mention that our lovely former neighbor Peg in Florida had passed away, a few years after her husband Ed. We couldn't have had better neighbors on that little cul-de-sac - where we argued over silly things like whose trees were spreading Spanish moss to the others. Ed enjoyed telling the story of how he first met Peg, sighting* her as she emerged around the corner of a building in Boston (where Ed was stationed during WW2 before he was deployed)... I like to imagine them rounding corners and finding each other again now.

*originally I spelled it "siting" - and actually that kind of works too, according to how Ed told the story ;)

overlooking the name of this piece, it makes me think of Christmas lights and the way the holiday season suddenly overwhelms... (and to me it sounds like a mash-up of Gershwin + the Grateful Dead!)

(cell phone pics: south end of Canandaigua Lake viewed from Rt. 12; shots from Park Ave. & Broadway in Rochester)

And from the sky come the Lord and the lightning...

The 5th Dimension - "Stoned Soul Picnic"


One of my earliest childhood memories: sneaking under the bed of my friend's older teenage sister to listen to music she played on a little 45 record player (including this) - whenever I hear this song I remember her beautiful long blonde 70s hair.

Git - "Imagination"


gettin-through-the-middle-of-this-day-in-the-middle-of-this-week music!

(makes me feel like I'm whistling a funky version of the Seven Dwarfs Hi-Ho-Hi-Ho it's off to work we go song :)

Code to live by

"Love all, trust a few, do wrong to none."

- William Shakespeare

(Someone gave me this quote tonight.)

hand-some Hamm

from the live episode (currently enjoying a 30 Rock-a-thon :)

(more cell phone pics)

Julie walking down Times Square




NYPD

street of dreams :P


details from some of my favorite paintings at MoMA:
Modigiliani; Rousseau; Chagall; Picasso


Monet!!!!

(cell phone pics)



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To the left and to the right a town of stone grows to the sky

Hello - "New York Groove" :)

G & Q growling (literally) at each other for their morning greetings

drawing in upper R.H. corner by G of his Thanksgiving dinner: orange slices + turkey + pomegranate