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Here and There…Now and Then |
Cathy, Hawlings River
We had a beautiful day today and Cathy and I took advantage of it. After a chilly morning, with significant frost, it warmed up to almost 50°F and in the sun it felt more than that. We went to a local nature preserve and walked through the woods and down to the Hawlings River. Not exactly the might Yukon or Amazon, but it’s a pretty little river and quite cheering on an early winter’s day. Here’s a picture of Cathy, enjoying the view and the sound of running water.
Frosty Oak Leaf
It was a chilly morning today, feeling like early December, and although there was frost on the ground, I hesitated to go out to photograph it. I was too comfortable indoors. As I was taking things out to the car, though, preparing to go to work, I figured I was already out, so I might as well get down on the ground and take a few. This is a portion of a red oak leaf, rimed with tiny ice crystals, which I found quite pretty.
Sunset From My Office
Now that the sun is going down before I leave work, it’s sort of tough to get good sunset pictures. My office looks northwest, so today, as the sun was going down, I did get a view, if I looked to the left out the window, of a little color on the clouds. It’s not much of a sunset, I admit, but I’ll take what I can get.
We had a few quite dreary days of rain and it finally cleared up today, so that was nice.
Foggy Morning
It was quite foggy this morning as I drove to work. There were a few times on the way in where I would have liked to take a few pictures but there was nowhere convenient to stop the car, so I kept going. When I got to work, though, I walked around a bit and took some pictures of the trees in the fog, which was starting to lift. This photo was taken looking across the road behind my office with a nearby tree backed up by woods in the fog in the distance.
Montecristo
I like neon signs. I’m not sure what it is about them. Perhaps it’s the intense colors in the dark. Perhaps it’s the flowing lines of the glass tubing. In any case, whether or not I know why I like them, I do.
This evening I was in a parking lot and took pictures of a few neon signs. One simply said, “open” but I thought this one was nicer. I particularly like the “font” used, especially in the letter M. Montecristo, in this case, refers to the cigar company.
Green and Gold Cory Cat (Corydoras melanotaenia)
Last week I posted a picture of one of the new fish I got for a tank that’s in our breakfast room. That was a red dwarf gourami (Trichogaster lalius). Today’s picture is another fish, bought at the same time and for the same tank. This is one of three green and gold corydoras catfish (Corydoras melanotaenia) that I bought. The cory cats, as they are called, are in the Corydoradinae subfamily, the armored catfish, and are native to South America. They quickly ate the algae that had accumulated in the tank as I was getting it ready for the fish. Now I feed them algae wafers. They are peaceful little things and a bit shy, but a nice addition to the tank.
Grace and Marley
This is Grace. Grace likes babies. I mean, she really likes babies. The baby in vogue at the moment is Marley, an adorable little thing, although her mother says she beginning to exhibit signs of being naughty in a stealthy sort of way. She makes up for it by being so darn cute, but of course, human nature being what it is, she’ll need some correction along the way.
It’s been about eleven months that we’ve been getting to know Grace and her family, as well as all our wonderful new friends at Cross Community Rockville. We’ve been greatly blessed by them and I don’t know that my feeble writing skills can do justice to how grateful we are to them all.
One thing I’m especially looking forward to, as I do wherever I am, it watching these little ones grow up. This is one of the few benefits of being old—the ability to see the trees and not just the forest. On the other hand, of course, with age comes oldness, as we like to say.
Dorothy at Rocky Islands, Potomac River, Maryland
It’s been really nice to have Dorothy home, even if only for a few days. It wasn’t a particularly promising day, weather-wise, today, but Cathy, Dorothy, and I took a chance and went to Great Falls late this morning. We were not alone and it was fairly crowded, at least for late November. Still, we had a great time, walking out to the overlook on Falls Island and then climbing up and over the rocks on Rocky Islands, below the falls. This is from a place we call Sandy Beach, looking towards the north end of Rocky Islands.
Baby’s Great Turtle Adventure
If you’ve been following my photo blog, then you’ve met Baby before. In fact, he was in a photo just a couple days ago, along with his new friends, Mr. Beaver and Mrs. Schnauzer. Baby came from Chinatown in New York City, where Dorothy found him. As I mentioned the other day, he travels with Cathy, riding in the bottom of her purse, but getting out to pose for pictures in various locations. Mostly those pictures go to Cathy’s Snapchat friends but once in a while they show up on Instagram. This outing, however, was a bit more adventurous. Baby paid a visit to Fluffy, a red-eared slider (Trachemys scripta elegans). He hesitated to actually go swimming with Fluffy, however.
Thanksgiving Family Photo
Like many families, we have a few traditions. One of them is a family photo on Thanksgiving. It’s nice to be able to look at a collection of them for each year, thinking back to all the changes, happy and sad, that have taken place over the years. Generally there are two cameras set up, mom’s and mine, and they are both set to take a photo on a ten second delay. I am sitting on the floor in front in this picture because it was the easiest place for me to be, considering I had to start the timers going and then hurry to get in, without tripping over a tripod in the process.
Three of Cathy’s Figurines
I was looking for something to photograph this evening and noticed these three figurines on the stairs so thought I’d take their portrait. The beaver and the dog are new, having been brought by Dorothy as a birthday present for her mom. They seem to have settled into the household routine. The baby was also a gift to Cathy from Dorothy. She bought it in Chinatown in Manhattan. When we were there in May we happened to find the store where she bought it, which I think it pretty remarkable. Cathy carries the baby around with her, taking pictures of it in various places to send to Dorothy and her friends via Snapchat. The ‘rug’ they are all sitting on is actually a paint sample of a color called ‘Hostaleaf.’
Joel, Steve, David, Ben, Juan, and Henry
I had dinner with these guys this evening at Matchbox in Rockville. If you go there, I can highly recommend the spicy meatball pizza and the plate of six mini-burgers. The burgers themselves are good but the pile of thinly sliced, fried onions were really great. We had a great time talking about whatever came to mind. Thanks, guys for putting up with my puns. This picture was taken outside, where there is a fire burning at the corner of the building. I didn’t have anything to put the camera on, so the platform around the fire takes up a fair amount of the foreground.
Red Dwarf Gourami (Trichogaster lalius)
I got a few new fish this week, including this red dwarf gourami (Trichogaster lalius). The dwarf gourami is native to Pakistan, India and Bangladesh but are quite common aquarium fish. I’m pretty sure I remember dad saying that he bred them, back in the day. In addition to this fish (actually, I got two of them), I have three green and gold cory cats (Corydoras melanotaenia), white fin rosy tetras (Hyphessobrycon rosaceus), brilliant rasboras (Rasbora einthovenii), and a Koi Angel (Pterophyllum scalare).
Operation Christmas Child
Cathy’s a fan of Operation Christmas Child. I mean, a huge fan. She collects things over the course of most of the year. In the past, when she starting participating, she did a box with Dorothy and a box with her friend and our next-door neighbor, Amy. When we moved and didn’t see Amy much, they continued to do two boxes, though. This year, Cathy bought a set of five boxes, because it was convenient to buy them that way. Rather than using two and saving the others for the future, though, she decided to fill all six. Wait, wasn’t it just a five-pack? Yes, but she did six. Just because.
We filled them this afternoon, having to “vacuum pack” the stuffed animal in one in order to get everything into that box, but we made it. This is Cathy, with her six boxes, heading off to deliver them to the local pick-up location. Time to start collecting things for next years boxes.
Grant Stephen
He’s nearly a year old and what a year its been. Back on December 6, last year, I posted a picture of week-old Grant’s feet. Now, he’s walking, tentatively and still oh, so cute.
Cathy and I were at the WCA Christmas Bazaar today and more than the bazaar itself, what we really enjoyed was seeing people that we don’t see nearly enough, now that Dorothy has moved on to the next thing. I spent a wonderful half hour or so chatting with Angie and while we were visiting, Grant’s mom, Collyn, arrived. I was given the honor of being allowed to hold and watch Grant while his mom went for some food. He looked a little concerned when mom walked off but a few moments of distraction and he was fine. We had a nice little visit. A shame he won’t remember me, but that’s the way it is. I’ll remember him and I have a few pictures to help (including a couple selfies taken with my SLR, which isn’t the easiest thing in the world to do).
Wooden Screen
This is one of three wooden screens we have hanging in our living room. They are purdah screens (which is technically redundant, because the word purdah, from the Hindi and Urdu parda, literally means screen or veil) and were brought back from Afghanistan by my in-laws in the 1960s, when they moved back to the states.
Two of them are similar and this is the third, which is quite different, although they all share a few significant characteristics. They are tessellated screens, geometric designs, made of carved wood, and held together without any additional fasteners or glue. They are held together by the way the wood is cut and carved and fitted together like a puzzle. They are a little bit fragile and there are a few pieces missing in one of them. I’d love to figure out how to repair them, but I’m afraid of doing more damage.
Rainbow
We had a fair bit of rain today and I enjoyed hearing that against the window in my office. Later in the day, after about 4:00 p.m. the rain stopped and the colors of the trees outside my window were intensified, as they often are in the afternoon light after a storm. At about 4:30, though, the sun broke through the clouds to the west. Apparently it was still raining not too far to the east and there was a lovely rainbow over the trees in our parking lot.
Ara and the Band, Open Mic Night, Villain and Saint
We had a nice time in Bethesda this evening at Villain and Saint’s Open Mic Night. We went specifically to hear Cathy’s friend and soccer compadre Ara, who was singing with her band. I really should be able to label this picture with all of their names, but we only know her. It was a rockin’ good time, loud for these old ears, but a lot of fun. In addition to Ara’s set, which included four original songs, I believe, the bands before and after her were quite good, getting a bit of the Doors, Moody Blues, and Chicago into the mix.
Night
This picture isn’t everything I thought it might be, but it still evokes a memory. The crescent moon was shining through the quickly moving clouds this evening at about 9:00 p.m. and I found a place to park, so I could enjoy it for a few minutes. I put the camera on the roof of the car and took a few pictures. This one was with the 70–300mm lens at 240mm, f/5.7 for 1 second. It’s not very sharp, but still kind of nice. I got one more after this before the clouds got thicker and the moon was gone.
Yet Another Sunset
We have sunsets every day, as I think I’ve mused before. But really spectacular sunsets are much more rare. We often get pretty sunsets, though, and this evening was a good example. I was driving directly away from the sun and could see it in my rear view mirror. I found a place to stop for a picture. Actually, it was the same median where I took the picture titled Zelkovas On Fire (Friday, October 30, 2015). Most of the sky was not particularly colored but with a 300mm lens, I was able to look only at the area around the sun, which was quite brilliantly orange.
