7 Quick Takes (Vol 240)

The presents are unwrapped. Santa is putting his feet up and having a reindeer sized glass of wine. You know what you have to do. When you are finished unwrapping the blather you need to click on the picture above to be whisked, at the speed of the crashing reputation of UPS, over to Conversion Diary to see what has been going on.

Blather that helps with holiday recovery.

1.
HHBL and I are recovering from our New York City Christmas travels. One of the best things about a trip is actually coming home to your own “nest”. I think this is Friday but I am not sure as I have been confused about the days of the week since I left home. It felt like Saturday all day yesterday.

If this isn’t Friday then just leave me in my delusion. I will catch up eventually.

Let’s see what else we did over those days.

2.

We had sushi for lunch. And Thai for dinner. And fresh ham (which tastes like pork and not like ham because really it is just pork and not cured ham but still delicious.) And deli sandwiches. And grilled chicken from the little store down the street. And craft beer from a Long Island brewery. And about two dozen gluten free chocolate chip cookies. And VERY good wine from somewhere that I have no idea about. I was too busy drinking it to look.

The Norwegian knows his wine.

3.

We had very bad weather which made us wimp out on walking all over NYC. Pouring rain + walking in Manhattan? I have done that before and the experience does not need to be repeated.

And we had very good weather which then meant we went out and walked 10.3 miles over the course of a day. Or 20,630 steps, whichever you prefer.

Both photos taken from Cartoon Girl’s front window. Not a bad view to wake up to. And at one time Carlos Danger Anthony Weiner’s office was right across the street.

4.

Cartoon Girl photobombed my panorama shot of Central Park and the skating rink.

Several times.

5.

The Ugly Wall Hanging found it’s final resting place at Cartoon Girl’s apartment. Mimi and I decided that 10+ years of hiding it in each other’s houses was plenty. And Cartoon Girl expressed an interest in actually using it as art (incomprehensible) so we have laid the Ugly Wall Hanging “gifting” tradition to rest.

When Sue and Doug brought that thing back from the Philippines I don’t think they had any clue what we would do with it over the years.

And where we would hide it.

6.

I might have had at least one Starbucks Grande Blonde Roast every single day.

And I might have taken pictures of discarded shopping lists on the table at Starbucks.

7.
To finish off let’s look at all the random photos I took with my iPhone. You know that is how I roll.

I was obsessed with the shadows on the building outside our hotel window. There are LOTS more of these on Big Bertha.

The shelves and shelves and shelves of photography books at The Strand bookstore. I resisted buying the new book on Vivian Maier but only because it was $50! And it weighed a ton which would have meant I would have had to carry the thing all over Manhattan.

Various boring buildings from a street perspective, just like every other tourist.

People’s feet on the moving subway. There are more of these but I don’t want to scare you away.

A lone glove on the ground in Kew Garden’s park. And in case you are wondering……..

As HHBL was……

I actually picked the glove up and took it home with me. It will be washed today and put away for a long term art project that I will tell you about when I am finished. Which may be a while.

I also might have stood outside, barefoot, in the rain, with both iPhone and Big Bertha to get a half way good photo of the view from the terrace of SisInLaw and The Norwegian’s condo.

The things I do for photography.

And I forgot my tripod so this was the best I could do on a dark and rainy night.

Next time I am bringing my tripod AND the wide angle. The view is magnificent.