Google this! plus Happy Valentine’s Day and Chinese New Year

Two Steeples.  Looking east on Carroll Street.  12″ x 9″ on Arches paper – SOLD

Evening dog walks with Charlie usually end up with one of us having to look something up. It could be as varied as why the moon looks so much larger when it’s low in the sky to the lyrics to Petticoat Junction (don’t ask).

Last night was no different.  I told him that The Husband had sent me a lovely bouquet of flowers for Valentine’s Day.   This time, instead of the usual red roses, I got a beautiful bouquet of lilies.  The Husband was concerned that I wouldn’t like them (I loved them) but I told Charlie I was going to look up the meaning of lilies.  What?  Charlie did not know anything about the language of flowers.  This surprised me because Charlie (also secretly known as “mensa boy”) knows a lot about a lot of things.  I explained that those pesky Victorians who covered piano legs with fabric to keep the menfolk from getting too excited (morons) also had meanings for all kinds of flowers.  I said “imagine if you sent someone a bouquet of pretty flowers hoping to impress only later to find out the flowers you sent said, in today’s lingo, ‘you’re a jerk’.”  Uh oh!   There’d be trouble!

Brooklyn is known, among other things, as the Borough of Churches.   But when I Google this, all I get is the page on Brooklyn.  (Brooklyn, I was once told, is also known as the Borough of Bars.  I will save that for another post.)

This painting is the view from the roof of my building, looking east.  The sun was setting in the west and was shining on some of the buildings in the distance creating a beautiful light over the steeples, buildings and trees.  It’s on arches 130 lb 9″ x 12″ cold press paper.

Happy Valentine’s Day to you all and Happy Year of the Tiger too!

An old lady on the Lower East Side, Japanese Garden and thoughts about blogging

I believe I finished the Japanese Garden. My teacher told me I was finished so it’s finished.  I started on this old woman walking down a street on the Lower East Side of Manhattan.

The Lower East Side is interesting since it was once tenement slums and now it’s the home of young hipsters.   About 7 years ago I asked this young (20ish) guy at my job where he lived.  He said Orchard Street.  HUH?  How could he live on Orchard Street?   He wasn’t a recent immigrant.  He spoke English.   I was so confused.  Which is not an unusual condition for me. But I later found out that’s where all the cool people and hipsters were moving to when they weren’t moving into Williamsburg, Brooklyn.  Who knew?  Not I. And since I didn’t know I guess that excludes me from the following categories:

cool

hipster

Could be worse.  Could be in this category:

dead

Whew.   Not so bad after all.

This lady was cruising down the street, knocking people out of the way with her cane.  She was sporting a giant ring and was wearing a hat at a jaunty angle.  Good for her.   However, it was a dark and stormy night.  Ok, it wasn’t really, but that line always cracks me up.   She was in shadow, and the foliage on the brick wall is actually a shadow of foliage.  I will work on the all the shadows next time I go to class.  Dark Shadows.  Remember that show.  I used to RUN home from grammar school to watch Barnabas Collins bare his fangs.

Here’s the Japanese garden finished:

I could have put a lot more detail into in, but thought it was ok the way it was.

There is a very funny website called www.graphjam.com.   If you’re tired of doing all those TPS reports, as I am, stop for a moment and take a look.  You’ll get a good laugh.    Here’s an interesting graph from them about blogging.   I thought it was right on.   One always hopes that one’s blog would be at least in the purple circle, if not the tiny blue circle, but let’s face it.   Most of our blogs are on the big pink circle and that’s the way it goes.

Graph by: raiderrobert via Graph Jam Builder

When we are old or dead will all our blogs be cluttering up the internet?  Hmmm,  I wonder.