The Book

OK, here is an AMAZING story. On the way to Manhattan on the Long Island Railroad I saw this man reading his book. But the book looked different from any book I had ever seen. The pages were yellowed with age, and the covers of the book looked more like a picture frame, rather than a bound book. I grabbed a couple of snapshots, and then when we got up to leave the train, I asked him about his book, saying that I had never seen a book like that - it looked home-made. He told me this amazing story. Two hours before, he had just been given this book by his 94 year-old grandfather, who had been in WWII. His grandfather had talked about his youth, but had never spoken of the war. His grandfather said that he had written about his unit's experiences during WWII and added the pages to his book as he had written them. This man said he was a screenwriter and was just starting to read the book, in hopes there were stories he could use in his screenwriting. I was blown away! I am SO glad I took the time to ask about the book. I wonder what stories he will discover.

The Author is in Town!

We got a last minute call from Amy, to tell us that she was being flown in from Los Angeles to New York, arriving Friday night. Why? She was going to be a guest on the CBS TV Early Show on Saturday morning! She was there to talk about her new book "Meeting Your Half-Orange: An Utterly Upbeat Guide to Using Dating Optimism to Fine Your Perfect Match." There would be two other authors as well. She was absolutely GREAT under the pressure and we were so proud to see her on national TV! Then we took the train in late Saturday afternoon to see her and have dinner together, which was a real treat.

Making Photographers Laugh

This is Pat, our favorite waitress at the diner. I went to the Dinosaur Breakfast this morning, joining a whole bunch of colleagues from the newspaper business. Our tradition is, that we have our group photo taken at the end of each breakfast, and guess who is elected to snap the shutter? Pat, of course! Well, snapping the shutter is the easy part - getting us all to laugh is the hard part. But she was successful! The technique is, if you are a photographer, to mimic what you want your subjects do. You laugh, they laugh. She did. We did.

A Sunny Morning with Snow

It is stunning how different it was this morning, with blue sky and sunshine, compared to yesterday at dusk. It feels as if the world has been born anew! I know you have seen this Japanese maple before, but I never get tired of looking at how beautiful it is! I did this wide view, and then I did a closer view, and I think this one wins. I was out here, of course, to shovel the driveway - we ended up with about a foot of snow - and fortunately it stayed on the tops of the branches. It is this "frosting" which makes the photograph as beautiful as it is.

Saving the Best Until Last

With the snowstorm in full swing I decided it was a great time to go out and look for pictures. I went first to the water and took photographs there, then walked up the hill to a park I knew of, and did some nice things with the trees there. Then I passed a house at dusk with a picket fence around it. It was dusk, and the back porch light was on. I spent 15 minutes photographing that and then walked on. I stopped to look back, for some reason, and there it was! The crooked picket fence! The best picture of the day! I made this image larger, so please click on it to see an bigger version.

75 Degrees

I was looking for a photograph of something today and stumbled across this picture from our trip to California. We were getting ready to leave the motel room, and I saw Amy's profile out the window through the curtain. I quickly snapped this. I loved the pastel colors which were muted because of the curtain. But what I love most is with a snowstorm forecast for tomorrow, with cold temperatures and high winds, I could look at this photo and think of blue sky and sunshine and warm temperatures.

Kitty Watching Me Paint

The kitties are so funny - if anything new is going on, they want to be right there. I used to think that these cats were "scaredy-cats," but at least one of them is very curious. Sometimes she will aproach, and then back away, then approach again, if I am doing something different. Here I am painting the trim on the stairs, and she was going to come downstairs, but rather than pass me on the stairs, she sat there watching me paint for quite a while. I liked the point of view of this shot - how often do we get to look UP at a cat?