9.13.2006

photo dump

I'm just cleaning out the contents of my digital camera, and thought you might like to take a look. Nothing spectacular, but some things that make me smile.

I took these in our backyard in the spring. Each month, different colors surprise us. Next spring I'll try to cut back the overgrowth, to give the blooms more prominence.

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I have to measure our backyard one day. It's huge. Quite ridiculous.

spring lillies 007


Here's Cody.

cody spring 06 001

cody spring 06 003


She's been so sweet and affectionate lately. And here I am thinking about messing up the equilibrium. Have I mentioned I'm thinking seriously about getting another dog? I'm thinking maybe a retired Greyhound, or else an abandoned "bully boy". More on these thoughts as they develop.

Here are some pics we took in New York last week.

This is The Strand, a New York institution. I learned here on this blog that some people feel it's been sanitized and ruined, but Allan and I didn't find it such.

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New York used to be full of great bookstores, including a street lined with used-book stores nicknamed Book Row. There are only a handful of independents left now, thanks to the absence of commercial rent control and the advent of Barnes & Noble Superstores. Most New Yorkers I know blame themselves as much as B&N, knowing that their attraction to the great prices and comfortable decor, not to mention the huge author reading series, helped shutter many of the old stalwarts.

This is McSorley's Old Ale House, one of the oldest continually operating bar in New York City. It was made famous by the great Joseph Mitchell, chronicler of New York City street life and eccentrics, who named one of my favourite books after it.

nyc sept 06 012


McSorley's is mainly the haunt of tourists and suburban daytrippers now, but there are still neighbourhood folks who call it home. Among McSorley's claims to fame, it was the one of the last of the "men only" bars. It opened in 1854, and allowed women inside its doors for the first time in 1970, and only after a court ruled it must.

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