October 17

It was a brisk but pretty day in Roslindale today. I took a little walk, camera in hand, to run a few errands. I had the idea of getting photos of the foliage -- it's becoming a hobby of mine -- though this photo of the flag hanging from the pole caught my eye. (American Flags have been another thing I've been noticing of late.)

I managed to get a couple of frames from the Treasure Chest for a song today -- I guess I'm going to do some printing soon to find something to go into them. It's something to keep me busy on these cold autumn days.

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October 04

I had to do a little shopping today, and since it was such a pretty day I grabbed my camera to make the walk to the store a photo walk. It was my only opportunity, since I completely forgot that today was the Roslindale Day Parade, and thus, while the fabulous parade in the beautiful weather went by the Square, mere blocks from my house, I was sitting in my living room watching television.

Wow. That was an unexpected stream of consciousness.

This photo caught my attention because of the textures. The bricks look like they haven't been repointed since the building was built in 1926, though the sign has to be somewhat newer. Still, a very pretty example of textures.

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September 16

I have a perverse sense of humor sometimes. (OK, all of the time.) When I saw the giant "SAVE" sign over the Madonna, it made me laugh. If Jesus saves, what does his mother do? The "hot" colors of the SAVE sign also caught my eye. The fires of savings over the Blessed Mother. It was just too funny to ignore.

Juxtapositions are inherently funny, I think. As are double-entendres, although photographic double-entendres are rare in my experience. Perhaps that will be a new photography project for 2010: photographic double-entendres. Whatever else could be said about it, it would definitely be challenging.

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September 06

Today's my birthday! I turned ... one year older today.

It was a very low-key day, really. I went into town with Boyfriend today to get some cross trainers (my excuse for not going to the gym regularly is thus invalid), then went to my neighbor D'Anna's house for a Labor Day party. D'Anna surprised me with a birthday cake -- what a sweetheart she is!

It was actually a very low-key birthday, which is just what I needed. I considered inviting friends out for dinner, but decided at the last minute that what I really wanted was a day with no pressing obligations. Today was precisely that.

Maybe, for my next big milestone birthday, I'll have a party. Until then, today was just perfect.

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August 18

I can only describe this guy as a "Heck's Angel."

Note the ready-to-go attitude. That foot was kicking off as soon as the light changed -- he was rarin' to go. Then there's his business casual attire. Here's somebody who knows how to dress for success. Most of the people I see on these are dressed ... well, very casually. Then I noticed the helmet. He's not quite a Hell's Angel, but this is a motorist who loves his mount and has the devil-may-care insouciance that's necessary to drive in the City of Boston. This guy is ballsy.

So Mr. Heck's Angel, I salute you!

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July 25

The things I see when frequenting junk stores never ceases to amaze me.

The Treasure Chest is a junk store near my home in Roslindale. I've posted about visiting it here and here. It is something out of the past, really, with all kinds of items that have been cast off, sold, lost, or given away. Usually I stop by, chat with Rick (the owner), nose through whatever items have floated to the top of the mess, and leave. Occasionally, I purchase something interesting.

I have no idea what this is or what it's used for. It looks like a turnbuckle, except that it could only be used to spread things apart, not pull them together. Is there such a thing as a reverse turnbuckle? Whatever it's for, it made an interesting topic of conversation for a few moments outside the store -- and today's Photo of the Day.

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July 19

Boyfriend and I didn't plan to do a lot today, and for what it's worth, we accomplished it.

We had brunch -- how gay is that? -- at Geoffreys, a marvelous cafe in Roslindale Square. For a chi-chi cafe, they serve pretty good biscuits and gravy, and a lot of it! We walked past the house in the photo as we headed to Geoffrey's, and I snapped the colorful photo above. For some reason, it seemed a very American house facade, with the bright blue sky, pretty window boxes and the United States flag flying from the pole in front. It makes for an altogether satisfying photo of the day.

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July 15

The past few days have been beautiful in the Boston area, and I've taken advantage of that (and serendipity) to work on catching up on laundry.

Why serendipity? We've had a rotating clothesline connected to our back porch since we moved in eight years ago. As our enclosed back porch is also the only storage space we have, we piled it so full of our crap that getting access to that clothesline wasn't a big deal. Then our clothes dryer broke. Since this has been the summer of hemorrhaging money, we haven't had enough money at any one time to have it repaired or replaced. So weekly trips to the laundromat to dry our clothes have been an integral part of the ol' summer routine.

However, our cleaning jig over Independence Day means that we can reach our clothesline now. Which is nice, once you get past worrying whether birds are going to use your laundry as a loo. With the nice sunny weather and access to the clothesline, we're no longer at the mercy of the Big Spin Laundromat.

Well, until it rains.

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July 12

Oh, pretty flowers, my constant summer fall-back option.

After yesterday's ambitious photo walk, today I didn't really feel like going out (except to put my poor sneakers on the clothesline to dry after getting caught in the cloudburst). When hunger overcame apathy, I grabbed my camera for a quick walk to Roslindale Square and a stop at the fabulously cheap-and-cheerful Wapo Taco. It was closed.

Turns out, the highlight of my walk was right at the beginning. I stopped and got photos of these marvelously blue-purple flowers on my neighbor Nicolene's porch -- perhaps 150 feet from my own front door. They have a sort of wild exuberance that helped cheer me up.

I wish I could grow plants. Except for tomatoes, which are known to thrive under benign neglect, I've never grown anything substantive. Maybe someday, when I have a yard, I'll try again.

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June 02

I'm notoriously bad at growing things. When I see flowers like the ones my neighbor Nicolene grows in her front garden, I'm left green -- pun intended -- with envy.

A couple of summers ago, the boyfriend and I grew tomatoes in pots on our front porch. Boyfriend even put some mint and spices in the soil around the base of the plants. Our reasoning in growing tomatoes was sound enough -- they thrive under "benign neglect," which is pretty much the best a plant will get under my watch. The tomatoes grew tall on their stakes, because I didn't know that you're supposed to prune from the top, and while we harvested perhaps two dozen small tomatoes from the plants, it took two or three of these miniature tomatoes to equal one supermarket specimen.

Nonetheless, it was nice to walk out the door to a little forest of green that summer, if only because it was green and living and vibrant. I may have to try my hand at gardening again soon. Practice makes perfect?

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May 24

We've had a stormy day here today. It's funny; a stormy day in New England is an entirely different experience than a stormy day in the midwest.

Getting a photo of a stormy day is something of a challenge. Lightning comes so quickly that it takes a lot of effort, dedication, and no small amount of luck to get a photo of it. Rain is just difficult to capture clearly. However, the raindrops falling earlier this afternoon were big, splashy drops, so I was able to get some interesting shots of the rain hitting my front steps (shot from the relative dryness of a covered front porch). I particularly love the splashes created by some of the drops as they hit.

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May 09

It's been a long week. I embraced the arrival of the weekend and the lack of anything urgent to do, and spent the day doing nothing.

Then I remembered this blog.

I grabbed my camera and went off on a "photo walk." That's where I go and take my camera and photograph whatever catches my fancy. I meandered by the commuter rail station and decided to work with leading lines, since railroad tracks are the obvious and most-cited examples. Looking at the picture, you'd never realize you were within the Boston city limits.

It was an easy decision to take this photo. I'm rather pleased with how it turned out.

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May 08

I was walking -- rushing, actually -- out my door today when I caught sight of this unusual-looking plant in the front yard. It's a Bleeding Heart, a kind of plant I had never seen before. It's quite pretty.

I've had two predominant reactions to flower photos on this blog. Some people say, "Oh, another flower photo," in a disdainful tone, and others go, "Oh, another flower photo," but in a much more enthusiastic tone. I've been fortunate this year that my landladies have done such a great job landscaping the yard. It seems like there's another color of tulip coming up every week. On pretty days it makes me feel good to see all the beautiful flowers, and on bad days, I feel a little better for having been around such beauty.

I promise, late next week will bring some new and different photos to the Photo of the Day blog. I'm leaving for vacation in Illinois, so something other than commute photos and flowers will be featured.

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May 07

So yesterday, water main work near my house prematurely cut off my attempts to finish washing my clothes. Today, police activity near the laundromat where I dry the washed clothes (our dryer is dead) nearly prevented me from finishing the job.

I'm not sure what the story was, but I did see the police escorting these two folks out of the parking lot and into two separate cruisers. They moved the cruisers blocking entry to the laundromat parking lot a few moments later, so I made the block (it's on a one-way street), pulled in, and dried my laundry (albeit 45 minutes later than I planned).

Honestly, I'm almost ready to conclude these are signs from God, and that He doesn't want me doing laundry anymore. Unfortunately, nobody else (including the Almighty) is likely to buy that one.

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May 06

The City of Boston decided to clean the water mains in several locations around Roslindale today. Coincidentally, today was my laundry day.

I have no idea what is involved with cleaning water mains, to be honest. Nor am I certain why they have to be cleaned in groups (there were further crews on Cummins Highway -- two of them). I guess you don't want your nice clean water main gunked up by dirty ones nearby? Whatever the process, it used water from a nearby hydrant and a big vacuum hose thingie.

Actually, I don't know that this has anything to do with water mains, except for the name on the side of the truck and possibly the use of the hydrant. Still, with stuff being stirred up in the vicinity of utility lines to my home, I don't think it was worth the risk.

Now, Thursday will be laundry day!

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May 04

Please allow me to present another pretty flower picture. With all the new planting in the yard, it seems like every time something begins to die off, a new bloom comes out to replace it. Since tomorrow is supposed to be rainy and cold, this was my last chance for a couple of days.

That, and I couldn't think of anything else worth photographing.

Today's photo brings me a little past one-third of the way to my year's worth of photos. It's been both easier and more difficult than I'd thought it would be. Whatever else can be said about the experience, though, it has been a rewarding one.

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May 02

I complain a lot about the City of Boston -- the city government, traffic woes, etc. -- but occasionally, the city does something right.

There's a small traffic island on Washington Street as you approach Roslindale Square from the south. To be honest, I haven't noticed any exceptional landscaping there before, but this spring, the city planted hundreds of tulips. And now they're all in bloom.

It's really very pretty, and I've been lurking, waiting for the best time to get a photo of the colorful display. It's a very bright, very welcoming entrance to the heart of our neighborhood

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April 23

My neighbor has an apple tree that blossoms beautifully every spring.

She has a green thumb and ... let's call it eclectic taste .. when it comes to landscaping. Her yard is an ever-evolving experiment in unlikely combinations of plants -- sometimes deliberately planted, other times not. Wildflowers ring her fence line and grow halfway out over the sidewalks, and anybody allergic to bee stings treads carefully when visiting or passing by.

When the tree blossoms, it's really quite beautiful, though the fragile blooms don't last very long. It's always a special treat to walk by and see it in all its glory in the springtime, and usually it's the first true harbinger that warm weather is on the way.

Besides, it makes for a very pretty picture.

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April 04

Aren't these crocuses pretty?

I was walking my dog when I noticed that these flowers had popped up in the landlady's garden. I complimented her on her tulips, only to be corrected. Considering my lack of a green thumb, I was doing good to identify it as a flower.

It's been rainy the past couple of days -- today less so than yesterday -- and tomorrow is supposed to be downright beautiful. I'm really looking forward to more days where I can venture out without a jacket and enjoy a sunny day.

Meanwhile, I know perfectly well that the flowers in the back are tulips, and they're going to be magnificent when they're in full bloom.

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March 21

Behold, 15 -- count 'em, 15 -- hardcover Star Trek novels.

On weekends, unless I have something pressing to do, I'm something of a layabout. I got up, did some laundry, and then ventured out for breakfast around 3 pm. On my way back from the KFC, I noticed that the Treasure Chest, the little junk store near my house, was open, so I stopped in.

That's where I came upon these Star Trek novels, hidden on a bookshelf behind a row of videotapes. At a dollar per book, I pounced on them. I love to read, and it's my dirty little secret that I actually enjoy reading crap on occasion. Nobody will mistake these for fine literature, but they'll make for an enjoyable afternoon or two.

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