Ha!

Florence + The Machine.

I've got this song in my head and it won't go away. What a voice. When you get to about 1.25 minutes into the song she really let's it fly! She was on SNL last week and Letterman has had her on at least once, maybe twice. (Husband Doug likes her a lot too -- and it's not just about those legs, although I'm sure they don't bother him one little bit.)

Reading The Internets I have discovered that she likes her tequila. Hope she doesn't burn out too soon.

New Gibson guitar arrives! Son is happy, kitty is happy (boxes to play in), so I'm happy.

It's called a Les Paul and it's really, really purty.

You meet the nicest people on blogs. I admired Kitt's columbine and she sent me some seeds. And what a beautiful card. Thanks Kitt!

Here are Kitt's columbine seeds, some of which traveled from Denver to DC and I hope will be blooming in my garden next summer.

The eccentric artist up the street adds a new sculpture to his front yard. When the wind blows so does this art.

Other shots from this house are here and here and here.

As suggested by an observant reader.

Anne of The Complaint Department had a good suggestion about MY complaint about reading books on an eReader -- I bemoaned the absence of an attractive cover to keep me tied to the book I'm reading. So I'm trying out a quick and cheap method of adding book covers to the Kindle. If I just had a color printer it would be more effective, but this works for now. And quite by coincidence, last Sunday's NYT Book Review section had a good article about the subject of book cover art. Here.

If you want to read the full NYT article but don't want to go through the paywall, you can click on the full story over on the right side of this blog -- see section called "Pam's Place for Items of Note." Click on The Art of the Novel.

Finally. I read my first full novel on my "new" Kindle.

Last Christmas, so approximately 11 months ago, Doug gave me a Kindle. I'd been muttering about them since before they were actually available for purchase. Typical Pam muttering: I don't think I like this; what about real paper and glue books? what will happen to them? how could you really enjoy reading a book on a tablet? gee, I'd love to try it out; no way would I pay over $100 for an electronic reader! sacrilegious. You know the kind of muttering I mean. Sort of talking to myself but Doug heard it all. So I was thrilled to get the Kindle. But so far all I've done is download tons of free books -- classics mostly -- and tons of free samples.

But a few days ago I finished my first novel. I choose something short, light, and simple. Agatha Christie's The Secret Adversary, set in London just after World War I. Here's what I think so far: it was weird to not have an actual book with a cover. I never realized how much I connect with the covers of books. I read it very, very quickly, for me. I'm generally a slow reader because I still can't break the habit of reading as a copy-editor. It's a huge problem for me. I read many sentences twice: once to check on the grammar, style, and spelling, and a second time for the meaning. But with the Kindle, I seemed to do this much less often. I loved clicking the little button (one on the right, one on the left) to "turn" the pages. And the bottom of the screen tells you what percentage of the book you've finished, as well as how much you've read in each sitting. All of that data seemed to move me along much faster than is typical.

So the next test is to read something weighty. I've got plenty to choose from: novels that I should have read by this time in my life but haven't. Madame Bovary, Moby Dick, War and Peace, Anna Karenina.

To be continued...

Can you find the kitty in the picture?

It's possible that this is a viral image and you've seen it dozens of times but I just found it and it took me a while to find the sweet kitty.

More from Brooklyn: James and his young parents.Does that girl love that kitty or what? Sean does too but he's engrossed. It's a familiar sight.

A few details:
No one is sure exactly what purpose that flak jacket once served -- see mannequin behind Becca's head -- but it has lots of pockets: for ammo? for bandages? Came from an army surplus store.

See the white skinny pipe behind the mannequin? That's part of the old radiator system that, when it's working--which it wasn't the night we were there a week ago, is the source of heat for much of the apartment. A couple of Slavic repairmen came in the morning and fixed it. With those accents and chattiness and quick work, they were a little Seinfeldian (and I'm not even sure what I mean by that).

See that trunk under Sean's feet? My dad got that from an Ambassador Bruce, this fellow or his wife or his family. My dad was a painter, a house painter, in Washington, DC, in the 40s, 50s, and 60s and he got a lot of work in Bethesda and Northwest DC and Georgetown. Sometimes he came across the most interesting people and sometimes these people were tossing things out -- like that old trunk. My dad genetically and/or culturally passed along his tendency to say "you can't possibly throw that out; I'll take it to my house and find a good use for it." Most of these items are now either in my house or my sister's house, or with his three grandchildren, of whom Becca is the youngest.

Note to JGH: I saw your comment a few days ago noting that your old neighborhood was at Plaza and Vanderbilt in Brooklyn. This apartment is about 6 or 7 blocks away, near Bedford Avenue and Plaza Place. Which is so funny, because you might remember that last year my daughter was in a tiny apartment just around the corner from where you work! It's usually a big world -- but not always.

Robert in black, James in gray.

New York, New York.

We were in Manhattan and Brooklyn for only 27 hours over the weekend but I took in enough visual, auditory, and emotional data to feed me for months, maybe years.

The reason for the trip was quite sad--a memorial service that Doug describes very well right here. But along with all that sadness came some joy, since we got to spend the night with our daughter and her fiance Sean (see how I worked that in oh-so-casually?) in their "new" apartment in Brooklyn. Saturday was the day that massive and ultimately destructive snow storm moved up the east coast. The top shot was taken on the 65th Street Transverse Road as we cabbed across Central Park from the memorial service on the West Side to the reception on the East Side. Looks like rain but it was actually a nasty snow-sleet mix. Bottom two shots were taken the next day in Brooklyn (Prospect Heights) as we walked to the subway to get back into Manhattan before we headed back to DC.

Robert and James, my grandkittens, were even more sweet than Becca told us. I love my girls (Georgette and Lucy) but a lifetime of cats tells me that boy kitties are simply more lovey-dovey to their humans than girl kitties. What's up with that?