Category Archives: Photography

city cab crash


i was just about to step off the curb to cross 61st street on first avenue today when i noticed a cab trying to manifest a middle lane in between two cars.  he was not very successful.

5 taxi cab accident 1st & 61st

so this poor couple who were just driving along, minding their own business, now have a crashed up car because the cabbie thought he could save 2 seconds getting to where ever it was he was headed.

2 taxi cab accident 1st & 61stthe man who’s car was struck by the time-crazed cabbie got out to assess the situation. he asked the cabbie, in a much calmer tone than i may have had, to straighten his wheels and back up.  the cab driver put the car in reverse without straightening the wheels first, and proceeded to re- swipe the entire length of the passenger side of the car, much to the horror of the woman sitting inside.

1 taxi cab accident 1st & 61stjust when i thought it couldn’t get any worse, the cab moved forward again, going for side swipe #3.

the people who had been stopped at the red light on first avenue eventually got tired of waiting for the cab driver to figure out how to get out of the middle of the intersection and when the light turned green, they drove right up the avenue as if there wasn’t a giant accident in the middle of the road.

4 taxi cab accident 1st & 61st

and therein lies all the excitement i have for this tuesday.

keep calm & carry on . . . .

“Everyone ought to bear patiently the results of his own conduct.”
~ Phaedrus 

how urban sprawl begins


it’s been 5 days on my country hiatus now and  i’m thinking of heading back to the city later this afternoon.  so far today i’ve seen 3 deer,  1 blue jay and a woodpecker and look what i found yesterday:

sheep columbia county (3) black cows (2)

i’m taking this as a sign from the universe that it just may be time to get back to the crowds in the city . . .

“If you do not change direction, you may end up where you are heading.”
 ~ Lao Tzu 

friends in the country


i’ve been on my country hiatus for 4 days now and i’ve only seen 6 or 7 people, but i have managed to make some new friends.  the folks up here have much less to say than city peeps, and when they do speak, it’s hard to understand what they’re really saying.  luckily i have ivan with me to translate.  meet the new crew:

IMG_0100 

spencertown cows  (5)

IMG_0045

IMG_0118

spencertown deer (2)

IMG_0102 crop

spencertown cows  (19)

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hawk fly sky

spencertown cows  (13)

and the translator:

ivan (2)

“The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way in which its animals are treated.”
~ Ghandi

zen in the woods


my brother once reminded me of the saying, “if you need something done, give it to a busy person.”  this is so true – at least for me.  ever since i lost my job, i have become less organized by the day, and have a hard time getting things done – which is very unlike me – at least the me i used to be.

i make lists.  and lots of sticky notes for myself too.  lists and notes used to keep me organized but these days, they just accumulate alongside all of the unopened bills that keep arriving in my mailbox. my lists, notes and bills have formed into a giant pile which i occasionally move around the apartment.  it is way past time for action!  so i called up my friend susan, who owns an awesome house two and a half hours outside of the city and asked if i could use it for several days to  organize the pile of papers and make an action plan for what to with my life. she agreed it would be good for me and gave me the keys.  ivan and i headed out around noon on wednesday.

so here i am with ivan, in the middle of the woods, in an awesome house with magnificent views and no distractions – except for the 2 amazon sized hawks that just nearly crashed into the huge glass wall in front of which i am sitting. wow – that wasn’t something you experience everyday.  hawks fly high and if i were in the valley below, they would have been off in the distance, like i’m used to seeing hawks. but this house sits on the top of a mountain and it really looked like they were coming in for a landing right into the living room!

it’s been pretty windy up here in the woods so when i heard strange noises right after the near fatal attack of the hawks, i attributed it to the wind.  it seemed like a good time to take a break from staring at my piles of papers and go outside for a possible hawk photo opportunity.  there i was, just standing on the deck quietly admiring the amazing mountain view and waiting for some hawks, when all of the sudden i was startled by very loud noises which seemed to be very close to me.  even ivan was alarmed and he can barely hear anything anymore.  i quickly turned around in an attempt to locate the source of the noise and just overhead, directly above the glass wall they had almost crashed into earlier, were two of the biggest hawks i’ve ever seen, duking it out on the roof – a bird fight!  i was so surprised and they were so close to my head, i torpedoed inside and i missed the photo op!  i’m  not scared of birds, at least i never thought i was, but having two hawks with 6 foot wing spans brawling less than 10 feet from your head is a bit frightening for any city girl.  once inside, i remembered that i had never heard of death by hawk for anyone so i returned to the deck.  by that time, they must have resolved their issues and had stopped the fight.  i got several pix of them leaving the roof.

hawk fly sky 6 hawk fly sky hawk fly sky 2 hawk fly sky 3 hawk fly sky 4

more adventures to come, stay tuned!

“I thank you God for this most amazing day, for the leaping greenly spirits of trees, and for the blue dream of sky and for everything which is natural, which is infinite, which is yes.”
~ e. e. cummings

voodoo snowman


i found this picture on facebook & it pretty much sums it up for me:

snowman

“Never make your most important decisions when you are in your worst moods. Wait. Be patient. The storm will pass. The spring will come.”
 ~ Robert H. Schuller