A Walk With Hamlet

When you read this, The Tim, Hamlet, and I will already be on our way to WV for the Memorial Day weekend.  But I wanted to share this walk around a small part of our neighborhood with you, and this seemed like a good time to do that. 

A week ago today, it was a lovely day, weather-wise, and so for our morning walk, Hamlet and I decided to do a bit of a photographic ramble.  

Once we turned off our our street, and walked less than two blocks, we spotted this crochet in the wild:

I just love how the tree hugger is wearing nail polish!  And being the size they are, I'm really glad those insects are not real ... 

Walking a bit more I took a photo of this little street, known as St. James Place - it's like a tiny English village, just below one of the busiest streets in the city.  In all of the years we have lived here, I've never once seen someone out in their little front yard, or going into the houses.  For all I know, it's merely an architectural art installation, but that's highly unlikely given where it is located.

This next photo is of something that is one of my faves.  Not the gas station, where you see the car exiting, but the wall behind it.  If you look closely, it looks like there are a lot of windows, and they are reflecting a church building.  Well, in a way, you would be correct.  The Mural Arts Program here in Philadelphia commissioned someone to paint all of this on the side of a building.  The windows and the reflected church are painted on!  It depicts the side of a building that was office space (there are no windows actually on the side of the building), and looked out onto the church in the reflection.  There was a small amount of grass, and the church was off to the side where the gas station now is located.  Cool, huh?

Another block later, we came across a small cafe that was sadly a victim of the pandemic, and had to close.  But someone did what they could to make the boarded-up front look more appealing.  More crochet in the wild!

When I stopped to take a photo, a guy walked past and said, "I hope you don't have an egg allergy, hahaha."  Everyone's a comedian.

Another small street in the neighborhood that we passed on the way home.

And finally, back to our street, which, though it looks very narrow (and it is narrow - a lot of cars have trouble getting through), is not as narrow as some of the streets in Old Town Philadelphia!  Our street is a hidden gem, as it exists for only this block in all of the city.  Most people around here know about it, but even those who have been city dwellers all of their lives are surprised when you mention it as they had no idea about it at all.  Our house is on the right side, and actually is right next to where I was standing to take this photo.  I would have included it, but the next door neighbors had not collected their trash and recycling bins yet, and they were right in front of our house, so I'll show you that another time when it looks better.

I hope you enjoyed this little stroll with us.  This is all in about a six-block square area, and it's enjoyable to be able to take your time and just walk around.  You notice all kinds of things, no matter how many times you may have already passed by on other days.  

Have a lovely Memorial Day weekend if you are here in the U.S., and if not, enjoy your weekend however you can!  I'll be back next week to fill you in on our first trip since before the pandemic started.  Take care, everyone. 

Random Thoughts for a Friday

How has your week been?  Mine was fine - nice and uneventful at work (thank God!), pleasant enough weather, and some good reading and knitting.  It's really been a nice, ordinary, quiet, and unremarkable time, and that feels like something that is different than usual.  

Which means that I have been thinking my random thoughts.  Which means I'm going to share some of them.  Which means you have been warned, so if you get to the end and think "So?" - you have only yourself to blame!

• You may have seen this image or versions of it over the last couple of days:

  

This is from Fibre Space, in Alexandria, Virginia, where Madame Vice President Kamala Harris stopped for a yarn purchase.  I knew that her stepdaughter was a prolific knitter, but apparently Kamala (which I like to call her, because I'm sure we'd be good friends) is a crocheter.  This pleases me in the most ridiculous way.

• Last night for dinner, The Tim made the pasta dish that is all over TikTok apparently (I really don't pay that much attention to TikTok unless someone I know sends me a link, but apparently someone sent him this one).  Our verdict: It was yummy, but at least for us, a bit too salty.  We love feta cheese, and use it regularly, but for whatever reason, either the particular block of cheese we used, or the combination in the recipe of ingredients made the dish taste particularly salty.  We have gotten out of the habit of adding salt to our food (well, The Tim has - I never really was a salt person to start), and so when we come across something like this, it tastes like we have consumed a salt lick!  We might try it again, with the usual kind of feta we have to see if that changes the outcome.

• I had requested this for Christmas, and ended up receiving it for Valentine's Day.  The Tim said he ordered it early in November, but with the mess that the mail service was at holiday time last year, it didn't arrive until the middle of January.  No matter, though.  I put it on the table next to my side of the bed.  And I have to say, it's cheaply made when you look closely, but when it is turned on, it is So.Very.Pretty!  It gives me such joy to see it, and even when lit in an otherwise completely dark room, has a pretty glow that is comforting light, but not too much light.  At the time, it was on sale for $19.99, and as much as I love mine, it's only barely worth that price as far as the quality of it.  But oh how it brings me joy!

• I had a stunning realization the other day, and that was that I realized one of the things I missed the most during this pandemic was lipstick - ???  Now, I have to qualify that by saying it's not like I am a lipstick fiend - I have a few, and they are all colors that I like and think look good on me.  I would always put lipstick on in the morning before I left the house, and then it's not like I reapplied it all day.  But I always felt that it gave me an extra pop of color to get started.  I stopped putting it on when we all started to wear masks, because a) you can't see it, and b) it just smears off on the fabric of the mask anyway.  But the other evening we were getting ready to have a Zoom session with my niece and her husband, and I decided to put some on for that, and only then did I realize how much I missed wearing lipstick!  Odd but true.

• We have recently been watching Lupin, and enjoying it so much!  Both of us enjoy thriller/mystery/crime stories, and this one is really appealing.  This one is not necessarily anything new or vastly different, but it's fun to see the sights of Paris, and the premise is a good one.  There's even part of an episode where the protagonist inadvertently reveals who he is, which does not generally happen.  We recommend it, if you have access to Netflix.

• Today is apparently National Unplug Day, when we are all supposed to unplug from computers, phones, etc. and give ourselves a break.  I am clearly not doing that, but mostly because I don't overdo any of that, to be honest.  Particularly on weekends, I may only check online stuff once or twice a day.  But I know for people who a glued to their phones and other screens anyway, the pandemic has only increased that, so I hope for some it will be a beneficial thing to try.

And that's it for now.  I hope you have a good weekend.  I have no specific plans, just some ideas of things I'd like to try and get done.  But no specific deadlines or anything like that.  So I'm looking forward to just taking what comes and enjoying it.

I looked up a quote for the day, and this came up, so here you go:

"No one is perfect - that's why pencils have erasers."

Not a bad thing to keep in mind!  Take care, and I'll see you next week.

P.S. to friend and reader Alison - I hope you and yours are OK, I heard about the earthquake in New Zealand.  It sounded as if overall things were under control, but I hope that's really the case.  Take care!