Cityscape

This is the view from my kitchen window.

This is the view from my living room window. A couple years back I was organized and planted some flowers on the fire escape. I guess it's illegal but I needed some life in all the concrete.

I have since brought all of the African Violets I had at home into my office. They stopped flowering at home and I have a window in my office so I put them there. They are all flowering again. Sometimes my apartment can get a little dark. 

I get about an hour of sunlight a day inside my apartment...when it's actually sunny out.

Today it is cloudy once again and we have the remnants of a hurricane/tropical storm eroding our beaches up and down the coast. Hello sea level rise.


The radiator in that picture goes on in October (actually this year it came on a few times in September) and doesn't go off until May. I keep a window open through most of the winter. If I don't it will get to about 80 degrees inside. I spoke to the super about turning it down and he said it is set according to what the law requires. Even if it is supposed to get to 70 degrees outside the radiator is on. 


This is part of the reason why we're heating up the planet...because we have laws that require radiators to be on during certain time periods, regardless and we don't have laws that require upgraded systems that detect temperature variations well enough to be efficient. Then people like me, who can't stand heat, are forced to open their windows and let all the heat out, thereby wasting all that energy and causing increased emissions, blah, blah, blah. Sigh.


This year I got way too busy and didn't plant any flowers. I just have empty planters out on the fire escape. It was a little depressing. I'm bound and determined to plant them in the spring.  We'll see how that goes.

2 Stops Away

I caught these after my rehearsal last night.

23rd St.






42nd St.

Before & After L&O SVU

You're so far away...

I am SO far away from here...


...just to be here


That's the front door to my building. No I don't live in the Ascot Hotel. Law & Order SVU did a shoot in my building about a month ago and they made up the entrance and lobby like a fleabag hotel. Normally, there are no signs and there is no graffiti (the Christmas lights and fake garland are ALWAYS there - it is Washington Heights, after all); it's just a red lattice door. The episode that was supposed to contain my building aired last night but the scene with my building got cut. Dang! I thought, well if I can't get into it yet, at least my building can. Nope!

I shot pictures of the inside after they dressed it up. Tonight I'll shoot some photos of the lobby how it normally looks and post some before and after photos. It was kinda fun to see it all go down.


EDIT: Apparently they did show it but in a different episode. It was Espisode #7, called "Users" and it aired the week before.  I was in a rehearsal and missed it...dang! They don't stream but here's a 2 minute replay. You can see the front of the building at the top of the replay. You have to wait for a commercial to run first.

Happy Veteran's Day

My Parent's House

My cat was getting lonely at home all by herself so I sent her to stay with my parents for a few months. My parents have a lot of animals. At last count they had 3 dogs, 2 cats, 5 birds, 1 tortoise, 1 iguana, 2 bearded dragons, a couple of fish and a bunch of snakes. My nephew is responsible for bringing most of the animals into the house, but he quickly lost interest in all of them and they became my parent's (mostly my mother's) responsibility. My mother also puts food out for the black vultures and buzzards that live in their area. There is a flock that waits in the morning for my mother to come outside and then they follow her around the yard like she's the kool-aid mom handing out cookies.

Strange things happen between the animals in and around my mother's house. One of the dogs, Bear, will often lie outside on the porch with the vultures and buzzards hanging out around him. My mother told me that last week he was wandering around the back yard and the birds were following him. Imagine a big Chow/Husky mix meandering through the yard with half a dozen vultures trailing behind him.

They have a black cat that they rescued from underneath a trailer when he was a very young kitten. Their dog Bear seemed to take responsibility for the kitten and now the cat thinks it's a dog. That cat follows Bear everywhere and cuddles up with him when they are all laying around the house at night.


The photo above shows my cat, Teddy, their dog Muffy and their tortoise, Speedy. When they got the tortoise she was about the size of the palm of an adult's hand. If you look at the photo above you can see that the tortoise is now bigger than the cat (who weighs in at about 14 pounds) and is as big as the little dog. The tortoise weighs in at about 40 pounds. Apparently they can grow to almost 100 pounds. Apparently the cat, the dog and tortoise all like to hang out in the warmth of the clip lamp together.


Oh and I haven't even told you about the bird that lives on my mother's shoulder and shares her tea with her in the morning. It aint natural.

Who Is It?

Your Mom!