very simple

In the Garden of Beasts: Love, Terror, and an American Family in Hitler’s Berlin by Erik Larson

It was interesting enough that I didn’t give up on it, but certainly nowhere near as captivating as Larson’s other books, and quite boring given the subject matter of the rise of Nazi Germany. Larson’s other books show a real dexterity in juxtaposing historical events with individual evils going on in the same place at the same time (i.e., Chicago serial killer during the Chicago Worlds’ Fair in Devil in the White City). Perhaps he thought that the inherent evil of the Nazis was enough to sustain the book, and in theory, it should have been, but it was just…flat. At a certain point, I just couldn’t give a crap about how many lovers Martha took or whether Ambassador Dodd got to work on another chapter of his book glorifying the racist antebellum south. Oh well.
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The knife man is one of those ‘only in New York’ (or perhaps even ‘only on the upper west side’) things that my friends who grew up in the city talk about. This guy drives around the neighborhood, waiting for people to bring downstairs knives, scissors, or anything else with a blade that needs sharpening, and then he sharpens them in his ever-more-antiquated truck. A service that only works in a community stacked with close neighbors who don’t drive.

In November, I went over to London to visit my brother (who is attending the London School of Economics), and my trip was documented by my posting a handful of photos while I was over there. And then the rest of my photos have been sitting on my computer for the last 4 months waiting for me to sit down for an hour and given them a good pass-through. I took hundreds, but here are the 40 or so that I thought were worth posting. Full images and descriptions when you click on the thumbnail.

Sometimes you really have to make sure to look up when you’re wandering around the city. The Chrysler building is my favorite piece of architecture in NYC, and tonight I took a different exit out of GCT and saw this.

One year ago today, I was unemployed but still trying to be optimistic, and I somehow ended up adopting a cat from my parents’ vet. I viewed this as eminently optimistic, because I wouldn’t have taken on the extra expense of another living being if I didn’t think things were going to turn around soon. Two months later, I got a job, and it’s still going strong.

Happy one year Sadie – you are a monster, but are most certainly my monster.

A new post!!

I know.  I’m a terrible terrible blogger.  And I’ve already posted this pic on twitter, but I was so struck by how it looked when I was waiting for the train home tonight that I felt compelled to take a picture of the sunset and save it somewhere with a bit more permanence than my twitter feed.

Happy new year everyone (all 6 of you who continue to read!). Due to the fact that, in my soul, I am an 83-year-old woman, I managed to fall asleep at about 10 last night, not even getting woken up by the fireworks at midnight. Assuming there were fireworks this year!?

While 2011 was certainly a better year than 2010, what with becoming a gainfully employed member of society again, I’m strangely glad for it to be over. Here’s looking forward to 2012, when we can finally disprove those mayan calendar prophesies once and for all!

London pics are still to be done, but there are just so many of them that it will be a while before I get through that much editing.

But today, I took a trip down to the 9/11 Memorial. I got my ticket a few months ago and had almost forgotten about it, but I didn’t want to let it go to waste (even though it was free, there is a lengthy wait since they’re limiting entrances). It was a little jarring to be in the middle of what is, essentially, a giant construction zone, but the memorial itself is just…beautiful and moving. And my ticket was for 4 pm, so i got to see the lights go on at dusk.

Some pictures…

On Monday, I decided to go super-tourist and spent the day taking tours of the tower of London, which is one of the few things I hadn’t actually seen in my many prior trips to this city. On Tuesday, I met up with my brother in camden town, where we got lunch and I proceeded to take zero pictures. But I did stop at covent garden on my way back and snapped a few shots there. I also met up with some colleagues from my new job for drinks last night, and may now be regretting the bottle of wine we split. But that was quite fun as well.

The tower was actually quite fun. The beefeaters who give the free tours are clearly chosen for their personalities, because our guide was a complete blast. As usual, pictures of the full days will get posted when I’m home, but here’s a sampling of a beefeater guarding the jewel house and an entrance at covent garden.

Today, my brother was very excited to take me to borough market, which is essentially the green market on the south side of the Thames. Of course, remembrance Sunday put a damper in those plans, as pretty much everything was closed. Including the train to take me to borough station, forcing me (the horror) to walk from Bank station, where I accidentally emerged at street level in the middle of some sort of procession/parade across London bridge. Which was, in actuality, quite lovely.

So then, in search of something to see and/or eat, we ended up walking all the way down Thames walk to black friar bridge, back across, and taking a tour of LSE, before having a classic pub lunch.

Again, more pictures will follow once I arrive home, but today’s photo of the day is the view of the millennium bridge and st. Paul’s. And I didn’t even edit this. It’s really this beautiful out here.