very simple

These are actually leftover Chanukah candles – I buy a box every year with the best of intentions to make it through all eight nights, and then, inevitably, I get stuck at work or simply fall down on the job. Of course, they give you EXACTLY the amount of candles you need for the eight nights, so you still need to go out the next year and buy another box.

There are times when you think…maybe my parents don’t know me at all. And then there are times when they give you a birthday card with a picture of a cosmopolitan on the front and you think…maybe they know me too well. In any event. It’s my birthday. had a lovely dinner with my parents at a new place in the ‘hood. and now I’m home and thinking that maybe actually drinking that cosmopolitan wasn’t the brightest idea on a school night. Nah. It was great.

Purse hook. And another circle.

I’m sure I posted another photo of this for an earlier 365 project, but hey, I’m not proud. I’m also trying to not be a hoarder, so my tchochke supply is not unlimited. One of the many random classic cameras I’ve found over the years. The last time I attempted to use it (in college) it actually worked, but it’s become substantially harder to find film for such antiquities in the years since the advent of digital. So it just sits on a shelf looking cute.

The girl sitting next to me at the cafe this morning was very diligently creating her own note cards, so I asked if I could take a picture. We ended up getting into a whole discussion of 365 projects and what she was doing as well, in terms of trying to be creative.

Then, as a bonus, as I was getting up to leave, she handed me a card of my own (with a lovely note inside)! Totally made my day.

They’ve started naming snowstorms now, which is generally stupid, but does make for easier blog post naming. New York City got spared the brunt of nemo, which hit most of the northeast with 2-3 feet of snow. But we still got about a foot. My goal was to wake up bright and early to take pictures before the melting/shoveling started in earnest, but thanks to the diligent efforts of the workers in my building last night, I didn’t get much sleep. Don’t get me wrong – I totally appreciate their efforts and wouldn’t have it any other way, but the all-night shoveling wasn’t exactly…quiet. I was finally able to get a few hours of sleep when they switched to the snowblower – for some reason the constant drone was easier to block out. So I got late start.

In any event, traditional snow day jaunt into central park to see it before it all turns into a slushy mess. First picture is the “official” 365 photo, the rest are just, well, the rest.

another week, another cat picture. I know I should be posting pictures of the absolutely ridiculous snowstorm we’re currently getting hit with, but that can wait until tomorrow morning when i have time to go to the park. if the snow has buried the first floor of my building, of course.

Recently I decided to do some living room revamping. It’s slow-going, mainly because I decided to actually plan out where I wanted to move all of the furniture rather than simply moving everything on a whim and hoping for the best. But as part of that plan, I decided to get a new sound system. my old stereo was finally in its death throes, with the not responding to remotes anymore, and only two of the inputs actually still working, and one of the speakers being dead. Not to mention the ridiculous amount of space a 6 speaker plus receiver system takes up in a small apartment. so i went with a sound bar. two pieces. as a bonus, the one I got actually acts has a subwoofer that as a receiver for all of my HDMI tv inputs, switching between them, and only requires me to have one HDMI input into the television. This solves my other lingering “older technology” problem of having an 8-year old TV (state of the art when purchased!) with only one HDMI input.

of course, in order to ship an oddly shaped sound bar, they filled the remainder of the shipment box with oddly sized empty other boxes. so Sadie is in cat/cardboard box heaven.

My neighborhood has gotten significantly swankier in recent years, with our wine bars and apple stores, but this corner remains the same as ever.

Some new folks bought the apartment across the hall from me. I haven’t actually gotten to meet them yet, but strangely, they seem friendly already.

(I do think it’s a little odd to stick this on the outside of your front door in an otherwise boring, staid, pre-war condo, but it brightens up the place considerably so, hola!)

For some reason (probably because they’re short trains) they only do this on the shuttle between Grand Central and Times Square – they wrap the entire train in an advertisement for something. usually it’s some sort of product like the Microsoft Surface tablet or Tropicana Orange Juice, but today we got an advertisement to entice us to go golfing in scottsdale, arizona. It wasn’t particularly tempting, but if these seats had actually been tufted, rather than just the disappointing image of tufting, I might have been intrigued.