very simple

I wasn’t sure if I was going to go to the NYC women’s march this year. Between the dueling group infighting last year, the focus on elections rather than just general “protest” this year, and the fact that it was going to be bitterly cold in New York today, I was wavering. But then I read about how the National Archives (the goddamn national archives) had “edited” (aka censored) official photos from the original women’s march to blur out criticism of the orange menace, and I just…well, there’s always something new to get me out the door. (yes, there’s a typo. no, twitter STILL doesn’t have an edit button)

I was debating going to this year’s match, but clearly SOMEONE needs to take photos that this piece of shit administration won’t alter to protect trump’s fragile ego. + https://t.co/7N7AKlwDCG

— sam (@verysimple) January 18, 2020

So anyway, here’s photos from this year’s march. it was bitterly cold, and it started snowing A LOT right in the middle, so that made it even more fun. but the National Archives can’t get their grubby, co-opted edit button on these.

Two separate trips to the high line over the past month. First, in mid-April, some of my long-lost cousins from Israel were in town, so we spent some time together, including a trek on the high line. That was much more about spending time together than getting good photos (and wrangling ten family members on a gorgeous holiday weekend, including toddlers, will throw a wrench in ANY artistic endeavors!). Second was last weekend – the weather was supposed to be wretched, but it ended up not raining (unlike today), so I decided to take advantage of the surprise good weather and spend some time in the open air again.

The two walks were only three weeks apart, but its quite remarkable how much more green there was on the second trip – you can see the distinction from the first few photos, where the trees are barely blooming and the grasses are still mostly brown and barely grown-in, and then the latter photos, where everything is just an absolute explosion of greenery. It’s really no wonder my allergies have been completely haywire for the past few weeks.

beacon theater marquee mere seconds before the skies opened up in a torrential downpour.

Because I got my new camera during this period, I was taking more “real” pictures, so pure instagram posts were a little sparser. but Sadie the cat is ever present, as are some travel-related pics and some minor clues as to my political leanings.

As I mentioned a few posts ago, on Memorial Day weekend I took the new camera out for a spin to Coney Island. The trip was somewhat dampened by this bizarre fox/haze that rolled in halfway through my wandering down the boardwalk, which you can see halfway through the photos here – I lost any sort of visibility, and it was just…weird. I actually thought there was a fire, but couldn’t find any information online either then or later, except for some other folks on twitter also commenting on the weirdness of the whole thing. Apparently there was supposed to be a blue angels air show that afternoon, but no one could see anything because of the haze. Oh well.

This is a massive photography catchup, going back to october. I didn’t post a lot of photos in general that month, so i figured I would wait another month, and then things just got away from me. And as with anything, the longer one waits to catch up, the harder it gets to actually do the work. So now that February has ended, I’m biting the bullet today and getting everything through the end of the latest month up. pre-spring cleaning, shall we say. As always, this wouldn’t be a roundup of my instagram without coffee and cats. plus subway kvetching, pretty much the entirety of winter this year (of which there wasn’t much), and some more baking experiments.

I never got around to posting my instagram pics from july, so I’m posting everything from july and august together, now that we’re heading into labor day weekend. Pics include my normal subway related fare, snapshots from my trip to wyoming and mini trip to the botanical garden, the cat (of course), and some culture by way of the most anticipated, awesome show on broadway right now.

non subway-project subway photos, fireworks, the high line, and pride month. It was June.

Today is officially the last day of my winter vacation. Sure, there’s still the weekend, but I (almost) always get the weekend off, so it doesn’t really feel like it counts in the same way. This last day of leisure coincided quite well with this year’s giant snowstorm. I refuse to call it Hercules, because naming snowstorms is stupid. My week-and-a-half off consisted of cleaning out my closets, long-scheduled doctor’s appointments, discovering that my fridge died (with the consequent throwing out all my food, spending an entire day waiting for the repair guy, and buying all new food), and finding out that our family’s beloved jack russell terrier, Ollie, passed away.

But I got to sleep late, so that’s…something. In any event, common sense lost the battle this morning and I headed over to central park and bethesda fountain for some picture taking. I don’t know if I was too early or too late (or the kids had more common sense than me), but there was a distinct lack of sledding kids compared to years past. I’m still working the chill out of my face and hands.

There’s not a lot of actual color in my parents’ garden yet, but things have started to bloom. Including the apple trees. We haven’t had apples in a few years because there seems to be an unpleasantly timed frost every year that kills everything off, but this year…no frost.

Baby apples:

bonus purple flower: