Goodbye 2016, good riddance

It's the last day of the year. Cold, slightly cloudy with small glints of sun peeping through the clouds. Kind of like this past year. It was a very bad year for me personally and I'd like to say I'm optimistic about the year ahead but I'm very wary. We'll just have to wait and see. Prepare for the worst and hope for the best.
I took a long walk around the village this afternoon, winding my way by the high school, down my favorite block (Suffolk), by the library and whaling museum, into town, down Bay Street, ending up at Havens Beach. I was there all alone and took this last view of the bay. It pretty much reflects my mood...lonely, but looking forward, seeing a stormy future, waiting to see where fate leads us...

December 31, 2016

The unthinkable

Like the biggest, most horrible lump of coal to land in anyone's holiday stocking, the unimaginable happened to our little town this week: our iconic and beloved Sag Harbor Cinema was completely destroyed by cruel winter fire.
Words are hard to come by to convey the empty space in my heart left by this tragedy. I feel like there's a hole inside me that won't go away. Everyone had such fondness for this unique building. Not only was it a clear signpost that said "you are in Sag Harbor!" but it was a fine example of understated Art Deco architecture in the midst of all the "ye olde" whaling look of the rest of Main Street and the village proper. It stood out...but gracefully so.
And now it's gone.
The powers that be have ruled out arson...but no one's sure (at this date anyway) just how it started. The fire took several other buildings on either side of the Cinema too.
After the initial shock and the realization that the whole facade had to come down for safety reasons, your mind rushes to "what happened to the sign?". Thankfully, they were able to save the letters and it's safely in storage for that hopeful day that they rebuild and put them back in their rightful place at the heart of the village.
Here's a picture I took the day after it happened as I got off the bus.



And here are a series of other shots from the web showing the devastation and the saving of the sign.

A cottage Christmas

It's not Christmas without a little holiday decor to brighten the mood this time of year.
Of course you have to have a tree.
I do a tabletop one and put it in the TV room on the low console by the front windows that face the screened in porch.
What's funny is that it ends up looking the same every year because I use the same ornaments. I make them myself from old Christmas cards. You glue twenty little circles together cut from the cards. It's time consuming but well worth the effort when you're done. Eighteen Christmases later and I've built up quite a collection. They're all different sizes with different loops at the top. I like the idea that each year the tree is a reflection of all the Christmases past, from well-wishing cards from family and friends.



My next treasured piece is a nativity set that I made myself a few years ago. It's wooden. I made it from a nice thick piece of pine plank. What's cool about it is that all the figurines fit together int he main manger shape just like a puzzle. It's a great design that I found on the internet and copied. It's minimalist and cool. I love it. I add a few clippings of the Christmas tree for added texture.



In the dining room sideboard where I set up the nativity I also add small ornaments to the 'trinket tree' that sits there...small red ornaments and various other small ones. It's nice to have another 'Christmas tree' in that part of the house when I'm in the dining room and kitchen cooking and eating.



My latest paper maché project is a reindeer head that I place in a wreath to hang in the window of the dining room.  No animals were hurt in the making of this project!




I also like to outfit the fireplace room. What's a hearth without a stocking hanging from the mantle? I've had this needlepoint one for years.





I hang a red berry wreath on the over-mantle, the color works well in that room.



And the little deer head made of cast iron gets a small wreath and ribbon, it hangs over the mirror by the front door.



Last but not least, I put this snowman ornament on the bedroom window sill for a touch of holiday in that room too.



Decked out with all this, "it's beginning to look a lot like Christmas"!

The crazy double nickel birthday

I turned 55 this weekend.
I've been working on a pitch for a prospective client and I was worried that I'd have to spend this weekend in the city working. But as luck would have it, I was able to spend 3 whole days out at the house.
I got out late Thursday night. I went to start the car on Friday to go into town and get groceries. Dead. I knew this would happen. As soon as we started getting freezing temps and that car was sitting in the driveway for a week or two weeks, I knew the battery would go. This used to happen every winter when I kept my first car in the driveway. It's a bummer. I'm thinking that I won't even attempt to get it jumped until the Spring. I'll just have to walk into town for errands. In the snow. UGH. It is what it is.
But Saturday was my big day and I was gonna make hay of it.
First off, I slept late. Yay.
Second, I made pancakes and sausage for breakfast. Yum.



Then I made one of my favorite meals, crock pot beef stew. I had bought all the fixings the day before and if you get all the ingredients in the pot by 11:00 or so, you'll have a hearty meal by dinnertime. Beef, celery, carrots, potatoes, a little onion, beef broth, A1 sauce for flavor, and a little garlic is all you need. It's a great hearty winter meal.



I also made a pumpkin pie for desert, I couldn't resist. It's probably the last one of the season.



Then I spent the afternoon just chilling in front of the fire with a good book, Stephen King's "Finders Keepers". It's a page turning thriller.



Then I ended my day with a really good movie, "Bridge of Spies" with Tom Hanks and directed by Steven Spielberg.



It was a good day.
Then Sunday I decided I needed to do a lot of chores, chief among them was cleaning out the fall leaves from the gutters.
I went to get the wheelbarrow from the side of the house along with the step ladder. I had done the gutter over the back deck and when I went back to the side of the house something gave me a jolt, I even let out a little scream. It was a big fat dead RACOON!



It was just peacefully lying there, dead as a doornail. It didn't look as if it had been there long. My first thought was to throw it over the fence but then I thought that come Spring it would start to reek. I decided to get a big contractor trash bag that was partially filled with leaves and weeds and cardboard and dispose of it in there. I put it in the trashcan and the garbage men would haul it away unbeknownst. He was solid as a rock, probably a combination of rigor and frozen. And he was heavy, at least 15 pounds! I'm probably breaking some town ordinance but if i'd have called any sort of pest control I know they'd charge me at least a hundred bucks to take the carcass away and I just can't afford that right now. The one thing I do know is that I definitely know what my spirit animal is. They say your animal finds you. Well, after the raccoons in the attic, my anagram name ("STILL RACOON"), my paper cache project, and now this, there's no denying it.
I also went upstairs to check on the attic mousetraps. There was one in a snap trap and another in a glue trap. I hadn't seen that one before. I hadn't set out a glue trap in ages, I think that little guy was pretty desiccated. It was good to get rid of him.
So net/net, the garbage can had THREE dead animals in it. Weird. What a loony way to end my birthday weekend, huh?

Happy Thanksgiving

Well, it was pretty much a turkey of a year for me personally (and for the country politically)...that said, I still have lots to be thankful for...family, friends, health, and not the least of which is my cute little cottage. It continues to bring me solace and joy throughout the seasons. I still can't believe I'm privileged enough to have a home in this lovely little community. Here's to a wonderful holiday season for everyone.

Village art

The Grenning Gallery, a small art gallery in Sag Harbor, posts a lot of their paintings and sculptures to Instagram. You can see their feed here.




These two paintings caught my eye. It's so lovely to see our beautiful little town rendered through the eyes of an artist. Just this week I saw not one, but two artists with their easels up on Main Street painting village streetscapes. I wonder if one of them was this artist, Irina Rybakova?

Main Street by Irina Rybakova

Madison Street by Irina Rybakova

Dia de los muertos

It's the Mexican holiday "Day of the Dead", or "Dia de los Muertos".
I did a little drawing on my phone's Sketch app to honor the day...and the memory of all our late loved ones...

Ya gotta have heart (finale!) #papermachéheart

It's finally done...and I'm thrilled with  the way my paper maché sculpture of a human heart, I call it "El Corazon", turned out. I must say the Cardinal Red I used on the main body was such a delicious choice. It looks like a ripe red apple that you just wanna take a bite out of. And, of course, the Mod Podge simply makes the whole thing, it's the finishing touch that sends it over the top. Here are a series of pictures. It's SO fitting that it was completed on Halloween, right?
















I realized as I was painting it that it reminded me of the heart card, "El Corazon",  from the classic Mexican Bingo game, "Loteria", that every TexMex kid grows up with.



So I did up my own version of it...I think it's pretty close! All I need is the arrow!

Smashing pumpkins

I made the tastiest pumpkin break yesterday. I like everything pumpkin this time of year. And nothing beats a slice of moist pumpkin bread with a scoop of vanilla ice cream on top. YUM.



Another funny thing happened yesterday...I was in the kitchen working on my computer at the kitchen counter. I kept smelling a feint odor of cat pee. It was driving me nuts. I don't have a cat. I thought dead mouse? In the basement? No, there was nothing in the crawl space under the dining room. It wasn't the houseplants by the window. I couldn't figure it out. Then all of a sudden it caught my eye (AND my nose): it was one of the little pumpkins in the compote dish on the dining table! It had totally rotted underneath and was leaking rotten pumpkin water THAT SMELLED JUST LIKE BAD CAT PISS! Gross!! But it actually made me happy to figure out what it was.

Ya gotta have heart pt. 2

The painting of the heart has gone very slowly...but it's been worth it, I think it's looking quite good.
I just have one or two more coats of the deep red color on one side and I'll be finished. Then it's on to the Mod Podging!