Marie Javins's Blog, page 21

Feral #3

Meet Bart. Bart has shown up intermittently on the backyard camera for the last year. He's skinny and unpredictable. Gonna be tough to catch Bart. He's skittish and impulsive.* 

*Comic book reference. My apologies.

No Difference

Me in the morning: "I don't want to go to the pool. I don't want to ride the Citibike to the waterfront. Forget it. I've got stuff to do. I'm hungry. I want a shower."

Me when I convince myself to go to the pool, to ride the bike: "This is awesome! Why don't I do this every morning?"

Proving once again that no matter how weird I feel sometimes, I'm just like everyone else.

NYC Is Back, Baby

Manhattan got a new look over the last year and a half. 

I guess it’s not a new look. It’s an old look, vintage seventies. People love vintage.

Cave Life

City living!

Here's the iron grate under my stoop, the entrance to my little carved-out studio in Jersey City. I just had some work done on it and the iron monger's first words were "It's not pretty, is it?"

It's still not pretty but here's what changed:

The door now sits comfortably in the frame. Previously, I had to give it a firm push to open and close it. The rust is gone. There was a lot of rust.They added bars between bars as well as plates around the lock. Now I can get a locksmith to put a latch instead of a keyed lock inside so it's no longer a fire hazard. Previously, if I had a latch, a visitor could just have reached in and unlatched it.I had them leave out one bar so postal carriers/FedEx/UPS/etc can drop in small packages, such as comic books in padded envelopes. I get a lot of those.

Lifestyle Improvement

One side effect of the pandemic is it got me to use Jersey City Citibikes all the time.

These share-bikes changed how I view running errands and lollygagging. I can lollygag now because I don't need to wonder when the trolley or bus is coming.

I wouldn't ride them before because I was afraid of biking in traffic, but now we have bike lanes, many of them protected. Plus the bikes have automatic lights that click on at night.

Not sure I'd ever ride one in Manhattan, but they're pretty great on this side of the Hudson.

Sluggish

I found another creature in my yard. 

Hand-Building in Manhattan

 Here are some experiments from Sunday night hand-building pottery, as well as the start of a cat food bowl for a yard beast. I'm not sure I'll keep the uglier things. 

Not So Feral Anymore

I'm back in JC, where a startling new development has occurred in feral cat-land.

So long as I don't move my hand or try to pet him, Jay Garrick will eat a treat right from my fingers. But he'll only do this through the partially open window, not when my giant self is outside next to him.

Stopover in BCN

I spent a few days wandering around Barcelona. 

I have been here many times, even spent 3 months here in 2004--but every visit I find something new.

Last Look at Lisbon

Here are some more Lisbon photos.

Today, I took a tram up to the castle, but it broke down and I had to climb a lot of stairs instead. 

The view from the castle was lovely, and afterwards, I caught a bus to the metro to go see some architecture at a train station--same guy who designed the fish skeleton at the World Trade Center. Then it was off to the TimeOut market for some Portuguese food (something called a prego) and finally, a ride up the hill on one of the funiculars.