Musings

We start and end the photo-day with market moments. Here’s the morning periodic market nearest us. This vendor offers dried fruits and nuts.

Elsewhere it’s pack-up time. Look at these gorgeous cabbages.

Nearby, the machinery waits to make all pristine again. As if the Saturday-market never was here. In Mexico, this function would be performed by a squad of men with ill-fitting boots and brooms made from twigs.

Moving on, I’m assuming freezing temps are rare here (duh), as otehrwise there’d be sewage backups on the upper floors.

Came across this demonstration that seemed to indicate that “animals” need to be elevated in importance. They are more imporant living creatures than plants? I am confused…okay to kill plants but not critters? I struggle with these arguments.

We kept walking.

Presto! We’ve logged another Apple store!

And onward to a chronologically later neighborhood, with straight streets and vertical-walled buildings. Seems rigid after “our” part of the city (and its web of narrow streets). And beautiful in its away.

Looming church tower. They do that.

Jump in time to…our fancy dinner out. This is the Guru’s appetizer, tartare de sauman Gravlax. Salmon with cukes in large, artsy chunks, with a side of leafy greens. Our main courses were lamb shank (him), and simple stewed beef over polenta pavings (me)—both super yummy.

Working our way homeward, we found plazas of tables and boisterous merrymakers. Saturday night, ya know, and a lovely evening it is!

With elegant plane tree branches above.

Just had to include this…choices at Monop’ checkout (just to the left) this evening: champagne or cactus. Some humor there, in the stocking crew.

Posted at 4:29 PM | Comments Off on Market…to…market

We landed in Paris’s airport, and, while taxiing, the pilot welcomed us with the info that it was 28°F out. Brrr! We walked through the terminal for the usual miles of corridors to Customs and baggage claim (no snags either place), finally reaching the area we sought. We watched the dawn light reach the train station just as we did. Handy to be able to switch from airplane to train under the same (extended) roof.

We saw that the fields were still flooded from winter/spring rains. Some bits of ice-glazing among the migratory waterfowl…brrr.

As always, with fast-train photography, trees hopped in front of the lens at the moment of capture.

We saw this bluff for some miles, seeming like it was urging us southward. We crossed many rivers, and this is before we began crossing the Rhône.

Thanks to geolocation by the Guru, we now know this was Éguilles. That accented e means say “eh,” and usually indicates that at some time long ago, there was a consonant following it that is now “gone.” Gone consonant. Language evolution.

Of course, trains must run along near-level routes, so we saw bridges and cuts.

Aha! Welcome to Marseille. No “s” at the end as in the Midwest. Another case of missing consonants? Perhaps, no, ADDED consonants. The breaks in the letters are deliberate, to look like marble, perhaps?

We walked west from the train station, and by this major architectural feature. In western architecture history, whence comes the arch? The Romans surely loved them. Didn’t the much earlier Sumerians use them, too?

See that corner balcony? That’s off our main living floor. Yes, our apartment has two living floors, the main one, and a sleeping loft. AND above that is a terrace, surrounded by potted plants and incredibly lovely. Let me say that the stairs and ladders are interesting terrain for a recovering foot. [Yes, I holler down to the Guru, I am being VERY careful!

Settled in our apartment, we head out to enjoy the final light of the day, highlighting the facade of the cathedral…

…and backlighting the Giant Ferris Wheel so many cities consider de rigour these days. Curious cultural juxtaposition to have the cathedral and wheel face each other (as it were).

A final stop at our neighborhood bakery for quiche and several dough (dough and cheese—like pizza, tasty sauce; dough and veg and sardine bits—surprisingly salty and yummy) combos. This one is for with coffee tomorrow.

About tomorrow, late post because we have been up since ATL, except for short train naps. My fitness device shows steps for all hours since midnight, except for one on the plane when I was watching “Three Billboards…,” and one when I napped on the train. At days’ end, we managed to download the photos and quickly flip through them, but no dice on the brain-power to get them posted and compose words. So, these words come from tomorrow….

Posted at 4:22 PM | 1 Comment »

Today we left causeway-world. But not before we did important things.

Like playing with the macro lens.

Including looking at an eroded sand dollar, complete with sand grains.

We watched birds, including the cruising small-packs of pelicans.

There was of course lots of laughing and some tale-telling. We read, we relaxed. Life was darned pleasant.

Just as we were organizing ourselves in the parking lot to depart, a rainbow section emerged.

Sigh. And now the salt-water coast is behind us.

Posted at 11:17 PM | Comments Off on Bittersweet ultimate

The title is apt for our day; we did cover some ground. We also kinda went underground through this tunnel. I could not even read the last line of the sign “No trucks except standard height…” because, irony of ironies, truck-roofs had so damaged it that the letters have been bashed to near-oblivion.

We also went through tunnels of trees. The green is beginning to pop. (Apologies for the insect grease.)

Then we made it to the ocean! Yay, Atlantic! Substantial marine layer for after noon…. Thanks, K!

Southbound, we dodged some serious traffic, as the Day-tone-uh race (rrrrrrrr) was underway as we slipped south past it, keeping thousands of vehicles in actual parking lots and not out on the roads. Above we could see the Wingfoot One, but without the customary Goodyear name…and instead a hashtag advertising a Goodyear ad-video that will premier tomorrow.

Safely past the motor mecca, we headed for a place that advertised it’s fine view. Walking through the parking lot, we were glad we found a regular space, as apparently handicapped vehicles get special avian…attention…the kind that can damage the paint job.

Turns out the restaurant gave us seats to a terrific sunset show, and decent enough food. Won’t go back, but it was perfect for this evening.

Tired, we reached our destination. Yawn. G’night.

Posted at 9:08 PM | Comments Off on Covered some ground

Rural small towns in the Deep South: you will find churches, but not usually this large and fancy.

You will also find evidence that there used to be more buildings.

Go far enough south, and you will see Spanish moss (not a moss at all) festooning the trees, often oaks.

Monocropping trends towards trees and…

…cotton (decorative sample). Also pecans and sometimes peanuts (neither pictured).

The soils tend to be sandy, sometimes nearly white. You may see horse hoofprints.

And you know you’re in a small town when the restaurant puts the game to keep the kids occupied out in the street.

* (Chinese) Happy New Year!

Posted at 9:05 PM | Comments Off on Gung Hei Fat Choi!

This story-of-the-day’s-walk is self explanatory and has no plot: Look! A Dekay’s brown snake! Right there!

The other story takes longer to write although I took it in in about three glances. I have no picture* for it—too scary-sad for my personal taste. We were walking down a side street—no traffic, and the road was smoother than the sidewalks. And I saw up ahead lots of small pieces of broken, rotten branches. I said, oooooh, I’m not walking right there; looks like that tree is shedding! Then I realized that the small black car parked along the curb had four star-breaks in the windshield—thankfully, not broken all the way. But.

* In the kale-substitute photo, I quite how the droplets are lensing the sky above….

Posted at 6:58 PM | Comments Off on No moguls here

To me, both of these photos could spur a great story. Several, yes? First, the companionable, colorful, unoccupied chair trio….

And this one…. It’s hard to figure, no? At first glance, abstract shapes, but not regular. Turns out the grayish features are the surfacing, struggling roots of a good-sized tree trapped between a sidewalk and curb perhaps two feet apart—struggling to obtain water, nutrients, and whatever is “goodie” to a tree. Between the roots are moss and pockets of twigs and dried leaves…a forgotten, ignored mini-landscape.

Posted at 6:41 PM | Comments Off on Compose a story

Part of the winter mode includes the dry husks of last year’s maturation processes…in this case a tulip poplar husk.

On the other end of the spectrum—these Daphne buds ready to spring into early…spring.

Posted at 9:02 PM | Comments Off on Time lines

Light and shadow…analogous to the stock market today?

Posted at 9:02 PM | Comments Off on Dunno

Yeah, there’s still snow. And the birds might well be confused…as in: where’re the tasty bits that were here the other day?

Confused about days myself. Monday was a holiday. Tuesday was distorted because it was the first work-weekday (and yet not a Monday), and a snowstorm loomed. The snow came in the Wednesday wee hours and Wednesday…so, city closed down. Today, city still “paralyzed” by snow and ice. But today is supposed to be warmer…and it can only be another distorted weekday. Right?

So, how do you describe this week? The work-week* part of it?

* Are work-weeks real after all? Seems to me that most of my jobs had weekday- and weekend-paced days, but all were capable of being days I worked.

Posted at 7:54 PM | 1 Comment »