A Day Out

Kedrin's friend Dennis visited from LA.
I spent the day with both of them.

We went to the Met but I got there first, so I sent this picture to Kedrin to make sure she felt spied on.

Dennis has never been to The Met before.

We took him around.

I also brought Rebel (my Canon DSLR) out with her macro lens, but those pictures are still on the memory card and I'm too lazy to get them for this post.

We went up to the roof garden.

Dennis and I had 2 cocktails on the roof.
The Met makes pretty fantastic overpriced cocktails! 

They do not skimp.

Obligatory visit to my Memling.

Neither Dennis nor I had coins to make wishes but Kedrin did, so she financed our desires.
I think a train ran over this quarter.

After The Met we went to Carmines for stuffed artichokes and eggplant parm.
Carmine's has the best eggplant parm in the whole world.

This was enough for the three of us, and Kedrin took some home.

(Carmine's is family style)

I haven't been out like this for a long time.  

It was a nice day, a little spendy, but I guess it's good to do that sometimes.

Besides, tomorrow is Terrible August so I need to prepare.

86 Degree Fleece & I think I Know Why I can't Paint

I am absolutely shocked that I made the 11:20 ferry over to Governor's Island today.

Because I overslept and woke up at 9!

Kedrin and I worked the desk and had fun with our visitors.

There were fantastic clouds on the island.

It was 86 degrees out today.

I need to do laundry, because clothing that gets wet from the Hudson River absolutely cannot be re-worn, although I made a one-time exception with my volunteer shirt today.

So all my regular boathouse/summer leggings are in the laundry.

I found another clean pair and got dressed quickly.

The day was hot but I was ok until mid-afternoon when I went for a restroom break.

And I discovered the clean leggings I was wearing were actually my fleece-lined ones.

No wonder they were still clean.

After that I felt about 10 degrees hotter than I did before this knowledge, and it was rather brutal.

I do not recommend wearing fleece-lined leggings in 86 degree weather.

***********

I had a nice chat with my art-friend Janet (from the Reuters art group) tonight.

Now I think I know why I can't paint.

It's stress about my website and prints and... basically taking things to the next stage... which I have no clue how to do.

I'm stressed about the prints I have had done, one is still not right and I'm feeling very overwhelmed.
And while the printer I'm using is also the same printer that several of my friends use and love, I'm having a rocky start. She changed the exposure on my file on the second version and it's too light.  She thought my file would print too dark and it's too light and I can't compare my version with what hers was because she only printed the one she changed.

I want to work well with her, I think maybe I'm going through that beginner initial period and I know she's good at what she does but I have to pay for all the mistakes. I need to get it right on my end.

I think she might have a bit of a quirky personality which takes some getting used to.  I can somewhat understand this because I know I can come across the same way unintentionally... 

Janet has gone through the initial prints from the ground up, I have a better knowledge of photography and editing than she did when she started, but I still need to learn some stuff. nd I had to bite the cost and get a colorimeter for my monitor.

My second print on Topiary Cats: Fearless was SO CLOSE, the color was good but it was to light and I'm just frustrated the printer made changes to make it lighter and it is too light. And she printed wothout borders despite very obvious specific instructions to print with borders.... and if I was being confusing (remember I'm new to this) she didnt ask clarifying questions.

So I'm stressed and annoyed.

I also STILL have not done anything with my intro year of FASO FROM JANUARY.

Website and printing, it's stressing me right the heck out.

Janet is going throug these things too, although she hired someone to build her website whereas I built mine.

But I need to start an e-commerce option and I'm overwhelmed and stressed.

I think this is why I can't paint, because thinking about it goes directly to these related stressors.
And my brainpower to process new info is at a bare minimum these days.

Ugh.

Sunset at Pier 26

I love going to the boathouse, it's one of the nicest things that has come into my life.

It's really good to have somewhere fun to go where there are friends and nice people.

I enjoy the volunteering, the work, and learning new things.

Friday nights the boathouse is open for volunteers only.

We didn't do a trip today, it was a strange low-energy kind of evening.

So we just stayed in the embayment and then sat on the "porch" to watch for passing dogs and watch the sunset.

And eat pretzels.

We are, after all, an eating organization with a kayak disorder.

The sunset was pretty tonight... much better in-person than what a photo can capture.

My Focuser is Still Broken

I still can't really paint and it's been a long time now.

So I went to Leah's class tonight- I haven't gone in months- to say hi and see if I could soak up some art vibes.

I still cannot paint. At all.

All the things I know to do which usually fix this are not working.

I did play around with surfaces a bit and managed... this fantastic masterpiece....

Wow, amazing, right?

Here is Isis in a weird shape.

Some Good News

We got the MRI results back today, and there is no labral tear!!
I'm really glad about this.

The bad news is that Daya still has pain, but there's nothing to be done about it, it's just strained tendons.

This is part of her being a dancer.

Worst Video Game EVER

I went to the eye dr today.

He has a new visual field test. (I do one every year.)
It's basically VR goggles and... it talks to you.

It is the WORST video game ever in the whole entire universe.

Oh, if you have never done a visual field test, it goes like this: there is an orange dot that you stare at (or try to stare at, in my case) and there are light dots that blink in varying degrees of brightness. You get a remote control button that you press when you see a dot.

The visual field test used to be a huge cave-thing.

Now we have talking goggles.

The lady in the goggles complimented me for blinking.

She congratulated me for looking at the orange dot.

Life goals, people. 

Set that bar high.

She also yelled at me a lot.... ONLY click when you see a dot!

But as it turns out, I got the high score on the visual field test!

******

I told my wizard-eye-doctor (he really is a wizard) that the visual field test lady is the worst ever, which he heartily agreed with.

And then he asked me if I knew the game Goat Simulator....duh, yes of course!!

He loved that I know about Goat Simulator.

*****

I don't really mind going to the eye dr but it is pretty physically painful when my doctor shines his extremely bright headlamp into my eyes to look around.  

I told him it's almost as bad as the visual field lady.

He said many of his patients actually prefer the painful bright lights to the visual field lady.

I remain undecided, it's a hard call.

They are both pretty terrible.

If you have not played Goat Simulator, go do that now.

The Worst-Ever Meeting

There was a LaGuardia meeting tonight for dance.
It was terrible.

All the studios had these meetings, and apparently they were all equally terrible.

I dislike the principal, she has a weird agenda that isn't helping the school.

The dance department is still amazing though.

Daya's picture was at the beginning of the presentation. :)

I can't believe she'll be a senior.

Aside from being an obvious push-through of a strange principal agenda, the meeting was a complete snooze-fest. Not Advil PM level, we're talking prescription sedative. 

It knocked Pebbles right out.

MRI #3

Daya had her third MRI today to confirm or figure out what's going on with her hip... if there is a labral tear or not.

The MRI took 8 minutes.

Schrödinger's Kayak

It was so hot today.
Hot enough to do self-rescue in the Hudson.

We really just wanted to swim so it was all under the guise of swimming.

Friends don't let friends fall into the Hudson River alone....

I can officially self-rescue in three different boats!

Bitz wanted to swim laps with a kayak tied to her, so I made her job more difficult and got in the kayak.  She didn't even care. It was like I wasn't even in the kayak.  Was I in the kayak or not in the kayak?

We actually did learn something of value while swimming... Bitz was paddling around and Ed, Kedrin and I decided to hold on to her boat.  You know, to make her life easier. We basically formed a human chain holding onto the front of her kayak.

This is actually a rescue technique (for one person not three) where if you need to rescue someone they can hold the front of the boat with their legs and arms, kind of upside down, while you paddle them to safety.

After swimming training in the river, we sat at the boathouse "porch" to watch the sunset and all the dogs that come buy for pets and treats.

Swamp Cats

The disgusting heat wave is still happening.

As of this writing Daya is in an airplane still in Chicago waiting to take off.  There are major delays.

As long as the flight doesnt get cancelled we are ok.

The cats prefer swamp-air to air conditioning. All three of them.
(Although my ac cannot keep up with this heat at all.)

Isis is a Swamp Cat.

Furball has a spot between Daya's bed and the wall. 

and.... Daya's plane just took off!

Little Island from a Kayak

Tonight I went on the Friday Night boathouse trip.
We went up to Little Island. 

The water was beautiful and perfect.

There was a concert happening at Little Island and we listened for a while from the water.