Panel Pile

It's September...already!

Wow!

Even August went by fairly quickly...

It doesn't feel like September, and in general time has felt... strange, different.

Accelerated in a strange way.

And if you want to hear something really odd--- I have only told this to Palma--- the way I make boiled eggs changed.  I like medium-boiled eggs, where the yolk is just set.

For MANY YEARS-like since pre-covid- same pot, same water, same type/size of eggs, same burner on the stove- everything- exactly the same only now it takes 10 minutes instead of 8, and that was an odd discovery.

It's possible that I'm crazy but I don't think I am.

In fact, I bet lots of other people have noticed little stuff like this and never mention it to anyone, unless they are fortunate enough to have weird friends who get it.

Anyhow.

It's September and the summer was good but strange at the same time.

Not everything happened that I was hoping for, and I didn't get everything done that I wanted to, but it's not worth stressing over.

2026 has been exponentially better than 2025 was, it's rumbling along on daily routines and I'm ok with that. I have had a lot of internal growth, personal stuff, shifting, and I know that never ends, but it has been intense lately.

It also appears I have painted through most of my panels...again.

Next week I'll have to do a Jerry's order... I'll be travelling (and painting) again this weekend.

A door & a long line & sunset

I wasn't allowed to take a picture of Daya's room, understandable since nothing was put together yet, and I hope she sends more pictures.

In the meantime, she did send a picture of her door.

It is a well-decorated door, except that it is missing Bob.

I let Daya know about this oversight.

After all, Bob basically got Daya into Juilliard.

(At the interview she was asked about an inspiring movie and hers was... What About Bob..)

*******

This week is the last weekday shifts of the public program.

Not many volunteers signed up, so I figured I'd go down and help out.

I spent the whole shift on patrol, and it was a good thing because otherwise everyone would have gotten stuck out of bounds against the wall. It was a harder patrol job than I thought it would be, but I got a lot of good exercise!

We had good clouds.

LOOK AT THIS LINE omg...

This photo was taken at 6:15pm, last boats should go out at 7, sunset was 7:38.

With the help we had for the shift plus the length of this line, this is about an hour and a half line.

I was SO GLAD I was not Keyholder responsible for making the decisions...

But if I was, I would have wrist-banded the whole line right at the start and avoided this altogether.

S didn't want to do that though, and since he was keyholder I said ok, I'm going on patrol.

At 7:18 there was still a LONG line with 20 minutes until sunset, and we tell people to stay out for 20 minutes.

I paddled to the dock and told S... hey, sunset is in 20 mins, we can't put all these people in line on the water.

I said I'm not going to be on the water with the public after sunset, it's not safe.

And I'm glad I wasn't the one who had to tell the many people who had been waiting that they couldn't go on the water.

I did, however, clear out the embayment nicely because I'm good at that.

Back to Juilliard

Daya was in Vancouver for three weeks dancing, and she landed yesterday after a very long voyage.
We went to Target to get stuff for her dorm room- she has a single this year. It's nice, and I hope she is happy and comfortable there. It's her senior year already!

She got me a present in Vancouver.

Wow!

She: I have to declare it at customs.
Me: is it... CHEESE???
She: No! I'm not carrying around stinky cheese for 24 hours!

Me: Not all cheeses are stinky....

She got me a wonderful handmade soap and honeys specifically made to pair with different teas!

How perfect is that!

I said to Daya... the jars can also be used for egg tempera pigments...

She said yeah, I thought of that too!

!!!!!

I'm surprised she thought of it to be honest... I'll have to tell Doug!

Here are some Juilliard dorm pics... I was not allowed to take a pic of her room.

The dorms are very nice. There is a double room in her suite that is REALLY nice- way nicer than the other doubles she has been in. Her single room is small but nice, it's laid out in a good way.

1.50 to wash! WOW!

I have these same washers in my building but it costs 2.90 to wash and 2.90 to dry.
This is the ONLY thing at Juilliard that is less expensive.

Nice common area:

The Pool, Central Park

I had today off from work, which was nice after the weekend.

I wanted to paint, but didn't have any definite plans, so I texted my friend Janette to see what she was up to and see if she wanted to paint.  She was up to nothing except painting, just like me, so we met in Central Park and painted the waterfall over by The Pool, W 103rd St-ish.

I painted in this very same spot back when I was a new plein air painter, in December 2009... it was good to be back!

8x10 oil, I took my new Rosemary brushes out to play!

They are AWESOME!

I started the painting out right with a size 12 flat!

When I got in the train to go meet my friend, I saw this sign, which I plan on ignoring completely.

I will never stop collecting paint!

DTBH 4th

I do not do the hotline on Saturdays or 4th of July.

But our scheduling person has a sparkly influence glamour or something, so I was on the Saturday 4th of July Overnight!

It worked out well with logistics and timing though and I didn't mind.... because it was a great day at the boathouse!

Because of the overnite shift, I missed the many 250th celebration happenings on the river in the morning.
It's ok, I didn't really mind.... I did see pictures of some very cool ships.

When I arrived I saw that Martin bought many new toys for the boathouse- including pool rafts and inflatable sprinklers...we tried putting one of the pool rafts on the jousting platform but it got lopsided and started to sink......

After being in the river, I was relaxing...the manager from the restaurant next door came over and asked if I would like a frozen margarita?

Um, yes please!

I'm pretty much off alcohol except rarely. 

My system doesn't like it anymore, but I could not say no to that!

Judy and I took the sunfish out!

That was... interesting.... because there wasn't enough wind.  

It was still fun tho.

Sailing! ---sort-of!

This year we were not allowed on the water for fireworks- 250th celebrations and security.

Stiil a great show!

Apparently, Jersey City likes to compete with the neighboring shows- and they do a great job!

Boofers!

This weekend was our whitewater kayaking trip on the Lehigh River, hosted by KCCNY, the Kayak & Canoe Club of NY.

Oh my gosh.

It was SO fun!

On Saturday we had theory and drills for river safety- defensive swimming, wet exits, boat-dancing to practice hip snaps, crossing eddies, ferrying, learning about reading the river. 

It RAINED ALL DAY.

Seriously, it was so, so cold. Aside from the cold rain, the day was awesome.

We had a good campfire back at camp with everyone.

Camp pics & boat fitting:

My tent.... i did miss my hammock but the tent was fine.

My tent was mostly water-proof, except around one edge.

We all thought the dry spot underneath was funny.

Aimee did bring her hammock.

On Sunday we did a for-reals river trip. It was all Class 1, with 1 bit of Class 2 rapids at the end... they call it "graduation rapids". In the morning before lunch we practiced ferrying, high bracing, and low bracing. 

We learned the pry stroke, which is used to move sideways. 

I have a particular bad habit to use a reverse stroke to turn sharply, which isn't good because you do lose all your speed momentum.

That's not good on the river!
So I need to really get in the mindset of doing a forward sweep instead- which of course is more difficult. I can do a good sweep stroke, but I need to practice. It's like we learned this whole vocabulary of strokes and maneuvers- but practice is what brings the fluency and proper use. 

But I'm a rank beginner, so it's ok.

However- I BOOFED A ROCK!

I was SO EXCITED about this!

And Jason- one of the instructors- said my eddy crossing was "sick"... I know it was good, but also I think I had some beginners' luck!

We divided into 2 teams after lunch.

At lunch there were meat sticks for the meat-inclined people- and there was much talk about the love of meat sticks from the people who... love them.

One of our instructors is named John.

And I guess earlier there was a joke where someone said "Do you need a hand, John?" but it was..... mis-heard, to much laughter.

And that's how we got to be Team Meat Stick and Team Hand John.

Despite being veg, I was proud to be on Team Meat Stick!

Team Meat Stick:

Team Hand John:

The class picture:

Whitewater kayaking is very, very different than the sea kayaking I am used to.

Some of the skills are transferrable though, and I was glad to have previous kayaking experience... otherwise I think I would have been overwhelmed.

There were people in the class who were brand new to kayaking, and they did well, which was impressive. It's not easy and there is a very high level of physical stamina.

This is something I definitely want to do again. 

It really was awesome.

Last-Century Cactus

Janae has been going through stuff and she found this:

This is from Pratt, probably our second year when we had to take photography.

So 1996-1997-ish.