Art Day in NJ

I went to New jersey today.
I have to *really* like someone to go to New Jersey.

Leah is still in town, and I went to visit Janet.  Leah is staying there tonight.
We all went to a drawing session at Michele's house- she runs The Bunker Creative which is an art group I have been drawing with lately.

Which reminds me I never did post the drawings from last week.

Anyhow I had a wonderful visit with Janet. She has a gorgeous house which is filled with wonderful art.

This is Kirby:

A fantastic print in Janet's kitchen:
Sienna Art Studios

Janet started photographing her paintings for prints because it's a huge money saver to learn to do it yourself. I need to figure this out.  Janet did a year of research and she's going to help me.

Monitor-calibrator-thingy:

Then we went to Michele's house to draw Dante, who is amazing.
I did a painting which is complete crap. 

It looked a lot lighter in Michele's basement, but when I got it home it ended up being dark and.... orange. I'm just going to reuse the panel. 8x10 oil

Michele has three hairless cats who are really weird and wonderful.  I didn't think I liked hairless cats until I met hers. I kind of want to paint them.

The train ride home was pretty fast.

My Linen Closet Door Now Closes & How I Hopefully Saved My Plants

Last week at the greenmarket I saw the sign about old linens for the baby goats.
It stuck with me all week and not only gave me an urge to refresh my bathroom- including getting new towels, rugs, curtain, toilet seat..... but also to clean out my linen closet.

Honestly, these things were long overdue.

I have been using towels I got before Daya was born and... all of a sudden it REALLY started to bother me. Then one of the other towels I have had hanging for too many years over a few different bathrooms suddenly tore along the seam, rendering it unusable.

I decided to bring everything to the market for the baby goats.

First, I made a big mess.

I cleaned it all up and packed a LOT of old stuff and donated it.

My linen closet door now closes all the way and stays closed!!! This is a miracle.
It has not closed properly for a long time.

The linens I brought filled up most of a large trash bag.
The goat people were very excited.

Also, Isis has been eating my chive plant and she did find my spider plant and wants to eat that, too.
I need to protect them, so I got her some cat grass, which hopefully she will prefer.  We will see.
She did immediately start chewing on it.

I cannot have her eating my spider plant, and I don't want her chewing on my chives!!
The cat grass guy at the greenmarket said she should prefer the cat grass and leave my other plants alone!!

Furball Sits on Isis

Isis did not care at all.

Pebbles Plays ESO

I was farming mats in ESO and there were torchbugs flying around on-screen. 
Pebbles decided to play with them, including swatting the screen.

Crazy Tuesday

Daya asked to go to the eye dr because she's having minor vision trouble.
She does have glasses, only for distance if needed.  Neither of us liked the previous dr and I think I posted about it but I'm too lazy to look it up and link to it.  I do remember it was upsetting.

Since I have the best eye dr in the entire world, I took her to see my doctor this time. I thought it would be pretty straightforward, just a glasses and contacts check.  My dr doesn't do contacts anymore and we were there for 2 hours and 40 minutes.  He did All The Tests except visual field which we will do in October. He didn't know he wanted to do it until she was already dilated.

Daya does not have any of my eye issues but my dr did find some kind of abnormality in her... eye cup shape, whatever that is... and he wants more data over the next 2 years.
He also wanted to check her thoroughly because of me.

He likes data.

Also, he is a wizard.

He has been practicing for 26 years and I have been seeing him for 24 years.
He's that doctor other people send their difficult cases to.
He did an amazing job on my difficult cataract surgery.  I am a difficult case.

(I can read the ENTIRE 20/30 line with both eyes!! And nothing on the 20/25 line but whatever. That line sucks anyhow.)

So Daya went to see him and she got dilated for the first time in her life.

******
My friend Leah is in town!
She heads up my Reuters Art group.
We have been friends since 2018 but only today got to meet in person.  I LOVE Leah!!
We met at The Met.

There is a lady in this pic, I took it very much on the sly, Leah loved how she looked.  She looked exactly like Waldo in Where's Waldo so I call her Walda.

In the American Wing........

This portrait is so, so craptastic it's borderline offensive. 
If someone painted me or my kid like this I'd be so mad.

Another craptastic portrait

My girl Leah with Elisabeth Vigee Le Brun

I bought another plant book.

I did not buy these books but I took pictures of them:

I Love Eggs

I love eggs.
I mean, I LOVE them.

My body loves them too.
Three a day is my normal.

Before you tell me about all the Bad Things About Eggs (people do love to tell you how bad something is that you love), I will tell you that I have been eating a LOT of eggs consistently for well over 20 years and my bloodwork is awesome. And by awesome, I mean AWESOME. Like when the dr is looking over the numbers and gets to cholesterol she pauses and says "wow that's really good" kind of awesome. 

Daya's NJ friend has backyard chickens and she brought me fresh eggs.  This is a prefect gateway into my heart. (especially if the eggs are green!)

I got fresh duck eggs at the Union Sq Geenmarket.

I also regularly keep quail eggs on-hand.  I love them, too.

So here is my Three Egg Bowl: farm fresh duck and chicken, and Japanese market quail eggs:

Monday Cats

 What cats do on a Monday.

City Floating & I Got Adopted

 After I left The Morgan Library, I floated downtown.  If you have ever lived in a big city you will know what I mean.  City Floating is something I think only either a local or experienced city-dweller can do, because you aren't trying to take everything in. There is no novelty. Its slower and more internal, and more of a natural thing.  You have to be able to feel the city and be part of it to do it. It's an environmental absorption and it's also a two-way communication.

Dru knows what I mean.  Hi Dru!

Anyhow, I City-Floated downtown.
Daya has been in New Jersey visiting a friend and she gets home this evening.
I wanted to make us a nice dinner, which meant Trader Joes.
The one on 14th street.

I floated down Madison Ave until I got to Madison Sq Park.  There was a weird art installation and a cool exhibit on local plants.

Honestly, this weird installation is over my head.  Is it ... chairs for trees?
I don't know.

If you are very curious you can read the sign.  I did not.

This was in Madison Sq park, 23 and bway.

Next up on my floating journey was Union Square.
I walked past Barnes & Noble.
As I did so, I literally thought, "I don't need to go in there."

AND THEN,

I SAW THIS BOOK IN THE WINDOW:

Wow, doesn't that look COOL?

I went in, thinking a book featured in the front window should not be too hard to find.

Well, I sure was wrong about that.
The B&N at Union Square, if you have not been in there, is 3 large floors.
I looked everywhere on all three floors.

It turned into a scavenger hunt.
I lost the scavenger hunt and had to admit defeat.
That meant asking someone.

As it turned out there were only 2 copies of this book left in the store and they were both in the front window. They took it out of the window for me.

I looked at it and it is amazing so I bought it.
Kedrin says sometimes books adopt us.  She gets it.

At Trader Joes I got a gorgeous piece of wild salmon, fresh asparagus, and some fresh mushrooms.

Now, you all know I don't get political or current-eventy on this blog but some things really do need to be said: