Moon on the water

Where the heck is my tripod????

Saturday stroll

The snow has melted and refrozen along the edges of the streets. The marina is empty, and still. The seagulls had been there, leaving their footprints and a few pecked-dry chicken bones. In the summer they will be laughing at us again, but for now they are trying to stay warm too.

Muffin is snowily hopeful

She sat watching the bird-feeder for quite a while, waiting for a sparrow or finch to fly straight into her mouth. "I thought I saw a puddy-cat..." She can't get to the feeder unless she is prepared to free-fall about twelve feet. She has too much ballast for that.

Had enough.

Let me in. Pleeeez.

Snow! Yes!

It started sometime after four this morning. It's now nearly eight, and we have three or four inches of snow--with more to come. It may turn to rain this afternoon, but expected to be really cold, well below freezing, tonight. I am staying home.

The ducks flying through the snowflakes like fighter pilots. The heron lumbers through the air, circles, disappears in a flurry of distant flakes.

The snow is collecting against the door and on the deck railing. I cleared the bowl of birdseed once already, but it's already covered again. At least they have the hanging feeder which has a roof to keep seed and birds dry.

Shop request on behalf of Mastic/Shirley

After living here six months or so, these are the shops that I feel are sorely lacking in this area. Happily we have a Home Depot and many excellent nurseries/garden centers, and several Targets within easy driving distance so am not complaining about those. There are plenty of farm stands for seasonal fruit, vegetables and flowers--at least in the warmer months. And it's OK Borders and Barnes/Noble and other big bookshops being a journey away, it means I can't go shopping there every day, and a visit is a treat. I am really not complaining--I love it here--but some of life's little necessities are missing/far away:

1) Ross Stores. Nearest today: New Jersey! Not one in NY state!
I miss the treasure-trove of clothes, shoes, tops, bottoms, soap, towels, curtains, sheets, baskets, boxes, weird ornaments, mirrors, undies, socks, mugs, glasses, vases, pictures, mirrors, pullovers, scarves, handbags, luggage, shirts, ties, Christmas cards in June. There's a perfect spot for a Ross, next to Staples and close to the ATT phone shop. I emailed them and told them so, but they haven't acknowledged the brilliant idea. Yet.

2) Trader Joe's. Nearest today: Lake Grove, twenty miles.
It's a long way for everyday food but nowhere closer sells gluten-free bread, European (i.e., real,) cheese (and yes we do have cheese in England for those of you who may be French), frozen jasmine rice (lazy, but good), real olive tapenade, and frozen Vindaloo Chicken (yes, really). And to those of you who commute to the city every day and take Nicolls Road from the LIE to Sunrise, my route to Lake Grove, a polite reminder. THE BL***Y STATE SPEED LIMIT IS 55 MILES/HOUR AND NO CELL PHONES ALLOWED WHILE DRIVING UNLESS HANDS-FREE. I think you misread the signs and added a 1. Before the first 5. Scary.

Put a Trader Joes in Riverhead, that's OK, could combine a trip with a visit to the Polish shop (see below) and avoid the I-own-the-road loonies.

3) A Russian food shop. Or Polish food shop. Whichever. Only a few requirements: must sell real honey (the sort that crystalizes and tastes of spring or summer or forests or lavender fields and buzzes), the makings for bigos (kielbasa, sauerkraut, cabbage and that special bacony-ham), and Krowki. Mmmmm krowki. So I should make an effort and go to Riverhead to the Polish deli when it's open and bring back a cupboard full of honey. and stop moaning about processed sugar-water. OK. But it *would* be nice to have one just down the street. Dziekuje bardzo.

4) A coffee-shop/tea house. Somewhere nice to go for a coffee. Not necessarily Starbucks: just not Dunkin Donuts, McDos or the deli (deli coffee is really good but nowhere to hang out). People have accosted me in supermarket parking lot asking where the Starbucks is. And I really don't know.

5) A real bakers'. Where the smell of fresh-baked bread drifts out into the street and the loaves are whole and uncut and not-necessarily-square-shaped and where some may have embedded olives and some have cheesy crusts and some have HOVIS like raised scars. Not that I can eat the darn stuff any more but real bread smells sooooooooo gooooooooood.

6) Any shop at all that sells tinned fava/broad beans. Ful!!!!

The shop that we absolutely do NOT need close by:

A yarn shop. I have sixty-year's worth of knitting wool in the loft. If a yarn shop opens nearby I will not be able to resist that beautiful, soft, sweet-smelling, warm, green/blue merino... so no yarn shop needed. Please. No. Really.

Total eclipse of the...

... moon. Then it went pink. Now it's a pale, pink, eclipsed disk in a dark dark sky. The stars are out. The planets are out. And the deck is an excellent place to watch it from. But very, very cold tonight.

(Bonnie Tyler won't stop singing. Now I have to watch Bandits again.)

The sky is falling

Tonight there will be a lunar eclipse. The moon is full, the sky should be clear, and must remember to look for it!

At the same time, "they" are planning to shoot down a rogue spy satellite that is descending into the earth's atmosphere and is carrying toxic fuel. The idea being that blowing it up in space will dissipate the toxic stuff before it reaches earth.

I just hope "they" don't give the gun to Dick Cheney.... he might shoot the man in the moon instead.

Pebbles :-)

The pebble floor is being installed... if you don't like it, blame it on all the summers spent walking on Sheringham beaches.

:-)

Spooked at the beach

Took Fury for a late-afternoon stroll on the beach at Smith Point. It was foggy, getting foggier by the minute. Big waves, hardly visible behind the first breaker. Not much sand. Very few people around, just footprints going one way.

Fury ran after a stick. Twice. Then didn't want to play any more.

She kept barking at things that were not there... spirits hidden in the fog.

Spooky.

Second bathroom, grout adventure

Grout removal outfit. Armed with two grout saws and a nifty little triangular scraper-thingy. Lots and lots of dust.
Getting started...
And finished. All nice and clean again. White grout, not black/brown/grey slime, and no more cracks in the corners.

Swan step

They look so graceful when swimming, and regal when flying. Yet stepping-out across the sand at low tide, not quite.

Nature's weather vane

I can tell which way the wind is blowing by looking at the direction the starlings are pointing. Their beaks are into the wind so their feathers don't get ruffled.

February 14th high water

The storm (about 2.5 inches of rain, lots of wind) was on Wednesday, but the ocean was complaining on Thursday. This is spray from ocean waves breaking on Smith Point, visible right across the bay.

It is hissing it down

Serious rain. Washed all the snow away, darnit.

Very very sad story

On Monday evening, I saw the local TV news where--due to the very cold weather--they made a feature story of a homeless man and his lady, who refused to go to a shelter because of bad experiences in the past. He had been on the streets for I think nine years, the lady for a shorter--but still significant--time. They said they had each other to keep them warm...

Last night, he was dead from hypothermia. Aged forty-nine.

Here's the article: http://www.newsday.com/news/local/longisland/ny-licold0213,0,4668169.story

It's not like this every day despite the photos...

... I just think it's pretty.

Weekend project part two

The cabinets are painted and the doors are back on! This picture doesn't capture the colour correctly: it's slightly redder than this appears. There will be knobs on all the doors and drawers when I go to Home Depot and buy screws that are long enough to fit through a standard cabinet. Why the heck they supply screws that are 1/4 inch too short I don't know...

The cracked tiles have been replaced in the countertop, and the old grout has been sawed out (that was fun). Have to wait for the thinset on the replacement tiles to harden, then I'll regrout it all the same colour as the tiles and it will look better. Now I know why you need spare tiles when you have to cut them :-)

Beach time!

Jade and Beth and Fury

Fury has been sniffing sand and slobbering... yuk

Just the sea, the sand, and us, and one or two other people far away by the pavilion. The beach was ours today.

This weekend's project.. downstairs kitchen cabinets

They will not stay pink -- that's the primer. It's white primer with 50% of the final colour. The final colour will be semi-gloss Behr "California Poppy"... but it's not orange (like California poppies are orange) but rather a very startling red. These cabinets are not in very good condition, not good enough to refiinish with varnish, so on went the primer. Once they are painted I'm going to try to regrout the tile countertop otherwise I'll have to either retile it or buy a complete new countertop which budget won't stretch to right now... so fingers crossed.

Pink is the new blue

The first of the indoor hyacinths has started opening up.

I bought a bag of blue hyacinth bulbs. A beautiful blue, somewhere between bluebell and midnight. I swear I am not colour-blind except when putting matching clothes together in before-dawn light. I don't think you're colour-blind either. Do you see what I see?