Yucky, soggy, rainy day

After two kind of nice days, we're being pelted with heavy rain.  I know, it's better than snow.  But still.

Nothing to do.  Don't want to go out, second walk is a washout (but we did get in a nice first walk), and I'm feeling my PTSD acting up as I listen to the rain banging on my windows, and the wind driving it hard.

So what's on the radio?  A used La Boheme, which I recall was nothing notable at the time it was fresh, back a few months.  I'd much prefer the actual matinee performance today, which happens to be Damnation of Faust, but for some unknowable reason, the big house is replaying a not so stellar performance from the recent past.

I notice, looking out the kitchen window, that the big construction project that went on all week is not having any positive effect.  For reasons also unknowable, the town decided to install a large storm drain type receptacle in the street a couple of blocks from here, which is at the bottom of a hill.  Runoff from the hill causes a large amount of water to flood the very busy street at the foot of the hill.  So I can see why someone thought a drain might alleviate the problem.

Guess what?  It's not working.  The very busy street is still flooded.  And due to the disruption of the street and area around the new drain, the flood is mostly mud.  Charming.  My tax dollars at work.

In the course of the construction project, I had opportunity to notice that most of the gendarme around here are late middle aged and very overweight.  And how much do they get paid to stand around, or sit on their butts, all day while people are digging up the street?  And why is it necessary to have a rather large SUV parked ON the sidewalk, with the motor running, spewing exhaust fumes, all day? 

One morning the attendant gendarme insisted on "helping" us cross the street on our way home from our first walk.  Ok, so big whooppee, he stopped a couple of cars that would have stopped anyway.  Then we had to creep past his SUV, parked on the sidewalk, with its motor running, spewing exhaust fumes, by climbing up the neighbor's 45-degree sloped front lawn.  This is not helpful.  Besides, we're pretty good at getting across all by ourselves.  After all, I lived on a state highway for 18 years.  This very busy street is a piece of cake, compared to that.

I need sunshine.  I need less wind.  And I need a second walk.  And a third, and a fourth.

Failing that, here's a shot of a couple of shore birds taking a walk the other day.  Apparently you don't have to be birds of a feather to walk together. 

Ok, so, Patterns

No, I didn't find the list.  What I did was go through a whole lot of pictures, and found some that sort of fit the subject matter.  These are all from a visit to Plum Island back in November.

This is not the Plum Island made notorious by some novelist (Nelson DeMille, in fact) a few years back.  It's not in Suffolk County, NY, for starters.  There's nothing at all sinister or mysterious about it.  And it's not really an island at all, tho it might once have been, presumably, which got it that name.  I never realized it even had a name, until a couple of weeks ago, when I was watching a video about Sandy Hook's history. 

This is the usual place we go, where you cross the road to get to the bay side of the Hook.  At high tide, there's not much there, it's mostly under water.  So the first thing is to check the tide charts before making the drive out there. 

Then, you can never quite count on it being the way it was the last time you saw it.  Depending on the weather and the tides, the configuration is different every time.  Some days there are interesting patterns, other days, not.

These are some of the ones I liked.

I imagine someone could explain how the water does that, shapes the sand differently in different places or at different times.  I'm not that person, however.  All I can do it look at it, and marvel at what nature can do when it's in a reasonably good mood.

Thank goodness that's over and done with

I really don't care much for the holidays.  Too much of the same people, over and over and over.  I need a new cast of characters.  Or to move Thanksgiving to August, to make more space between it and Christmas.

Before the holiday thing took over my life, I was working on a set of photos of patterns.  I'm kind of a pattern person, my brain sees patterns everywhere.  And the broken patterns, like those screens full of O's, with one Q stuck in the (not literally) middle.  I can pick out the wrong letter in a snap, without even looking.  Also, for that matter, the one missed note in a symphony.  It's not just my eyes, my ears do it, too.

It's going to take some time to backtrack, and find the pictures I was intending to post, so I'm not doing that now.  The list is on one of these post it notes that are laying all over my desk, I just have to find the right list.  Not now.

What I will put here is a photo I finally got a chance to take, tho I've been walking over and past it for months now.  I think it happened in the fall, when the leaves were first coming down.  And I always meant to stop and shoot it, but I'm usually attached to the dog at this point, who is dragging me down the street because something out there requires his attention.  Besides, it really doesn't look like much in the sun.  Or in the non-sun.  It's invisible at night, too. 

The perfect lighting is when it's raining in daylight, and the light is muted and soft, and there's enough wet to let it show up well.  We had a day like that, very recently, so after I brought the dog back home, I grabbed my camera and went out to get the shot.

I never really noticed, until I was looking at the picture, how interesting the texture of the sidewalk is, too.  You'd think concrete is just concrete colored, wouldn't you?