Author Archives: Sans Souci

Back To the Future For Me

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  I thought I’d stop by between migraines and visits to doctors. I had check-ups and annuals from head to toe, a visit for virtually every body part over the last week, plus a tweak at the orthodontist; the week ended at the office of a new acupuncturist.   I spent two visits over two days at an ear, nose and throat specialist who specializes in vertigo at the request of my internist. After hours at Dr. S’s office including a full battery of tests (the final one launched an ocular migraine) the diagnosis was: “everything is normal.” Never mind … Continue reading →

New York City Photo Journal: Look Into My Eye

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  May 30, 2014 Wonderful, brilliant friends in from Chicago, just back from India on a Fulbright scholarship for almost five months. The most creative family I know.  Outside our favorite deli in Mill Basin, Brooklyn.   May 31, 2014 The New George Jam Theater, Chrystie Street, NYC Saw: “A Beautiful Day in November On The Great Banks Of The Greatest Of The Great Lakes” Excellent review in the New York Times       June 5, 2014 The Brooklyn Museum Exhibit: Ai WeiWei     The Brooklyn Museum Artist from Brooklyn: Swoon     The Brooklyn Historical Society: Hidden … Continue reading →

And So It Goes … And Then There Were Two

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  Oct 7, 2012   My morning began with worry. Play is a very difficult cat to get into a carrier. We had a 1:00 pm appointment at The Blue Pearl Animal Hospital to have a sonogram. There has been no improvement in eating, no response to treats, just all that drinking. In short, no change, just some minor hallucination on my part. Play has been spending most of his recent days in a little shelf where no one would bother him. He usually would hobble out, slower than usual if he heard the vitamin and treat bags but even … Continue reading →

The Calm Before the Sonogram

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  My little orange boy and I have come a long way together over the years. He was a feisty kitty who had even stronger survival skills than he has now. Of the three I rescued, he was far more courageous and brazen than his mother and brother. Maybe that’s why he is still alive after having been treated for intestinal blockages, diagnosed with diabetes, then with cancer; he lost a leg and he manages with the ravages of both illness, but, now it seems there is something new. For about two weeks or more I began to notice subtle … Continue reading →

What Goes Around …

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      About a week ago Play, our heroic diabetic three-legged cancer survivor, began to exhibit different behaviors: he’d park himself outside my office door, jump up on a bed, camp under a table. Not all that unusual but enough for me to give pause. (paws). This animal is always ravenous: he gobbles his food and that of his mother and brother. He is territorial and demands to be treated as alpha male, approaching his quiet brother, sitting on his back and biting his head. A little unnerving on my part but all in a feline’s day’s work. So, … Continue reading →

Praises for Voelker-Orth Museum

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  The Voelker-Orth house is a gem of a museum and bird sanctuary in Flushing Queens–they even raise bees and make their own honey. This lovely Victorian home was lived in by one family of German immigrants and is over one hundred years old.  “The Voelker Orth Museum, Bird Sanctuary and Victorian Garden, through the experience of an immigrant family’s 1890s home, preserves and interprets the cultural and horticultural heritage of Flushing, Queens and adjacent communities to engage their ever-changing populations.” The recent Maifest … The Maifest welcomed us to Spring after a long, hard winter. The Voelker-Orth Museum is … Continue reading →

Strange and Interesting, But Please Wash Your Jeans

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  Now and then I’ll parallel-post from Twitter to bring your attention to interesting items. 8 Beers you Should Stop Drinking Immediately http://www.trueactivist.com/8-beers-that-you-should-stop-drinking-immediately/ (Give me a micro-brew any day)   Why You Should Never Wash Your Jeans http://www.dailyfinance.com/2014/05/21/why-you-should-never-wash-your-jeans/?icid=maing-grid7|htmlws-main-bb|dl2|sec1_lnk3%26pLid%3D478998&a_dgi=aolshare_twitter (The laundromat is that way …) My Pick: If you are interested in textiles, design, fashion, sewing, dying, sustainability, the environment, creativity, a brave new world and a healthier earth, you must see this. FastCoExist Co.Exist Watch this new documentary about the high-tech, sustainable future of fashion. http://www.fastcoexist.com/3030822/watch-this-new-documentary-about-the-high-tech-sustainable-future-of-fashion  A Look Inside The New 9-11 Museum http://blog.travelchannel.com/the-traveling-type/2014/05/20/what-you-should-know-about-the-new-911-memorial-museum/   Science is finally making glass … Continue reading →

Carry On

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Next stop on the migraine trail was, at the recommendation of the neurologist, a visit to an opthal-neurologist who declared my optic nerves were fine. He was a busy doctor of stature, serious, maybe too serious. I wanted him to smile, to make light of it all, to tell me he had the key. He didn’t. No smile, no key. A healthy optic nerve is a good thing, we know that. So the migraine story continues and hits the wall. There are two kinds of ocular migraines going on and there is from what I can see, read, learn about: … Continue reading →

A Fair Memory (revised)

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      rewritten from previous post A Fair Memory On a NYC bus, hired for a trip to the 1964 World’s Fair, were sophomores and juniors from a dingy, gray high school on the Lower East Side of Manhattan that was shaped like the letter E: It housed the middle class and the poor. On a beautiful Spring day we were going to Flushing Meadow Park, in Queens, New York. There weren’t enough seats; some of us had to stand. I was near the well by the door, holding onto a pole facing the people in the seats nearby: … Continue reading →

A Fair Memory

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A Fair Memory On a NYC bus hired for a trip to the 1964 World’s Fair were sophomores and juniors from a dingy, gray high school on the Lower East Side of Manhattan that was shaped like the letter E. It housed the middle class and the poor. I don’t remember going on any other trips, ever, with this school, but on this beautiful day we were going to Flushing, New York. There weren’t enough seats. Some of us had to stand. I was near the well by the door, holding onto a pole facing the people in the seats … Continue reading →

Part 74: Wonton Delight

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Last year at this time, my mother had a strange series of events which led her to the hospital and then to rehab where she was fading. In a month’s time she was no longer the same person. Rehab did nothing but make the situation worse and I demanded she be released to her home, in Florida; she was subsequently put on Hospice care. She was dwindling fast, seventy-five pounds. She got pneumonia. It was found that her assisted living facility (where she had been living independently for four years) was infested with rats, the biggest one was probably the … Continue reading →

The WTC Blogs: Part 6: The New World Trade Center, Its Story And Incredible View

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  We’re back! Click here to get to the TIME Magazine article with the incredible 360° GIGAPAN panorama of New York City. If you are not a New Yorker, you will get a better idea of the scope of the city, it’s hugeness, and the incredible job that was done to make lower Manhattan whole again. If you are a New Yorker, the same goes for you. Feel awe. Video: The TIME making of the gigapan photo:    

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On Bagels and On Selling Children

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    I thank my friend Joyce, who was the source of the following two articles, which moved me in different ways. The first is the story of bagel making in New York City. If you are from NYC–especially Brooklyn, you’re gonna LOVE this. If you are not from NYC, you’ll get an education. This is what real bagels are all about: The boil>bake process with NYC WATER. The bagel originated in POLAND and is considered to have Jewish roots. The Wiki page on bagels is fairly good.         I hope that left you sated and happy. … Continue reading →

Fascinating: Link to Article About Stuyvesant Town History

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  Lee Lorch click the link below Lee Lorch, Desegregation Activist Who Led Stuyvesant Town Effort, Dies at 98 The New York Times   In the early years of Stuyvesant Town’s creation, I was too young to know about, let alone understand, racism. My parents were original tenants in Stuyvesant Town, in lower Manhattan. It was developed to help alleviate the housing shortage after the end of WW II. We had a one-bedroom apartment that had a large walk-in closet. From the windows we saw windows and more windows. A reminder that we were all the same. We were all … Continue reading →

The Return Home

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The plan was to remove the cone at the beginning of the week and make sure that Ampersand wasn’t rubbing his eye. By Wednesday evening it was time. The eye was as good as it was going to be for a while, not perfect, still healing. It looks strange from some angles and normal from others. The miraculous thing is that he can see and his eye is no longer bizarrely red yet the lens is a little cloudy in the center. At any rate, the eye is the beautiful green again. We couldn’t just take the cat, we had … Continue reading →

Mercury: Coming and Going

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Mercury in Retrograde 2014 Retrograde Dates In 2014, Mercury will be retrograde during: February 6–28 June 7–July 2 October 4–25   Friends, I know some of you roll your eyes whenever I bring up Mercury in Retrograde. I roll my eyes at myself as well, hoping that it’s all a bunch of hooey, but the strangest things happen during these periods of time when the messenger planet appears to be going backwards. It never fails that there are electronic woes, communication catastrophes, botched and bollixed events, weather insanity, strange illnesses, people popping up from the past, arguments between strangers. On … Continue reading →

More Snow, More Ice, Another Day at the Vet

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Baby Bulldog had a pneumonia relapse Yesterday was another day of chores. I made sure that I had a few thousand back-up cans of kitty food so a visit to the pet food store was in order. Speaking of kitties, I hadn’t seen Ampersand because I was ill, but I made sure I got there yesterday (knowing today would be out of the question because of terrible weather). Ampersand looks better each day but his eye is still red and the eye lens is still healing. He was happy to see me and rolled around and purred. In the meantime … Continue reading →

Fascinating: Links to Vintage New York City Photos And More

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    Click the links below for a treat– Forty-five Vintage Photos of Manhattan in the 1940’s Twenty-six Vintage Photos That Show How New York Has Transformed Since The 1970’s Forty Gorgeous Photos of Brooklyn in 1974 The Last Days of Sleazy Times Square in the 1990’s Some San Franciscans Waited in the Rain For 2-Day Old New York City Bagels (There is no such thing as a “bagel” outside of New York City. A “bagel” is a bagel if it is made with New York City water. Ask any New Yorker.) Most Amazing Sculptures By A Chinese Artist   … Continue reading →