My orchid is blooming again! For years, it never bloomed (I’m not even sure why I kept it — but in this case, indifference paid off), and now it’s bloomed twice in a matter of months.
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What a great challenge from Lens Artists!
P. A. Moed explains:
- This week we’re showcasing cities, large and small, near and far. What are the features of your chosen city? Show us buildings, skylines, the streets, the people, and life in public spaces. Or, if you want, focus on two cities, and compare their features. Show us images that are part of your overall impression of the city.
The last big city I visited was Mexico City. I stayed in a newer area called the Polanco. Lots of fancy condominiums around (Sale price, according to a hotel employee: $2 million US). Here are some of the views from my hotel room.
Mexico City seems to be booming. The contrast between rich and poor reminded me so much of the Philippines.
I saw a lot of people walking huge black mastiffs, doberman pinschers and German Shepherds. Which is definitely not the type of dog I’m used to seeing as pets in the US.
I wondered if the dogs were part of hotel security. Imagine my surprise when I was told they were just “pets.”
Stay tuned.
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Leya is the host of this week’s Lens-Artists Photo Challenge. The theme is circular wonders.
Without further ado . . .
- Picture # 1: Stafford Park, Redwood City, last summer
- Picture # 2: Parroquia de la Sagrada Familia, Roma Norte, Mexico City, the church where my nephew got married last week!
- Picture # 3: Main courtyard, Museo Nacional de Antropologia, Mexico City (That pillar is so imposing!)
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Posting for Debbie’s Six Word Saturday.
The taxi drivers who thread this space are true Sevillanos: fearless.
Stay tuned.
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So many of the plants currently growing in my garden were planted by the house’s previous owner, Jack de Benedetti, an Italian immigrant. He planted fruit trees, and he also planted this Mediterranean plant that I saw all over the Parque de Maria Luisa yesterday.
Posting for Cee’s Flower of the Day.
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I was going to write a Flower of the Day post, since I spent most of today in the Parque de Maria Luisa (I like how the monument in the park — dedicated to La Infanta Doña Maria Luisa — shows her seated, with one hand holding a rose), but instead I am going to blog about Ted Walker and Cuenca, and share an excerpt from his book, In Spain:
- Having a routine confers a kind of honorary citizenship on the traveler who chooses to put down temporary roots. You know you belong somewhere as soon as you’ve remained long enough to have a haircut and buy a new cake of soap. You surprise yourself by being able to give simple directions to strangers; you acquire a pot plant for your balcony; you know where to get the best value in a sandwich and a glass of wine. There was a blind lottery ticket seller whose station was the doorway of a shoe shop. He knew me by my footfall, greeting me “Hola, el Ingles” from twenty yards away. I was recognized by the clerks who cashed my traveller’s cheques at the Banco de Bilbao, and by waiters setting out chairs and tables on the pavement.
Here, in Seville, I make a deliberate attempt not to keep up with the news (unless it appears on “X”, which I still check, though nowhere near as often as before). I know that when I get back, America will have moved even closer toward political chaos, and once again we the electorate will have to grit our teeth and just do our duty this November, like we did two years ago, and two years before that. I’ll have no choice but to listen to MTG yapping away — ugh. But, enough of the future. I’m still in Seville.
Stay tuned.
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Oh, Andalucia, with its history both exhilarating and terrifying. Good thing I knew just which books to bring along on my latest journey.
from Jack Hitt’s Off the Road: A Modern-Day Walk Down the Pilgrim’s Route Into Spain:
- Pilgrim diaries testify to the terror of the Castilian plains. In April 1670, an Italian pilgrim named Domenico Laffi left Bologna for Santiago. He saw many odd things along the way; on the plains of Castile, he saw a pilgrim attacked and eaten alive by a swarm of grasshoppers.
The Guadalquivir, the beginning of all voyages of exploration from Seville
Next to the Torre del Oro is a kiosk where I see people lining up to buy drinks and snacks. As I happen to be very thirsty, I join the line. The first thing the woman says, after looking at my face: “Bir?”
At the top of the receipt is printed: THANK YOU FOR VISITING OUR CITY.
Stay tuned.
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I am far from home, but I know all my flowers are blooming.
Posting for Cee’s Flower of the Day: Last picture I took of the abutilon on the porch before heading for Seville:
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For this week’s Fun Foto Challenge, Cee Neuner wants us to focus on texture.
My neighbor, Claudio, has the most beautiful garden, full of roses and fruit trees. He also collects bits of discarded wood and makes them into whimsical chairs, bird houses, all manner of folk art. The above pictures don’t even capture a fourth of what he has hanging on his fence. He doesn’t bother staining the wood, preferring to keep the weathered look.
Posting for Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge this week: Things That Are Rough.
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Am reading “Dr. Wales,” Story # 11 of Penny Jackson’s My Daughter’s Boyfriends.
I wonder if this is the same doctor who felt up the narrator’s boobs when he was supposed to be checking her spine, in one of the opening stories. I’m not sure because if it really was the same doctor, shouldn’t the story title be “Creepy Doctor Wales.” But maybe it’s best to leave it just the way Ms. Jackson did here, so that she does not show her hand.
Anyhoo, this doctor decides to draw a picture of a girl’s lower anatomy and shows it to her (“Here, look at this”) and asks the narrator if she knows the names for all the girl parts. (I am dying. Dying or shrieking, I don’t know which reaction is more appropriate)
The narrator looks at the doctor’s drawing: “What I saw resembled a peanut shell caught in a V.”
Then the doctor asks, “Do you have a boyfriend?”
The follow-up: “I sense that you have low self-esteem . . . When you look in the mirror, how would you rate yourself . . . from one to ten.”
The narrator (timidly): “A five?”
Doctor Wales’s eyes traveled from the top of my head to the pennies in my loafers. “Yes, at this moment, I suppose that’s accurate.”
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Quoting from Ritva, the host of this week’s Lens Artists Challenge:
- Abstract photography breaks the normal rules of realism. It turns everyday scenes, objects, or textures into visual poetry, inviting viewers to see beyond the surface. It plays with light and shadow, blurring reality and using vibrant colors. Abstract images evoke emotions, spark curiosity, and challenge our perception. It is a genre of photography that focuses on the shapes, colors, textures, and patterns of the subject, rather than its literal representation.
Without further ado:
The Lake at Annaghmakerrig, November 2022
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The housekeeper divides her time between the two, and it becomes a grueling test of endurance.
Reading Story # 7 of Penny Jackson’s (great, smart, moving) collection, My Daughter’s Boyfriends.
Green Love
She lived in a tiny room in the back of my father’s apartment. After my parents’ divorce, my father rented a two-bedroom on Third Avenue. My mother, after many arguments, still had our large apartment on Riverside Drive that faced the Hudson River.
After she washed my shirt, she started ironing my father’s shirts with grim determination. I loved Paz. I wished she worked for my mother, but my mother said we had to be careful with our expenses and she didn’t want to share anything or anyone with my father.
I told Paz what had happened at the coffee shop with the waiter. “Too bad you can’t iron his dollar bills too,” I joked. Paz didn’t smile.
“Money is made of the same paper you use to wipe your ass,” she said, and then clamped her hand over her mouth. “Dios mio! What did I just say? Do not tell your father!”
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Still trying to figure out the washing machine. The Airbnb host left me a bottle holding these jellybean-like things. The bottle says “Washing Machine Soap” (Jabon Lavadora).
I went to the washing machine and tried to figure out where the right receptacle for these things would be. But nothing looked like a possible candidate. And I am deathly afraid of accidentally destroying an Airbnb appliance. I’m considering washing my clothes by hand in the bathtub, lol.