At the Jefferson Valley Mall

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Bush along a wall.

Taken while walking the dog around the Jefferson Valley Mall.

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Seeds in the parking lot

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Artwork. The Jefferson Valley Mall is one of the most boring I’ve come across – at least for me. There are very few stores there that interest me. This artwork is well hidden. You go through the very small food court: four places to eat (used to be five, but one just closed) and round towards the restrooms. Just next to the men’s room is a wall with this artwork. Why not put it somewhere visible? Or was the logic that sooner or later everyone goes to the restroom so they’ll have to walk past it?

Sitting watching the ice melt

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We’re having some lovely weather today – sunny with temperatures in the 60s. It really feels like spring. The ice has been steadily melting on the lake and now it’s almost gone. This morning the ice went almost to our dock. Now, as I sit outside on the patio it’s disappearing before my eyes. I’m sure it will be gone completely by the end of the day.

At the Yard House

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I imagine that not all Englishmen like beer, but a great many of them do. I’m one of them.

When we go to a restaurant I also seem to have a knack of ordering something from the menu that they don’t have. At first I thought that this was because I order “out of the ordinary” or exotic dishes. After all you can’t go to a diner in suburban New York and order Mulligatawny soup and expect them to have it – even if it is on the menu. However, this happened so often (including once when I ordered a burger in a cafe on Second Ave. in Manhattan) that I finally came to realize that it’s just something I have to live with. I used to get angry. Now I don’t. On occasion I’ll even ask if there’s anything they don’t have before I ordered.

Yesterday we went shopping at the Pallisades Mall. It doesn’t usually take me long to shop: a quick trip to Barnes and Noble just about does it. So while I was waiting for Eirah to finish I thought I’d sit down and have something to drink. I’d noticed the “Yard House” before but had never been inside. In I went.

They have 180 different beers. I perused the menu and decided I’d have a pint of Newcastle Brown Ale. The guy disappeared and came back shortly after to say that they were out. I actually didn’t feel too bad. After I’d ordered I’d asked myself why I’d ordered Newcastle Brown (which I already know very well) rather than one of the other 179 beers. He’d brought me a sample of another brown ale, which was very tasty so I had that instead.

Happy Birthday Eirah

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Today is my wife’s birthday so we decided to celebrate by having dinner at the Hudson House River Inn in Cold Spring, NY. Its website states:

Built in 1832 and operated as a hotel since then, the Hudson House River Inn is truly part of Hudson River history. The Hudson House is located on the serene waterfront approximately one hundred feet from the Hudson River in the quaint, antique shopping village of Cold Spring. When at the Hudson House you will indulge in breathtaking views of West Point, Storm King Mountain and the majestic Hudson River and mountains. The inn is currently on the National Register of Historic Places. Whether you visit Hudson House River Inn for a long weekend, a romantic dinner for two, or for a private function, we are sure Hudson House will leave a lasting memorable impression.

We arrived just as the sun was going down. It really is a charming place and the food, while not out of this world, was more than adequate.

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Wider view of the Hudson House. Our table was right next to one of the windows on the front of the building.

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View over the bandstand with the Hudson in the background.

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Interior

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The birthday girl with her healthy Ahi Tuna sashimi. My less healthy NY strip steak in the foreground.

Prints and Frames

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I post pictures to this blog. I post to Flickr. I occasionally post to Facebook. But, like many people I imagine, I rarely print any of the pictures (except for the rare photobook). If I print them small they have a way of disappearing for decades in boxes and albums. If I print them larger I have nowhere to put them. So generally I don’t print.

Just lately we did some work on our basement and this gave a little more space for putting up pictures. I didn’t want to spend a lot of time and effort into it, but I had the urge to see what some of my pictures would look like up on the wall. I bought a couple of inexpensive frames from Amazon.com, had a few “quickie” 8x10s done at Walmart and CVS and put them in the frames.

I haven’t hung them yet, let alone thought about a good way of lighting them. But even just propped up I like the way they look. It’s completely different from viewing on screen.

I think I’ll do some more.