Cheers

Apropos of nothing, other than this last day of November, 2008, has been a particularly sodden and lonely one, when there is so much uncertainly in the world and too many examples of man's inhumanity to man, and that I wanted to recall better times and company, here's a picture of my old friend Cormac Clancy and me having a pint in a pub outside of Dublin in December of 2001, the occasion being an impulsive decision by Donna and me to hop a flight to Ireland to celebrate my 40th birthday. (Cormac is the good looking one.)

The decision to make the trip had been rash, considering that the attacks of September 11 and the attendant fears of travel abroad that followed, still hung over everything. Looking back of course, no regrets. A wonderful time we'll remember the rest of our lives.

In a few weeks from now we will make this trip again. We won't be celebrating my birthday this time (it will have passed), but Donna's daughter and father, who will accompany us along with Donna's son and mother, will see in their twentieth and seventy-third years while we are there. Certainly, occasions they will always remember.

And we will all see in a new year. Here's to hoping it will be a good one, not only for us, but for you and yours as well, and the rest of the world, too.

CHillie afternoon

That's CHillie. She hangs out on the northeast corner of Germantown and Southampton in Chestnut Hill. She is truly a Renaissance bear. Not only is she a work of art...

but also a cool and funky map of Chestnut Hill and environs (or perhaps I should say imaginations). And a bench!

She is the creation of artist Rebecca McKillip Thornburgh, and you can read (and see) all about how she came to be on Rebecca's blog.

Sarah can't hurt this one

Window display, Robertson's Flowers, Chestnut Hill, Sunday afternoon.

Bear with me...

That's Gus, according to a plaque in the sidewalk, standing in front of the Melting Pot restaurant, near the intersection of Germantown and Southampton Avenues, in Chestnut Hill. I like to think of him as the ambassador of fondue.

Bear with me. This is the beginning of a theme...

Der himmel über Chesnut Hill

Intersection of Germantown Avenue and Bethlehem Pike, Sunday afternoon.

Yesterday (Saturday, November 15) felt freakishly like summer. The temperature soared into the seventies, and the humidity was as oppressive as any day in August. To top it off, the National Weather Service issued a tornado warning for the area into the evening. I stepped out onto my front porch toward the middle of the afternoon to see my neighbor across the street, in shirt sleeves, struggling to set up his Christmas display.

Throughout the night, wind and lashing rain marked the onset of a cold front. This afternoon the temperature was nearly thirty degrees cooler than yesterday, with enough left over wind to drive the cold right through you. The sky had that classic late autumn look, thick gray clouds piled under bright blue. I pulled down the ear flaps on my cap when I went out. The holiday decorations in store windows and lampposts on my trip to Chestnut Hill seemed entirely appropriate.

Full circle

Fall,
summer

spring,
and winter.

Tulip poplars, in the grove down from Park Line Drive.

Red

Donna's favorite tree, my backyard, Sunday afternoon. (And she took this photo, too.)

Hint: if your really want to see the tree, enlarge the image by clicking on it, and check out the reflection in the window.

Gold

Maple leaf, Sunday afternoon, in the grove below Park Line Drive.

Donna and I were headed down into the Wissahickon to take photographs of the giant tulip poplars.

Purple

Purple berries, a neighbor's yard, Sunday afternoon.

I have no idea what these fellas are, but they sure are pretty. If you do, please let us know.

Kinda like the week after Christmas

Nearly a week has passed since the election, but the yards here in Germantown and Mt. Airy are still displaying their Obama signs. We Democrats haven't won an election in quite some time, and I suppose we don't know how to handle it. Of course, this is unlike any election any of us have ever seen, given that so much is at stake. Also, the man we have elected seems extraordinarily qualified to handle the task.

To be sure, the times ahead will be long and hard, and if we are to get through them, we will have to all pitch in, a theme Mr. Obama has struck throughout his campaign.

But for now, it feels like the days after Christmas, when nobody wants to be the first to take down his Christmas tree, hoping to hold on to all those good feelings, and to stave off thoughts of all of the work that lies ahead in the year to come.

So proud

Wissahickon in Autumn

Wissahickon Creek, from Rex Avenue Bridge, Saturday afternoon.

Rex Avenue Bridge

My bike has been begging to be included on the blog, so I've finally given in.

Thomas Mill Covered Bridge

Saturday afternoon.

Sunset, Walnut Lane Bridge

A few weeks age, before the tulip poplar's leaves began to change.

Osage orange

We used to come down Germantown Avenue from the PA Turnpike to get into the city twenty-eight years ago when I was a Freshman at Temple University. Around where we crossed the line from Montgomery County into the city limits, we would see Osage oranges strewn along the sides of the road. A connection between the life I was leaving, and the new life I was going to.

Osage oranges grew along the banks of the Davidsburg Run where it ran through the lower meadow of our farm when I was growing up. As kids, my cousin Steve and I would drop them into the water and race them down the current, a competition to see whose would be the first to bob under the fence into the neighbor's field.

Today Donna and I rode our bikes up Andorra Road, near where I used to see the Osage oranges years ago, and found this specimen.

Happy Birthday Abe!

Korean mums off the front porch.

I don't usually post on weekends, but then I found out that it's Abe Lincoln's birthday.

Happy Birthday Abe!

Jack's p.o.v.

Have a great weekend, whatever your perspective happens to be.

Pumpkin Pickin'

Pumpkin Pickin', not unlike Festivus, is a made up holiday created in answer to the over commercialization of a traditional holiday -- in this case, Halloween.

Donna, my girlfriend, came up with the concept twenty years ago, or so, and it goes like this:

1. You get a bunch of your friends together (especially, but not necessarily, if they have kids). For the last five years, we've gathered in a cabin in an undisclosed location in northern Bucks County.
2. As a gang, you descend on a local and sincere pumpkin patch to search for the most jack-o-lantern-worthy pumpkins.
3. As a gang, you return to the undisclosed location and create your masterpieces on the front porch, which requires the use of various and sundry implements of destruction, and the accumulation of mounds of pumpkin guts. When they are finished, you line them up on the porch railing.
   
4. Then you bring your friends inside and give them liberal amounts of food and libation.
5. After dark, they all get lit. (The pumpkins, that is.)

A very sincere pumpkin patch

Saturday afternoon.