Karen Wins!

Last week I posted a picture of a handbag in a window on Charles Street and asked everyone to guess how much it cost. The store is Khirma Eliazov, and today I learned that the bag is made of leather, python and crocodile. Karen came closest with a guess on $1,200.00 because the actual price is: $1,795.00. Except it’s on sale for $1,346.00 right now, details here. Yay Karen!

My goal tomorrow is to get a few decent pictures of Finney. I just tried but he doesn’t look cute in a single one. He always come out looking mad. Bleeck is so photogenic I just point the camera in his direction and I get adorable back.

BleeckPeek

Memorial Flowers

Someone put all these bouquets around the WWI statue in Abingdon Square. This is a tiny park near where I live, although I just read that in the early 20th century 4,000 people would regularly come to this park to hear concerts. I don’t know how they managed that. Seriously, it’s the tiniest patch of green.

From the Parks & Rec. website about the statue: “The monument was a gift of the Jefferson Democratic Club, whose headquarters once stood opposite this statue on the site now occupied by the residential high rise at 299 West 12th Street.” Philip Martiny is the sculptor and it was dedicated in 1921.

I looked closer and saw that all the flowers were artificial. This made me a little sad, but maybe the person who did it doesn’t like the idea of cutting live flowers. Or, maybe artificial flowers are less expensive and this allowed them to do it in the first place. Perhaps they laid flowers like this at every war memorial in the City.

This park is also where the Adrienne Shelley Memorial Garden is located. She lived and worked in a building along the park. I just looked her up the other day. I wanted to know how her daughter was doing (very well as far as I could tell).

MemorialDay

Seeking a Friend for the End of the World

See this movie. I implore you. I don’t know why it didn’t win tons of awards or why the writer/director Lorene Scafaria isn’t as well known as some of her contemporaries. I saw it a couple of years ago and loved it. Last night it moved up to favorite movies status, to be watched and re-watched as needed. I don’t even want to describe what an “as needed” occasion might be, because that could possibly give something away. I’m also going to keep my favorite lines to myself, to avoid any chance of spoilage. Like a great book that gets better with subsequent readings, now that I had the overall picture I saw the movie differently this time. I could sink into and truly appreciate every line, expression, piece of action. By the final third of the movie … I want to say I was breathless, but it was like I had more air, like I could breath even stronger and bigger than before.

It’s about the end of the world, and that’s really all you need to know. But see this movie. It’s not just heart-warming, it’s heart-saving.

Here’s a great line from Roger Ebert’s review at the time, and I can’t put it in context for you because again, it would give something away. “That’s when I realized what I would do if I knew the world was ending. I would find a homeless mother dog with puppies and be calmed by her optimism.” That’s sad to read now. I wonder if he had a dog at the end.

I leave you with Bleecker’s belly, who is sleeping at the moment and therefore the house is calm. Nothing is being broken, no cats are being harassed. I don’t have to guard my coffee cup from being sent flying.

Belly