Those pesky huddled masses A certain person who used to live in NYC (let's call her, er, him, Tristan) once commented that her, I mean, his, issue/dislike of NYC was the constant having to deal with sad, poor people everywhere. Or something along those lines. Don't quote me on this. (BTW, this isn't a plot to drive up my comment count.)
But this morning I had one of those subway rides to work where I thought, "oh, right. I see what she/he means".
Huge On the Manhattan bound A train, there is a homeless guy who wanders through every so often. He is huge. Football player huge. His voice sounds like a deep voiced robot (or, another way to look at it is that he sounds like he is always trying to talk through a burp). OK. He's huge. He has this monstrous wild curly hair. He wears super thick rimmed glasses. The outfit that he wears reminds me of what Andre the Giant wore in the movie The Princess Bride. Poncho-esque top, loose pants, sandals of some sort. Around his neck is a sign that says something and it's tied with most rustic-looking piece of rope in the history of the world. He comes through the crowded car and people friggin get out of the way.
I saw him this morning. As he left our car, I watched him move on to the other car and the instant change in people's demeanor when he stepped on and started his little speech. I think the general demeanor was "Oh shit".
So, he was on the train this morning scaring all the worker bees. Then sitting near me was a young man who was in that sleeping pose (kind of bent over) that I always see high school kids doing when I take the train early. I suppose the young are more flexible to sleep all bunched up like that, but nonetheless, this guy is sleeping, but also making these quiet hacking / coughing / throat clearing noises while asleep. And drooling down his shirt.
Sad, yes, but I was afraid that I was going to catch whatever plague it was he had. Because this wasn't some cold or something - he had the plague. You just know when someone has the plague.
Jerk Note that I did nothing to help these people.
Big City Fears I wonder where the fear of becoming homeless falls in the big list of big city fears of big city folks. For me, it's up there. Right under "losing my mind and then becoming homeless".
Now: Small, somewhat clean children.
How to photograph small children Here we are at my brother's house and I brought my little mini light-stands and tiny strobes (in the strobist fashion) and my job for the weekend was to photograph family (which I failed at, as I only got the wee ones). We tried to get him to sit for a photo and it just wasn't working. I don't know why - I'm no baby doctor. Hours later it was quiet and people were napping or something. He and I looking at the light switches or something, and I said, "how about sitting in the chair and I will take your photo". And he did. And I shot photos.
That's the trick. Quiet. Calm. No pressure.
Dinner with tornado warnings When ever we visit my brother and his wife (and their kids. And my parents who come down as well) we usually end up cooking a big dinner one night. This is fun for Mrs. Robot and I as my brother has something we don't: A big kitchen with ventilation and a grill outside.
Our first course was scallops. I coated them with olive oil and some basil and pepper and whatnot. Grilled them all nice and stuff and then dumped them on top of a plate of Trader Joe's glorious salsa. Tasty.
Dinner was tuna steak - ala Nate. A few years back during a little robot outing in Boston, Nate and I spent probably too much time at dinner one night discussing tuna steaks. He loves to shred a ton of ginger on to them and then grill them. So, that is what we did. Bought some ginger root and shredded it onto one side of the steaks (along with olive oil and some smashed peppercorns). Came out very nice. Two bottles of rosé; champagne were drank (one being a 1999 clicquot).
Oh, the tornado In the ATL, there were all these storm warnings and rain. I really wanted to grill out so my brother put up this little tent/gazebo thing someone had given him. The grill was underneath and it worked pretty well. After we were done with the grill, the wind picked up and we decided we needed to get the little tent thing down. Oh, and the rain picked up.
We tried to fold the tent back up again, but only managed to snap most of the supports and completely destroy it. While the rain was blowing everything around.
I suspect the neighbors had a fine time watching this.
The end result was that the tent was destroyed (by us). We were both soaking wet. It was much funnier when it was happening.
Time to stain! The new mattress arrived today! Yay.
