Saturday, December 30, 2017

Year In Pictures

Hey, Friends.

I know now is the time when everyone starts writing up their year in review, reflecting on the past and looking toward the future. I'm not going to do that - not really.

2017 was a shitty year. I'm not talking about politics (although that does contribute to it). Everything and anything that could go wrong seemed to feel the need to do so this past year. There were good things too, of course. I'm not trying to get all maudlin on you. Let's just say I'm looking forward to the new year and leaving this one behind.

So, rather than rehash the entirety of the year, I decided to do it with pictures. I know, I know, that everyone does that "Best 9" thing on Instagram. I'm guilty of having done it as well. Mine always seems to come out with a group from the same time period, so I decided to go back and find the picture with the most "likes" from each month. Since you seem to enjoy reading my ramblings here...well, I assume you do since you keep coming back...I'll give you the story behind each one. Okay, so I'll give you as much of the story as I remember. Don't get too excited. Sometimes it wasn't much beyond, "Oohh, that's pretty!" or "That looks so cool."

Ready to go on a year long adventure with me? Let's do this thing.

JANUARY


It's a turkey in the snow. I took this from the window next to my desk at work. I love the turkeys! They wander around the property at work all of the time. I don't get turkeys by my house. Work is like my own little wildlife safari some days.


FEBRUARY


I have no clue. We shall label this as "Oohh, pretty!"  I thought I knew where I had taken it, but looking closer that can't be right. 


MARCH


It snowed last March. A lot. That would be my house, flying snow courtesy of my Dad and his snowblower. That would also be my abandoned shovel sticking out of the ground, waiting to dig out the snow underneath my car.


APRIL


I made this!  My friend and I went to Paintbrushes and Party to do this very cool Hamsa Hand painting. We got a hand template to trace, and the rest of the painting was up to each individual.


MAY


This was taken at Mole Mole, which you can probably guess as it says that on the car door. It was also my birthday.


JUNE


This was taken at the Rosamond Gifford Zoo in Syracuse, New York. I was in Liverpool for a work conference. We got to eat dinner at the zoo as part of the conference, and then had time to walk around the zoo while it was closed to the public. It was very cool.


JULY


This was taken in the garden at Vanderbilt Mansion. I love walking the grounds there. Instead of taking a picture of the statue from the front with the reflecting pool, I went around behind it. 


AUGUST


We were at Holy Cow Ice Cream. I went with my brother, my niece, and my nephew. It must have been shortly before the end of the kidlets summer visit if my brother was here. The sky looked really cool, and I remember my nephew was super tired after baseball camp at Marist. This might also have been the day he declared that he had "Swamp butt". I still don't want to know what that means.


SEPTEMBER


View of Poughkeepsie taken from the Walkway Over the Hudson. The views are always gorgeous, and I go there frequently. 


OCTOBER


No, I did not go to Texas this October. They were busy recovering from the hurricane that had recently devastated parts of the state. This is from the Wikipedia entry, if you didn't click the link.

"Making landfall as a Category 4 hurricane, Harvey inflicted tremendous damage across Aransas County.[48] Wind gusts were observed up to 132 mph (212 km/h) near Port Aransas.[49] In Rockport, entire blocks were leveled by the hurricane's winds. The city's courthouse was severely damaged when a cargo trailer was hurled into it, coming to a stop halfway through the structure. The gymnasium of the Rockport-Fulton High School lost multiple walls while the school itself suffered some damage.[48] A Fairfield Inn in the city was severely damaged.[50]One person died in a house fire in the city, unable to be rescued due to the extreme weather conditions.[51] As of August 28, an estimated 30–40 people remain unaccounted for across Aransas County, including 9 in Rockport. Nearly every structure in Port Aransas suffered damage.[48] By the afternoon of August 26, more than 20 in (510 mm) of rain had fallen in the Corpus Christi metropolitan area.[37] All of Victoria was left without water and most had no power.[48]"

My brother and his family were lucky. They were away during the hurricane, and they suffered very minimal damage. The area around them was not so lucky. So no, I didn't go to visit this year. Instead you get to look at a picture of a sunflower in the garden at work.


NOVEMBER


Taken at Esopus Meadows Preserve. I love that sign, and the way the clouds and the sun were creating such different lights. You can also see the lighthouse in the background. It was right after this that I got home to find out the sad news about my neighbor.


DECEMBER


Right now you're probably wondering, "WTF? It's an envelope."  Yes, it is. It's a card I got from two of my favorite little library patrons. Made me feel all warm and fuzzy inside, and people liked it. The best pictures aren't always fancy.


Officially, Friends, we have reached the end of our year in review. Wasn't that fun? I thought so. I decide to add a couple of bonus pictures that I really loved and which didn't make the list. Read on if you wish, or feel free to quit now. You might already have quit and I'm just talking to myself at this point. 


BONUS #1


Lili (my niece) and I went to see One Republic at SPAC back in August. It was a road trip and concert experience all in one! We go to a concert each summer she comes up to visit. Who knows what we will see next year? I had been hoping to take her to see Heffron Drive again this past summer, but there was no tour here which makes me sad. :(


Bonus #2


I really love this picture. No one else seems to love it quite as much. To each their own. This was taken in an abandoned building in Beacon, down by Long Dock Park. I was out for a walk/hike with my friend whom I always refer to here as Gertie. I wrote a whole post about it back in April. See the cool things you miss out on when you won't go play in the slightly decrepit abandoned buildings with me, Gertie? You could have seen this up close and personal. 

And now we really are at the end, Friends. 2017 is almost over, and I say good riddance to it. I hope 2018 brings all of us love, happiness, good health -- all the good stuff. See you next year!

**And PLEASE: if you go out and party this New Year's Eve, please be responsible! Don't drink and drive. Or do anything else and drive. Be sober if you are driving, that's the point.**



Wednesday, December 27, 2017

The Follow Up That No One Asked For

Hey, Friends.

I know, I know. It's been a while. I hope you are all doing fine, celebrating a very nice holiday season.

I meant to write this up and post it last night, but then I got distracted by following Chrissy Tiegen and her LAX to LAX flight adventure. I'm not saying it's a good excuse, but it is what it is. (Okay, so I'm still kind of following it now. Will she make it to Tokyo this time? Will she end up back at LAX again?) I'm going to try not to be distracted and get this finished.

As you can see from the above title, I'm pretty sure that most of you are not going to give slightest bit of a shit about this update. I know people are still concerned about what happened with my neighbor, Walt. I still get asked about it. I don't know anything else, but I promise to let you know if there are ever any new developments. I think we have gotten just about all of the closure on that situation that is ever likely to happen.

This is an update that no one asked for, Friends. It's silly, probably teetering on being ridiculous. Back to the way my world normally functions, really. The idea to do this popped into my head as I was getting ready for bed on Christmas Eve, and it wouldn't go away. The holidays are all about love and joy, spending time with family and friends. I would love to give everyone who bothers to read my little blog here a present. This is it, kids. I'm hoping to give you the gift of mirth -- a little laughter and amusement, even if it is at my own expense.

Now that I've wasted your time with all of this rambling, let's get to the actual update...

You might recall that I wrote a post as a birthday present for someone back in September. (Don't remember, or didn't find your way here at that time? You should really click that link, kids. I'm sure you're smart enough to follow along just fine without doing so, but it might make a hell of a lot more sense if you read it first. Go ahead. I'll wait.)

Are we all back and up to speed now? Excellent.

As you now remember because you just read it and have an attention span greater than a gnat, I managed to score an amazing thrift store treasure. Like I still can't get over the fact that this t-shirt even exists, much less that it made it's way to a thrift store in Poughkeepsie.

It's Christmas time. As I mentioned in that post, I have been wearing my lovely t-shirt as pajamas.

See? I am wearing it. No, you do not get a better picture. I remembered to take the damn picture right before going to bed. Hair is a mess, I'm rocking my glasses since I had already taken out my contacts. This is all you get.

I can report that Santa did not magically kidnap Logan and leave him under my Christmas tree. I'm okay with that. I don't really want to find out that Santa is involved in human trafficking. I'm going out on a limb on this one, but I'm also pretty sure that Logan would not want to wake up wrapped as a present in a strange location and would much rather be with his family and loved ones. Just a guess.

To be fair, today is the third day of Christmas. I also have not received: 3 French hens, 2 turtle doves, or a partridge in a pear tree. I don't know where I would ever put such a menagerie if I did get it. (No one send me any of those things! I do not want or need a Twelve Days of Christmas zoo!) 

That's the magic of Christmas, Friends. People are more hopeful. They are more willing to believe in the goodness of others, that something wonderful can happen at any second. It's the joy of making other people happy. It's the surprise of the little acts of kindness people seem more willing to bestow on others at this time of year.

So no, as awesome as my t-shirt is, it does not appear to have fantastic magical powers. It is super comfy as pajamas though, so I'm considering that a win.

And to make this a full update, let me address the questions that I'm betting some of you have. Okay, so it might be like one of you. I know I would want to know. Basically I'm answering my own questions that I would have if I was reading this somewhere else. 

At the end of the original post, I included a letter, which you can find below:

On the off-chance that Logan ever actually sees this and reads it...

Hi Logan.

We've never met. You don't know me, and I don't know you. I follow you on Twitter and I dig your music. BTR was great, but I really love the music you are making on your own and can't wait to hear more of it. I'm not a creepy stalker, I swear! I've seen countless posts in the last couple of days about your upcoming birthday, so I thought I'd share this story as a little gift.

Unless you hate it. Then we can both just agree to pretend like this never happened and go on with our lives. You can make music, I'll buy it and listen to it, and sometimes I'll reply to you on Twitter.

Are we cool?  Hope so.

Happy Birthday!

Tammy
@tammyshampoo on Twitter


Now, let me try to read your minds and provide some answers.

1) Yes, a lot more people saw this than I ever expected. That post is now the second most viewed that I have ever written. Just to give you some idea of how insane I know my blog must look to anyone other than myself, my Top Five All Time Blog Posts are:


2) No, I have no idea if he ever saw it. He's a busy guy and probably has a lot of things to do beside reading my ramblings online. Plus, I'm sure he was celebrating birthday festivities and being inundated with birthday messages. I never got a response of any kind, which is totally understandable. He'd probably still be answering people today if he addressed every single individual. 

3) Do you hope that he saw it? Yes, and a little bit of no.

I wrote the thing as a birthday gift, so clearly I wanted him to see it. Maybe he did, maybe he didn't. He's fucking mysterious like that. I'm honestly hoping he didn't hate it. We might be in the "let's pretend this never happened phase" and I am clueless. Hell, for all I know this post will make him think I'm some kind of an obsessed creepy stalker and he will block me and tell me never to darken his digital doorstep again. Yes, that's how my brain works, Friends. My mind comes up with all sorts of possible outcomes, and then frets about the worst case scenario. Anything else that happens or doesn't happen is still a better outcome than what my imagination conjured.

This is the important part, Friends. It was a gift. You don't give someone a gift with the expectation of getting anything in return. I may never know if he ever sees it. You all saw it and liked it, so it was kind of a group gift in the long run. I made some great new online friends because of it. That is honestly more than I ever expected to get out of it. The fact that people liked it makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside.

I think that about sums it up. I hope you all enjoyed my kind of pointless, holiday-inspired nonsense. If I brought you even a tiny bit of holiday cheer, then I will consider this to have been a success.

Take those happy thoughts and go out into the world and do something nice for someone else. Spread a little magic of your own.


**And it is the 12 days of Christmas. I can still wear my t-shirt and be ridiculous for a few more days.*