I've featured our local egg shaped friends on the blog before. There are several of them around downtown, and I think they're all pretty fun. Here's an iteration of Mr. Dumpty playing the violin. He looks like he's having a good time. I hope he doesn't have a great fall off the wall. 😉
Does this give you a chill? It should, because it was damn chilly when I took it! On Saturday I ventured to Denver with three good friends, and it snowed almost the entire time. And it was cold, cold, cold! This is the house next door to my friend Jennifer's, and that poor plastic duck on the porch looked frigid. I'm not complaining, just remarking -- it is, after all, the middle of February. It's supposed to be freezing! These cold days make me appreciate the warm days even more.
Not the sharpest picture, but another great example of senior citizen style nonetheless. I was leaving my surgeon's office last week and this woman (I'd say about 65+ years old) was sitting in the common area near the elevators. I couldn't help but notice her cool Dr. Martens brogues with a heart shaped cutout and animal print. Nice! She kindly let me snap a picture before I ran for the elevator. Like any self respecting Gen X punk, I've had a few pairs of Docs myself; my current ones are Chelsea boots and I love 'em. By the way, I too now qualify as a senior citizen and I'll be wearing Docs as long as they're still making them! I'm stubborn that way. 😉
My birthday was in mid December, but because of gallbladder problems and subsequent surgery, I didn't get to celebrate with my friends until today. The plan was to spend the day in Denver with Jennifer, JB and Teresa, to shop at a fabric store called Allyn's first, and then hit up the Maurice Sendak show the Denver Art Museum. Unfortunately the weather wasn't very cooperative; it snowed heavily, so it was slow going and we had to skip the Denver Art Museum. We did, however, have a fun time fabric shopping! I first heard about Allyn's from watching one of my favorite YouTube channels, The Closet Historian, which features an incredibly skilled Denver area sewist named Bianca. It's not a large building but it is jam packed to the rafters with fabric, a lot of it very fanciful and over the top, and there is a room at the back dedicated to bridal fabric and embellishments. There's a full basement too, again stuffed with bolt after bolt of fabric. If you're a sewist and you're ever in the Denver area, I highly recommend you visit Allyn's.
We were at Rex Tire today because my car needs new shoes. This place has been around forever. While wandering around their lobby I noticed this piece, unmistakably the work of local artisan Michael Garman. If the tiny sign over the tiny door in this diorama is to be believed, Rex Tire has been in business since 1939, which is also around the same time Mr. Garman was born, coincidentally. His sculptures are very popular around here and he was regionally quite famous. Unfortunately he passed away in 2021 at age 83, but his studio lives on as a museum, and the floor above it is designated as affordable studio spaces for local artists (including my friend and second shooter, Joy).
Well I have no new material for you, since the last few days have been frigid and I've more or less been stuck indoors. It was -3° F (-19° C) last night when I went to bed! So here's a nice shot to remind you of summer. This was taken on August 18th of last year at the City Utilities demonstration garden on the mesa. Tomorrow is going to be warm, but by Saturday it's going to be snowing again. Winter, man. It's predictably unpredictable. I'm not complaining, though, since you can't change the weather. In a few short months we'll be uncomfortably hot.
I mentioned a few months ago that the south duck pond in Monument Valley Park had recently undergone a much needed transformation (an understatement if there ever was one), and that the north duck pond was mid-rehab. My intention had been to photograph the north pond a few days later, but I didn't have a chance to follow through. I've done a few curiosity fueled drive-by recon missions over the winter but that's about it.
I finally did more than just drive past the upper duck pond a few days ago and there has clearly been some progress. At least this pond, though a bit run down for the last few years, was actually still a pond, which is to say it had water in it, whereas the south one sat barren and dry for probably a decade or more. So the act of restoring it involved draining most of what was left of the water, which if I recall correctly wasn't much. You can definitely see from this photo that it's going to be a lot better than it had been. The fact that they've built a low wall around it is already a big upgrade. I can't wait to see the finished product.
And now, for your listening pleasure...
