Bicycle Waiting

Astoria, Oregon ~ January 24, 2013

Outside Columbia River Coffee Roasters

Yes, some of us need reminding. I'm still noticing small improvements that add up, but I'm waiting for the huge improvements. I did the math last night, and I honestly think my recovery was set back about a year because it took six months after the first surgery to get the second one. That means six more months of getting sick and six more months that I wasn't recovering. It's like driving an hour in the wrong direction. You lose the first hour, you lose the hour getting back to your starting point, and you lose the two hours you would have been driving in the right direction. I'm so mad about it, but at least I'm on the recovery road now. For some of us who were so incredibly sick before the surgery, this is unconscionable. These doctors were nice to me but I think they made mistakes. I will definitely tell them my opinion afterwards, though nicely. I reserve my greater fury for the doctor who had no clue when he saw the calcium test of 11.3 and would not send me to an endocrinologist. That was in 2004. Oh well, this was about recovery. I know it's here for all of us, but I know I would have had a quick recovery myself in 2004. I was still so very functional then.

I feel a bit like this bench. Waiting. Moss growing. Bicycle waiting. It's a bench for two, and yet it feels so lonely. The background is peaceful, but the real world waits outside the confines of the frame.

I was able to have coffee and visit for awhile with Barbara, Erika, and Laurel. I had fun playing with smiling Inga, still tiny with big blue eyes that sparkle fun. Teagan no longer knows me. We will see what happens with that.

1:30 p.m.: After my Reiki treatment with Angela, my feet gave me just a hint that, yes, they will someday take me places again. It was one of their better mornings. I remember the day - in between my two surgeries - when I was able to walk to the parking lot of Wells Fargo to hear music on Sunday Market day. It has not happened since, but it will happen again.

My Web Page: Tapirback.com.

Every bike on sale

I went to Arts Night Out tonight. I haven't been for a long time and I went to two new galleries I hadn't been in at all before. Several artists in one of the galleries were completely new to me, and I particularly liked them, so that was rewarding. One of the galleries I enjoyed mainly because of the feel of the space and the creative energy there; it's hard to explain and I'm not going to look for the words tonight.

As long as I've been in Astoria, I haven't taken much advantage of the Art Walk, which I think they had once a week during summer. I've gone to the galleries more in years when I was less busy. Astoria has some very fine art to see, and of course a lot that isn't. I'd gotten tired of looking at it for awhile, and I am, admittedly, hard to pry away from my own work and play lately. But the evening was festive, with wine and hors d'oeuvres. Some of the non-gallery retailers stayed open to catch the foot traffic, and it added to the fun. Even though I knew quite a few of the people I saw, I began to feel (again) that it would be nice to make the effort to get out more and meet people and keep up old contacts. So much of my life is online right now or with people I know very well. Several of the galleries had small groups of musicians playing, and there was to be an intimate-sized concert at redhare at 8:00, but I went back to one of the shops and bought some stuff for future gifts and came back home instead. Maybe next time.

Lunar Boy gallery had invited a number of children - friends of a very sick little girl - to frame their drawings and paintings, and they were being sold to help the girl's family with hospital bills. It was striking to see the kids' art framed neatly and hung along with the typical art in the space. It was a an interesting idea for a fundraiser, and some of the paintings had been purchased.

I liked the color of the lighting and the shapes of the bikes in Bikes and Beyond, which was closed, and the sign seemed poignant tonight. Several of the retail stores and a couple of the galleries are new. It's a hard time to start a business in this economy, a hard time to do a lot of things. One of the artists I've known for awhile was saying she didn't know what she'd do without her part-time job. And yet the spirit tonight was cheery and fun, everyone making the best of a difficult time, their resolution, for the most part, showing - the will to keep on, to add, subtract, innovate, charm, involve, or whatever it's going to take.

Oct 16, Part 7 - Paris: Views from Pont Neuf

Pont Neuf (the "New Bridge," which is actually the oldest in Paris now) crosses from the Left Bank to the Right Bank with a section of it crossing the Ile de la Cite near the tip of the island, and becoming one, for a while, with the island. As you leave the island on the bridge, you can look down into this part of the working city where bikes and wagons are left and where the tourist boats that dock here can be boarded. The tall wall to the left shows how high the Place du Pont Neuf and the street itself is above the Square du Vert-Galant below.

Here we're crossing further toward the Right Bank, looking west toward the Louvre and the Pont des Arts. The span of the Seine on this side of the island is wider than the one between the island and the Left Bank.

Pont Neuf has large half-circular parapets or whatever they're called that give pedestrians a wonderful vantage point and make the bridge look attractive. Each parapet has a lamp where the arc meets the sidewalk.

I took this photo looking back toward the Palais de Justice with the wonderful round towers of Henri IV's palace.

I like this shot of the Samaritaine department store from the bridge with the base of the lamp in the foreground. The lamp posts have nice decorative bases with the face of a bearded guy who might be Neptune.

What a gorgeous deco sign. You can see it better if you click on the photo. The building started out in Art Nouveau style and was later redone, largely in Art Deco.

Still on the bridge, but near the Right Bank is this sign saying that Pont Neuf was begun under Henry III and finished under Henri IV. The dates are from 1578 to 1607.

Bikes only in this lane! You can also get an idea of the cobbles. I was just wishing that I'd taken an overall picture of the bridge from the vantage point of being a pedestrian, when I realized that nobody else had done that, either! I looked all over Google for topside pix of the bridge. I found only this one, a painting by Renoir. It's beautiful, but of course from an earlier time. And I also found this interesting vantage point. Well, here's one from the top of the Samaritaine. And here's another.

These bikes are parked on the Rue de l'Arbre Sec. We've come off the bridge and walked along the front of the Samaritaine, then turned away from the river on the first street past the facade of the department store. I like the colors here. You can see it's Fall. And I like the purple pant leg with the red strap. As we passed the Samaritaine, I noticed the absence of the lamps I've always loved. Since the building is being refurbished, I hope their removal is temporary. You can see what they look like in these poor photos from an earlier trip to Paris. Well, darn, I'll have to remember to make the link later, because my web site is invisible to me right now - there's something weird in the connection to the site (for us) periodically - everyone else can see it, which is good.

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Oct 15, Part 18 - Rue de Rennes, Paris

This Panoramio insert shows some of our walk with photos.


When we left Place 18 Juin 1940, we headed down Rue de Rennes toward home. It was a fascinating district, a bit different than any we'd been in so far. But we had an agenda, too - a bathroom and a snack. McDonald's had some free tables, so we sat for a bit and used their bathrooms. Did we want a McDonald's snack in Paris (or anywhere)? I don't think so! We moved on down the street and found a patisserie with some nice goodies.

Here's me taking a photo from outside the shop. The reflections are a bit confusing, and I like them. It looks like I'm inside the shop. You can see Lee's yellow jacket and red backpack on the right, both inside the store and out.

Speaking of reflections, I loved this one in the building on the corner of Rue Blaise Desgoffe and Rue de Rennes.

Here's another. I like both of them for different reasons. The reflection surprised me as I looked up from the pavement.

I guess I took this one just to give a sense of the street and the day. We'll be on Rue de Rennes for the length of this blog.

It's getting dark and it's harder to take photos. I loved the violet light, and was pleased that it showed up pretty naturally in the photo. The crossing is Rue de Rennes and Rue de Vaugirard.

I believe this mini garden with turquoise fence was at the same street corner.

This unusual building is at the diagonal crossing of Rue de Rennes and Blvd Raspail.

Here's looking across the street at Blvd Raspail. I had a sense that the small set-back building was the home and museum of Delacroix as I remembered it from another trip, but I'm not sure. His museum is located at 6 Rue de Furstenberg (or Place de Furstenberg), and I couldn't find it on Google Earth to verify it. It's in the same general part of town, but I think the entrance to Delacroix's place may be larger.

What a beautiful facade. It was a Viennese bakery.

As we neared this corner of Rue de Rennes and Rue de Mezieres, we saw a sign to the church of St. Sulpice. I'd seen the name so many times in books, it seemed we had to go a couple of blocks out of our way to see it. This was also a nice image of the bikes lined up. We'd seen it before in other places. It seems they're attached to meters and you use some kind of card system to rent them. A lot of local people ride them to work and such.

Go to Part 19