The End Of The Journey

The Cloisters:

Everyone who goes sightseeing in NYC needs to take the time necessary to travel to the northern end of Manhattan Island and take in this amazing collection of medieval art.  Incredible site and incredible collection. Sorry I don't have the photos I was expecting but at least you can see something of the hilly grounds and amazing building cobbled together by John D. Rockefeller to resemble an ancient monastery, which it never was.  It is now managed by the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Worth every hour needed to get there and every penny spent on admission.

  

The cliffs across the Hudson River

Medieval wall tapestry

Enlarge on your screen (Shift +) to read the descriptive panel

The last photo sums up the serenity I experienced throughout the trip from the time of landing at La Guardia to the moment we flew back out again:

Aaaaaaahhhhh...now THIS is a relaxing trip!

 And now it is back to regular life as we know it, waiting for the first possible snowfall and freezing rain on Thanksgiving Sunday and/or Monday! Fortunately it isn't supposed to stick around for more than a few hours....oh Lord, let that be......can I get an "Amen!"??

And That's That For Our Trip South!

 The Morgan Collection:

 

Floors.....

....and Ceilings

More from the giant collection of books

Library decor

Another shot from the library collection

The seal of King Nebuchadnezzar Reign 605 to 562 BC

The collection of royal seals and Mesopotamian jewellery certainly does give credence to the idea that J.P.Morgan was indeed a robber baron.  It is an incredible collection, that's for sure.

Still Waiting On The Fridgeman!!

 No sign of our refrigerator fellow yet so we will give management until noon, then call if we have not yet heard anything.  Our cost for ice blocks to retain sufficient cold in the refrigerator compartment has climbed over $20 as of last night and I don't want to think about how much power we will be paying for to continue running the camp freezer unit.  I know they are busy and the department is badly understaffed, but I am not interested in losing any more food than we did when we had to throw out some smaller freezer items on the weekend before the freezer unit was up and running and my husband is definitely not interested in spending any more money on ice blocks.  So....we shall see how it goes today.  

My walking partner and I were unable to spend time walking and visiting today as she is not well, but she was able to stop in long enough to pick up a book she lent to us recently and have a brief chat before she was overcome with a coughing fit and fled so that she wouldn't spread her illness to  us. Bless her heart.

I had a nice chat with an Island friend, so that was fun interlude in a busy day.

Got a bit of a sad surprise this morning: I told a friend on the weekend that I would drop by the Diabetes Canada office here in Regina and pick up some information she needs after finding out her rather high blood sugar count showing up in recent medical tests.  Surprise surprise (NOT!), this branch was permanently closed fairly recently.  After some online checking and a phone call to their central phone number all I can get my hands on here is whatever info is on the national website. While most of what I need for my friend is there, it is scattered all over the site instead of being neatly compacted into one small booklet like I was given when I was first diagnosed.  My friend is quite capable of accessing the website on her own and I sent her a list of what to look for, so hopefully she can get some more assistance from her GP about whatever may be available in her own city for written information that is more concisely organized than having to cobble it together from the many pages on the website. 

I will do one more short post with a handful of photos from The Morgan and The Cloisters and that will be it for photos.  We are appalled by the number of photos that didn't turn out well enough to post. For some reason my husband's camera has ceased to adjust the light conditions for taking photos.  Oh well.  WE know what the photos are of and our memory retention is good for now so, it will be fine. 

We are having another cool but sunny autumn day today.  I love seeing that blue sky with only a few scattered clouds.  Looks like the possibility of flurries and a bit of short lived freezing rain toward the end of the upcoming Thanksgiving weekend but then it should be clear, if cooler, again.

 

 

A Couple Of Photos From the Metropolitan Museum

Upon looking more closely at our sad collection of photos and what few decent ones I have been able to post here, I think I will wrap up with photos from only two or three more places we visited.

Today I will post a few from my evening with my son at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.  We concentrated only on the Japanese ceramics and the musical instruments exhibition and most of the photos were pretty blah.  Anyway, here goes:

 

From the Ancient

To the Modern

And Everything In Between:

 

"Blow, Gabriel Blow!"

What the heck??!! Fascinating instruments!

A quick visit with two of my son's favourite paintings!

Note the perspective and also prayer shawl in the middle section.

The panel photos are too blurred to share, so if you are interested in the artists and histories of these two paintings, just move the image into Google and make your discoveries.

Have a great day everyone!

PS the maintenance man was just here to check the fridge, took some photos and did some freon tests and is now on the way to locate the person responsible for finding us and delivering a replacement fridge either today or tomorrow.  YAY....hopefully we won't have to spend a second fortune on ice packs in the meantime.  

A Perfect Day All Around In My Opinion!

 We had a most lovely day today. It was a perfect autumn day....clear but not cold, no wind to speak of, sunshine and perfect driving conditions to be out of town.  Our friend preached very well this morning at the church we attended, another old friend who now lives south of the border was there visiting unexpectedly, we had a most wonderful afternoon over a bbq'd meal with dear friends and we got away from their place just in time to make it to have dinner with friends back here in our fair city this evening.  Gone for the whole day; a wonderful church service, surrounded by loving friends for the whole day; perfect weather for the whole day....it doesn't get much better than that for us. It was a day to be grateful for, fer shur!!

Early this morning my husband went over to the gasoline station near us and purchased 3 large bags of ice to put into our failing refrigerator to protect specifically the milk, eggs and mayonnaise.  After we had been out of town for 9 hours we stopped back in quickly before going out for dinner to check on the condition of the ice blocks.  Although the leaking freon gas has caused the freezer compartment to fail completely, the fan in the fridge is still running and recycling whatever freon is left in the system, so the ice blocks have not melted much yet and should last us until whatever time tomorrow the maintenance people arrive with some kind of replacement fridge.  In the meantime the camping freezer is doing its job well, so it appears all our meat has been saved!  Thank you Jesus, for that little freezer!  

My dear walking partner has come down with a bad cold, so we have cancelled our meeting together in the morning and perhaps if it happens that we have people moving refrigerators in and out of the kitchen it is just as well.  Please send up a quick prayer for my walking partner.  Thanks!  She is always cheery even when she doesn't feel well, but her description of her cold makes me suspect she actually feels rather rotten.   

Tomorrow after my husband's regular online meeting with some of his retired cronies we are going to have to get in touch with our tv service provider and change a few of our tv packages.  Changes are occurring to the line up tomorrow and if we don't make the changes we will lose two of the channels we watch the most.  We are hoping that in the process of making the changes to the available packages we will be able to drop a few channels that we never watch and save ourselves a few dollars.  I feel badly for the tv providers because streaming is taking over and that leaves the cable providers scrambling.  If streaming services were more reliable we would probably follow along with what is currently happening in new tv technology, but for now we will do our best to pick up a few shows we actually like through the tv packages.

It is going to take me a little while to fall asleep tonight as I am still rather jazzed over our wonderful day of friendship and worship and special meals, but I hope to sleep well when I eventually reach that blessed state of unconsciousness! 

Is It Possible To Be Completely Annoyed And Completely Grateful At The Same Time About The Same Situation?

That is how I feel tonight: I was hoping, after sending a maintenance request into management about our refrigerator starting to pack it in, that the thing would last until Monday when all the crew are back at work, but nope, the refrigeration system gave a little whine and a squeal and died late this afternoon. Everything in there began to thaw quickly. Sigh… So, I am annoyed! 

I am also grateful: back on the spring my husband purchased a  camping refrigerator/freezer. I didn’t begrudge him because although I suspected he would rarely use the unit and he spent several hundred dollars on it, he rarely purchases treats for himself. Wow….did that little unit ever save our bacon tonight; and our sausages and our chicken and our 10 pound turkey and our beef! (and our bread and bagged veggies and fruit packs and cheeses and herbs) 

We have cold packs and the salvageable ice cubes packed around the milk and eggs in the dead refrigerator and we can only hope the fridge items survive until Monday, since we are gone all day tomorrow and won’t be able to check on them. Guess the good thing about that is that once breakfast is over we won’t be opening the fridge door and letting the cold escape for the rest of the day. 

These things are indeed sent to try us! 

Okay, Here We Go With A Few More Photos

Rather than deluge this blog with post after post of photos that aren't, to be honest, the greatest ever I will post a few every couple of days for the next week...or something like that.

Here are a few from the New York Public Library Main Branch:

 

Winnie The Pooh Figures

Everything in the building seems to be carved from marble slabs.

Charles Dickens' writing desk

The Gutenberg Bible

Part of a wall with no write up to title or describe it, but it is lovely.

An incredibly gorgeous ceiling!

An exhibit of political and anti discrimination posters from the past nearly 100 years.