Despite the Spring like weather I guess it's now time for the Winter Flickr

[Betty]

Maybe we should be roommates. I like the UK. The hardest thing about making ends meet is that I also live alone. It would be a lot cheaper to share a place. I'm also good with maintenance of a place, but because of COPD, no more heavy labor, & my tasks take a bit longer than they used to.

It's difficult to find someone to share a place that's sissy & kitty friendly. I like to keep it private so no neighbors ever see me crossdressed, but do like it in the privacy of my home or room, even though I don't crossdress every day.

Then I don't like the idea of a roomate phucking with my kitties, confusing them, or being rough or mean to them. They're well behaved, but also very pampered. They cuddle each other & me a lot because they were brought up that way with lots of love, attention, & patience. I have fears the first time someone would do something they don't like, the cats would scratch them, & the person would lose their temper, smack or kick them. It would be rough & confusing for a pet used to people being kind, gentle, & cuddly.

I've seen cats & dogs turn into totally crazy animals with just a slight change in living arrangements or around some people. My last cats were very sociable with me, but would run & hide, never to come out if someone else was around. The cat before that would try to tear a stranger's face off. She didn't like other people at all, just me.

On the other hand, my sister's cats would hide from everyone, but would come out & walk up to me. Maybe they sensed I was kitty-friendly... or smell my cats on me.

Last month a prowler tried to force my door open. The girl cat ran to the door & growled like a dog. I never heard her growl before. Good Kitty! She sounded like I had an angry dog in the house.

I also don't like people screwing with my computers either. I'm way ahead of most people's computer skills, & mine tend to be highly customized just for me. I'd be more likely to set up a separate computer for someone else than have them touch mine. Most of the problems I see people having with computers were caused by the user, not the machine.

There's also roommate weirdness. I had a roommate eat up all the food but rarely pay for any of it. Or the annoyance of a roommate using up a roll of toilet paper a day, every day while it would take me weeks to use up a roll. I had a roommate refuse to pay half the cable bill because he claimed he don't use cable or the TVs. Easy for him to lie because I was at work 8-12 hours a day, including weekends, or out of town for work. When I'd get home the TV was warm which meant it was watched recently. I disabled the TVs when I was going to work or out of town, & the guy got pissed off & moved out. Hey, if he wants to watch MY TV, pay half the cable bill, don't lie to me & watch it when I'm not home assuming I'm stupid.

The last roommate I had was almost never home, but I was getting dozens of phone calls a day for him at home or on the answering machine... even when I was sleeping. If I answered, they'd be asking where he is or how to contact him, or I had to write down tons of messages for him from them. Finally I got fed up with that & started telling the callers not to call anymore because he's never here, & I don't know where he is. He was also always way behind on his half of the rent & utilities even though he had a job.

When his job started calling the house several times a month because he didn't show up for work, I knew it was time to have him leave. Embarrassing because I got him his job.

That was 1994. I lived alone with cats, birds, & fish tanks ever since. But these days, a couple sweet cozy kitties are enough.

[Angela M...]

Hey samantha1, I guess you did not get any of the flooding we saw on the TV news. Most of my relatives missed it also. My house is not too large but the upkeep is getting a bit too much for me these days. Like Betty, I try to conserve energy due to the cost of it and living on a fixed pension with no pay raises  in sight only higher taxes. I plan my shopping using coupons and my meals and make use of my freezer all the time, turning leftovers into soups or frozen dinners for later. At least your English spring is here sooner than ours will be. We have about 10 to 12 freezing weeks to go yet.

[Angela M...]

Hey Betty,
I think you and I could have been pretty compatible room mates as we have similar tastes and backgrounds and both love cats and repairing things although your mad computer skills are far better than mine for sure. We love the same things like Betty's board and frilly things and music and movies and we have a connection to Toronto from back in the 60's. That was the only time I had a room mate (my cousin) when I worked at the Royal York Hotel on nights and he worked at a day job. He and I had the same interests in clothing, music, food and clubs and our little European cars. Mad little engines with 4 speed stick shifts and we would race each other all over the place. I had an interest in the National Ballet for the girls and the tights and Tutu's and he had an interest in the girls only. Wow just reading this makes me want to relive the 60's again.

[Betty]

I'm a pretty easy to get along with person, no matter what somebody's tastes, I keep an open mind about it. I've had some great long term roommates, & relationships with all sorts of regular normal people, but I guess the bad ones stand out the most. Now days on a limited budget with COPD, I can't really afford a roommate that will stiff me on their half of the bills & responsibilities all the time... like I don't think my COPD would allow me to clean up other people's messes. It's enough effort taking care of me & my own stuff gasping for air some days. And the whole point of getting a roommate is to share the cost. It's pointless if they don't cover their share, or using up all the resources but not paying for them.

No relationship, & sharing my bed anymore except with the kitties has some advantages too. At my age with COPD, I find often after a big lunch or dinner I need a nap. Dang, I usually need a nap after I masturbate too. The bad about that is I often find myself wide awake in the middle of the night. So I'm online with the TV or radio on late at night. I keep it low to not disturb my neighbors sleeping right on  the other side of my walls, but being awake in bed might annoy a bed partner.

The kitties have grown to learn to be quiet or sleep at night even if I'm up, because I don't want their running & banging around bothering my neighbors below me. But once in a while they'll forget, & start up in the middle of the night. Usually just telling "stop" or squirting them with a spray bottle of water quiets them down the rest of the night.

They also like to get up very early. But if I'm not up & don't interact with them, after a short time they come back to bed if I'm willing to cuddle & pet them back to sleep.

In the past my roommates were the cat owners but I was the one who played & cuddled them, or we each had a cat, so living with a cat was no big deal for us, & a form of fun entertainment. My cats provide me much more enjoyment than I ever got from cable TV, & they're cheaper too.

I originally was a dog person. My early experience with cats was they tend to ignore most people most of the time... like having fish tanks. Many years ago roommate moved in with a cat. But he wasn't home as much as I was when we weren't working. When I wasn't busy, I liked spending more time relaxing at home rather than going out. I didn't know what to do with a cat, so I interacted, cuddled, & played with it like a dog. The cat loved it & quickly got very attached to me. Soon he was always at my side, & came up to cuddle every time I laid down.

After many years with that cat, after the roommate moved out of town, I got my own cat. It was the cat from hell. She was a mean mouser & guard-cat for a store... kept in the basement at night. The store was closing so I adopter her. She was vicious & tough, even attacking large dogs. After a year with me she was just as cuddly & affectionate as the last cat. But she still didn't like anyone else.

I've always had good luck with animals eventually liking me. I guess I'm good at spotting what they like or don't like to make them feel comfortable around me. When I had lots of birds, when I had the time or a day off, I'd let them all out to get some exercise. If I held my arms our & yelled "Birdies!" they'd all fly to me & land on me. I didn't teach them that. They came when I called them because they liked me. They were different species, & they all got along with each other too.

Doves, pigeons, parakeets, love birds, & a cat all got along & played with each other well. But I wouldn't let the cat play with them except under close supervision... a cat's instinct may be too strong, & it's too easy to hurt a bird. The doves & pigeons liked the cat a little too much, because the males would try to hump the cat. The cat thought they were just playing or cuddling.

[samantha1]

betty

i will tell you somethings that i still luv going to bed at midnight uk time /7pm usa time and listen to phone in shows on lbc.,then when i awake up at 5am i go straight back on the net till it is time to open my friends shop.I got rid of room mates because they started doing what you said which was not paying their way and exspecting to pay for everything because they were under the impression that because it was my place they could come and go and exspect me too pay for everyrthing.That is why i trust know one to come and share my place.I HAVE JUST spent allot of monies doing up my place and i donot want it spoiled again.

[Angela M...]

Hi Betty,
I had a dog when I was about 12 but between school and jobs afterwards, I had little time for him and mom would take care of him. He seemed to favor mom anyway as she was home most of the time although I did walk him in the park sometimes. He broke his leash one day and bit the mailman after he swatted him with some magazines and the guy from the pound came to take him away. We went to get him and they said somebody wanted to adopt him from a farm so we let him go. I think he was an Irish terrier. I never wanted a pet after that as I did not have the time to spend with them. Shortly after I left home at 19 my mother got another dog. Somebody gave me two cats when I got my apartment but that only lasted a month or so as I was working too much and away on weekends also. They were cute but they went back where they came from. I did get a kitten in the early 80's  after I bought a house and she was my best friend until she passed away at about 17 years of age. I thought we would enjoy retirement together but she got sick just before that.

[Betty]

I rented a place where I was the maintenance for the building. Painting, repairs, clear snow, mow the lawn, etc. So I did work in my free time & days off on the place for money off my rent. After a couple months my roommate refused to pay half the rent. He said he should only have to pay half whatever I was paying... after the discount on my rent from doing all that work. He really thought half that work I did was for towards HIS half of the rent?

The following month, I was going to repaint one of the apartments for a whole month's rent off. He said he shouldn't pay any rent that month if I didn't that month. Will he paint half that apartment in his free time & days off for free rent? Of course not. I told him to get the phuck out.

When my last cats, also a brother & sister died at only 13, I thought I must have done something wrong... maybe different food, more vet checkups, or something. But it turns out the average life expectancy of an average mixed breed house cat is only 10-12 years. My sister had a cat from the same litter & she only lived to be 10. Hers got fed much more expensive, healthy cat food, & got more checkups to the vet than mine. The cat I had before them, who lived to 28 was an exception, & not normal.

Different breeds & mixes of breeds just tend to live longer. We can help with proper food & exercise, but the bulk of their lifespan will be determined by their genes.

[Angela M...]

Hey Betty,
we had our cat from the SPCA when it was just 8 to 10 weeks old and she was a pampered kitty. A good brand of kitty food and she loved canned salmon. She was really spoiled though as she would only eat one brand and nothing else. When we tried the on sale brand she would sniff then look at us like we were trying to pull a fast one and then she would walk away and not go near her food corner until we took it away. She ended up eating the same brand for most of her life and would get a third of the tin everyday. Each vet visit they would ask what we fed her as her coat of fur was so shiny and soft and she was so healthy and playful even into her older years. I miss her quite a bit sometimes and I have a portrait of her near my reading chair so I can glance up often and remember the fun times we had. Of course I also have many photo's of her around the house as she loved to pose for me. One time she was on a table by the railings in my family room, and she just stood up straight like a rabbit and looked at the door. Two minutes later their was a knock at the door and she would wait to see who came in. If it was somebody she knew she would settle down but if she did not know them she was gone in a second under a table or couch. Like yours Betty, she once jumped onto my chest when in bed and growled then ran to the hallway. I got up and looked out and there was a prowler trying to get into my car in the driveway. I got the flash from my camera (before camera phones) and opened the door and flashed it. The guy jumped up so fast he banged his head on the inside door frame and ran like hell to get away. The police picked him up a half block away inside another car. he was a druggy looking for quick cash or something to hock.

[andyg0404]

Hello everybody and welcome back to My Weekly Flickr.

I’ve gotten in the habit of taking walks every day, twice a day usually except on Monday and Tuesday when I’m in the office. I have two circular routes I take on a regular basis. This morning I went out on one and then this afternoon I went out on the same route again. And got lost. I can’t tell you how I did it as the walk involves walking down an avenue, turning left, going up three blocks, turning left again paralleling the original avenue and then right back to my house. Somehow I turned wrong after initially walking down the avenue and found myself on a road that I should never have been on. I was lucky it wasn’t dark and also lucky that I passed a man on the street who pointed me back to where I wanted to be, although I was at least heading in the right direction. I may have to take my GPS with me on future walks, my lack of direction is very frustrating to me. I can laugh about it but I’m not sure where I would have wound up in the dark.

The weather since the storm has hovered between fairly cold in the mornings, in the teens, to fairly mild for Winter in the afternoons, close to or above 40 degrees. My home is about 10 miles from the Lincoln Tunnel and the difference in the weather from New Jersey to New York can really be startling. One morning I awoke and the temperature on my thermometer was 20 degrees. I turned on the TV and the weatherman said it was 39 degrees in Central Park, a pretty big difference. But as my Uncle was fond of saying, who lives in Central Park anyway. The snow in Manhattan has pretty much disappeared completely as it always does, even after a major storm. New Jersey on the other hand still has large snow drifts everywhere. The three foot pile of snow in my back yard has melted down to about two feet but I don’t see it disappearing for a while. In an earlier post I mentioned I fell on the ice which is still annoying to me as my elbow is still sore. The cleats I wear on my shoes for the ice are steel springs and in the past they’ve kept me upright on very slippery ice so I don’t know why they failed me in this instance. I may have to resort to the sharpened metal cleats that athletes wear.

I went into the City today intending to stop by Christie’s auction house briefly to see a sneak preview of a magnificent Ingres painting of the Duke of Orleans, would be future King Louis of France had he not died in a carriage accident three months after sitting for the painting, and then onto a gallery.  This painting will be up for auction in April when Christie’s has their full Old Masters auction. When I got to Christie’s it turned out that the Ingres was not on display but they did have an exhibition up, Old Master Paintings, A Private Selling Exhibition. Additionally they had a few items from the April auction in a little alcove room on the first floor, just down from reception. I searched the Christie’s database and didn’t find the exhibition until I Googled it. Then it brought me back to Christie’s where I now see it’s listed under exhibitions rather than auctions. What’s annoying is that the individual paintings are not available for viewing, there’s only the catalog with large thumbnail views. But there’s a lot of very nice things there. This is a link to the page with the catalog. (Download Gallery Guide)  http://www.christies.com/privatesales/2016/old-master-paintings-january-2016 There’s a wonderful  Gerard Ter Borch painting on the cover, The Card Players. It’s a good image of a nice painting by one of my favorites. But it’s frustrating to me that the images in the catalog are small and can’t be enlarged. I’ll mention a few of the things that I especially liked.

On page three - Edwaert Collier (Breda c. 1640-1708 London) - A trompe l’oeil of letters, an engraving of Erasmus of Rotterdam (1466-1536), a quill, a pocket watch, a stick of red wax and other objects. I love trompe l’oeil and this is a good example.

Lucas Cranach II (Wittenberg 1515-1586) - The Nymph of the Spring. A rather languid nude

Jean-Honoré Fragonard (Grasse 1732-1806 Paris) - Three putti crowned with flowers amongst clouds. I’m sure I’ve mentioned the Fragonard room at the Frick many times.

On page five - Sebastien Pether (? 1790-1844 Battersea) - The Bay of Naples illuminated by the eruption of Vesuvius. This is a marvelous painting showing the lava spewing into the sky. Here’s a bigger image from the web  http://tinyurl.com/zwgvwso

On page six - Willem van de Velde II - (Leiden 1633-1707 London) - Shipping in a calm with figures on the shore by a rowing Boat, a man-o’-war laying off beyond. The Dutch painted wonderful maritime scenes.

Finally on page seven - Frans Vervloet (Mechelen 1795-1872 Venice) - The Pantheon, Rome. It shows how a town was built right around the Pantheon, apartment buildings all around and you probably can’t see it, but there is a line of wash hanging between two of them. This might be my favorite of the group. I found this painting on the web also so you can take a better look at it. If you hover the mouse over the image it enlarges and you might be able to see the wash  http://www.robilantvoena.com/artists/109-francois-vervloet/works/368/

If you go to this Christie’s page, at the bottom is a slide show of six of the paintings that will be up for auction in April, including the Ingres, Jacques Louis David and a Brueghel.
http://www.christies.com/auctions/2016/old-masters-new-york-january-2016?pid=en_homepage_row1_slot1_2

I finally got to look at the results of last week’s Sotheby’s Taubman Old Masters auction. They really can't be happy about this, a lot of unsold stuff and a bunch of stuff that went well below the low estimate. The Gainsborough Blue Page was in the mid-range while the Romney and several Tiepolo's all went below the low estimate. The small oval Raphael went for just above the high end. Only the Bellotto and the Bellotti went well above the high end. On the whole it appears that Sotheby’s took a bath on this although they are putting on the brave face. You can see the entire list of results here. http://www.sothebys.com/en/auctions/2016/old-masters-collection-a-alfred-taubman-n09458.html

Well it must be time to actually visit the Flickrs now.

Andy G.

23

https://www.flickr.com/photos/113233454@N04/11713156023/

pink sissy 5

https://www.flickr.com/photos/136587301@N08/23693616971/

03-07-2012_180153(11) edit

https://www.flickr.com/photos/55842173@N03/10319020366/

lucia the christmas pixie

https://www.flickr.com/photos/51744546@N00/23265315814/

Come here you...

https://www.flickr.com/photos/98857454@N06/22650667049/

IMG_0737

https://www.flickr.com/photos/kerrymay/22931679573/

Bridal gowns

https://www.flickr.com/photos/lucyhamilton/23189881309/

Preparing to spread some.... good cheer

https://www.flickr.com/photos/gentv2000/23555961849/

IMG_0085

https://www.flickr.com/photos/130257726@N05/23402315863/

Black dress

https://www.flickr.com/photos/jaminheelz/23911051526/

Christmas Eve elf girl!

https://www.flickr.com/photos/jos1e/23878211531/

Red & Black

https://www.flickr.com/photos/38182500@N08/23537687914/

[andyg0404]

Hello everybody and welcome back to My Weekly Flickr.

We continue to experience odd weather here, a couple of days it reached into the 50’s in the afternoon and I found myself out on my walk in just my flannel shirt. The massive mounds of snow started to disappear and I felt confident that I would be able to turn my car around in my backyard this morning. The we got another snowstorm yesterday. It says we got 2-5 inches of snow but it’s hard to tell how much actually fell here. When it stopped snowing around 11AM, the sun came out and a lot of it melted away. This morning I backed the car out and then turned onto the grass where I turn the car around and almost got stuck in the new snow that had fallen. I was lucky and managed to maneuver myself back and forth until I was facing forward in my driveway. I’ll have to back out again next week when I go to the Shop-Rite but now the forecast calls for another storm starting tomorrow and possibly over the next few days. Rather ironic after the groundhog predicted an early end to Winter. I was talking with someone I know through my business who has relatives in Taiwan. The weather there, which is normally temperate, has been cold of late. She said it’s been 50 degrees which doesn’t sound especially cold but when it’s 50 degrees here we certainly have our heat on. And most houses in Taiwan don’t have a heating system because there was never a need for it. So despite the people who don’t want to believe it, climate change seems to be happening all around us.

It was cool this morning, in the 20’s but it’s warmed up to 40 degrees now. I went into Manhattan and took a very long walk this morning. From the Port Authority I walked downtown to Trader Joes on 14th Street to buy almonds. I got there at 10AM and was very surprised to see the store packed. I picked up my two bags of almonds and got on one of the two checkout lines, both of which circled the store from the cash registers to the entrance. I’ve been to the store on Saturday mornings at that time previously and it’s never been crowded and I wondered what brought everyone out but then someone in line next to me said the magic words to another shopper, Super Bowl. It didn’t look to me like people were buying the things you might need for a Super Bowl party but I can’t think of another reason for the store being so busy. Took about 30 minutes to work my way to the cash register and pay. Which is a very long time; when you’re at the supermarket and it’s busy, sometimes you’ll think you were in line for half an hour but when you check it really was a much shorter period but this really was how long it took. And they have a very good system with two common lines and over 20 cash registers. I’m glad I don’t have to go there that often. Almonds have gone up again as well, $6.49 for a one pound bag.

From Trader Joes I walked up to 57th Street and Fifth Avenue to the Galerie St. Etienne for an exhibit of the artist Paula Modersohn-Becker. She’s someone I had never heard of until I read about the show in the New Yorker. This is what it said:

After Modersohn-Becker died, in 1907, at the age of thirty-one, a cult developed around the Dresden-born painter, presided over by her friend Rainer Maria Rilke. This show of forty-three works is a rare opportunity for American viewers to discover her work—scenes of crooked birches, flat-faced peasants, a daring female nude. Stuck in a difficult marriage and short on cash, Modersohn-Becker still managed to visit Paris on several occasions. Gauguin and the Nabis loom as influences here, but in her best paintings you can feel a modernist impulse lurking, stanched only by her premature death.

As there’s still not a lot going on in the art world currently I went to the galley website and liked what I saw enough that I decided to visit. It was a pleasant diversion although she’s really a minor figure in the art canon. This is a link to the gallery site where there’s a rather long monograph about her life. http://www.gseart.com/gse-pages/Current_Exhibition.php
I found her figures a little dark and muddy although the same images on the web appear brighter. There were several landscapes and still lifes that were colorful. And she painted a large nude woman, something which female artists hadn’t done much of. I found it lacking in comparison to the nudes of the Impressionists and especially to the Modigliani which recently set a record at auction. This is a link to her nude http://www.gseart.com/pictures/rc417jx5/web_595_x_372.jpg and this is a link to the Modigliani http://tinyurl.com/jj7pph5 There’s a vibrancy to the Modigliani which I just don’t feel with the Becker.  This is one of her still lifes http://www.gseart.com/pictures/ay8hnc5p/web_595_x_465.jpg and this is one of her landscapes http://www.gseart.com/pictures/fkb8b67a/web_595_x_456.jpg Again, pleasant but nothing really special.

I don’t regret going, it’s always interesting to discover an artist you’ve never experienced before, but it’s not an exhibition I will think of as being memorable. From the gallery I walked back down to the Port Authority and took the bus home.

And so, on the Flickrs. In searching for pictures I have several dozen search terms I use which have always brought mixed results but I find that for the longest time now, the only pictures that come up are of crossdressers. Very little from day to day life or people dressing up for Halloween, shows, parties, etc. Even after Halloween, there was next to nothing. I think this is due to the last revamp of the website which I was never very happy about to begin with.

Andy G.

I think I'm in love with cutiemei
Sometimes I just wanna be a cute doll