Autumn in Cape May

Autumn seems tranquil and untroubled in any beach town, but in Cape May there is also an element of merrymaking. Cape May, with all its history, has extended the summer "season" into the spring and fall and offers numerous events to entertain oneself with. Normally, I participate in Sherlock Holmes Weekend in November (it is also offered in March), walking around in Victorian costumes trying to solve a convoluted mystery I know I'll never solve. This year I opted to skip the Sherlock Weekend and observe the town in order to fill out my work-in-progress article about Sherlock Holmes Weekend. For one thing, Sherlock's weekend in November usually coincides with the Jazz Festival, and jazz draws many more visitors than Sherlock. Birders are in town to check out the migrating birds, some of which stop off off at few sites besides Cape May on their way south. All visitors and locals alike enjoy ignoring the pesky parking meters and parking close to their venue, and walking into the restaurants so popular in summer without reservations. (We couldn't wait to pop into George's Place for some really good Greek food--in summer we steered clear and let the tourists enjoy it.) And then there's the shopping: really cool stuff from the previous season marked down 50% or more to make room for next year's stuff. Even on my spending diet I scored quite a haul.

I like photographing doorways, and Cape May's inns always have some clever ones to welcome their guests.

The beach is popular almost all year long except for the really icy-cold days when the moist wind shears right through a person. Late fall is especially pleasing to me because all of those mosquitoes and tiny black flies are gone. And, we November beachgoers can enjoy the sunset before dinner:
Victorian Christmas is a big deal in Cape May with house and inn tours, special meals, plays, and other events special to the season. Some of the inns involved already had their festive decorations up by late November, and some were still festooning the wrought-iron fences with fresh pine garlands and decorating elaborate doorways.

iPhone Photography

Twice this week, I've come across references to photos taken with iPhones. First, check out the Nov/Dec issue of American Photo. "Instant Gratification," an article on camera phone photography begins on page 56. We're not talking about little snapshots like the one I took of Fred last night after he ate the enormous cheeseburger

and got his picture on the wall of the restaurant, or the one of the Gladys after she covered herself in Post-it tabs.

The iPhone came in handy on this day to capture pictures of my poor dismantled car which was promised to me the day before. That's Oscar working on it trying to make me think he'd been working on it all along. I think he was surprised by the impromptu photo shoot, and I had my MINI back in a few days. (I'm still waiting for him to call about reapplying the stripes to the hood.)

Mentioned in the media lately, though, are iPhone photos taken by professional photographers who now consider their iPhones part of their standard gear. Think about it: you have your cellphone with you more than your big digital camera, so already it's more convenient. I just transferred my iPhone shots to my 17" laptop, and I'm amazed by their quality. The iPhone is not as klunky (that word always reminds me of Ernie on "My Three Sons") as a big digital camera, so it is easier to use in certain situations and easier to hold in creative ways. Since there aren't buttons and dials to experiment with, the emphasis is on the content of the photo rather than exposure, aperture, and the rest of those mysterious settings.

The articles I read this week about iPhone inspired me to look back at the photos I have taken since I acquired it in June. And that's the other thing: my old phone held about nine photos, but the iPhone can store many, many more.

I hadn't brought my DSLR to the Delaware Bay beach for this evening's sunset, but I did have my iPhone! What a great shot, huh?

If you've ever tried to get good portraits of pets, you know how they instinctively refuse to be cute while the camera's in your hand. I happened to have the iPhone handy to get these great shots of my girls.

Imagine how difficult it would be to capture this belly-rub face with a DSLR!

Then there was this amazing expert award-winning quilt at a recent quilt expo

And a more humble work of my own.

For more ideas and some tips on iPhone photography, check out this other article: "Photo Lessons from an iPhone" by Shelly Perry: http://tinyurl.com/yj4jr2w.

My Philadelphia 80s Memory Tour

It all started with a crazy plan to visit the Diana: A Celebration exhibit at the National Constitution Center. This was crazy because most other people in the Delaware Valley had the same idea. After waiting in two long lines (and I suspect that those of us who bought our tickets online waited longer than those who bought on the spot), we were finally let in to see the Diana artifacts. I was (am) a big fan of The Princess, so I was captivated by the childhood memorabilia, diaries and photos. Then there was The Wedding Dress in a giant glass case. The ivory silk is sumptuous, made from England's only silkworm farm. It was displayed with her shoes, a matching umbrella (just-in-case), a clutch, and a bridesmaid dress. Wowee. Then another room with about twenty-five dresses including ballgowns, cocktail dresses and day dresses. I took the time to admire each one and note the designer and fabric. The exhibit wrapped up with two rooms devoted to the end of Diana, including a display of the memorial books people signed, Elton John's hand-written lyrics for "A Candle in the Wind" and a video of the funeral.

The exhibit got me thinking of the eighties and nineties and what I was doing then. (The eighties are hot right now.) Since I lived in Philadelphia for most of the eighties while I attended Temple University, I took off on a walking tour of my old haunts east of Broad Street. I walked from the National Constitution Center to Penn's Landing, then down South Street, north to Locust, west through Outfest 2009, up Broad Street to Market and back to the car. I wish I had remembered to activate my iPhone pedometer!

These stones look really cool, but hurt my feet. Luckily they were in the beginning of my tour before my feet started to hurt a lot. While touring my old haunts, I remembered my college and graduate school days and how I knew I'd miss living in Center City when I inevitably moved away. I had hopes and dreams then and few have been realized. I can't say I have regrets, though: life had many surprises for me along with challenges. I often think that when I'm an old woman I'll not only wear purple, but I'll move back to the city and drive my purple Vespa all over.

This is the Ritz Theater, a place where I spent a lot of time in the eighties. I saw many movies here with my friends Vince and Carol even when the price went up to five dollars a ticket: "Out of Africa," "A Room With a View," and "My Beautiful Launderette" in addition to many, many French films.

A long time ago, I toured the Olympia (the ship) and the Becuna (the submarine) with my friend Vince. I remember I didn't feel very well that day and it was stifling hot, but I didn't regret the walk down the Penn's Landing because these ships were fascinating. They are still there:

After a brief tour of Penn's Landing, I headed to South Street, still a hip, bustling place, but much different than I remember from those college days. I have one fond memory of ditching the French Film Marathon at the TLA in favor of shopping the punk rock stores with a fellow dorm-inhabiting music-major friend. At breakfast one Saturday he explained he wanted to stock up on animal print T-shirts before he went home to Erie, PA, where they were in short supply. I had hoped to stop for lunch at Jim's Steaks, but the line was around the corner (see picture). Instead, I ducked into South Street Souvlaki, a favorite of my later Philadelphia years when I had a vegetarian friend. I ate some hummus and moved on.

This is Washington Square, a quiet park on Locust Street from Sixth to Eighth. Unlike the more popular Rittenhouse Square on the other side of Broad Street, Washington Square is a quiet secret, the place you would go with your book or your dog if you're not particularly interested in hunting for a place to sit or peoplewatching.

Ahhh, one of my favorite places on earth is the Academy of Music! I spent hours and hours in line here waiting for two-dollar orchestra tickets on Friday or Saturday nights. Back then, the Philadelphia Orchestra shared this performance space with the Opera Company of Philadelphia and the Pennsylvania Ballet. I had subscriptions to all one year or another, always the cheap seats way up in the top of the room (the dreaded Amphitheater). It's no exaggeration to say that I saw hundreds of performances amidst the red velvet upholstery of this hall. When it appeared in the movie, "The Age of Innocence," based on the Edith Wharton novel (a favorite), I recognized it immediately.

This is where I lived for five years while pursuing my Master of Music degree in Music Theory and a few years after. It's at 1324 Locust Street, was called the Sylvania House then, and now it's the Arts Condo. My apartment consisted of one room with a high ceiling, a small bathroom with a nice-sized tub, a teeny-weeny olive green kitchen unit in the main room, and a rusty-orange carpet. I had many spider plants on the sunny southern exposure windowsills along with houseplants I bought each year at the Philadelphia Flower Show back when it was held in University City. The apartment was nothing to brag about, but the location was perfect for a music major: across the street from the Academy of Music and the Merriam Theater, a few blocks from a large-for-then Barnes & Noble with a loft full of compact discs where I was in line behind Riccardo Muti once, and a few feet from the Broad Street Subway I used to go to school. This is the place where I hooked up my first CD player and my first VCR, and had my sewing machine set up to make most of my own work clothes inspired by the ladies of Dynasty and Princess Di herself.

I knew that many of my favorite haunts had changed over the years because I still visit Philadelphia frequently. There were few surprises other than Outfest 2009 blocking Locust Street and the conspicuous absence of The Book Trader on South Street. These big black boxes are new, and they were all over the city. I'm intrigued--can anyone explain how they work? Maybe I'll be a good librarian and Google 'BigBelly Solar Compactor'.

The Cape May Canal

One of my favorite places anywhere, and one that is unique to Cape May, is the Cape May Canal. Some of my earliest memories are at the canal as we used to go swimming there before it was widened and deepened to accommodate bigger boats and more boat traffic. My father prefered swimming in the canal over swimming in the ocean, because he could swim across and back. My swimming skills never advanced that far: I've got a powerful doggie paddle and I can frolic with the best of them, but I never really developed a good crawl stroke. These days, it would be impossible to swim across the canal any day that the water is warm enough because of the increased boat traffic, and there's really no place to hang out since the strip of beach went away when it was widened. This video shows boats in the canal with dredging going on in the background. I love how Beethoven timed the music so that the climax happens when the boats pass each other. Genius.

The canal was dug in less than a year during World War II because of the potential threat of German U-boats going north through the Delaware Bay into the Delaware River and taking over the important ports of Camden and Philadelphia. Fort Miles, strategically placed on Cape May and Cape Henlopen (the Twin Capes), guarded the bay, and the canal was dug to give mosquito boats easy access to the bay from the base on the ocean side. Cape May's part of Fort Miles is now the Coast Guard Training Center, and Cape Henlopen's is now part of Cape Henlopen State Park. This photo was taken from the fire tower in the park looking down at the restored barracks of Fort Miles. If you look closely in the parking lot, you can see my red MINI!

The canal is important today not only because it is part of the Intracoastal Waterway, but because the Cape May-Lewes Ferry docks there. This ferry has always been important to me because it is just a year younger than I am and I have always heard its whistles from our house. During the summer when the ferries make more crossings for summer travelers, the whistle is more frequent. When I walk on the bay as I have all my life with family, friends, dogs, or alone, the canal is the spot where I take a break on the rocks, maybe watch a ferry come in or go out, and then turn around. This routine is fundamental to my existence as it's one of the few things that has stayed constant. This photo was taken on a baywalk, and you can see a ferry off in the distance:

My perception of the ferry, though, has changed over the years. It used to be a rarity that I would be on the ferry. I was usually watching it from the shore. But occasionally, if my parents and I went south on a trip, we would take the ferry to save time and driving. Even my dog, Bambi, could walk around on the ferry, but not in the cabin. It was exciting even though it wasn't much fancier than a bus then. As a child I was familiar with the Staten Island Ferry, and the Cape May-Lewes wasn't even as nice as those! Now the ferries are much nicer and more comfortable.

We never explored Lewes, though. I had a kind of xenophobic picture of Lewes, Delaware, until recent years when curiosity got the best of me. The ferry began running shuttles buses to take ferry passengers to points of interest on either side. My mother and I were curious about the outlet malls in Rehoboth, and ventured onto the ferry as foot passengers to see what this was all about. We had a ball shopping and enjoyed the cruise back home after we had shopped all day. After Mom was gone, I started to explore the historic parts of Lewes and Cape Henlopen State Park, and soon began to write articles for the ferry's free magazine, Twin Capes Traveller. Here's the red Mini on the ferry heading over to Lewes for a research trip.

These days, I've come to know Lewes, Cape Henlopen State Park and Rehoboth Beach as extensions of my home base of Cape May, and I love writing about their unique features almost as much as I enjoy sharing Cape May's distinctive personality.

Hurricane Bill: Cape May Point

The Hurricane Bill breakers at Cape May Point today were not as huge as I had hoped, but the beach had a new landscape: some extra lakes and streams that were never there before! The tide was coming in, but erratically. Because of the hot, humid haze photos were difficult. I hope this wedding photographer had his camera settings set better than I did!

So although we didn't see much rain in Cape May (besides the monsoon overnight), it was hard to be outside Saturday and Sunday. We grabbed some pulled pork sandwiches from the food truck in the lighthouse parking lot Saturday, and the heat was so oppressive we thought maybe we could find a sea breeze close to the water. It was much cooler there but I was attacked by a crazy seagull hungry for, of all things, PULLED PORK! It swooped down, landed briefly on my head, pecked at my sandwich, and proceeded to eat the stolen part just feet away from me. Sadly, there is no footage of the event, but this is a picture of the assailant (or one of his close relatives):

I don't think it would have been possible to sit on the beach Sunday with sandwiches, not because of seagulls, but because of the tide coming in so quickly, the big waves, and the torrential rain from the night before, there was moving water everywhere. I was surreal--not the Cape May Point Beach I am used to! And the haze added to the unusual scene.
We noticed how pretty the lake looked, but also that there were very few birders hanging around this popular birding spot. On this side of the dunes, the heat and humidity was unbearable!

Seattle's Pike Place Market

Ooooooh doggie it was hot on Wednesday. It turned out to be the hottest day ever recorded in Seattle, or Washington (I'm not really sure which they said on the news because by then I had been roasting for many hours). Anyway, I had a good few early hours downtown exploring the Pike place Market area.

I saw the legendary fish market where they toss the fish, but no seafood was flying as I walked by. Rather than fish, I bought a trio of organic blueberries, raspberries and blackberries, and some Washington honey. Last year I had sciatica in Seattle, so it was all I could do to walk around a bit and get the flavor of the place. This year, free from sciatica, I was free to walk about the place and explore the lower level. Undercover Quilts, one of the quilt stores I was going to search for turned out to be right there on the lower level of the market. They had some very unique patterns from designers in the Pacific Northwest featuring orcas, salmon and other natural themes. Ordinarily, I don't buy kits for quilts because I prefer to choose my own projects, but my breath was taken away by a quilt called Glacier. I had the kit shipped to New Jersey figuring I'd never find the right fabrics to duplicate the shop sample. And I added a couple of other original patterns, too. After rubbing Rachel the brassy piggy bank's nose for good luck, I left the market to explore the surrounding area.

My stomach hasn't made the transition to West Coast time, so I was ready for lunch early. As I searched for a good place to eat near the market, I noticed that some establishments had closed because of the excessive heat. Later, locals at the conference explained to me that normally the climate here does not require control, and most people do not have air conditioners. Huh, imagine that. Anyway, as I searched for a lunch spot, I was intrigued by Bayou on 1st, a Cajun restaurant displaying a handwritten sign announcing that they had air conditioning. Yay! I

loved that place and the spicy chicken and sausage gumbo they served me! The staff was very friendly and made me feel at home even though I was a solo diner. (Contrast this with my earlier angry Tweets about the lousy service for this solo diner at Red Robin on the Waterfront!) I even sprung for dessert: yummy French vanilla cake with cream on top.

I hated to leave this cool environment, but I wanted to investigate So Much Yarn, a shop recommended to me by a Seattlite on Twitter. This place was on the second floor of an office condo building. I felt at home inside especially when I hear one of the customers at the counter say, "Oh my name's Margaret, too!" So naturally I had to chime in that I'm a Margaret, three. Funny moment. The shop had lots of nice yarn, of course, and also two shop bulldogs with lots of toys. One of the experts guided me through choosing two kinds of yarn with which to make a scarf. The two yarns are held together while knitting. As a very beginning knitter, I wanted something a little challenging, and this project should fill the bill. My consultant also recommended circular needles advising that they take up less room on the plane for one thing. I haven't started this yet, but tomorrow I start the long journey home with the knitting project in my carry-on.

Old Seattle: Pioneer Square

Those early Seattle settlers I mentioned yesterday moved to the eastern shore of Elliott Bay when the West Seattle peninsula winters got too rough. Pioneer Square is where they settled. It's a trendy, thriving piece of the city now, but when urban activity moved north in the 1930s, (around the same time Pike Place Market opened), Pioneer Square was abandoned. Developers had an eye on this area in the 1960s: they wanted to make it into a parking garage. Its citizens were able to preserve it citing its precious architecture from the late 1890s. After a devastating fire, Pioneer Square was rebuilt with many of its new buildings designed by architect Elmer Fisher.

[This sounds a lot like my hometown, Cape May: the devastating late-1800s fire, city rebuilt in Victorian style, contemporary developers wanting to level our favorite landmarks for parking!]

This landmark, the J&M Cafe & Cardroom, was unfortunately closed whe I visited.

So was this building, although less permanently closed than the cardroom. However, I saw no evidence other than its name that it has anything to do with quilts.

This is a cool part of town, even in a heat wave (did I mention this week's record-breaking heat wave?). I could only afford to window-shop after I blew my travel budget in Elliott Bay Books, but what a cool bookstore. [Cape May needs something like this!] I researched book events here before my trip and found author talks there almost daily with even more events in collaboration with the public library and area cultural organizations. I could only feasibly fit in one event, so I chose an author talk by Rick Bass, author of The Wild Marsh and a number of others. I enjoyed a peach smoothie in the Elliott Bay Cafe before the talk. Rick Bass came out at 7:30ish and talked about his book describing the wild place where he lives in Montana. I enjoyed knowing that people outside the place he writes about read his writing. [I've been warned that people outside Cape May are not going to read anything creative I write about my place.] But Rick Bass writes so descriptively and lovingly about his life in Montana's Yaak Valley with his wife and daughters that his book is a joy to read. [I can do it!] He wrote good wishes to me and my writing in my book afterwards.

Pioneer Square has a nautical feel to it thanks to the nearby waterfront and sailors on leave walking around town. (I saw lots!) This store, CuttySark, was devoted to nautical antiques and collectibles, and luckily was closed when I discovered it or I'd have yet another box of shipped Seattle souvenirs arriving at my house next week (besides the books and quilt fabric).