In which Margaret survives for three days without electricity in a blizzard

I drove to North Cape May ahead of the storm, on purpose, because it is so unusual for that area to get more than a few inches. I have rarely seen shovelable snow there, and I have known this house since before I was born. As this was a last-minute adventure decision, I didn't take much time to think about what I might need, but I tossed some extra candles, a candle lighter, warm sweatshirts and socks and easily-prepared food and baked goods into the car. I packed for Gladys the Sheltie, too, since she would be my blizzard partner. She had plenty of toys, food, treats and her little jacket that we call her barka.

The snow started right on schedule, and we watched in awe as it quickly covered the lawn and streets. The lights went out around 4:00 on Saturday. Snow was sticking to the window screens blocking any light from outside, and eventually it stuck to the window glass. In order to see what was going on out there, I had to open the door and peer out. Even with all the white snow it was incredibly dark outside because the bright streetlights were out.

I managed to light the gas log in the fireplace (the first time) for some light and warm. This involves going into the basement to turn a certain stiff valve with pliers and then turning a switch on the side of the fireplace contraption to let the gas out and then lighting the gas with the candle lighter. For a person terribly squeamish around fire and flammable gas (I will not have a gas grill), this was quite a feat. The house got colder each day and the number of blankets making up our hearth-nest grew to about six. At one point Gladys even got under the covers with me.

Cooking was easier because even though I had to light the gas stove the same way as the gas log, it seemed less threatening. However, the kitchen, being in the middle of the house, got dark early. My clip-on LED light and strategically-placed candles could not illuminate well enough to cook or clean up. I left everything I might need out on the counter for the dark time. One afternoon I made Rachael Ray's Zuppa Ossa Bucco (minus anchovies). It was delicious. Leftovers went out on the front porch in my snow-packed cooler.

I never did conquer the challenge of digging out. I made some nice paths in the thirty-inch snow from the front and side doors to the sidewalk, and the neighbor, Kevin, snow-blew the sidewalk. This made a great tunnel for Gladys to get some exercise (we call it the Glunnel).

It turned out very few people in the neighborhood bothered with sidewalks as digging out of cars was more of a priority for most. My car was parked on the street because we don't have a driveway at that house. Plows went by frequently and each time threw more boulders of icy snow into the snow fortification that separated my car from the icy street.
Over two days, I managed to clear a path to each car door

with the plan of clearing the snow away from the exhaust pipes on the third day. this way I could start up the car and sit in it for awhile with Gladys to take advantage of the heated air and seats.

I never got to this as Fred came down with a rescue generator and dug out my car as the house warmed. We were more worried about the house's pipes freezing than Gladys and me. The house had gotten down to the mid-forties--it lost about ten degrees each day. Gladys and I were warm as long as we stayed in our hearth-nest with a book.

I wore layers covered by the fuzzy blue (think Cookie Monster) robe Jeanne sent me for Christmas. That thing was blessedly warm, and sorry, but there are no photos of that. The borrowed generator brought the house heat back up to comfortable and gave me some electricity to charge my laptop, netbook and iPhone. I had sacrificed the laptop and netbook battery power to charge the iPhone, and was now down to nothing.

The next storm on Wednesday, the one that would turn out to be Snowmageddon for Central Jersey, would only blanket Cape May with (only!) six to twelve inches. The generator was going back to Central Jersey and I was preparing to break the news to Gladys that we were going to brave this one, too, when power was restored. I never packed up so fast--got back to Hamilton in time for Snowmageddon II: Central Jersey. Before heading north, though, we went south just a bit to shoot photos of Cape May City in the snow:

Junk Yard Shots

I went to the auto junk yard last week with Fred, and until I got in trouble for shooting photographs (this was not posted, but who would anticipate it?) it was an interesting departure from the ordinary. By 'ordinary' I mean my 'ordinary' because Fred ordinarily comes here often. In fact, he visits all the local junkyards frequently for parts. The idea is this: you find an undamaged part, a wire, or a tire on a junker that works in your vehicle and you buy it for a fraction of the cost of a new one. The vehicles stay around the lot for around 30 days depending on whether new stock is coming in and they have to make room.Bring your tools, because you'll have to remove it yourself. We were in search of a tire for Fred's minivan and so lugged around a jack and a wrench, and other tools I cannot name. (Get it: lugged around?) I happily shot my photos until a guy in a big tractor-looking thing with a car-scooper in front told me no photos were allowed and watched us walk to the van and place the camera safely inside. No photos, fine, but really what horrible misdeeds could I commit? Here are some of those verboten photos carefully chosen so as to not reveal which lot we were at.

Since we were looking for minivan tires, we were mostly in the van/pick-up/SUV department:

Buddy, your back fell off.


Can you find the part you need in there? This spaghetti looks more complicated than usual to me.

This is what's under your bumpers, y'all:

The personal items strewn about was spooky to me. Why? Unless I were on a road trip somewhere and got into a bad wreck, there wouldn't be many personal items other than CDs in my car, and I would retrieve them promptly. Unless... There was one van with a whole lot of women's clothes in it and many brochures on driving under the influence.

While guys pulling parts from these junkers treat the vehicles with some respect (propping up the thing with a found object after removing a wheel for instance), the personal objects are thrown about all over. I suppose customers are hoping to find some treasure in there, but it just added to the gloominess of the place to me.

Aesthetic Arrest

Dr. Stimson Carrow introduced the concept of Aesthetic Arrest in a graduate Aesthetics course at Temple University. My classmate Dori and I snickered on the Broad Street Subway after class at the weighty pretentiousness of the term, but it turns out that the concept swirled through the remarkable minds and out through the pens of James Joyce and Joseph Campbell. Far be it from us to question the significance of Aesthetic Arrest.This is that phenomenon of being so overwhelmed with a thing of beauty that you just have to stop everything and stare. It can be a work of art, a scene in nature or even an original thought manifested in a well-built machine. Most of the time, it sneaks up on you. It's almost spiritual, or even completely spiritual.

Aesthetic Arrest snuck up on me Monday. It rained all morning and into the afternoon, and the accompanying wind was strong enough to knock out my phone service. Then the sun came out and I took Gladys (the dog) for a walk along the bay. I brought my Nikon along so that I could shoot some winter beach scenes for another project.

The bright post-storm sunlight changed to that magical golden light that happens just before the sun sets. I love to photograph Gladys in that light, but I think that goldenness would make anyone look good. The clouds were spectacular, probably from the edge of the storm.

Gradually, as I shot some photos for my project, the lovely golden light morphed into an oddly dark, filtered light. The residual storm clouds were covering up the sun, ruining the sunset for those folks in parked cars up on the street. Some of those clouds looked rather threatening and I thought I should probably get Gladys and my Nikon home safe and dry.

I could not get enough, though. It was Aesthetic Arrest for sure. I had never seen the bay quite like this and I have been coming to this beach at every time of day, in every season, for decades. I took more than my share of gorgeous photos.

Anyone know of a good contest?

Vizcaya

While in Florida last month we visited the Vizcaya Museum and Gardens formerly known as James Deering's winter home. He was the Vice President of International Harvester Company known for its reapers. (Agricultural equipment.) This guy had oodles of money and also maintained homes in Chicago, Paris and New York. This is where he spent his winter months from 1916 to 1925. It wasn't just a mansion but a great experiment in self-sufficiency. Materials and supplies were hard to come by a century ago in remote Miami, so Deering hoped that the workers on his estate could grow, manufacture and build everything they needed to survive. Sixteen to eighteen servants worked inside the mansion while During was away and twenty-six (!!) gardeners keep the gardens manicured. It seemed to work for awhile, until a catastrophic hurricane ruined everything in 1925.

The mansion was rebuilt by Deering's descendants after another earthquake in 1936, but some changes were made in order to preserve the interior. The open courtyard was enclosed by windowed walls in the front and back, and a glass roof covered the enormous courtyard. Prior to this, if you stepped out of your guestroom, you'd be standing on the wide tiled gallery in open air looking over the courtyard. (Hmm, kind of like a classy version of a Motel 6.) The house has a total of thirty-six rooms including a music room, a library and a state-of-the-art kitchen for then. The wealthy of that time saw themselves as successors to the Great European Families, and in order to make this clear to visitors, they collected Great European Art. Vizcaya retains most of its original antique furniture and art from the fifteenth to nineteenth centuries.

Off the East Loggia is the Biscayne Bay. Visitors arriving by boat were greeted by a huge limestone barge which acted as a breakwater. On one side of the barge is a special dock and walkway,

and on the opposite side is a tea house. These elements extend the architecture of the house into the Biscayne Bay which, by the way, was especially choppy the day I visited.

The formal gardens are off the South Terrace. The gardens are full of sculptures and structures made of concrete and coral. Almost everyday there are fifteen-year-old girls getting their portraits taken for their Quinceanera (that 'n' has a wiggly line over it) celebrations. We counted five lavishly gowned young ladies the day we were there. The ten-acre garden includes a maze garden, a hardwood forest or "hammock," the David A. Klein Orchidarium and many varieties of palm trees.

Photography is not allowed inside the mansion, so if you would like to take a tour, please visit Vizcaya's website: http://www.vizcayamuseum.org. The estate has been owned and maintained by Miami-Dade County since 1952 and has been declared a National Historic Landmark.

At Long Last, Florida!

I was lucky enough to be invited to Florida this year for Christmas. I stayed with my sister and brother-in-law in Port St. Lucie, and it was evident that they put a lot of thought into entertaining me while I was there. We dined well, on waffles and Pineapple Chicken from my mom's recipes, and packed a lot of sightseeing into the few days before Christmas Day.

Day One, Miami: We drove the hundred or so miles to Miami where we toured James Deering's 1916 mansion called Vizcaya. This is a big enough deal (and I have enough photos) to make it a separate blogpost. Stay tuned for that. For something completely different, we boarded a tour boat that took us around Biscayne Bay to visit movie and music stars' homes. We agreed that the cheeky bilingual guide could have been telling us anything about these gorgeous mansions, but chose to believe him when he told us these properties were owned by Gloria Estefan, Sylvester Stallone,
Frank Sinatra, Antonio Banderas and others. (Note these are all celebrities whose first names are superfluous!) Shaq sold his place to A-Rod, and JLo lives across the pond.


Anyway, after the posh star homes, the boat took us through the Port of Miami. There was one large cruise ship docked there and many cargo ships. We got to see a giant gantry crane unloading one of these monster ships.

We saw some Brown Pelicans hanging out,


and this guy who I'm pretty sure is a Great Egret.

After the cruise, we drove through South Beach. It was dark enough to see the holiday lights decorating the buildings, but light enough to get an idea of the swanky South Beach scene. I didn't spot any movie stars.

Day Two, Jensen Beach: Didja know that Jensen Beach in Martin County, FL, used to be The Pineapple Capital of the World? The weather was nice enough this day to walk in the shallow surf. To the Floridians it was chilly, but this Jersey Girl probably could have jumped in. There were flocks of brown pelicans flying overhead and sandpipers or plovers scurrying about at the water's edge. Two of my favorite shots are this lone palm and the kid wearing a Santa hat while boogie boarding. I picked up a few shells that are different from New Jersey's--the colors are more vibrant and the shells are thicker. The flat one will go in my scrapbook.

Back at homebase, I took some shots of the orchid and pineapple plants by the pool, and a tiny gecko hiding in another plant.

Day Three, Lake Worth: We spent Christmas Day here with my niece and her family. Many neighborhoods have these small lakes in their center, or canals, but if you're smart, you won't stick your feet in them (use your imagination). Ducks come right up to the shrubs around the house to lay their eggs.

And then there is Fraidy, snoozing in his favorite spot.

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.