Contentment

Good Times

My first car was 1969 VW minivan. It cost me just $500 and was in a lot worse shape that this one, which looks remarkably well-preserved, but it was my first car and I still remember it with a lot of affection, even though I spent a lot more time fixing it than driving it.

While I was taking these photos, a fellah passing by stopped to get a good look, too.

"Brings back some memories, does it?" he asked, so I told him about my first car.

"I crossed the country in a van like this one," he said. The way he said it, he could remember it like it was the other day. "It wasn't mine. I borrowed it from a friend."

Sometimes it seems like everybody's got a Veedub story.

I had two other VW buses and a Beetle, and I miss them all.

Sunrise, sunset

The morning sun through the dining room window fell so brightly across the living room desk it inspired me to pick up my camera ...











... and the setting sun through the living room window painted this picture across the opposite wall.

Tailgater's view of a 1932 Ford roadster parked in a yard along Broadway in Monona.

The Perfect Taco

We had tacos for dinner tonight and I was so hungry I threw together two of them right away and was astounded when one of them turned out perfect. I mean, flawless! I could probably sell that photo if I'd managed to hold the camera a little steadier.

It's on the corner of University and Gilman, not a very rough part of town at all, but the owner must have had a lot of trouble with vandalism in the past to go to the trouble of armoring up this Pepsi machine to such an extent.

Cool tree house.

This one's on the Yahara River along Broadway.

Corner of Sleepy Lagoon and Whispering Waters, the abandoned trailer park in Monona that was supposed to be new condominiums by now. I'll bet that's on indefinite hold with the popping of the housing bubble.

... city crews continued to cart away lumber from the 150-year-old Gorham Street elm cut down Thursday morning.

Farewell to a Madison Landmark

Work crews dismembered one of the oldest trees in our fair city today, an elm that's stood on Gorham Street for about a hundred and fifty years. (I hope somebody saved a slice of it and counted the rings.)

A single light bulb burning in J. Taylor's antique shop on capital square this morning lit this strange scene.

I've rarely seen J. Tayor's open for business. Every so often the proprietor posts a sign in the door saying he'll soon have regular shop hours, but I've been inside just three times in the three years I've lived here, and I walk past it a lot. Nearly every day, in fact. Sometimes I wonder if he rents the space just to have a place to keep all the great attic treasures he collects, not that I would blame him. I'd do the same thing if I had that kind of extra money.

Freaky State Street window display.

What kind of zombie weirdo fetish is going on here?

You can usually count on Rag Stock's window displays to be oddball.

A Langdon Street Bestiary

This carved owl over the door of an apartment block ...



















... and this walrus on the wall of another.

Coo-coo ka-choo.

Sunset over Monona

We had to "spring ahead" last Sunday but that gets us home early enough to see the sunset from our front window now.

Daylight savings time still sucks, though. That hasn't changed.

A Tight Fit!

This truck had barely inches to spare on either side in an ally on Gilman Street. Judging from the graffiti and the lack of tire tracks in the snow, I'd guess it's parked there more or less permanently. Still, it took some brass to get it in there in the first place.

Ice glazing a porch rail, spotted behind Star Liquors on Willy Street when we made our semiweekly stop to resupply our beer locker (the gap between our back door and the storm door).

Thursday night is guy-food night.

And you're looking at one of the finest examples of guy food on the planet: beef bratwurst boiled in beer.

Oatmeal stout, to be precise. I've used ordinary beer before this, but tonight I wanted it to be special.

The brats are from a local farmer, delivered to our doorstep by the Blue Marble Dairy. Just thought I'd put a plug in for the local guys.

Brats in beer normally call for a tab of butter and an onion rolling around in the pot, too, but they were plenty tasty with just the beer. I fried up the onions separately so My Darling B could eat them as a garnish on her brats because she's a heathen and won't eat them with the customary saurkraut garnish.

From the boiling pot they go to the griddle for a few minutes to brown, and then to the table where they were eagerly gobbled up by your friendly neighborhood O-Folk.

People will collect anything. I shouldn't be surprised when I discover the next unusual thing that they consider collectable, but people are nothing if not surprising.

At an estate auction today I came across this table covered with old electric space heaters. I'll admit to a certain fascination with gazing into so many parabolic copper reflectors, but my fascination doesn't extend beyond snapping a few quick photos of them.

Then the bidding started. When the auctioneer moved on to the space heaters I expected a dead hush to fall over the crowd. If he got more than a buck apiece for these, I thought to myself, then nothing makes sense anymore.

And I was right. Nothing makes sense anymore.

On the first round of bidding, several went for fifteen bucks each. On subsequent bidding they went for less, but they always got more than a buck, and all the bidders had the overjoyed look of a collector who can't believe his good fortune.

I resolve not to be surprised at the next collectable I find.

To prove his manliness, Tim makes a trip to the composter in his bare feet across the ice-covered deck

It's a short trip, less than ten feet, but by the time he went out & back he couldn't feel his toes.

That's what you get when you answer a double-dog dare.

Lunar Eclipse

8:04 p.m.
8:23 p.m.

8:35 p.m.

8:51 p.m.

I snapped these by holding the camera up to one eyepiece of my binoculars while sighting through the other eyepiece.