Aftermath

 Like many cities across the United States, Indianapolis was the scene of demonstrations last May and June, protesting the killing of George Floyd by a policeman in Minneapolis. The demonstrators caught most of the grief for the damage done by the rioters, vandals, and thieves who came in their footsteps. The rioters seemed to be organized, shattering windows, breaking into businesses, setting fires, and stealing merchandise from the closed up restaurants, drug stores, and liquor stores, then in some instances, blending into the crowd of demonstrators. As a result, the police took in everybody, then spent the weekend just trying to sort the demonstrators from the trouble-makers. At least one restaurant has closed permanently due to the vandalism, theft, and arson. The same with the drug store. In a town that relies in great part on convention and tourism to support its people, such losses weigh heavily on an already burdened economy. 

In all the years I've lived in Indy, I have never known the town to seem so abandoned; with the possible exception of some of the bail bondsmen (coincidence?) all of the windows in the downtown area had been boarded up due to damage. It took weeks for the glaziers to repair them and some remain covered in plywood. I took these pictures as repairs were being made last July. Adhesive had been spread onto the windows, with five-eighths plywood or OSB then stuck to the window. Obviously, it worked; the glue did not want to give up its assignment.

  

Gray Today, Rain Tomorrow.

So here is my supermarket orchid, twelve blooms on two stalks, all of which wilted and fell off last autumn. They are the "parents" of the teen-age leaf seen earlier. While at the store today, my eyes were tempted by the bright pinks of other orchid plants. I have an inkling that one of those will be re-homed in the near future.

 

WTF Is THIS?

 

I don't smoke and never have. It is a disgusting, filthy, and demonstrably unhealthy habit. It is an expensive one, too, with most familiar brands selling for between five and six dollars a pack. When I saw this bit of detritus on the ground, it caught my eye because of the name ... THIS. I could imagine the salesclerk at the convenience store asking their customer, "Do mean THIS one, sir?" As it turns out, the brand is owned by a Korean company that started selling the cigarettes in the United States in 2017, selling for about half that of American competitors, finding its customers in the big box stores. As of June, 2019 the brand became the fifth-largest seller globally, based on revenue. So now, another company is laughing all the way to the bank, offering their addictive poison to a steady stream of lower-income buyers.

 

Teen-Age Orchid Leaf

 

One day, you notice this little green nubbin emerging from the base of its parent leaves. Before you know it, even though you've been taking pictures of it, watching it as it grows in a pot just about a foot away, it's suddenly almost grown. The newest orchid leaf is become an adolescent, nearly as long as its parents, and only discernable because it's a bit shinier.

Under A Big Leaf

 

Whenever I see these plants each summer, decorating the sidewalks from their big cement pots, I go to stand beneath them. I enjoy looking up to see their ribbed canopies, and the way the sun shines, showing the colors. I remember seeing drawings in books when I was a girl, of other little girls in places more exotic than the Midwestern town where I lived. In some drawings they were carrying leaves big enough to protect them from the rain, or acting as parasols to shade them from the heat of the sun. Whenever I take pictures like this, I wonder if little girls really do carry big leaves in the rain and, does the rain splash up on their legs as it bounces off the muddy paths where they walk?

A Feast for Robins

The trees that produce these berries seem to be pretty common in my area. There are about a half dozen of them planted near the branch bank in my neighborhood, another six outside a nearby church, and uncounted others all over town. I noticed these one rainy day and, since I'm a sucker for trying to get a decent photo of hanging drops of water, I stopped to take some pictures. 

Oddly, the birds don't seem to pay much attention to them until winter is well established. One morning years ago, I noticed one tree that was surrounded by robins, sitting around a berry tree. Apparently, they had been gorging on the fruit so much they were unable to fly. I wonder what happens to the berries during the winter that suddenly makes them so appealing to the robins? Do they at that point provide some nutrient for the birds? Or have they fermented?

 

A Berry Red Christmas Eve

 

With kind wishes for you all,

please have a happy, healthy,

and safe holiday.

A Bee Sees

 Honey! 

Well, I think he's more likely to get pollen all over his fuzzy little bee vest.

With all the gray weather, I haven't been outside for days. Tomorrow I expect to go grocery shopping and swim for a bit during the lunch hour. 

Today marks Covid Groundhog Day No. 285.

Gee! I wonder where the year has gone?

 

A Butterfly Pitstop

 The first day of winter and the days will start to lengthen toward spring, a bit each day. But it's already dark, DAMMIT! I got up to go swim this morning and ended up staying home because it was so dark and gloomy, it just didn't feel right to me. It rained around mid-day, too, which only put a bit of gloss on the stark grays of the sidewalks and my mood.

This picture was taken last August when I went to Newfields for a long walk and to look at some real art, not just my own. I stopped at the Beer Garden where I was enjoying a small plate of charcuterie with a glass of local brew when I saw this guy. Along with abundant bees and a few hummingbirds, he flew in to enjoy a snack among the flowers planted in the museum's pub garden.

  

Little Purple Guys

 Even after the hydrangeas had dried up and faded to brown, these little flowers hung on, their bright color making dabs of interest. Now the others have laid down or been mowed, and the little flowers have themselves wilted from the cold. Their bright color stays on, however, even as they lie in small, bright wads of purple, a protest to their drab surroundings.

Buzz Lightyear at Work

 A big ol' bumble bee clings to the delicate petals of white flowers as he drinks in their nectar.

A Work-A-Day Bee

 

And he's hovering so hard that you can't see his wings. Down there, on his shoulders, the wings are still a blur as he works amid the pollen. Some of the flowery stuff has even fallen onto the petals, waiting for the next worker to get some stuck on his legs. 

I took this picture one morning this past summer as I was leaving swim practice at the Riviera Club, where masses of flowers are lovingly tended by a garden club. I love standing in the flowers to watch the bees work, but I very rarely get a decent picture of them; they seem to have a bit of ADD because, no sooner than I get my little camera focused on one of them at work, than they fly off to another blossom. It must seem like an embarrassment of riches to the bees.

Back When We Still Had Flowers

 On my way to swim practice one morning late last summer, I heard the sound of a horn. Stopping in my tracks to take a look around, I saw this student sitting on the wall just outside the Campus Center building. He had turned the wall into his practice room, with the warm sun, open air, and black gloves helping to repel any viral notes.

Carillon

 

This is the tower of the Campus Center at IUPUI - Indianapolis. The carillon tower opened on August, 2010, but I don't recall hearing it in recent weeks. It's programmed to play every half hour, but may be quiet because of the pandemic; the entire campus seems almost like a ghost town. Previously bustling with students going to and from classes, I can walk the two blocks from Michigan to New York Streets without seeing another person. The caretakers are working; I frequently greet maintenance people in the performance of their duties at the Nat. And I do see some students sitting in the halls with their laptops and smart-phones, but nothing as it should be - no purposeful bustle, no happy camaraderie.

Dunno ... But I Think I Found Out

 

I saw this circular window-like thingy on a blue metal box and thought it looked interesting. When I got home I looked up the manufacturer. I think this is a socket cover for receptacle that would ordinarily hold an electrical meter.

The blue box itself is at the curb of a site where one could rent an electrically-powered car, a runabout one could use for errands in the downtown area. For whatever reason, that business didn't work out; the little cars were shown in pictures, literally stacked in a junk yard, and there's a contest for suggestions for the best use for these sites.

P.S., The red is from the reflection of my coat.

 

Pale Gold in Winter

 I love the look of pampas grasses in the winter. While most of them are shorn some time in the fall, those that remain seem to add additional light to their surroundings.

The Way the Sunlight Looks When It Shines Through Leaves

 

I'd like to understand how this happens, but I don't know what to search for information. I just know that I love the happy effect it has on my eyes and heart - sooo beautiful!

But it doesn't happen here: the red and yellow remain their original colors when the sunlight hits them. There's also a stand of red Japanese Maples in the neighborhood, the leaves of which become bright scarlet when the sun shines on them. But all the photos I've taken show the leaves as green. While these images show what my eyes were seeing, the pictures of the maples do not, and I've wondered whether it has something to do with the digital optics of my camera. I dunno, just wondering.

Tree Line

When I walk the two or so blocks from the bus stop to the Natatorium for practice, I often take a bit of time to look at a couple lines of nearby sycamore trees. I love the way the sunlight reflects off the trees' pale hide, defining their shapes and delineating the growth of their limbs as they follow the sun.

Bowling for Mast

 

Lining up carefully on the lane, Rusty Sciurus, a bowler representing the Sycamore Arbor just a few feet east of Maple Tree Lanes, uses a unique double-pawed technique to achieve a strike in the tenth frame of the Brickyard Flats Open.

  

Street Art: Corner of New York Street and University Blvd

 One day, there was a guy, a cement finisher, installing a new sidewalk, who decided that scoring the wet cement would make it less slippery for pedestrians. Some while later another worker, this time tracing and marking water lines, would spray a slash of green paint onto the sidewalk. Then the nearby trees would shed their tiny golden leaves into the scored lines. 

So there we have it, a little composition of gray, green, and gold at a local street intersection.

Days of Drear ...

 

... Make the silvery plants look like hoarfrost growing on the concrete walls.

Even my little orchid leaf was still shadow-bound at mid-morning, a red edge showing faintly in the gray light.

We Got to Race!

 

On Sunday, Indy Aquatic Masters swim club presented the Holiday Classic Masters Meet at the world famous IU Natatorium. Following health department guidelines, swimmers ages 22 through 84 years of age competed in either of two sessions.

 

Each session was comprised of events fifty to two hundred yards in length in the twenty-five yard pool, with swimmers testing their mettle in free-style, backstroke, breaststroke, and butterfly races.

And there's a rumor we're going to do it again in three to four months, just to give people the incentive to keep up their practice. So keep going!

Even Santa was there to cheer on his friends! 

Somebody Left No. 2!

 

Yep! Right in the entry to my apartment building, someone has left an orange deuce 

(Not THAT one! Ugh!).

Santa Comes to Speedway!

This Saturday, the Town of Speedway, the Speedway Fire and Police Departments, helped Santa with a little PR, providing him with an escorted drive through the town to say hello to all the boys and girls (as well as adult believers).

If you look closely, you can see the vile Shelf Narc riding in the window of Santa's chauffer-driven limo. Adults have not yet caught on to the little spy, not realizing he's a guilt-inducing frightener, not an extension of the Spirit of Christmas.

And then there was Me!, standing on the corner, waiting for Santa to ride by. He was early; even at a clocked speed of 12.67 mph, (calculated by the official Santa Tracker) the motorcade passed through my intersection about fifteen minutes earlier

 than expected.

And given the source of this town's name, would you believe that Santa's outfit was made of fire-retardant Nomex?

 

Not Yet! Not Yet!

 

Y'know, with a few pieces of nice Bristol board, an X-acto knife, a straight-edge, and some paper punches that make different-sized holes, an entire lacy blizzard of snowy stars could be hanging in the window well before Christmas.

I just don't want to see the real stuff until at least mid-January, if then.

I Want One

 

Among the first items displayed inside the entrance to Newfields' exhibit of Twentieth Century design are this table and chair, shown in front of a large photo of the conversation pit of the Miller House, a Mid-Century Modern home designed by architect Eero Saarinen in 1953 for Columbus, Indiana industrialist J. Erwin Miller and his Wife, Xenia.

Isamu Noguchi designed the No. 311 Dining Table table on the left in 1953, which was produced by Knoll Associates, which, of course, manufactures Harry Bertoia's iconic Diamond Lounge chair, designed by him in 1952.

I have a knock-off of the chair that I find comfortable and would love to have a real one, with bright blue upholstery. *Sigh.*

 

But It's So Beautiful

 

Just a couple days later, the leaf has added a bit of height. I love its curves and shadows. I should probably wipe the water stain off of its parents.

From One End ...

 

To the other.

The grounds of Newfields/the Indianapolis Museum of Art are what was once the estate of Eli Lilly, called Oldfields. The top photo is a view north, taking a visitor through the formal garden to the Lilly house. The bottom photo is from the opposite end, closer to the house. While the museum grounds are only a few miles from downtown Indy, these quiet views seem a million miles from anywhere. 

Comfort Food: But Wait! There's More!

 

It's ALLL comfort food.

This time last year, things were, shall we say, a bit precarious. My monthly expenses are generally about the same each month, but in 2019 it seemed that the price of everything -- EVERYthing went up 15-17%, including my rent; I went from being able to make ends meet to having the ends not meet, with nothing left over for groceries. I began to take advantage of a neighborhood food pantry, got some assistance with my energy bills, and applied for SNAP (what we used to know as food stamps is now a card with a monthly cash allotment to buy food).

Just before the pandemic became the controlling force of our lives, I had lined up a temp job. The report to work date was canceled about two weeks later when the stay-at-home order went into effect. Luckily, I had the allotment or I would have been S-O-L. Between the shut-down and our swim club beginning practice sessions, Congress did pass an emergency bill that provided laid-off/furloughed workers with compensation. One of my coaches suggested I apply, but I was hesitant, of the mind that "you don't work, you don't get." On the way home, I met a former co-worker who told me to apply for the benefits. I did, and because I had been given that "report to work" date, I was eligible to receive $600 a week for about 10-12 weeks, most of which I was able to put back for, like, now. 

What you see on those shelves is more food than has been on them at any time in the past forty years. I bought rice, beans, pasta, tuna, canned fruit and veggies, the ubiquitous peanut butter, and coffee. In my freezer is ground beef, chicken breasts, and fish, along with bags of broccoli and green beans, with dairy products in the fridge.

I learned the hard way. I have some stuff to share with others, but I plan on being able to get through the winter without having to ration a pan of buttered rice for my day's meals.

So you can well imagine what this time is like for many millions of others who, in addition to themselves, have little kids to feed and clothe, who are in danger of losing their homes because, due to Covid, their jobs are gone and Congress (i.e., Mitch McConnell) will not allow additional measures to help the citizens of their own country, many of whom voted for them. These people are being held hostage to the selfish ideologues who line their pockets with our dollars. They can't be gone soon enough.

Today being the first day of the month, is Theme Day. Today's theme is Comfort Food. To see how other members of the group have interpreted the theme, just click on the City Daily Photo badge to the right of this column.