Pam’s Pictorama Post: Yesterday I devoted my post to writing about work and specifically about the dog event fiesta that September has become. My job, which is on a fiscal year ending on December 31 (I do not recommend this), will increase in volume, stress and energy required, continuously increasing through our gala in early December and on through the last week of the calendar year until I fall over on New Year’s Day. However, returning from our summer weeks in New Jersey is more than adjusting to increasing work, it is the adjustment back into our lives here at the official location of Deitch Studio – a physically much smaller epicenter of our operation.

Cookie and Blackie are generally very relieved that we have once again returned them to their private abode here. While there is novelty with the twice yearly trips to the shore house, their discovery that other cats exist in the universe aside from them (not a welcome thought), they prefer the one room here where they rule unimpeded.

For those readers who remember that Blackie was limping before we left (resulting in an emergency trip to work on Saturday) his limp has improved but not gone away. The trickiest jumps are a bit beyond him (the pedestal sink in the bathroom to his chagrin – he needs us to lift him in for a drink), but his jumping gradually improved in New Jersey. He and Cookie are 14 this year and perhaps this is a bit of age showing. If he didn’t hate the vet so I would take him to my friends in rehab and let them have a look or perhaps do some acupuncture on it.

Meanwhile, when we return they spend the first weeks hating each other like they never saw the other before. Blackie wasn’t allowing Cookie on the bed which annoyed her but she was so happy to return to her perch on the top of the couch by the windows she ignored it until it blew over in the last day or so.

I probably bought it because it is pretty but looking forward to reading it soon too.

Books! Despite leaving a pile in New Jersey, many seem to have found their way back here too. As much as I have embraced reading electronically where I can (all new novels and what I can find on my list for 19th and early 20th century writers) I must say somehow a stack of books has built up next to the bed. They are mostly one off old novels and volumes of short stories from the 1910’s. If I find any new leads into interesting writers I will let you know. The most recent Rosa Mulholland book acquisitions reside there, while several earlier volumes remained in New Jersey. (Earlier posts on her novels can be found here, here and here.)

I am enjoying a book of short stories, Nancy’s Country Christmas, 1904, by someone named Eleanor Holt which I purchased on one of our trips to the Antiques Annex. Unfortunately this volume seems to be her only published effort aside from a magazine serialization or two and the internet has yielded little. I would read more of her if there was more to read.

In the pile are: Natalie’s Chum by Anna Chapin Ray, 1905; Our Bessie by Rosa Nouchette Cary (nicely illustrated) with no publication date but a note on the flyleaf of 1896; and a later addition of Janet Hardy in Hollywood by Ruth Wheeler, a series book from 1935. To his credit I think Kim is reading his way through things largely purchased and left to pick back up in New York. His nose has been buried in The Education of Henry Adams for a while now since we got back – in an interesting horizontal paperback form designed to distribute to GI’s. He read reprints of the Superman saga during some of his vacation in New Jersey but luckily for our limited space, was able to leave them at the house there.

I am a rather voracious reader when I get going and I have read a number of contemporary novels recently as well. I generally review them very briefly on Goodreads if you ever wonder what I am reading when I get into the 21st century. I am partial to books about time travel and for example highly recommend The Ministry of Time (here) and, slightly different, The Life Impossible (and here). I am a fast reader and the books pile up so I am glad they are largely electronic. Some are so splendid though I do miss having physical copies. I also miss the ability to hand my copy of an excellent book over to a friend.

Aside from digesting stuff and somehow sorting it into the apartment, there is so much to do as there is for all of us in this back-to-school time of year. I am struggling through the last of the paperwork for my mother’s estate (having saved the worst for last I am afraid; the transfer of retirement accounts is ferocious), the apartment here needs attention (plumber anyone? I can’t seem to get a call back and our toilet needs to be replaced), and soon the weather will inform me it is time to turn the closets over and a long delayed need to weed through them. I have made two fall clothing purchases and both are brown which is different for me – we’ll see how that works out. I will say we have very limited closet space and it is that moment when summer and fall clothes are cheek to jowl. My list for what needs doing is long!

Adjusting to our somewhat miniscule kitchen and away from my garden means a different kind of cooking – more just assembling than cooking really. It took a week or two but I seem to have reacquired the skill set. Kim and I have remembered the sort of dance required for both of us to be in there – let alone when the cats want to be with us! However, soup time is upon us and I am mentally gearing up to schedule in my weekly soup making. (Recipes for soups can be found in prior posts here and here.)

The super charged energy of fall will help – street festivals, dates to see friends, new exhibitions. Even for us early film fans there are options – a favorite, the Perdenone Silent Film Festival, is the first week in October and broadcast online with a subscription. (Information about the festival can be found here.) Next weekend I travel back to New Jersey for some appointments there. Mum season will have begun (I like a good couple of mums on the front steps – can’t compete with Park Avenue shown above though) and I will start to turn my thoughts to getting the garden ready for winter and the eventual holiday season there.

This ended up being longer than planned so thank you if you stayed with me to the end! Also a shout out to all of you as Pictorama crossed the 500 member line last week. Thank you!