les Casseroles

Leave it to the Canadians ....


Un frisson de solidarité from Jonathan Seaborn on Vimeo.

Manifestation populaire dans les rues de Limoilou, Québec, contre les décisions du gouvernement libéral.

Observations from the window 6.8

I haven't been writing much lately mostly because I have a lot on my mind lately and it has created a mess in which I can't put anything into words. Maybe that is just what my version of writers block is, a swirly messy mind. I've started multiple posts and finished none including a couple art posts I totally want to get out there. Over the next week I'm going to try and finish them as update some others I left open ended.

One thing I am staying away from, for now anyway,  is politics. As much as I love it I can't write about it without getting a headache. Politics in this country is just totally out of control, running on massive amounts of both money and ideology. At times politics is just war under another name an at times war is fought with no mercy. Sadly this seems to be one of those times.

History is about to reach one of its turning points and this November's election may tell us just how painful this turning point is going to be. If those who would turn back the clock should gain total power it may take a complete crash for history to sweep them away but in the end they will be swept away.

Like war, at times history is merciless.

“When I despair, I remember that all through history the way of truth and love have always won. There have been tyrants and murderers, and for a time, they can seem invincible, but in the end, they always fall. Think of it ... always,” Mahatma Gandhi.

Observations on the 2012 Election

Win dinner with Barack and Michelle Obama at Sarah Jessica Parker's place, that's a double win. Wonder if Ferris will be there too ....


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Observations 6.2

see on: picasa or flickr

They say you can never go home again but really that's just total bunk. You can always go home again its just that you never know what you are going to find when you get there. Sometimes you might be better off if you don't go.

When I was growing up I was a total hockey rat. For a few years I lived and breathed hockey all year round. Field hockey, ice hockey, deck hockey, it didn't matter. My second home was a small rink close enough to home that I could ride my bike with hockey sticks strapped to my back. I haven't been there in some time so while I was at my dad's last weekend I thought I would stop by and see what was new. Sadly I found it closed years ago because of the combination of out of control insurance costs and competition from new high-tech rinks that have opened in the area.

I guess this is what memories are for because I have nothing but good ones of this place. Even the bad memories are good. This was the first place I played organized hockey outside of school. A place I played hockey with my brother, coached my sister, and skated with my parents. It's also the scene of a gem of our family lore. When I was 14 there were only girls' leagues and boys' leagues, nothing mixed. To be honest the girls' league was a bit lame because at the time deck hockey was just too uncool for an area than dominated by soccer. One weekend I decided I was going to play with the boys to which they laughed until one snickered and said something along the lines of lets see what she can do, she wont last a game. What i did was break his nose with a check into the boards. I wasn't allowed anywhere near the rink for weeks after that. To this day my dad can't tell that story without breaking into a laugh.

I was just such a sweet girl back than, than again I still am.

Observations on Art 5.30

A friend of mine sent me this stunning video of the Golden Gate Bridge's 75^th Anniversary fireworks. I especially love the beginning where the fireworks raining off the bridge itself looks like a waterfall out of Dante.

Golden Gate Bridge 75th Anniversary Fireworks Celebration
from KFOG Radio 104.5/97.7 on Vimeo.

Event Production by Foghorn Creative Video
Produced by Michael Coleman
Audio Produced By Chuck Smith, Creative Director/KFOG,
and Lance Tipton
Fireworks by Pyro Spectaculars North
Lighting by Lightswitch
Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy

Observations from the Window 5.29

Sometimes when you aren't in the best frame of mind it takes something maybe petty, vain, or hell just plain worthless to get your brain back. Okay maybe it's just me this works for but I had these two little things happen over the weekend that made me smile just because they did.

One was just a simple retweet on twitter Sunday, but not just any retweet. It was just a link to an article in The New York Times, Portraits of War: Joe Bonham Project Illustrates the Wounds of War. What made the retweet special wasn't that it happened, it happens every day. What made it special was who in fact did it. It was retweeted by Jim Roberts, since 2008 Assistant Managing Editor of The New York Times.

The other thing may be petty or vain or maybe both. I was showing a good friend of the family my photos on Flickr and my ramblings in this blog when she said Kaycee Nighttfire was just a fabulous name and she thought I should change mine. I like Katie so there is no way in hell I ever would, still it was kewl.

I'm not sure if I ever said how I came up with the name so for the record here it is. When you join a certain online community you first have to pick a name. You can make your own first name but have to select from a list of last names. The list is much longer now but at the time I joined Nightfire just jumped out at me, it fit. Kaycee is rather easy to figure out, it's my real name initials, KC.

I almost forgot, Klout now says I am now influential on the topic of the NHL. My work here is nearly complete.

And so it goes.

Observations from the Road 5.28

Memorial Day weekend brings the unofficial start of summer along with a very large side of sports. That is if you consider auto racing a sport, something that is the subject of endless debate in my family. Summer doesn't officially start for a few weeks but at times it has felt like summer for months. As always I'll leave the science to my brother but damnit whatever happened to spring?

The weekend also became one of a few reasons to make a semi-planned trip home. I semi because I had planned on a day or two at my dad's but i hadn't planned on the whole weekend. Sometimes plans change. Life has a way of throwing unexpected events in the road, sometimes good, sometimes bad, and if you are lucky some of each all at the same time. It is what it is.

But all that is for another time, possibly.

I was driving through rural Pennsylvania on a Saturday morning and I was struck with a thought. Is there any other local in this country with so many damn yard sales? I know it's a holiday weekend all but still they are everywhere. Even my sis was having one when I left. She seems to have joined 'Light The Night' and is going to donate any money she makes to cancer research. My mini me all grown up.

But back to my sports update. I may be almost six feet tall but I was never the biggest basketball fan. I get into it when one of my teams is doing good but other than that it falls to one of the lower rungs of my sports ladder. That being said what an awesome season the Sixers had and I can't think of one bad thing to say about it. A good young team that got everything it could out of itself. You can't ask for anything more than that. They took the Boston Celtics to the last minutes of a game 7 before inexperience took its toll and the Celtics said it ends now. What an awesome season and an awesome future that team has. Unreal that those two teams have played eight game 7s in their history.

A once promising year of Stanley Cup playoffs begins its final chapter this week with the Los Angeles Kings playing the New Jersey Devils for the title. Not exactly a ratings bonanza for NBC but a good series for fans the series features wide open hockey against the supposedly illegal neutral zone trap. The Kings roster includes both former Flyer Jeff Carter and former Flyers' captain Mike Richards so I'll be drinking for them. Both were traded after last years dismal playoff performance in moves that added some of the six rookies that were on the Flyers' playoff roster this year. Whoever wins it wont be the hated New York Rangers and this is a good thing.

As the Phillies begin to age, and possibly look to rebuild, the Flyers and Sixers seem to have some exciting years ahead. Now I have to get back to the French Open.

One last funny story, one of those small town America things that just makes you smile. Now my hometown is small, only a couple thousand people, but every year it holds a Memorial Day parade. I was driving through town to get a paper and coffee and sitting at the curb in the middle of town were two old fashioned folding lawn chairs. Now this is hours before the parade and there isn't a soul in sight but apparently someone was staking out the prime parade watching spot. Just like the Rose Bowl.

Happy Memorial Day people.

Observations on the 2012 Election

This video was released by the Obama Campaign yesterday ....

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"Glee star Jane Lynch narrates this documentary about LGBT rights in America. The video features a candid interview with President Obama, who speaks about the repeal of Don't Ask Don't Tell, why he supports marriage equality, and what's at stake for the LGBT community in this election."

Join LGBT Americans for Obama

Observations from the Coffee Shop 5.23

Over the last couple years a rogues gallery of characters has passed through my posts here. The ones I'm probably most secretive about yet at the same time most open about are the members of my family. For reasons all my own a want to introduce you to another member of that group. She would be my aunt, my mom's sister, who to her total annoyance I always called Jay. She says I just call her that because I like pancakes so maybe you can figure the name out from there.

Like most female members of our family Jay has had a sometimes intriguing life. Among other schools she attended the Atlanta College of Art but received a degree from none of them. She lived in Los Angeles for years but says she grew bored with it and moved to New York, yes the Village. As my dad describes it she burned out after ten years in this city and moved to Philadelphia where she spent some time working at the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

Even though she lived in Los Angeles I'm told she didn't have a drivers license until well into her thirties. That alone says a lot about her.

She loves dogs and has always had one, usually a french poodle. Not the fluffy kind of poodle that immediately comes to mind but ones more like the retrievers which they were originally bred to be. Her poodles like to chase you around the yard, pit poodles.

Finally. when my mom became ill, Jay moved back to our ancestral homeland of CentralPa and has been there ever since. She became sort of an eccentric mom to Sean and K and sometimes attempted to be mine. At this she sadly failed completely.

There is a person in everybody's life who they wish they had or could spend more time with. It might be a family member or it might be an old friend. Jay is that person to me.

Now I'm just waiting for the phone to ring.

Observations from the Window 5.21

"the bridge"

Sunday was just a gorgeous day and I did something I have been wanting to do since I moved to the Village. During the warmer times of year I've always loved to jump in the car, put the top down, and just drive. Just drive to nowhere and see where I end up. It's one of the few times I allow my brain to just shutdown and not think about much of anything but the road ahead. Unless I'm driving to think which is a totally diff mode and a totally diff story.

In New York I'll sometimes just cruise around with the top down and stereo blaring, dodging cabs and basically adding to the din that is the city. It might not be the same as Interstate racing my brother but red light racing a cab with a toll has its own appeal. Still given enough time I like to get as far away from the metro area as I can and Sunday was just perfect.

What I'll do is check the traffic map and head in the direction that gets me out of town as quick as possible. The problem is that always has seemed to be any direction but north and I always wanted to make a run up the Hudson Valley. Sunday the driving gods smiled on me, a gorgeous day and open roads to the north.

After a touch of Interstate I drove along the river on Route 9 as far as Highland Falls which is just south of West Point. A stunning road to drive considering it is just thirty minutes from downtown Manhattan. In a perfect world I would have cut over to the east bank of the Hudson and driven north to Hyde Park, the once home of Franklin Roosevelt, but I didn't have time. That and I had already had too much sun because seems I don't own a proper hat and I'm too stubborn to put the top up.

I ate lunch at an interesting spot that had a sign out front which said it had the best "New York style" barbecue. Now I love BBQ, any kind of BBQ, but I must confess I had never heard of the New York style. After an awesome pulled pork sandwich I have to report it's awesome but it tastes like ... BBQ.

Maybe sometime this summer I'll get to Hyde Park but the gods would have to smile on me once again. That and the beach would have to stop calling my name.

Observations from the Window 5.19

I don't know if I ever wrote about healthcare before, it's a sometimes touchy subject for me. My basic thought is that in a country supposedly as rich as this one nobody should be denied the best care for economic reasons. If we can afford the ability to kill in a historically unknown scale we should be able to take care of those in need. One shouldn't be forced to settle for lesser care because their insurance tier doesn't cover a treatment or drug. In 2009 a Harvard Medical School study said 45,000 deaths a year are directly related to lack of health insurance or approximately the same number as smoking kills. Think about that.

I bring up healthcare now because a good friend of the family recently became ill. She is far from poor but her story still tells something about healthcare in this country. I'll make it a brief story. Over a month ago she began having pain in her side and started weeks of seeing various doctors, receiving various diagnosis, and getting various treatments. The pain continued to worsen and finally her frustrated OBGYN scheduled her for an mri because our friend is highly allergic to the dye used in a ct scan. On the morning of the test she received a call from the doctor's nurse informing her that the hospital's radiologist had cancelled the test. He didn't know a thing about her or her case but cancelled it because, as health insurance raises its ugly head, there are procedures to follow and a ct scan must be performed before an mri. It didn't seem to matter that the test could worsen the problem.

Now totally exasperated and unable to eat much she went to the hospital's emergency room with a friend. At one point she was asked why she came to emergency with a stomach ache, had I been there this is the point in the story where a nurse gets slapped, but than I wasn't. After a day of tests it was discovered she had a growth in her abdomen and surgery is scheduled for this week. She has been in the hospital since than but the insurance company wont pay for her to remain there till the surgery. She has to go home, deal with life's other problems, and be re-admitted that morning.

A thought came to me yesterday, maybe I had seen it somewhere before, maybe not. If we have to live and die with health insurance companies why not just make them non-profits? Why should medical decisions be made based on the profit line? Why should a few individuals make millions running these companies when so many Americans go without healthcare?

In the end history may judge this rich nation on how it treated its poorest citizens when they needed it most.

Observations on the 2012 Election

Today was a totally weird day in my little empire. Among other things I posted a photo on the flickr that wasn't meant to be and I began a blog post on the auction houses and their just ended spring auctions that is beginning to look more like papers I wrote in college. So for purely entertainment purposes I give you a public service message from Kate Beckinsale.

There may be some other women in the video, I didn't notice.

Republicans, Get In My Vagina! from Kate Beckinsale

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Observations

I found this some time ago and I like the thought and love the pics in it. Very well thought out so I figured I would post it here before it just disappeared into my digital wasteland. Some of the people in it I don't recognize so if anybody knows who they all are you win ....
my admiration.

Mom

Once again it's Mother's Day and once again I find I can't say anything that I didn't say now two years ago. It was what I felt than, what I felt last year, and what I feel now. I will add a quote from Mitch Albom's novel "For One More Day." The book is the story of a man and his mother and how one might spend one more day with a lost relative. If only ....

"But there's a story behind everything. How a picture got on a wall. How a scar got on your face. Sometimes the stories are simple, and sometimes they are hard and heartbreaking. But behind all your stories is always your mother's story, because hers is where yours begin."

Here is my original Mother's Day post.

"I was reading a Mothers Day blog post today that had me thinking. As you all know by now thinking is not always a good thing for me to be doing. But I could so relate to this girl because her mom had died of cancer at a young age.

I owe my mom so much. She was the first one to see something special behind my dark eyes. She would drag me around Philadelphia museums when I was barely old enough to walk. She was the first one to stick my fingers in paint, which was something that ended in quite a mess if I remember it correctly. And the first one to take me to wander the streets of New York and to visit MOMA (Museum of Modern Art) which was one of her favorite places in the world. She always praised my art but was also never afraid to criticize it.

When, as a teenager, I suddenly informed my parents I was gay she just hugged me and went about her business like I hadn’t just changed her life forever. From than on I knew I would be fine. She was the one who, in my rebellious high school years, kept me grounded when things could have gone so wrong.

She was always there for me until one day she wasn’t.

Everything I’ll ever be as an artist I owe to my mom and every time I look at a painting I wonder what she would have thought of it. Every day I wish I could thank her somehow.

I’ll leave you with a very fitting quote from the blog I read.

'This mother’s day be sure to tell them how much you care for all they have done for you, for you may never get another chance. Learn about their lives and you may learn something about yourself.'"

Happy Mother's Day