Off Topic: That Was the Week It Was: November 29, 2015

Good morning! Since it's Sunday morning, it's time for my weekly off television topic reflection on the week gone by in both words and photos I've taken along the way. If you're a television fan, please make sure to stop by on Wednesday and Friday evenings for the blog's Survivor and The Amazing Race live blogging parties!

I hope everybody had a nice Thanksgiving! Vincent and I had a quiet one here. While he had his turkey with gravy canned cat food -- he loves to lick the gravy off and then pick at the turkey -- I didn't have turkey this year. I'm just one person. I can't eat a whole turkey before it goes bad, nor could I find any acceptable (to me) sales on turkey breast. Some years I go for Cornish Game Hens or even chicken. However, I found a nice sale on butterflied leg of lamb. So, that accompanied by mashed potatoes, asparagus and apple pie was my Thanksgiving feast. Yes, I can eat an entire apple pie before it goes bad! I'm having the last of that today!

We are continuing to have fairly warm weather (outright unseasonable at times) here. I love it. I'm dreading icy and snowy sidewalks and streets. I really don't mind the cold so much; it's the ice and snow.

A couple of random things:

• I can still hear that screaming thumping child downstairs and one apartment to the side. I don't hear the screaming, but I hear the thumping. Let's see if they're out of here in February when their lease is up. I saw the woman going down to the laundry room this morning as I went for my Sunday newspaper. I said hello and she didn't even acknowledge me. Her and her family should go live on their own private island or something. They make way too much noise and aren't even cordial in the hallways.
• Meanwhile, I ran into five other neighbors in the hallway on Thanksgiving day when I went out for a walk. All greeted me enthusiastically with holiday greetings and were friendly. That's more like it.
• I can't believe one showed up with his wife and toddler. When he was ten, he used to clear snow off of my car. He was here to have dinner with his parents.
• Yes, I've lived here that long, I guess.
• I've always tended to think of that family as "the hardest working Jamaican family in the world" reflecting back on the old skits from In Living Color. Those parents still seem to be working around the clock! 

Onto this week's photos -- clicking on an image will open it larger in a gallery window.

Posing pigeons

You can tell I'm lacking photo fodder when I take several photos of the pigeons atop the Corolla Apartments building on North Avenue in Plainfield.

Too much turkey?

More like too much catnip for Vincent!

Almost full

Or, partly empty if you're a pessimist. The Beaver Moon, the 12th full moon of the year, was full on the 25th. I took this shot on the night of the 23rd. 

**CLICK THE 'READ MORE' LINK TO SEE THE REST OF THE PHOTOS**

Why passengers can't use the bench

Every day (and night), the sheltered benches at the Plainfield Train Station are taken over by bums or perhaps not so much bums, but dudes hanging out drinking beer. NJ Transit Police should be coming by and checking people for train tickets or something. Plainfield Police need to be regularly patrolling not just the eastbound side, but the westbound side as well. Drinking in public is still at least a violation of public ordinance, I would think. The train station is for passengers or those awaiting arrival of passengers. It's not a hang-out for parties, drunks, bums and ne'er-do-wells. (Nor denizens of the night! The situation is even worse at night.)

Well, that's just dandy(lion)

I saw dandelions this week! Maybe spring is here! No? Rats. I wouldn't mind if the weather stayed like this all winter.

Fire in the 'hood

I've always said piles of leaves parked on the street were a fire hazard. And, you'd think that many in New Jersey might watched the episode of The Sopranos in which A.J. Soprano parked his cool SUV in the pile of leaves and it went up in flames. The car you see in the right of this photo was sitting idling atop the humongous leave pile. The leaves caught on fire; the car had to be towed. At least they got it off the leaves before the whole car was consumed by the fire!

Reminded me of the old days

Burning leaves was commonplace when I was growing up. The scent of this fire really brought back memories. Now, of course, they claim it's too polluting and dangerous of a practice. But I don't recall any out of control fires that necessitated fire department response by the homeowners doing this back through into at least the late 70s.

Sparx, that's my name for him!

They're repeating the process they did for the removed Watchung Avenue bridge with the Park Avenue bridge. It's like deja vu all over again! They've cut holes in the sides for the crane to grab and they're cutting the old bridge into sections to be hauled away on a flatbed truck. North Avenue and Gavett Place are still taken over over with bridge replacement stuff. And, while the new bridges are both in, both still need their end-pieces, kind of like bookends. I hope they keep the lettering about Plainfield on them. The Richmond Avenue bridge just stuck up a replica of the long defunct Central New Jersey train line logo.

My track is closed

They're still doing a lot of work and closing us down to one track at various times. Reminding me of NJ jughandles which make you take a right to take a left on the roads, I have to go to the eastbound platform to go west.

Let there be fog

Men in trees

On Wednesday, PSE&G (power and gas company serving this area) did a butcher job on the trees on my street.

But they left one precarious branch!

That sole branch is just about resting on the wires. Why did they leave that one up? Too dangerous for them to take down? Hmm.

Rose continues!

It's almost December and I'm still seeing some roses that don't look in horrible shape.
Mind you, I'm not complaining.

More precarious than that tree branch

This trailer mysteriously appeared (with its own generator) at the Plainfield Train Station. I hope they don't allow dancing inside. Why have they got it raised so high? Perhaps to fit the staircase? It's all balanced on cinder blocks and bricks at the top of a hill. Nah, nothing could go wrong here. Right?

Mirror image?

Or ... back to back they faced each other, opened their beaks and shot each other. Okay, it's actually two separate pigeons.

Colorful bush

The Stairway to Heaven?

Pigeons on the Chotola roof. I wonder how the hierarchy of pigeons is determined. Maybe it's first come, first served to the highest peaks.

We still have some color

While the majority of trees in some areas are barren now, some pockets still sport colorful foliage and, in some cases, still many green leaves. I took this shot of the lamp at the side of the Plainfield YWCA on East Front Street and the trees surrounding it.

The end, time to conk out