Off Topic: That Was the Week It Was - September 18, 2016

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 photographs I've taken along the way. If you're here for Big Brother news, everything I have for you can be found at this link. I'll be posting another live feeds report late tonight (for what it's worth at this point). But this ain't that. This post is a year-round regular "feature" while Big Brother is a summer obsession. Or, something like that.

Also television-related in this off television topic post -- if you want to be in the blog pool for Survivor 33: Millennials vs. Gen-X -- you need to take action and sign up on THIS LINKED POST. The cut-off for the blog pool is tomorrow, so get in there today! Every season we have late people wanting in and it would be nice if everybody made the deadline!

Okay, as for this week ... it's been a staycation. The timing is good as I'm still trying to recover from my sprained ankle. It's to the point now that, unless I'm on it a lot like I was on Friday, I can actually feel that bony bit that should be felt on the outside of the ankle. I've been trying to stay off it the best I can and pampering it at home with ice and elevation.

As a result of the ankle, I didn't go into the city (Manhattan) at all this week although I had hoped to go photo-stomping the Feast of San Genaro in Little Italy. I did attend a cookout, got together the photos for the library contest and delivered them (Hi, Jeff!) and got a few things done around the apartment but not as much as planned.

A few random things:

• Someone put about twenty books atop the mailboxes for people to take. I looked them over. None of them looked like my cuppa tea. I hope someone takes interest in them, though. I'm just not into historical romance novels.
• Some jerks in a white van with a 908 area code phone number and "Carpet Cleaners" logo pulled up outside last night and filled our apartment dumpsters with carpet remains and other debris. I yelled out the window at them that I was calling the police for illegal dumping to scare them. (There are also signs.) I didn't call the police because I'm not sure of my standing with a complaint as a tenant. I'll call the landlord's office sometime this week to see what they want. I should have gotten the total phone number off the van to give to the landlord. Hopefully, they won't return. But now the tenants in this roughly 40-unit building have no room to put trash in the dumpsters until tomorrow when they're emptied. Grr.
• If there were to be a zombie apocalypse overnight tonight, I wouldn't have to go to work tomorrow.   

Onto the photos for this week (and last). Clicking on an image will open it in a larger version.

The Vincent

I messed with this shot with a photo editor. I really should turn that one couch pillow around. It does match the couch on its other side! I blame it being backwards on the couch because of Vincent the Cat. He knocked it over to sleep atop of it and, without thinking, I put it back up with the wrong side facing out. Yup. All the cat's fault!

Banded bird

Is this my best side? I saw this pigeon watching me at the Bridgewater Train Station. It wasn't until I started shooting him that I noticed the ankle bands. He's someone's bird, whether racing or homing. I don't know what he was doing hanging around the train station!

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

A murmur of starlings

On the last day I worked before vacation, there was a huge murmur of starlings circling over the Bridgewater Train Station. This photo doesn't really capture the amount of birds in the sky!

Vying for spots on the wire

That pigeon again

I'm ready for my close-up

My own private train car

Because of my sprained ankle, one of my conductor friends allowed me to sit in a closed car because the other accessible main level (no stairs up or down) car had the restroom in it. It was nice -- the air conditioning was better because the doors weren't constantly opening and closing, it was quiet. Plus, it wasn't a restroom car!

Ohhh! Control doohickeys!

Sigh. I guess he's trusting me not to play with them, nor go through the conductor's backpack on the seat next to me.

Porta-Religion Peeps

I don't know about this past week because I didn't take trains anywhere. But the week before we had some representation of the Portable Religion People daily at the Plainfield Train Station.

Porta-religion packin' it in

They pack up after the morning rush and they're back by the evening rush.

Mmmmm!

I attended a friend's cookout in Plainfield last Saturday. The food was amazing! Not only the chicken on a sticks you see here and the kabobs, but there were crab legs, hamburgers, hot dogs, steaks, ribs, macaroni and cheese, every side dish you could think of, corn on the cob, etc. There was also a good choice of beverages ranging from kids drinks to spiked punch, to beer and beyond. I actually did some shots of mango vodka. Hey, I figured it was to control the pain from my sprained ankle! And one thing many there commented on -- we had such a mix of races and ages and everybody had a good time, mixing and mingling. Even the teenage boys were polite -- offering their hand to shake when introduced. (Later their father told me they better be polite and respectful! Heh. Good parenting!) Why can't everyone get along like that? I also saw an old neighbor from when I first moved into my apartment nearly two decades back.

No wonder my mail isn't timely

Oh my. As seen at the corner of East 8th Street and Park Avenue in Plainfield on Friday.

The moon but not Harvest

It was working its way there! I didn't go out to take a shot of the Harvest Full Moon this year. However, this is a shot of the moon the week before at dusk with some pinkish clouds. That's the best I can do this time 'round.

Graffiti wall

I've watched this wall on and off over the years. It's at the back of the E&A Kitchen suppliers building on Cleveland in Plainfield. (Although this view is taken from through the fence on East Fifth Street.) It fairly regularly gets painted over with black for the graffiti artists to go at it once again. I think it's very allowed by the business owner because ...

Graffiti artist building graphics

Yep! I believe the same group of graffiti artists doing their "work" on the back of the building are responsible for the most excellent graphics adorning the business. This is but one of those graphics.

It's his couch, after all ...

And, as I pointed out to my cousin in a Facebook post -- If I think it's MY couch, Vincent will then think I'm his couch.