Category: Objects of Beauty
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Sitting In Another Cemetery
[Me gazing at the soccer game. Photo credit: Mariam Voutsis] You, my readers, may think I’m a bit morose and morbid. My last post was about Evergreen Cemetery, in my home town of Owego, NY. But, if you think that I am very dark, you’re wrong. Yes, I have a strong nostalgic mind. But today…
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A Tale of Three Rings
[Antique wedding ring. Price? About $5600. European Cut. Source: Google search.] Eileen, a colleague of Mariam, wanted to meet us for a drink. We were in New York City for the usual doctors appointments, meetings and our yearly Yankee game. The three of us sat at the bar of Brendens Irish Pub on W. 35th…
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The Box of Treasures
[A sampling of Mariam’s head shots] We have something over our heads, above the ceiling in the room where we binge watch Big Little Lies, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel and Doc Martin. Some people would call it an attic. Others might refer to it as a crawl space (one doesn’t need to crawl, really. You…
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The Robin’s Nest
[The nest after being moved from the lamp] [American Robin: Turdus migratorius.] I’m sure it was a Robin’s nest. Every time Mariam or I would use the front deck entrance (with a screen door that slammed louder than the front gate of Alcatraz), a bird with a rusty breast would scold us from a nearby branch…
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The Statue
This post is not about anything that happened on our most recent trip. This goes back to a time, over a year ago when we were having dinner at an outdoor restaurant In Brussels. At the end of the final course, I excused myself to go to the loo. On the way to the back…
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Journey’s End
Pick a window…any window. There’s nothing to see, only white. We entered a fog bank. Fog as thick as whole milk. We’re sailing due west, nearing Long Island. Visibility from our deck window is about ten feet. The end of our three-month journey is about to end. Nothing left, except to get through customs and…
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In The Land of Pooh, The Badger, King Arthur and Beyond: The Excursionist XIII Finale
magic (n) A mysterious quality of enchantment. England is a land of mystery, magic and myth. It is a land of legends of kings and villains of all sorts. Consider this quote: As one wakened suddenly from a beautiful dream, who struggles to recall it, and can recapture nothing but a dim sense of…
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The Glastonbury Tor Blog: The Excursionist XII
[The Tor at the start of our climb. St. Michael’s Tower crowns the hill] Glastonbury is an ancient town nestled on a broad plain near the Mendip Hills in the county of Somerset. It comes with a reputation, like that guy that sat in the last seat of your school bus. You can shop for…
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The Circus: The Excursionist XI
Really great adventures always start with a sign taped to a window of a shop or to a wooden pole along the curb. At least that’s how I found out about the circus. We’re not talking about Barnum & Bailey here or even the Big Apple Circus that visits Lincoln Center every winter. No, this…
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Words From A Footpath: The Excursionist X
[Older footpath signs] It must be my age. It could be my imagination. It certainly is something I don’t fully understand. But, the truth is I think that the English Public Footpaths sometimes call my name. There is a legend among the Northwest Indigenous People that when you hear an owl call your name…you will…
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