Category Archives: DavisOrtonGallery

3/18 – 4/7/2020 – Coronavirus Isolation

Wednesday 3/18/2020

Hudson Area Library closes; all programs stop.

Friday 3/20/2020

Gov. Cuomo announces shit down of all non-essential businesses.

Saturday 3/21/2020

HAL hold first online Board of Trustees meeting; library closed

Tuesday 4/7/2020

Today marks the end of the third week of isolation. Excepting for a couple of trips to the grocery, bank, and liquor store we have had no contact with any one closer than 6 feet.

Walks

Fortunately for us we have been taking daily walks, sometimes lengthy enough to be called hikes. It has been remarkable how few people we see during these walks. You might think that people would be getting out for exercise, air, nature…. maybe this reflects how sedentary we have become as a society. Our walks have mainly featured a route up Warren St. around the hospital and then back down the hill to home – about 2.5 miles (4K). We have extended and varied this to make it both longer and more challenging. 

Here are reports for a few.

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1/30/2020 – DOG, web project, tennis, dinner

Thursday

Got up at 5:30 am. Worked on updating DOG website for the next season. Then worked more on the timeline here.

Tennis lesson at 11 am.

Troubled left knee was concerning. But once I got going it proved to be just a little annoyance occasionally. Saif introduced the idea that I should be flicking my wrist during my ground strokes. I seem to have interpreted earlier instructions to indicated keeping the wrist immobile during the stroke. Flicking the wrist involved letting the racquet drop below the ball and the flicking the racquet in an upward direction as the arm carried through the stroke. Will have to work further on this.

Big revelation was the time we took with my serve. He pointed out that I am rushing the whole arm motion from then time I toss the ball in the air. Now that I toss the ball quite far up I can slow down my back swing and the wind up to only accelerate during the last quarter or so of the whole swing path. This worked wonders. I hit one ball after the other over the net most landing in very close to the service line. I also had time during the serve motion to think about where I was hitting the ball.

HAL Meeting with Mayor Kamal Johnson

Held meeting with the mayor to provide him with an overview of library operations, future plans, and budget. He is very young, Emily did her usual good job. Gary Sheffer spoke about the History Room. Theresa Parsons chimed in; Bill Stenehjem was present. Toni Koweek represented the Friends and gave a longer than necessary description of their activities. Very good meeting. He is quite familiar with the library but hopefully this gives him a better view of ours issues and the overall program.

Dinner with SJ Williams and Pauline Decarmo

Went to Barnwood. Were horrified at the announcement that there was no fried chicken available. Did eat our dinner. Lots of chatter. Followed up with visit to Dave Drake at Swoon for drinks. Very crowded at the bar. Pauline and I talked about her billing practices. 

1/25/2020 – Bob’s – pack up DavisOrtonEditions

Saturday

Regular Saturday breakfast at Bob’s followed by grocery shopping.

Attended to new Time Machine hard drive for Karen’s new iMac. Spent several more hours scrubbing through the photos from 2018 to creat a list of blog postings. Somehow I went through 2018 with only two entries in real time.

Spent most of the afternoon boxing up the fifty or so portfolios that were featured in our failed attempt to sell photography online. DavisOrtonEditions was launched in 2013 and abandoned in 2016. Time to ship the prints back to the photographers. Fortunately we had a good sluppy of white boxes. Karen worked  on confirming  the shipping addresses for all these boxes. We lost  the old database.Rained steadily all afternoon and into the evening.

Dinner

Pork chop, red bean vegetable medley with jerk seasoning, cauliflower mashed with cheese, salad with Brussels sprouts chopped:

12/7/2019 – DOG Opening – Winter Walk – HAL

Saturday

Esther Hanig is visiting over the weekend.

Saw this iceboat being set up on Warren while walking back from farmer’s market in the morning.

DOG Opening

We held the opening reception for the PhotoBook show with pictures of books and readers at 3pm in order n to to bump into Winter Walk that starts at 5pm. Feared few would show up. Having a couple of locals in the show brought out their posses.

Winter Walk 

Spent most of the time at the library’s History Room store front at 538 Warren.

Gary Sheffer, Miranda Barry, MMO, Jim Hoon

7/29/2019 – exercises, puttering, HAL, nonfiction book group

Monday

After breakfast did exercise routine. Puttering. Created some questions for the book group meeting on White Trash. Karen was off in Cambridge at Soup Group. Greeted one of the 50 photographers in the gallery to see her work. Read more of Stalingrad.

Broke up the many computer boxes I had brought down from the 2nd floor of barn. First step in a clean out. 

Met with Emily Chameides at the library at 5pm. Talked through lots of issues. 

Nonfiction book group at 6 pm. 8 people attended despite promises from four or five more to show up.  Two new people: Anna Maria Assevero and Peter Daley. She has joined the library board. He is a friend of Erika and Nick from another book group. Good discussion. 

7/28/2019 – tennis, dinner with Sue and Mark Haven

Sunday

Woke up at 5 am. Got up and read more of Stalingrad, coffee, breakfast.

Cindy Weisbart appeared for breakfast along with Karen. Got NYTimes on paper.

Left to practice serve at 9. Probably hit 250 serves. Big focus on tossing the ball very high so that I have to delay my swing and hit up on the ball. Making progress with both flat and slice.

Did gallery duty.

Cindy left for the train at about 1pm. We jumped in car at 2:30 after Pauline Decarmo showed up for gallery sitting. Stopped at Pondside Nursery to consider plants for the backyard just behind the new sun room which ironically receives almost no sun at the level of the plants. Helped by older woman who had taught at Hudson High for a career then went on to teach remedial English at CGCC for another 20 years. She knows Joan Damiani.

Left for Sue and Mark Haven’s house in Lexington, NY in the Catskill Mtns. Since we weren’t due there until 5 pm we drove beyond through Wyndham, Prattsville, Grand Gorge, then to Stamford before tracking back to Lexington and dinner. Excellent time with the Havens. Looked at the vegetable garden in raised beds. Not much there due to hedgehog rampages. Maybe my thinking about a raised bed should focus on flowers? After all we can get excellent veggies at the farmers market here in Hudson every Saturday.

Combination of conversation about aging, photography, children, current politics and good food. Returned home as sky darkened with brilliant red sunset behind us.

7/27/2019 – breakfast, shopping, tennis, reception

Saturday

Up early for breakfast at Bob’s. Shopping. Tennis with Ted. Already in high 80s. Cindy Weisbart arrived about 3:30pm. Karen cooked her famous “sesame chicken egg roll in a bowl”

Reception for 5th Annual Group Show – “50 photographs, 50 photographers, one video…” A mob scene. Very hot and stuffy. Paula Tognarelli spoke at some length. Fortunately Karen interrupted her to get an explanation about some malfeasance at another gallery that she was speaking about.

Paula Tognarelli and Steve Gentile

7/26/2019 – yard work, work, tennis, Rhiannon Giddens

Friday 

Raked yard. Checked on sun coverage for possible vegetable garden next year. Hung last of the pictures for the annual group show. Cleaned up storage rack in side room. Threw out boxes from barn storage.

Talked with Linda Larson at length. Possible laptop purchase. New poetry book. Also Harvey Meyerson who is back in Silver Spring. His recovery is quite slow. Keeler mob will be at Bantam first week  of August.

Karen left at noon for her Woodstock photo group.  

Tennis at 3:30 with Ted. Ended just after 5 with set at 8-7. Wrist felt much better.

Went to Albany for concert at The Egg.