Events of a Saturday Morning

I set out on Saturday morning in high spirits with a specific purpose in mind--to have an enjoyable morning of experimenting with my camera, such as I have not had in many weeks. I was hoping to shoot a particular scene in Manhattan, but sadly never made it that far.

As I left the apartment, tripod in hand, camera bag slung over my shoulder, I made a detour to pick up a pair of shoes that were being repaired at the cobbler's downstairs--bad idea. Turns out they *lost* my shoes! Yes! And they did not apologize! On the contrary, they implied that by presenting my ticket at the counter and insisting my shoes were still there, I was illegitimately trying to score ANOTHER pair of repaired shoes (whose, I can't imagine). Truly, I could not make this stuff up. The gentleman rifled through a shoebox full of dog-eared old tickets, found the match to my ticket, and proceeded to state it was proof-positive that the shoes had been picked up. The natural question was: why did I still have the companion ticket in my possession if I had indeed picked up the shoes already? You have to hand those in when you get your shoes, after all. Is it possible there had been a mistake? But of course such logic got no hearing in the ensuing discussion which, suffice it to say, was not pretty.

That pretty much ruined my carpediem mood for the morning, so I ended up leaving my tripod at home, canceling my ambitious plans to shoot in Manhattan, and deciding to take a walk around Brooklyn instead. I began at the farmers' market. Just looking at the pumpkins and smelling the apple tarts lifted my spirits. I didn't forget that I promised to blog some fall photos (pumpkins and such). Here's my first installment!

I passed by the Cadman Plaza field where I took a few shots of my husband and his friends playing soccer, and then I headed towards Boerum Hill, where I knew I would find doorways filled with Halloween decorations which might be fun to photograph. I was not disappointed. I loved the grouchy little pumpkin in the photo below. (In fact, that's just about the look I had on my face when I exited the shoe repair place a few hours before.)

Photogenic stoops were not the only find of the morning. While wandering around I happened across an adorable little place called Blue Ribbon General Store--basically a country general store for modern folks. They had a little bit of everything, and there was not a dull item to be found (even the laundry detergent and doggie biscuits looked like fun to have around the house). I picked up a couple of baby gifts for friends, and I saw many more gifts I would like to buy (just gotta decide who to give them to). I got into a conversation with the owner about our mutual enjoyment of Tintin (yes, they even have Tintin stuff!) and discovered the store only opened two weeks ago. I was so charmed by it all, I feel I have to pass on the word about this happy new addition to the neighborhood.