Photo 101: Finding solitude a third of the time

Day five of Photo 101 brings from Cheri the combination of Solitude and The Rule of Thirds. This first Friday in March being a day for a big three: Picking up the monthly prescriptions from my friend Jen at Dougherty Pharmacy 35 miles down the road in Morrisville, writing a magazine feature story and attending…

Snow four dogs high

Ellie B aka Dogamous Pyle’s got to walk. No matter how high the snow gets in our Syracuse city neighborhood of Eastwood. On this weekend morning, the extreme cold of this February being a bit less crushing, my dear wife Karen joined us on the two-block loop to nearby Norwood Park. I asked her to…

A Valentine’s Day story about a dog and a bird

My Valentine’s Day started with an Ellie B aka Dogamous Pyle clamor. Bed to floor to French doors to bed to my face. Get. Up. Da! I know the language of our beloved 4-year-old rescue mutt well. The 7:30 a.m. door-open resulted in a quicker exit than usual, and Ellie B scampered haphazardly around the…

So about this Syracuse snow

I know the snow that’s fallen in the last three or four days cannot compare to the way in which my blogging friends Ann Koplow and Austin Hodgens in Boston and Bangor have been blasted this winter. And besides, our winter-of-2014-15 fate had been relatively tame except for some early December storms until now. But…

Feeling negative from the start

I heard the furnace running before I opened my eyes. I did not hear the furnance stop. I heard my dear wife Karen open the door to the back porch to step out and open the back porch door so Ellie B aka Dogamous Pyle could do her Tuesday morning thing and felt the dog…

The muddy prints of a 4-year-old

Somebody young was traipsing through the muddy backyard of our home in the Syracuse city neighborhood of Eastwood during this holiday week and then heard visitors arrive inside. They wanted in. Badly. But they couldn’t quite figure out how to work the tricky handle of the French door. We did not have a toddler visiting…