fifi’s grafitti

One of the few teardowns I’ve been in favor of was this old dump located between two stately multi-story Victorian homes. Despite a somewhat sloppy attempt to revive the place last year, it couldn’t creep past its status of “eyesore”. It was finally razed last week.
I got to thinking about the personal “dumps” in […]

There are a lot of nice front porches in my neighborhood decked out with red, white, and blue bunting. The colors usually blossom in the spring and last until the leaves fall in autumn. It doesn’t feel like the “patriotism” that gets tossed around the political pulpits over the wearing of a flag lapel pin. […]

Seems like I can’t take a walk around this neighborhood without finding some new piece of architecture to fascinate me. This is a detail from a beatup screen door (now screenless, I believe). It’s the only one I’ve seen around here with this design. And of course I like the little turnbuckle that’s holding it […]

When did Mother’s Day become a time to immerse your mom in material burdens like jewelry, new cars, or Manolo pumps?
Someone just turned me on to this beautiful short film. You don’t have to be a mom for it to rend your heart.
Please watch Mother’s Day for Peace.
More about the women who participated in the […]

I don’t think I’ve ever posted a photo of my old house. But here it is. I must have been crazy to buy it. It’s an odd little house that’s been in disrepair for many years. The left side is part of the original porch built about 1890. The middle is a newer enclosed porch […]

This is the front door of a bed-and-breakfast, still in halloween regalia, lace-mistakethat’s up for sale about six blocks from our house. I love the front door of this house, probably because the back door to my house has some of the very same detailing that dates it to about 1890. The details include the […]

This week I went to Anna, another small town north of McKinney that’s becoming another suburb. It’s sad that the prairie is being turned into subdivisions, but at least I can document a few of the “rustic” things before they’re gone. I was looking for a cemetery that I never found and spotted the corner […]

When I drive home at night the only letters that light up on this sign are “PI”, reminding me of “The Life of Pi”? The Theory of Relativity? The cantankerous nature of neon lights? One of my drive-time pass-times is to note which lights are burned out and how long it takes to fix them. […]

Baseball scoreboard at the Princeton community park and old water tower that is all that’s left of a World War II POW camp that housed German prisoners. Princeton is about 6 miles east of McKinney on Highway 380. A woman I met at my art class on Saturday told me there was a junk yard […]

Yesterday I took a day off from all chores to just drive around and explore Collin County. I’ve been here for almost ten months and haven’t really got to know the county that well. Seems like I have too much to do or it’s pouring down rain or the thermometer’s sweating at a hundred degrees […]