You can find additional content by clicking many of the images and photos below as well as the underlined links. And scroll all the way down for previous blog entries.

Eero Saarinen's TWA Terminal

The next time you go to Kennedy airport, take a look around for this iconic building, designed by Finnish American architect Eero Saarinen. Would you believe this gem of a building was set for demolition in 1993. Thank goodness the New York city Landmarks Preservation Commission designated the terminal as an exterior and interior landmark in 1994 and it was saved from ruin.

Although there were some adjustments made to fit the new Jetblue Terminal behind it, the building is now home to the TWA Hotel with 512 guest rooms, 40,000 square feet of meeting space, and an observation deck of 10,000 square feet. If you can't stay overnight, you can book a daycation! "Whether you’re a New York City native or just flying through, you can take a trip to cloud 9 at the TWA Hotel’s rooftop. Watch planes surf the sky from the infinity-edge pool with views of JFK’s Runway 4 Left/22 Right, then refuel at The Pool Bar with a snack and a craft cocktail. Open year-round, the pool turns into a pool-cuzzi in the winter and is heated to 95 degrees! In the cooler months, après swim at the Runway Chalet, an Alpine-themed hideaway with festive fare, plus a retro fireplace and games."

To learn more about Eero Saarinen, who incidentally died just before the terminal was completed, click here.

In addition to building design, Saarinen was a top-notch furniture designer--I am sure you will recognize some of his iconic pieces below.

Project 2025

Caution: This entry falls into the category of things we don't love.

I usually use this blog as a source of inspiration but in this case I feel I need to sound a loud and clear alarm to any of us who are on the fence of how to vote in this upcoming election. Please share this with friends and people you may know. It is a difficult conversation to have but we must not stop talking to each other, no matter what "side" you are on...

In a world that seems to have turned upside down, where up is down and black is white, where obvious outright lies are taken as truth, where the Republican party used to be against government overreach, they now want to be in our bedrooms, in our pockets, and in our schools, hoping to control women's bodies by supporting a total federal ban on abortion and even having their eye on opposing contraception. Did anyone see A Handmaid's Tale? or read George Orwell?

Project 2025, brought to you by the Heritage Foundation and the platform of Donald Trump (don't kid yourself if he tries to lie his way out of his whole-hearted endorsement), is the most radical far reaching assault on democracy and the American way of life as we know it. Don't trust me--watch this from the conservative Wall Street Journal. And have a look at the 2025 Project list below for yourself and please consider sharing it with everyone you know. Let's keep our eye on the ball--this is what we are up against:

TRUMP'S PROJECT 2025
•End no fault divorce
•Complete federal ban on abortions without exceptions
•Ban contraceptives
•Additional tax breaks for corporations and the 1%
•Higher taxes for the working class
•Elimination of unions and worker protections
•Raise the retirement age
•Cut social security
•Cut medicare
•End the Affordable Care Act, eliminating health insurance for 29.8 million people according to the non-partisan Economic Policy Commission
•Raise prescription drug prices
•Eliminate the Department of Education
•Use public, taxpayer money for private religious schools
•Teach christian religious beliefs in public schools
•End free and discounted school lunch programs
•End civil rights and DEI protection in government
•Ban African American and gender studies in all levels of education
•Ban books and curriculum about slavery
•End climate protections
•Increase Arctic drilling
•Deregulate big business and the oil industry
•Promote and expedite capital punishment
•End marriage equality
•Condemn single mothers while promoting only "traditional families"
•Defund the FBI and Homeland Security
•Use the military to break up domestic protests
•Mass deportation of immigrans and incarceratiom in "camps"
•End birth right citizenship
•Ban Muslims from entering the country
•Eliminate federal agencies like the FDA (Food and Drug Administration), EPA (Environmental Protection Agency, NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration)
•Continue to pack Supreme Court and lower courts with extremist right wing judges

I don't know about you but democrat or republican, if these changes go through, we will have lost the heart of the United States and our democracy...How did this come about that the republican party now embraces the dictatorship of Putin and Kim Jong Un?

Poems about Trees

The Book of Frank [“don’t tell me it was”]
by Caconrad

“don’t tell me it was
the wind!” Frank shouts
“THAT TREE
WAVED
AT ME!”
Courtesy The Poetry Foundation

Living Tree
by ROBERT MORGAN

It’s said they planted trees by graves
to soak up spirits of the dead
through roots into the growing wood.
The favorite in the burial yards
I knew was common juniper.
One could do worse than pass into
such a species. I like to think
that when I’m gone the chemicals
and yes the spirit that was me
might be searched out by subtle roots
and raised with sap through capillaries
into an upright, fragrant trunk,
and aromatic twigs and bark,
through needles bright as hoarfrost to
the sunlight for a century
or more, in wood repelling rot
and standing tall with monuments
and statues there on the far hill,
erect as truth, a testimony,
in ground that’s dignified by loss,
around a melancholy tree
that’s pointing toward infinity.
Poem copyright ©2012 by Robert Morgan, whose most recent book of poems is Terroir, Penguin Poets, 2011. Poem reprinted from The Georgia Review, Spring 2012, by permission of Robert Morgan and the publisher.

About Angels and About Trees
by Mary Oliver

Where do angels
        fly in the firmament,
and how many can dance
        on the head of a pin?

Well, I don't care
        about that pin dance,
what I know is that
        they rest, sometimes,
in the tops of the trees

  and you can see them,
        or almost see them,
or, anyway, think: what a
        wonderful idea.

I have lost as you and
        others have possibly lost a
beloved one,
        and wonder, where are they now?

The trees, anyway, are
        miraculous, full of
angels (ideas);even
        empty they are a
good place to look, to put
        the heart at rest--all those
leaves breathing the air, so

peaceful and diligent, and certainly
        ready to be
the resting place of
        strange, winged creatures
that we, in this world, have loved

Photo of the Week

I used the virtual tool of superimposing this painting on this bedroom wall…a perfect fit for the room, creating a serene, monochromatic vibe in this modern setting.

Charity of the Week:

About The Author

New York City based contemporary artist, Pam Smilow, began writing the creative lifestyle blog “things we love” in an effort to foster a sense of community during times of isolation and reflection. To read more about her and her art, visit her website and check out the essay written by Frank Matheis entitled The Sophisticated Innocence of Pam Smilow.