Newington Center....And Beyond (1)

I thought I would call this latest batch of photos (taken about the same time as Twinkletoes Ted, since I had a special two-fer disposable cameras) "Newington Center....And Beyond" simply because part of the roll involved Newington center and part of the roll involved elsewhere in the town and neighboring communities.



Up first is where I started getting silly again. This time it was my easter bunny doing a handstand in an empty plastic bucket. To the right was a dish of jelly beans that probably was full a few hours prior to me taking this picture. Our unit has a thing for candy: jelly beans, tootsie rolls, lollys, you name it, if it has sugar, it got consumed. I don't remember what's in the open box in the front but it was probably some kind of sugary snack as well. Ain't nothing worse than a hyped up payroll unit.

This was another shot of my Easter bunny, this time he was relaxing on a co-worker's chair. Not sure what I was thinking about when I originally took this shot, but as you can see, I wasn't thinking of much.

Lunch time! Yes boys and girls, believe it or not, this is a typical work day lunch for me. Not very pretty is it. Let me describe to you what my lunch is for today. First up is two, count 'em 1-2, pickle spears. Next, the main entree: a SPAM single slice, lovingly nuked for 45 seconds in the microwave. A 50 cent bag of nacho cheese flavor Doritos. Lipton Chicken Noodle cup-a-soup. A bottle of unsweetened ice tea and for dessert, a granny smith apple. The joy of being a diabetic means that I usually eat the same type of food Monday thru Friday. The joy of being a member of the working class poor means that the total cost of this lunch was about three dollars. And in the background on the wall is my Pooh calendar; a flower drawn by my daughter and a cutout drawing, also by my daughter, along with the various piles of schtuff that makes up my work day.

I was standing in the parking lot of my local gas station one Sunday afternoon. I usually play my numbers at this place because my usual place (the package store) is closed on Sundays. Anyways, this is looking across the street. And yes, this part of town is usually like this on a Sunday. The main building that you see is a closed and abandoned Mobil mart. Been like that for three years or so, but the space just beyond is a relatively new kind of empty. There used to be a small group of buildings that housed an antique store, a martial arts studio and a HVAC repair company. Now, the businesses are gone, the buildings razed and no idea if anything will ever go in there. The bridge that you see crosses the Hartford, New Haven & New York rail line.

On the weekends when I need to take a break from writing or blogging, I will frequently go to my local mall to stretch my legs, window shop, and people watch (and yes, I watch the kind of people that become characters and plot ideas for my stories). This shot is looking across the parking lot on a typical weekend. The building that you see in the background is a parking garage that they built when they added a Nordstroms to the mix. Westfarms mall contains quite a few high end speciality stores (In addition to Nordstroms, Lord & Taylor's, Tiffany, and Luis Vuitton are also there, to name a few) and the owners of the mall were involved in nasty and protracted legal battle with the town of West Hartford over their plans to open a downtown shopping area called Blue Black Square.