Commonwealth Avenue Mall

   Turn your back on the financial district in Boston.  Turn your back and walk the other way, through the Common, past the Frog Pond and the ball fields, all the way to Charles Street.  While you wait for the light to change, buy a bag of roasted nuts from the vendor on the sidewalk and then munch them as you stroll your way through the Public Gardens and on to the Commonwealth Avenue Mall.  What a wonderfully rhythmic name, the Commonwealth Avenue Mall.  And a rhythmic walk it is as well, moving west a block at a time, past the statues and benches and the city folks with all their little dogs.    

Motif Number 4 - The Bean

   Cloud Gate, a sculpture by Anish Kapoor, in Millennium Park in Chicago.  Everyone, with the possible exception of Kapoor, calls it The Bean.

   

Motif Number 3 - A particular obelisk

  

Motif Number 2 - Sea kayaks at Bearskin Neck

Motif Number 1

  

Postcards from Rockport

   

   Sitting on the T-wharf that juts out into scenic Rockport harbor, while Rachel and a friend meander on Bearskin Neck and KC naps on the bench beside me.  A warm, humid Labor Day weekend. 

   A cormorant dives and swirls among the baitfish just below the wharf.  I know what they do, but have never been able to stand above them and watch them swoop and turn under the water.  I try to snap some pictures, but they move so fast.  A man comes to watch and say, "Wow, look at that duck diving under the water after the fish!"  I generally don't correct strangers, and no doubt they often forbear correcting me, but this seems egregious.  "Actually, it's a cormorant," I say gently.  And he seems pleased to have learned something new.  "Cool.  A cormorant."

   About which I learn something new myself when I get home and look at the pictures on my laptop.  Cormorants, at least this type, have the most incredible blue eyes.  Cool, indeed.

   After the cormorant has his fill and moves off to bob out in the harbor, a boat comes in to off-load its catch.  A woman has gotten out of her car.  She comes over to see what's happening and calls back to her husband.  "Honey, they're bringing in the crabs."