Washington Landing, Herr's Island, Allegheny River

I laid on the wall in the sun for a while. It was below 50, but it felt warmer in the sun.

I climbed down the hill beside the wall and looked through the bits of glass and shards of pottery and sticks and stones.

I imagined I was an anthropologist or archaelogist in the future, what these pieces of life would mean to me. There were even a couple of old spoons with designs on the handle
i almost found the whole bowl to reconstruct! (not quite...)

this is what i kept:

a smooth purple glass orb
a piece from the bowl with greco-roman looking fresco type enamel.
also, a piece of what, if i remember my college geology class at all, is granite (maybe feldspar in it?? i only remember feldspar cause it's a funny word), a river shell, and a perfectly round stone.

Walking to Work...

25 degrees celsius. brrr. but the sun was shining!

Sinking a Coconut in the Monogahela

Yes, living in Pittsburgh is always an adventure. As a completion of the tasks left to my friend Vijay after his Hindu house blessing ceremony, I assisted in the sinking of a coconut in the river. After his Mom blessed the house, it was left to Vijay to properly dispose of the holy objects left over. He had to pour the Hanuman holy water on a tree, give the coins to a child, and sink the coconut in a river. It was mid evening and the sun was at that stage where the shadows are really playing off the ground. The foilage around the river seemed extra green, and the tide was moving pretty quickly. We (Vijay, Rachel, and I) first attempted to sink the coconut by putting it in paper bag with a rock. Having nothing to close the bag with, after throwing it out, the bag surfaced, and eventually the coconut broke free. The tide brought it close enough that I dragged it closer with a stick and Rachel picked it up. Vijay called his Mom, who advised him to crack it open and then it should sink. So we located another sizable rock, with which Vijay cracked open the coconut, submerged it in water until it had some inside of it, then tossed it out again. This time it sunk. Mission accomplished. It was a beautiful evening to be on the river, and there was some sense of nostalgia or history not my own; some tradition that I was allowed to become a part of, however briefly.

Pittsburgh VS. Trinidad and Tobago

Okay, so maybe it's not a fair comparison since Trinidad & Tobago is in the Caribbean, but what do they have that we don't (besides the Caribbean Sea, the Atlantic Ocean, a Rainforest, and year-round warm weather)?
Okay, so maybe the Caribbean Sea is slightly more blue than the Allegheny River ...
but it's' just as green on Herr's Island as it is in the rain forest in Tobago!!