Better

It is wonderful to wake up in the morning without congestion or a stuffy head.
I am SO much better. Back to normal. Back to life , well, I hunkered down last 
week and finished Anna Karenina and started Les Miserable.

I have a friend in NYC this week so this quote is for her: 

"It is ridiculous to set a detective story in New York City. New York City is itself a detective story."  -- Agatha Christie

Winter in Union Square by Childe Hassam, 1889-90

 Well situated at the junction of Broadway and then Bowery Road, the public square was bordered by theaters--including the Academy of Music, where the Vanderbilts, Astors and Morgans occupied boxes--by imposing town houses and by such fashionable restaurants as Lüchow's, on Fourteenth Street, where everyone who was anyone came to dine and be seen. The thirty-year-old Hassam, settling in New York after a three-year stint in Paris, rented a studio not far from the thriving square in 1889. That same year, he began painting Winter in Union Square, currently on view as part of the exhibit "Americans in Paris, 1860-1900" at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. At first glance, the snow-blanketed scene appears quietly introspective, but the loose brushstrokes, elevated perspective and zigzagging composition convey a sense of exciting urban activity. Showing horse-drawn carriages and colorful trolleys traversing the square (both eventually phased out, as a cable car began running along Union Square in 1891), the work captures a poignant moment in a city in the midst of its Gilded Age--and at the brink of a new century.