Back in the Saddle, Again

My life of late has, frankly, sucked. My computer, cell phone, and television all died within weeks of each other. Like lemmings or members of some misguided cult, they all committed mass suicide for reasons which are beyond me, this has happened to me in the past. I shall bore you all no further with the details except to say that I am still struggling to get back on my technological feet and am lost without Photoshop.
What I have learned from this experience is that the best computer hospital in Manhattan is Tekserve on 23rd Street. The sympathetic staff provide tissues at every counter, they have witnessed every desperate emotion and possess the tactful skills of a funeral director, they are also a fraction of the price I was quoted from other places. They retrieved the files off my old hard drive for 47.50 as opposed to the 749.00 quote from creepy Computer Overhauls, Tekserve even carried my computer out to the street while I hailed a cab. I would like to thank my friend and neighbor Amy for recommending this place to me. Despite the fact that Amy spends most of her time collecting bugs and leafs from the Amazon rainforest, she knows a lot about Manhattan.
This drawing is the companion piece to the Jockey illustration I featured in an earlier post commisioned by Town and Country. Like the thrown rider, I shall dust off my humbled behind and get back on that technological horse.

Ghosts of Summer

Most of my family live in upstate NY and at one time or another has owned what is called a "camp" in the Adirondacks.
Tents are not involved, "camps" are log cabins nestled in the pine scented woods overlooking a placid lake.
The Vanderbilt's bought Camp Sagamore, J. P. Morgan summered in Camp Uncas. These were rustic palaces known as "grand camps" unlike our modest, suitably named Camp Bunny.
Camp Bunny provided a child like me with all the wonderment and excitement a forest and lake could provide but my mother only imagined snakes lurking under the beds and the threat of a chipmunk attack while opening the bread box so we eventually went to a hotel.
Fortunately my cousin Jill blossomed into a glamorous stewardess, married a doctor, bought a camp on Lake Luzerne (see boathouse photo) and generously allowed me to run amok in it with a questionable NYC crowd. Those summer afternoons spent drifting on the lake were perhaps the best moments of my life.
Her camp has since been sold leaving only my cousin Amy to carry on the family tradition of happily falling down in the Adirondack woods, blaming the mishap on the obscure light provided by a full moon rather than the cocktail which was once in hand.
I rescued this old photo from my Aunt Kaki's drawer after she died. It was taken in the Adirondacks with her Brownie camera but nobody seems to know who these handsome frolickers are. I do know it captures the carefree essence of a camp and looks like a recent image from an Abercrombie & Fitch catalogue.