So you’ve got your laptop, schedule, and textbooks. But did you remember to get a layered necklace or a leather jacket?

Join me tonight, Sat Aug 9, between 5 and 10 pm, for the opening reception of the new photography exhibit at Andy Foster's Gallery 51 in Montclair.

I'm in the show along with five other photographers, all interesting and accomplished.

Thank you gift for anyone who mentions PLAIN SIGHT....

Do you know who Leighton, Cuttino, Rihanna, Jensen, Dane or Feist are?

No? Neither do we. Not a single one.

After the wind and rain, the snake dance in Montclair...

Somewhere around the turn of the millenium the blue polyethylene tarp became the universal symbol of suburban exterior home improvement. Now every house painter is a pocket Christo.

It's fine by me. I like my McMansions wrapped.

Tonight is baseball's All-Star Game, signalling the halfway point of the season. When you see store signs like this one, does it mean that summer is half over?

Lots of places are fun to traipse around after a storm. Parks are great, especially when it's foggy. Playgrounds can be magical.

But one of my favorites is construction sites.

We skipped Montclair’s Independence Day Parade this year for the first time since our kids were infants. But there was one July 4th ritual I would not pass up: Our annual parent-daughter softball game.

You've seen those giant American flags that fly over big auto dealerships, flags that look bigger than football fields.

When I approach one on these attention hogs on the highway, I find myself wondering about the weight of the fabric, the engineering of the pole, whether for the trip from the flag factory it was rolled or folded. None of the things that went through Francis Scott Key's mind at Fort McHenry in 1814.

But when I see a flag like this in the distance, catching the sun against a purple sky on a Thanksgiving morning, it's a different story.

It's flag week at Plain Sight. Three days to the Fourth.

This flag nearly made me shudder when I saw it.

It may not be the last roundup, but it does feel like the last for the day.

Git along little downtown Montclair dogies.

Red light. Montclair.

Construction curtains looming like a hull with cockeyed portholes.

Eastern Oil on Bloomfield Avenue in Montclair is known for its low prices and its discounts for cash. Cars are always maneuvering around each other like baby water buffalo to sidle up to  the mama pumps.

But yesterday morning, only four of Eastern's twelve nozzles had any gas to give.

Hybrid cars are all the rage, so why not try a different kind of hybrid, one combining photographs and the spirit of two popular children's books? Namely....

The Where's Waldo? series by Martin Handford (which you don't have to be a child to enjoy) and The Everywhere Cat, a 1970 classic by William Corbin and Consuelo Joems.

In coming weeks look for Roscoe J. Cat here in Plain Sight and also on the right side of this page, in Editor's Picks. Can you find him today?

We know about Jersey tomatoes. But Jersey parsley? Turns out, according to The Star-Ledger,  that the New Jersey is one of the top three states in parsley production.

Went for a haircut Saturday in Montclair.

Rain pelting the patio beyond the salon, but by the time I emerged so had the sun.

One wet magazine, though.

The clouds parted and the sun rained down on puddles.

"In A Mellotone," a great 1939 Ellington tune, is also what I'm striving for today, on doctor's orders.

So without further ado, let's return to the subject this blog began with back in March.

I made it through the first five days after my freak accident fairly well. I had what my doctors called a  "minor concussion," meaning I could expect several days or more of headaches and sleeplessness. Well, nothing unusual about that!

No, this picture is not upside down. But if you are lying on your back on a gurney in a Level 1 Trauma Center, and your neck is in a brace, as mine was, about all you can do is tilt the camera up and backwards.

It's a little unnerving to be stared at by the creature that will provide your dinner...

You can start this weekend off on a good foot at the first ever North Jersey Komen Race for the Cure, Sunday at Branch Brook Park in Newark, to benefit breast cancer research. You can register on the website, or beginning at 7 a.m. on race day at the park.  There’s a 5K run/walk and the 1.5 mile Fun Walk.  NJ My Way is a media sponsor of this event.  Make sure you wave to our cameras!    

Oil prices fell Wednesday, the AP reported, after the Federal Reserve cut interest rates and a government report said U.S. fuel supplies unexpectedly fell last week.

The poet William Blake saw the world in a grain of sand. Well, how about in a thingamajig on top of a rusty metal fence in Edgemont Park in Montclair?

Our friends over at Baristanet.com have been going gaga about the “near celebrity-status” toffee and cheesecake made by Montclair healthy eating guru Nicky Mesiah.

Wendi Browne gives her clients Shiatsu, Swedish, and the other standard massages at her Hibiscus Therapy Center in Montclair  But this masseuse, who retired from the U.S. Army, has one interesting technique that sets her apart.

Flashback to First Night--December 31--in Montclair. Onstage, the Fab Faux, the mind-bogglingly good Beatles cover band.

"Happy New Year!" bassist Will Lee called to the audience. He's from Texas, but he spoke very well. (Years of playing in Paul Shaffer's Letterman band have ironed out his regionalisms.)

Guitarist Jimmy Vivino leaned into his mike and noted that on this side of the Hudson River, the correct greeting is "Happy New YEAZZ!" The audience, packed into the pews of the First Congregational Church on South Fullerton Avenue, shouted back in kind.