As many of you know, we recently moved into a new apartment.  It was not obvious where we should hang our icons.  There was very little usable wall space.  I identified a corner of my office as an ideal icon corner;  unfortunately, the corner is windowed on both sides.

I played around for weeks with the idea of using some sort of book or display shelf to make use of the corner space, but nothing worked; the icons would always be too high or behind glass — inaccessible.

I kept envisioning myself knocking nails into the back of a bookshelf and hanging icons on them; over time, my thoughts turned to theater flats.  If only I could get a flat that was made of solid wood, I’d have the wall that I was missing.

All the meanwhile, in our corridor, there was an interior door dating back probably to the construction of the building in 1885, or possibly to the renovation in 1912.  I knew that it had been abandoned there months before we moved in and did not seem to be going anywhere soon.  The other night I brought it into the apartment and propped it up against a wall.  The next day I went to the hardware store and bought some large shelf brackets and screws.  The end result:

Alexandros' and Elisavet's Iconostasion

As you can see below, it is very much a real door with hinges and a door handle:

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The door is held upright with four large, metal shelf hinges, and part of a broken bookshelf serves as a table:

Iconostasion Hinges

Various details:

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Fannie Ice Cream

Tonight we celebrated the first Cat Awards. I thought that Fannie would win in all cat-egories, except perhaps those that involved being named something other than Fannie. Actually, my parents (Michael & Eileen Kozak) will be happy to know that Mimí took first place as “Buffest Fuffus,” and Dan Kozak and Jake Penn Pulliam will be pleased to hear that Vivian was declared “Youngest” (by dint of being “The Young One”) and second-most-literate. Karma and the late Oreo emerged, not so much as the cats you love to hate, as the cats whose sexuality your mother has questioned. But Fannie took home most of the trophies, and in her honor we executed for the first time the Fannie ice cream treat I came up with: vanilla and coffee ice cream and chocolate syrup to simulate the seal-point fur, with blueberries and a raspberry for the eyes and nose.

Fannie sat on Whitney's "Sanskrit Grammar" and thinks that मार्जार means something.

Fannie demonstrates her daily struggle for Divine Ascent.

Fannie wishes everyone a Καλό Πάσχα!

Fannie Helps with Rolling Socks

Catthulhu: "That is not dead which can eternal lie...."

"Fannie, why did you want to climb Mt. Bookshelf?" "Because it's there."

Fannie is grateful to the Fijians for travelling so many thousands of miles with their water, having expended so much power and used so much plastic for bottles, just so that she can have a silica-laden cat beverage.

Fannie wishes you a Happy Theophany!