Catting Around - Saturday 6/27/2009

Nice try, big guy.

One of the resident peacocks at the Cat House Feline Conservation Center. We planned to do this with CuzP and CuzM about a month ago, but then he got tickets to see the Detroit Redwings in the Stanley Cup playoffs. His excuse was as lame as this guy's hiding place. ;)



One of the boys takes a nice dirty bath.


This fellow was quite upset about his food dish being moved. Jumped up on the bars at head height when the volunteer pulled his dish out of the enclosure.


She must be able to read him well, to have the confidence to let him lick her hand within seconds of snarling and jumping. Yipes. Not me!


Cuz-M goes eye to eye with the big cat.

Wonderful grounds. Many of the enclosures have running water in pools. Most if not all have living trees or shrubs in them. Lots of shade in a park-like environment. Which is amazing, given that the area around this is serious Mojave Desert.



Can you see the grooves the big cats make when they play with a bowling ball. Yipes!


Cats are cats, no matter how big. Roby enjoys a good scratch from an official volunteer.

Do not try this at home.


Hydra flirts shamelessly with a female peacock, offering her water from the palm of his hand. She comes closer, closer...



And decides he needs a good dirt bath before she'll consider his advances.


Doc spent a lot of time hollering for his human mama, who raised him. Finally, he climbed into his water trough and used the sides to amplify his voice. Yeah, animals act on pure instinct. Sure.

Bonfire of the Sanities - Friday 6/19/2009

My sister feeds me weeds! And she always has.

She used to make a violet and nasturtium salad for me when I had a cold. The photos I took of the wild sorrel frittata she whipped up for breakfast didn't come out, but here are the original herbs as picked from Mom's yard. Served alongside freshly picked strawberries and chai. Mmm.



I met up with Mom after her line dance club and we went to visit Aunt Gertie. She'll be 100 years old in 4 months! She's delightful and interesting. I'm related to her both by blood (Dad's side) and marriage (Mom's side).

And they wonder why all us kids married people from out of state. Gotta dilute that gene pool a little every so often.


Lunch at The Nook in downtown Columbia City. Mom and I split a Coney Dog basket. Had chocolate Cokes to go with it. Used to get vanilla Sprites, but they haven't carried an uncola for decades now, they say.


Cool mural on the wall at The Nook. Painted by Kenny Allen in the early 80s.



The picnic table awaits our family and friends get together. Bonfires are our traditional way to celebrate, and it was wonderful to see a bunch of my cousins and their kids. Some friends from elementary and high school came too, so we got a jump on tomorrow night's reunion.

The un-flat version of Flat Brayden was there, and we had a group photo taken... Brayden, Flat Brayden, me, and the copy of Flat Stanley they brought for me!

The weather kept toying with us all night long. It finally really started raining around 10 pm, which broke it up. Except a couple cousins and I stood around talking in the soft warm rain. Guess we never did have enough sense to come in out of it, even as kids.

Elkhart - Monday 6/15/2009

Brain shows off some of Elkhart's more intriguing history. This little marker was made by a local dentist. He's gone now, and the marker has fallen over, but the new owners of the house had the good sense not to get rid of it.


Yeah. That's right. It's made of TEETH!


Brain doesn't have anything quite so grisly in his back yard, thank goodness. Wonderful house and yard.


Pretty little pool house.


There are a lot of lovely accents and different views from here and there. This is next to the pond!


Buddha likes poppies.


I got to meet one of the equine members of the family. Casey. What a sweetheart.


Sunny puts Casey through his paces. She's terrific with him.

Later, she talked me into staying the night, which was a great decision. We stayed up till 2 o'clock playing Cranium. Went to see Brain play tennis with his friends the next morning.

Flat Brayden Has Landed! - Tuesday 3/10/2009

My cousin's son is participating in a Flat Stanley project in his second grade class, and they asked me to host his flat self!

If you're unfamiliar with the Flat Stanley concept, you can click on the link above or trust my explanation in a nutshell. It's based on a 1964 children's book by the same name, in which a child is flattened but not hurt, and decides to mail himself to a place he would like to visit but can't otherwise.

I am absolutely thrilled to host Flat Brayden! He arrived today and we set him up in the guest room. Even though it was a long trip, he was too excited to take a nap, but he was very nice about lying down for a bit and having a little apple juice.

We get to have him for a couple of weeks, so I'm looking forward to taking him camping, and to the rocks, and the mountains, and maybe Hydra will teach him a few chords on the guitar.

Hydra and I had our first argument about Flat Brayden. Hydra said it would be okay to give him a Coke, but I thought apple juice was more appropriate for a second grader. I mean, caffeine on a school night?

You have to set some limits. And who's going to stay up all night with him all hyped up? Huh?

This raising kids thing is as hard as everyone says it is!

Restoration Photograph Part Two - Saturday 1/14/2009

Most of the daylight hours today were spent scanning and fixing photos. Well, we did run errands, and I did have my hair cut and styled, and we did go to a hoot and sing some songs with our friends in the evening....really great evening!

Anyway, this is me with my first posse. Pops and the Sibs. Great back-up group. Lots of harmonies.

Trikegirl...Coming through!



Riding solo at eleven. What a great summer. The only downside was that Ginger had to run alongside rather than ride uptop with me.

Starboy was a real stinker, and threw me off again and again. But I rode him around bareback as much as possible. Only had him one summer, but oh what a great time that was.



Sometimes groups wear me out. I put this photo up on Facebook. I've stayed in contact with one of these girls continuously ever since (Diver, in the lower left corner) and have reconnect with two others on Facebook recently.

It's nice to have roots.


Fooling around with the timer on a Polaroid camera in 1981. (Do you love the measuring tape shoe laces?) Texaco was already living in California.

My family makes me laugh.

Everyone says I look like my Mom and I take it as a compliment, you bet. I wish I looked as good at all our ages as she does!

Restoration Photograph - Thursday 2/12/2009

Started playing around with my scanner and software this evening. This shows just the preliminary difference between the original faded photo and the partially restored one.



I can clean up that border, for instance. This is my brother The Brain, his new car, and our dog Ginger.

Ginger. She was seriously one of my best friends growing up. When we swam out into the lake, she'd eventually get upset about us being so far away and swim out to us.

I used to ride around on my Huffy dirt bike with her on my lap. She listened to everything I had to say. She slept with me at night (sorry, Mom.)

I still get choked up seeing her picture. She was a great friend.



Just had to throw in this idyllic shot of chubby baby me. Cue "Blue Skies!"

How to Spend Your Time Off Work - Tuesday 12/30/2008

I started the day with a telephone writing date with my sister in Indiana. We catch up a little, decide what we're going to write about and hang up. One of us sets a timer for an hour and calls the other after we've written for an hour. Then we talk about how it went and maybe give each other a little feedback.

It went well for me today. I expanded a scene that has conflict and sets up more conflict. Anyway, right now it feels like a good day's work.

Went to Barnes & Noble where I sat drinking an iced tea with a shot of melon syrup and auditioned a pile of books. Skimmed F. Scott Fitzgerald's short story, "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button," which has very little to do with the current film version. But it's okay. The short story reminds me of Gogol short stories, like "The Nose." Meant to be imagined, not filmed.

Went to the gym for an hour of cardio and weight machines. Did this yesterday with addition of a dip in the whirlpool. Oh, Tomasina, it's way over-chlorinated and nothing as sweet as the one at Burke-Williams. Sigh.

Called my mother and talked with her for about an hour. When I arrived home there was a UPS package from my nephew. One of his amazing Indiana photos, framed!

We called to thank him and ended up talking for an hour or so.

Wonderful to be in touch with my family. They are good, creative people.

Easter Saturday - Saturday 3/22/2008

I'm really looking forward to seeing the family today and sharing a meal. We're not religious, but we look for opportunities to get together. I'm going to suggest we name a random weekend to do this again before Thanksgiving... our own midsummer holiday. Otherwise, we don't see each other quite enough.

I'm really glad that we get to head off through the desert rather than hitting a major freeway the whole way down. We'll pass Mormon Rocks and go through the Cajon Pass on our way. Maybe I'll get some more photos to share.

It's 100 miles each way. Thank goodness Hydra and I both like driving.

I Am What I Am, and I Always Have Been - Tuesday 1/1/2008

I have been an animal lover since at least Christmas Day, 1962. This is me and Kitty Fritz. I turned two a few weeks later.

We were going through things yesterday looking for pictures of Hydra's family, and I found a packet of photographs my mom sent me years ago and which I thought I had accidentally thrown away. I mean, I tore apart every box in our garage and in my studio closet over the course of a couple of days a while back and couldn't find them.

Where were they? In a box in the pantry marked "Photos."

It always takes me by surprise when my sporadic attempts to become organized actually work.

Anyway, in looking through these photos, it struck me that there are all sorts of hints of the person I was to become...


I have enjoyed camping since I was 2 1/2. This is Daddy and me at Clifty Falls State Park in Madison, Indiana in 1963. That's our converted school bus/camper, "The Ramblin' Wreck" in the background. That was so cool!


Although I don't have any photos of myself writing or reading, the arts have always been a big part of my life. My sister Pegerty and I try out my new paint book on my 3rd birthday. She's almost 12.

I think this is one of those books that you just brush water over and the color pops up. I'm not saying I was a prodigy.


I have been a tree-hugger all my life. (This is when I was barely three years old. There's an even earlier photo expressing my affinity for the tree.)



I have always had a flare for the dramatic.

According to the notes on the back of this snapshot, I am showing off my missing teeth. But it looks like I am launching into the "To be or not to be" soliloquy from Hamlet.

"June 1967, 6 years, 5 months."



I've always had an appreciation for nature. Mom took some really fun shots when we went walking in the woods on a day in May. I had forgotten about my "pet worm" but I remember this day so well. Just me and Mom, and her telling me things and answering my questions.




I like to travel. I get a kick out of big cities. I like to hang out with stylish people.

This was taken in front of our hotel on Michigan Avenue in Chicago. I think our camper had broken down and so we went to the city for a few days. May 10th or 11th, 1969. Me (8), Mom, Brains (16) and Pegerty (17.)

I love Pegerty's sporty stance in this shot!! She subscribed to Ingenue magazine, don't you know!



I understand the value of friendship. Diver and I had been friends for almost 2 1/2 years by the time this photo was taken at my house in December of 1968. We met in kindergarten and we are still in touch today, even though we started going to different schools in 4th grade, and we live on opposite coasts now.

It was terrific to have a best friend from another school all through middle school and high school, especially. Kept us from feeling like our individual schools were the whole universe. And we had some life-building experiences together.


I have always liked spending time alone. Well, but animals are always welcome. (I'm ten in this one.)

There are lots of photos of me with my dog Ginger. If you know what it's like to grow up with a dog as a best friend, you'll know how much I still miss her.


I have always liked rocks. I carried this one home from the gravel pit at least a half a mile away just because I liked it. It was pinkish. I used it as a doorstop. I think it might still be somewhere in my mom's house. (She still lives where I grew up.)

Mom said that I could keep it if I brought it home myself but that she wouldn't help me carry it. I think there was a good lesson nestled in that afternoon, about working for something that you really desire. I am almost 11 in this shot.



I have always had impeccable fashion sense.

Hey. Kaftan's were very cool in 1972. (My 11th birthday.)

Is it my imagination, or does Ginger look embarrassed for me?


I have had a distorted body image since high school, probably since I heard Bob Mackie say on some talk show that Cher had perfect armpits.

I thought I was fat in this photo taken when I was 20, in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.


(My body-type role model. Yeah, the one on the left.)

[Photo by Ulvis Alberts.]




I love my family. This is us in 1971 and 1981. In the first one, Joe had just come back from Vietnam. I was completely happy and completely oblivious.

Oh, and as you can see from these shots, I'm willing to make a fool of myself.

But you probably already knew that from reading this blog.

This is, coincidentally, my 1,000th blog post, and a satisfying way to spend New Year's Day (for me, anyway.)

Thanks Mom, for sending me the photos in the first place and for your wonderful captions on the back of them!

Mom! Bob! Mom! Bob! - Monday 11/5/2007

Overload!

My favorite mother and my favorite diner! Together at last!

Yeah. I copped out and didn't take Mom to LAX. Usually we drive down there and have breakfast at Dinah's before I drop her off. But the timing was bad today, and it was my first day back at work, and... We opted for a SuperShuttle from Bob's Big Boy in Burbank.

We had a nice, unhurried breakfast. Her: pancakes and scrambled eggs. Me: two poached eggs, fruit, dry rye toast. After two weeks, we still had plenty to talk about.

We always have a wonderful time together and it's hard to let her go. I'm a very lucky person to have such a terrific family.

Mom and Me - Sunday 9/16/2007

My mother took this photo of us together years ago, obviously. She sent me a copy a couple of years ago and it's been hanging on my wall ever since.

Isn't she glamorous?