How Many Photos Can You Take? - Tuesday 10/2/2007

My fascination with the Big Boy holds after all these months. Well, yes, there was a 7-month itch along the way, I guess.

But it's coming up on a year since I started driving in early and writing at Bob's, and I'm more and more comfortable. I finally got UT to stop bringing me oatmeal without asking first. A lot of mornings I don't have anything to eat there, just tea. I'm pretty easy and I tip pretty well for the amount of service I require.

The sign is almost always impressive to walk beneath. There are probably a hundred more ways to photograph it.

Yeah, brace yourselves.

Bob Bob Bobbing Along - Monday 10/1/2007

Fooling with the camera settings a little. This is part of the sign in front of Bob's. The woody actually drives forward across the bottom of the sign.

Good morning. Writing is moving too.

Big Bad Bottle - Sunday 9/30/2007

This may actually be more of an emotional map than a photograph.

Though Dodger's eyesight is probably keener than ours, he might have this feeling about the squirt bottle. We give him a little squirt if he's being really mischievous or putting himself in physical danger.

Well, actually, we don't even have to squirt him any more. We just say "Squirt!" or "Where's that Squirt Bottle? I'm gonna have to Squirt you!"

And he gets off Hydra's towel and back onto the top of the shower stall, or stops trying to explore under the kitchen sink (where all the toxics are stored), or stops chewing on any number of things.

When he gets the chance, though, Dodger will make a big watery sound and head butt the bottle off whatever surface it's on.

Once, when he was younger, he actually disarmed a squirt bottle. Yup, we picked it up, depressed the trigger and "thunk."

Nothing.

He'd removed the spring.

First Leaf - Saturday 9/29/2007

On Friday night as we left the house to meet friends at a Mexican restaurant, the setting sun caught this lone turned leaf on the apricot tree. I stopped and thought I should probably go back in and get my camera and get the shot. Green leaves around it. Blue sky behind it.

But no. I went on toward my own personal satisfaction, ignoring your needs.

In a pathetic attempt to recreate the moment, I went to the back yard on Saturday evening around the same time. The leaf was gone.

No! No it wasn't!

It had only turned its back on me.

So I picked up a big stick and tried to turn the leaf around. (Is anyone else hearing "Love to hear percussion" in their heads, or have I been listening to too much XM 70s radio on AOL?)

The leaf dropped to the lawn. Face down.

I turned it over.

And took this perfectly candid shot.

Driving on Glass - Friday 9/28/2007

I'm not sure if you can see it, but the intersection by which I park my car is littered with glass. Some one had a very bad day the day before. I'm posting this almost a week later and most of the glass is out of the intersection.

How does that happen? Does someone actually clean it up, or does it just get picked up in tires and scattered around? The latter seems to be the case because there's still quite a bit of glass, but now it has migrated over to the curb where I park.

If I had a broom, I'd get out there and risk my life to clean it up. Guess I could pack one. Cheaper than buying new tires!

Ice House, Newhall, CA - Thursday 9/27/2007

I went to the admittedly very sparse Newhall Farmer's Market on Thursday afternoon, for the first time. There were only about five booths. Two of them had produce. The others sold tamales, nuts and dried fruit, and toys.

But the two produce booths were great and I filled up my TJ's bag with goodies like fresh herbs, squash, leeks, white peaches, Asian pears, etc.

On my way out I passed this ice house, which I've been meaning to photograph for a long time. I see it out the window when I take the train.

I had to stop and do it right then because it's under construction...or hopefully repair and conversion. I hope they have the good sense to maintain the character.

There was an ice house outside the country store in Big Lake, Indiana when I was a kid and we went swimming there. I think you'd see a couple of old timers sitting outside smoking. And that it was still being used to house bags of ice.

There was also the old ice house, down by the lake shore, that wasn't in use anymore. I remember stories about people going out and cutting blocks of ice from the lake in the winter, dragging them behind horses on sledges and storing them in the old ice house for summer use.

There's a great story on NPR about the ice houses of Texas which is really interesting if you have the time...

Stupid Plaster Owl - Wednesday 9/26/2007

We went out to see the beautiful sunset from the background and there's the Stupid Plaster Owl that the Stupid Neighbor erected in his back yard. He thinks that birds wouldn't eat the fruit from his (stupidly un-pruned) fruit tree if we weren't feeding them seeds just a few feet away in our yard.

This is the guy who planted two trees right in front of our living room window, completely obliterating the view that was one of the reasons we bought the house. This is the guy who leaves his front porch light on all night in a neighborhood we moved to in order to get away from city lights. (We let a shrub grow high so it doesn't invade through our living room window.)

I honestly do not care if we're drawing birds to his fruit trees, though I don't think they need a feeder to make them notice the fruit. Birds, unlike some neighbors, are not Stupid.

When we asked him not to plant the tree, he just shrugged and did it anyway. When he complained to Hydra about the birds eating his fruit, Hydra offered to help him put a bird net over the tree. It works for us.

And anyway, when the birds start to eat it, you know it's ripe and you should pick it. We usually leave some fruit for the birds anyway.

Meanwhile, we actually get along with the Stupid Neighbor pretty well. We all smile and say hello, and I don't know if that's hypocrisy or emotional survival. I just can't be angry with him all the time. And he's mostly a pretty nice guy, who offered to loan us his little open trailer if we ever need it. We'd do him a favor too, if he asked.

Like I said, I don't want to be upset with him all the time. But I have to admit that I do let it creep in from time to time.

Okay, enough.