Sheryl Todd's Personal Blog

Outside of Belize City

2012-01-24T16:38:00.000-08:00

Outside of Belize City, Belize ~ January 31, 2005

I hope this is one of the worst series of photos you will find on Taphophile Tragics, a new photo meme from "Down Under," (no pun intended, and I'm sure I'm not the first to think of this). I'm sorry about the poor quality of these photos; they are all I have of this interesting above-ground cemetery.

On January 31, 2005, Lee and I left Belize City on our way inland to tour the country, and this unusual cemetery caught me by surprise. If you click on the photo to enlarge it, I think you can read the lettering in the wrought-iron arch. It says, "Sisters of Mercy." Even though Belize is a Central American country, its official language is English, as it was once the colony of British Honduras. All of the photos below were taken on our way back to the city on February 6th.

Many people commute long distances by bicycle along the Great Western Highway, as cars are out of the budget for a large number of Belizean citizens.

In the background you can see some of the houses belonging to the poor of Belize. It emphasizes something I have wondered about in a number of the cemeteries I've visited. You always see the contrast between the beautifully-carved stones of the wealthy and the modest, if any, stones of the poorer people. In some old new England cemeteries in particular I have often wondered how anyone was able to afford the stones, especially as I began to learn about the circumstances of the people who I knew were buried beneath them.

This blog is sponsored by Tapir and Friends Animal Store.

Exposure

2011-12-17T13:23:00.001-08:00

How do you know when it's appropriate to stop being appropriate? When is it time to say, "Enough"? Like the frog that stays in hot water until it boils, or the slowly-cooking lobster, how do you know? When did normal slip into a condition so abnormal that twenty-five years later I feel so estranged from the person I was when these things happened?

I wasn't around when he began to drink; I only met him in what should have been his prime. How does one recognize the point at which "normal" begins to crumble? Could I have trusted myself to find the moment - the right time - to risk inserting into our lives what would have seemed to be the absurd suggestion that he was in desperate need of help? What was the sign that would have said, "What we are doing is no longer okay." How could I have done that without seeming to be ridiculous? Where was . . . yes, I now know what is meant by the line in the sand. I had no idea in the beginning how long the stretching of our fabric could feel acceptable.

The guy was gentle. The guy was beyond smart. The guy was artistic. The guy was well-read. The guy was thoughtful. The guy introduced me to pre-Classical music, which I adore to this day. He introduced me to authors. He introduced me to thoughts. He introduced me to homeopathy and herbs. He introduced me to a Native American medicine man. He did the most amazing thing with a deck of cards, and I still don't know if he was a wizard, a hypnotist, or just knew an incredible card trick that could be done without his ever touching the cards. Everyone loved him almost to reverence. I could not have predicted where he was going.

He never hit me or shouted at me; he never threatened me. These things I might have been prepared to recognize as indications that his behavior had gone too far. But I did not know how to recognize the signs of this progressive form of another's self-destruction. It seems incredible now.

We all made excuses. We thought he had post-traumatic stress disorder from combat, but his story about being in Vietnam turned out to be a lie. We thought he had lost a wife and child in a horrible, fiery auto accident in the Bay Area. That also turned out to be a lie.

When did normal slip quietly into something else?

Was it when he was sober before we left the house and then inexplicably became drunk by the time we reached our destination?

Was it when we'd been shopping together and I realized he'd put things into my backpack that neither of us had paid for?

Was it when I noticed that I hadn't questioned buying a quart of Vodka for him because he was home zoned out in a stupor and couldn't get it for himself?

Was it when I began to worry about having anyone see my apartment because of all the cigarette burns . . . and I didn't even smoke?

Was it when I looked at the smashed beer cans piled up so high that the only way to get them out of the apartment was in an extra large garbage bag?

Was it when I found that he slept with a knife under his pillow?

Was it when I had nowhere to go because he was drunk in the apartment that I had rented on *my* good references and I could not get him out?

Was it when the Santa Barbara SWAT Team was on our roof?

Was it when I was being questioned by the FBI because he made some stupid threat he never intended to carry out, but he made that threat to the local cops?

For me, I hit bottom somewhere between the cigarette burns and the FBI. I had tried to leave, sleeping uncomfortably in a friend's storage room and then driving miles out of town to stay in a tiny trailer with no phone. When I came back to get my things and called ahead to see if he was okay - and maybe sober - the police intercepted my call and I had to talk them out of hurting him when their armed men were on our roof.

For him, the time never came. He was found dead of alcohol toxin in a cheap hotel long after I'd seen the last of him. I only knew of his death because the police had my contact information on file connected with his name. There had been an incident after we parted ways where he had awakened in the night, probably hallucinating, and asked the police to make sure I was safe. Without him, my life had returned to sanity, but he gave my address and they came to confirm that I was alright. Later, when he died, it seems I was the only contact they had. He had drunk himself away from his family, away from the health care professionals who had tried to help, and away from any of the friends who would have done what they could.

So when do you know? There has to be a point that can be recognized before normalcy unravels. Maybe just before or maybe just after, but certainly before normal becomes unrecognizable.

I believe that one should try to help sick people, and many people did try. But there has to be a line, a place where you can recognize that a good person is doing too many of the wrong things. Do you start to pull the warning cord when the signs are inconclusive? When it bothers you to see someone you care about moderately affected by alcohol when it's not even a special occasion and there's no social excuse? Do you worry that you're out of line to say something when it's only 7:00 PM and once again your friend has a beer in his hand and his face is red? Or do you wait until the apartment is filled with cigarette burns and the SWAT Team is on the roof?

I have no answer, but because of where I've been I have a certain complement of wisdom. A lesson learned. I've become sensitized to seeing self-destructive actions in their infancy. I've seen a darker side of drinking than my upbringing would have suggested I should know. I never thought in a million years I would be running interference between my loved one and half a dozen specially-trained officers with guns. I never thought I would see someone close to me taken away to Federal prison until the incumbent President, against whose life my friend had made the threat, was out of office.

But then, neither did I imagine a life where I would have to concern myself with whether someone was taking even one or several drinks too many. I did not grow up with alcohol. I was not groomed for this. I was not prepared. I traveled from absence to excess. Living the extremes, perhaps, creates an awareness.

How do you recognize the beginning? How do you say something about a problem when it's still so small and - how shall I say it - so ACCEPTABLE that to bring it to anyone's attention makes you a target for uninformed ridicule? I have no answer, at least not one I will be admired for.

This blog is sponsored by Tapir and Friends Animal Store.

Water, Water

2011-11-23T15:47:00.000-08:00

Astoria, Oregon ~ November 23, 2011

It's been storming and blowing for days. A lot of the area had power out last night from downed trees, but I was fine here - only a flicker of the lights during the evening. In the photo, the rain on the river was so heavy my camera didn't know where to focus. It's always interesting to see what washes down. Above, it was a good-sized leaf. Below, a small log.

This blog is sponsored by Tapir and Friends Animal Store.

Emergency Room Tapir

2011-11-04T13:48:00.001-07:00

Astoria, Oregon ~ March 3, 2011

(With more octopus and less jaguar.)

You never know where you're going to find a tapir! Fortunately, I had my cell phone with me and it had a camera.

I had the worst flu or cold of my life - or whatever kind of bug it was - in late February and early March of this year, and on March 3rd I took myself to the Emergency Room to figure out why I felt so bad. As it turned out, I had a freaky reaction to Tylenol PM and I was having something just short of panic attacks. Since I wasn't seriously ill or damaged, it took them over three hours to get around to processing my tests. Meanwhile, look who was there to keep me company! Under the circumstances, I was especially glad to have the little tapir's company.

I don't know who got the idea to paint a mural with a TAPIR of all things in the temperate lands of northwestern Oregon, but we are, after all, in a rainforest, albeit different from the one where this little Asian tapir lives in real life.

This blog is sponsored by Tapir and Friends Animal Store.

Red on Red

2011-11-01T13:33:00.000-07:00

Astoria, Oregon ~ November 1, 2011

Every year I smile because someone had the foresight to plant bushes along the edge of the Safeway parking lot that turn screaming red in the fall. This year I'm also glad that they were near the car.

I haven't said much about this, and I won't make it long now, but I've had a hell of a time wanting to take photos this past year and a half. It simply hurts too much to stand for any length of time or walk to where the good angle is. I can't even think of taking a walk beyond a stone's throw from the car until I get better. I had a relapse of fibromyalgia a year ago last Memorial Day weekend. I've been dealing with it off and on for 30 years, and some years have been very good. This time severe foot problems came along with it. This is new as far as noticing that it was a real problem. In hindsight, there have been nagging symptoms that have been seriously misdiagnosed more than once over the past ten years, as much as I talked with medical people about what I was noticing. I'm fed up with doctors. They're fine if you break something or need surgery, but I prefer to work at this from the point of "what can I do to help myself?" I'm working with my Egoscue guy again (specific exercises for specific causes of musculo-skeletal problems), and again I have hope. I had given up the "e-cises" for much of the summer for various reasons, although after much thought and observation, I still believe this is how I'm going to get better. It took some time for my muscles to recover after I quit the anti-inflammatory meds almost two years ago. I'd been on them for almost 10 years, and now I'm not even taking asprin. Meanwhile, although my muscles still get sore very easily, they are better. I feel and hope I can get back into the routine of the exercises that are going to get me literally "back on my feet." I've started again, taking it slowly.

A dog with sore feet likes to curl up and sleep. I've been curling up with my projects, which keep my attention and keep me creative and mostly positive. I've been wanting to work on them anyway. For followers of this blog, this is why you're seeing more pictures of my office than of the wonders in the outside world. I feel ready to begin to bridge that gap, so here's a photo of Mother Nature, even though she's been domesticated by the landscape artists who complemented Astoria's Safeway.

On another note, I'm working on blog format today and clicking on my own sidebar (and moving some slow-loading links into the tabs above). I just noticed that one of my all-time favorite blogs is NOW DEAD. The remains are still there. If you love fun and crazy art, check it out. I was a collage artist in an earlier incarnation, and I LOVE the humor in this blog! It was best before the decoupage folks joined in, but I haven't gone through the posts in awhile to see how it's evolved. Here it is: Scrapeteria.

This blog is sponsored by Tapir and Friends Animal Store.

Faces of the Season

2011-10-27T17:40:00.000-07:00

Finally, after a long and pleasant summer, it rained like crazy for a couple of days straight. It seemed unusual just because it hasn't happened for awhile, but soon it will be almost a daily routine. I love the rain, so no problem here. The piece of two-by-four is a harbinger of real logs to come as the rains wash the shores upstream. I took this picture on October 22, and today there was one of those interesting reed mats that cover the water just in the area of the photo. I got distracted before I took a picture of it, and soon it was gone.

You can't see their full beauty in the bright light and high contrast of the photo, but these flowers outside my front door have been my friends all summer. They found a niche, then withstood all events, including someone pulling off the bloom either because they liked it or "just because." There is a ton of foot traffic on the River Walk, so you never know. Anyway, they came back wonderfully and are still looking good today even after a couple of days of our first cold-snap. I'm sure they like the reflected heat from the building and the blacktop!

When I see a pink glowing sunrise like this one over the water . . .

. . . it usually means there's a brilliant sunrise over the River Walk.

This blog is sponsored by Tapir and Friends Animal Store.

A Few Chapters and a Bunch of Notebooks

2011-10-21T16:22:00.000-07:00

I've been stuck in bed with a horrible, exhausting cold for two weeks now, so the work goes slowly. I had the good fortune to aquire an iPad before the cold struck, so I've been fiddling with that. If you don't want to work, there's not much of a learning curve and everything is almost seamless, but if you're like me and try to make things do what they were not intended to do, it can be quite a curve. I LOVE my iPad. It does many, many things, is light weight and pretty, but it's not a laptop. I had to learn a lot more than the basics (while sniffling and coughing) to do actual work along with playing games, listening to music, and making some notes. What I learned was how to make eBooks that can be read in an iBook reader. Big smiles here! In the end, it's easy, and they look fantastic. I had to figure out what I could and couldn't reasonably do so I would know what direction my project might be taking and whether I should be focused on scanning to PDF, making Word files, or whatever. Meanwhile, the mid-project results are less elegant, but are fully functional.

The shelf in my photo shows one set of the Chapters I published from 1992 to 1995. I got a smidgen of the way into the project before it got derailed. That's OK. It was huge and I was no longer clear how I could get it where I wanted it to go. Meanwhile, I had transcribed a lot of information, researched the references, filled in the blanks, and presented it in readable form. A glitch came a number of years ago when I found that my old WordPerfect 5.1 files would not convert completely intact to Word, but I've now scanned the printed copies of the chapters, and anyone interested can find downloadable PDFs on this page of my web site. The Word files remain for me to do something with as the project progresses.

The notebooks you see to the right of the chapters in the photo are filled with pages of chronological project data - research, synopses of material, etc. These notebooks are labelled by year(s). Some of the notebooks are alphabetical files of people, places, historic events, etc. And there are more notebooks in the other room.

I'm getting a certain amount of clarity about the path I want to walk through this mountain of fascinating information, and even some clarity on the results I want to achieve. It's a process, and, I'm really excited to be getting back to it. I'll keep you posted. (By the way, if you have an eBook reader (or at least it works with some brands), you can import the PDF files. They don't work as perfectly as a real eBook, but the graphics, captions and footnotes are intact, which is perfect for this stage of the game.

This blog is sponsored by Tapir and Friends Animal Store.

Energizer Bunny and Storage Boxes

2011-10-07T10:43:00.000-07:00

Still going here. More and more, this (above) is beginning to look like this (below) . . .

. . . and this (below).

There is still some of this (below) left and it actually seems very manageable now.

These fantastic bankers' boxes (I love them) moved me from Colorado to Oregon in 2001. They are so cool. The size is easy to handle, they are modular and stackable, and I used minimal padding because the boxes are sturdy and the stuff inside didn't get crushed. And, they have lids (easy as pie to open and close). An added bonus: when you arrive at your destination with almost zero furniture (plus you have things that are not easy to find a place for in your new apartment), you can stack them and drape with nice fabric and have instant tables and headboards. I did that for a number of years, and now I'm down to my final few unpacked boxes. It's kind of sad, really. I've grown to love the look. Maybe I'll keep a few for old times' sake.

Just briefly, one of the things that got me started on this Total Cleanup thing besides my new NeatDesk scanner was the desire to start working on the old letters project again. Seriously. The Hudson and Joy: A History in Letters blog that I started was a good first step into the digital media era, but it was becoming cumbersome, and I'd barely started. A couple of weekends ago I set up a new section of my web site for the project, and it's a lot easier to manage and should make a good presentation of the mass of material I'm beginning to bite back into. Here it is! There are already some sizable downloadable files, and (as I said before of the blog) I'm just getting started.

This blog is sponsored by Tapir and Friends Animal Store.

Another One

2011-09-26T10:20:00.000-07:00

This is another of those "things" I talked about the other day. Who wouldn't want an 18-inch cow with shades posing in their living room? Not as many people as I would have thought, it seems. When eBay didn't work, I pawned it off on Laurel's garage sale. I haven't asked yet what happened.

I like the cow. It came as an attention-getting display for the animal-shaped eyeglass holders we sell at Tapir and Friends Animal Store. When I switched back from Internet-plus-storefront to Internet-only, Mr. Cow got laid off. If I had one of those houses from Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous, I'm sure I'd keep him in a niche on the staircase overlooking the open-concept foyer. But, alas, space is limited. I have this photo for the memory book, and I hope Cow is grazing in greener pastures.

This blog is sponsored by Tapir and Friends Animal Store.

"Things"

2011-09-15T11:58:00.000-07:00

I took this photo for a customer who wanted to know what the plastic coiling cobra would look like size-wise if wrapped around her neck. The t-shirt dummy I had on hand is probably a bit larger than the potential snake-buyer, but it gave some clue. That transaction is finished, and I'm left with an eerie photo.

One of the great things about photos is, they help you remember "things." Often it's events and people, but sometimes it's just those things we surround ourselves with. I've been cleaning up collectibles or things that were useful at one time but no longer are. Years ago I learned that if I really don't want it physically in my life any more, but I I'm hanging onto it for some reason, it may be a good candidate for the "photo cure." I'd never called it a photo cure until now, but that's what it is.

Often, for me, taking a picture releases me to find another home for the thing (friends, Craig's List, eBay, the women's shelter, thrift shop) or else send it off to the landfill. The t-shirt dummy ended up at a friend's garage sale, and when there were no takers at the sale, it turned out that a friend of hers saw it in their porch and actually wanted it. Great news! The dummy has a loving home. I have some more space.

Space can be physical, and it can also be psychic. To anyone who has felt "the tyranny of possessions," no explanation is needed. As for the snake, you can buy it here :)

This blog is sponsored by Tapir and Friends Animal Store.

Where He Went Down

2011-09-13T06:15:00.000-07:00

The title sounds ominous, but this is no drowning or untoward event. I had been hearing something whuffing outside my office window. It was unmistakable - or was it? Each time I went onto the back deck to look for the "whuffer," there was nothing but the sound of water slapping on rocks and pilings. And then I saw him, her or it. I was too slow to catch sight of the velvety nostrils, fish-frightening teeth, or the big Labrador eyes. I only saw the sealion's huge, rounded brown back as it broke the river's surface not 20 feet from me and plunged lazily beneath the beams that support the pilings. I've seen many sea lions around Astoria, but they rarely come into the small bay at the back of my building. When they do, they're almost never this close for viewing. In fact, I've never seen one in so close at just this spot. It's always an experience to connect with a wild animal at this range. I'll stay attuned to the sound of sea lion breathing. I hope he comes back.

This blog is sponsored by Tapir and Friends Animal Store.

Flat Rabbits

2011-09-03T14:30:00.000-07:00

They usually come in shades of white with various odd markings on them, although other colors can also be found. I'm fond of them - probably overly fond - and I adopt them on a regular basis. They breed rapidly. They don't take much care and feeding once you file them away, but after years and years, they can overwhelm your life. Flat rabbits. Simple, garden variety information on paper.

Everything you see on the chair except for the file folders and a couple of envelopes has made its way through my scanner in the past two days. I'm on a roll or on a tear, take your pick. Digitizing and trashing.

This flurry began when I was contemplating buying yet another filing cabinet - then two related bits of information came my way. First, I read that you can now forget keeping all receipts for seven years, and three will probably do in most cases. Since bank statements and such are downloadable, you don't even have to keep those past their useful date. With both business and personal records stored not only in file cabinets but also in overflow boxes, this was fantastic news. I don't know why I hadn't heard it sooner, but better now than after having another four-drawer delivered. I love file cabinets, but in limited quantities. Second, I paid attention to the NeatDesk scanner ad I'd been seeing on TV, and I bought one. More on that another time. I love it. It's not perfect, so don't throw all of your originals away just yet, but it's about as perfect as it can be and still be fast and efficient.

I started with the unclassified piles around my office, then moved on to vendor receipts and such, but I have numerous categories. For the past couple of days, I've been into the tapir archives. There are an obvious few that will be refiled and kept (and I'm only in the paper file drawers, not even into the image drawer yet), but for the most part I am lightening the load and plan to make the useful stuff available online . . . very soon instead of "in my dreams." Meanwhile, it is on my hard drive (and, yes, backed up onto Carbonite), which is also new in my world, and what a cool discovery!

The project I really want to get to is that history thing. . . . More on these exciting developments coming your way. Stay tuned.

This blog is sponsored by Tapir and Friends Animal Store.

Into the Archives: Palisade Sunset

2011-01-29T12:35:00.000-08:00

Palisade, Colorado, April 2, 1996

Scanned Polaroid

I had not planned to spend all morning taking dust out of scanned photos, but I wanted to get into my prints and negatives, see how they would come out, and get a few online. (I didn't do the spotting as completely as I would have if I felt like I wanted to devote the time today.) I had started with a completely different subject in mind, and when I couldn't find those pictures right away, I began with this sunset. There are eight images on the page, all different, so come on over and check it out.

This blog is sponsored by Tapir and Friends Animal Store.

Pink and Gray Morning, Astoria

2011-01-28T21:00:00.000-08:00

Astoria, Oregon ~January 27, 2011

This blog is sponsored by Tapir and Friends Animal Store.

Impulse Purchases

2011-01-04T16:41:00.000-08:00

Back home. This is the only picture I took today. I took it with the camera in my phone, and it rather boggles my mind that it came out so well. For the first two years of my Blackberry career, my camera had no phone. I'd see phone photos online and they were so poor I didn't care about not having one, but when I got my second Blackberry (a Bold), I could not believe how well the photos came out. I don't want to go into Blackberries much today, though, because I have a whole story about phones I may want to rant about. Back to this picture. Right away I notice the lovely multicolored drawstring bag. I bought a bunch of them over a period of time when I lived in Colorado, using them for tarot cards and other things. I became so addicted, I bought way more than I needed, even sending fabric I'd bought to be made into bags, but I have to say they are one of the purchases I have never regretted, because I use them for many things and have gotten so much pleasure out of the colors and patterns. I use this one for my portable hard drive when I travel, so that's why it's on the desk. "We" just got home.

The big, wide cup is an impulse buy that I'm glad I made. I bought four just because I saw them and they appealed to me. I use them every day for just about everything from oatmeal to soup. The shape and size are perfect. They were probably pretty inexpensive, but when I bought them every dollar counted even more than it does today. I remember it was a struggle to convince myself I could have them. So glad I did it.

The green box is another story. At the moment, it's only holding my computer up at eye level, which would better be done with books. (I should swap it out.) I thought it would be cool to digitize all, or at least some of the dozens of cassette tapes I'd made from borrowed music or had purchased on cassette - especially one I have yet to find on CD - but once I read the instructions, I got scared. I'm only half geek, and the other half was pretty sure I was going to do irreparable damage to my files, disk or something. That was quite a long time ago, and I still have the thing.

Enough babbling for today.

This blog is sponsored by Tapir and Friends Animal Store.

From Bend to Home

2011-01-03T16:44:00.000-08:00

Redmond, Oregon ~ January 3, 2010

6:45 in the morning

Adam dropped me off at the airport on his way to work, so I got there pretty early. Thankfully, the highway was dry, not icy, as the images of terrible fatal accidents on that same road were fresh in mind from the news.

I'd been sick since Christmas day with some kind of bug plus complications, so the wheelchair is significant. I was going to try to use one despite feeling like it was stupid, because I *can* walk, therefore I *should* be walking, even though it hurts and will have repercussions for the next couple of days. Being my first time, I didn't handle it very well. The lady was curt, there was nobody to push after I got through security, and I was in the dang thing in the first place because of muscles as well as feet. The muscle thing meant it was actually harder for me to push myself in the chair than to get out and walk. This is temporary. I know it's temporary, but it's been chronic for awhile, and what happened this holiday was a setback of sorts, even though it was a move in the right direction getting off the anti-inflammatory medication that had been keeping the muscle pain at bay. I will not be in a chair permanently, but it sure would have helped with the long distances in the airports. It is so hard sometimes to ask for help, especially when I *can* do it. If I'd had a broken leg, people would have been falling over themselves to help. We can relate to a skiing accident. It's hard to relate to someone who looks healthy and has "something wrong."

At the other end, there was no wheelchair for me at PDX, although I'd asked for one to be there. I didn't realize I might have to wait, and I didn't ask. I walked anyway. When I saw the chair pushers coming, I was nearly to baggage claim. I told them one chair was for me, but I couldn't remember where I'd put my flight number, so they kept on going to where, I knew, there would be nobody waiting.

Driving back to Astoria was fine, but there was frost on the ground mid-day from Longview to Astoria. I've never seen so many tire tracks weaving back and forth across the median, so although the ground wasn't slick when I passed through, it certainly had been.

This blog is sponsored by Tapir and Friends Animal Store.

Snow for Happy New Year

2011-01-01T22:17:00.000-08:00

Bend, Oregon ~ January 1, 2011

It's been cold and clear most of the week - really cold!

This blog is sponsored by Tapir and Friends Animal Store.

Chocolate Snowmen and Chocolate Turkeys

2010-12-28T14:47:00.000-08:00

Bend, Oregon ~ December 28, 2010

The turkeys were left over from Thanksgiving. They all seemed to get along fine until, one by one, they started to disappear.

This blog is sponsored by Tapir and Friends Animal Store.

Posting History

2010-11-26T23:00:00.000-08:00

I love posting this stuff. It took quite a bit of my time this evening, but the project is on fire. I love it! Check out my Hudson/Joy old letters blog to read the letter. In an urelated comment, my backpack smells like Starbucks, and that ain't all bad.

This blog is sponsored by Tapir and Friends Animal Store.

Bank Posters at Auction

2010-11-21T12:46:00.000-08:00

Photos of all posters by Jim Northrup.

If you happen to copy any, please credit Jim

for the photos and Robert A. Wilson

for the artwork. If you feel like making

a link to my blog, that's cool, too!

For those who remember The Bank rock'n'roll club in Torrance in 1968, or just like estoteric rock memorabilia, these rare posters are at auction for the next few hours. They were drawn by my first husband, Bob Wilson (Robert A. Wilson). Interesting stuff and fun memories getting to see the groups for free each week (free for me, he had to draw the poster!). Check out The HeART of Rock and Roll for lots of vintage and collectible posters from an age of the most amazing music. If you're so inclined, type the word "bank" in the search box. I couldn't make a direct link to the search results.

I still have a few, and I regret not trying to take my own photos, but it will be fun to post details of the ones I have left at some future date.

This blog is sponsored by Tapir and Friends Animal Store.

Egoscue Method, Day 23: Loosening Up

2010-11-20T11:11:00.000-08:00

Astoria, Oregon ~ November 20, 2010

This photo has nothing to do with my Egoscue Method theme, except that the morning brilliance reflects some of the feelings I have after my appointment yesterday. It was my third appointment, and a long drive to Portland in pouring rain with a little snow over the pass on 26.

We went through the excercise routine I'd been doing for two weeks, and Matt asked if I felt I was still getting benefit out of all of the exercises or if there were some I felt done with. Being new to this, I didn't know how to evaluate that, except that if I was still feeling stretching or pain with any of the exercises, I guessed they were still doing something. So, we went through them and talked about how I felt doing each one, where there was still any pulling or stretching, and he watched how I walked and moved, asked about feelings of balance, etc., as before.

Then he tried me out on a whole new set of exercises. After my first visit, he had kept the original routine and added three. Most of these new ones were very different, so it seems I had made enough progress with the original set to begin stretching further to deepen the results or add to them. They were hard, and some of them hurt, while others were easy, just different. By the time I was done going through the new ones, I really felt limber and less painful in a whole new way. I'm beginning to have a real feel for how this works. Matt answered some questions I had about why I still have pain in certain areas. My feet have been especially bad the past few days, and I realize that probably has to do with a) being more active, b) getting into positions with my feet at the computer or during work that exacerbate the problem, but he also explained again how the twist I've developed over the years in my upper body affects how my feet work when walking and standing. He didn't say this, but I envisioned a marionette. If you twist the shoulders and upper body, the feet aren't going to contact the ground the same way any more. You spend years walking and hiking in that condition, and you're going to create problems in the feet. I also asked about some issues with strength for lifting vs. pushing in the upper body, and he demonstrated that, too, so it made sense for the first time. What we will be doing is correcting these things, and as we did the new routine, I could see even more than with the old routine how one side of my body performed differently than the other. The goal, of course, is to balance it out. I left feeling extremely positive about my progress, and I when I got home, despite a difficult drive in the rain with car headlights in my mirror and fog on the road, I felt looser and more natural in my skin than I have in a long time.

A few things I've noticed over the past few weeks:

1. I've taken stairways rather than the elevator just because I felt like it. I used to do that until I crashed at the end of last May. It felt good doing this again.

2. I can box up orders in the store with less pain than before.

3. The exercise routine became easier over the two weeks, and I didn't find myself doing only part of it and then taking a break and going back to finish. (I also learned from Matt that it's good to do it all at one time and in the right order, because one exercise may get your muscles ready for the next one, etc.)

4. I've generally felt better with less pain, but then when I feel better I do more, or maybe I've spent more hours at the computer, so it creates a feeling of being static and not making progress unless I really notice something like taking the stairs or walking farther without thinking about holding myself back to favor my feet.

5. The pain and symptoms of fibromyalgia are improving. I don't know that I could have done this routine back in June when the relapse was new, but during the summer I did find some very simple Egoscue excercises online for fibromyalgia, and with those I began the process of feeling better. They were not as dramatic as these, but they made a difference, and they were easy enough that I could do them at the time. (I did the one linked here and two others. Here is another page that describes all three. There may be a better link somewhere that shows all three visually the way the first link shows the one, but I want to get going.)

I thought I would be really sore this morning after yesterday's new and somewhat painful workout, but I was hardly sore at all, and I still felt flexible . . . better than waking up most other days. After yesterday, I thought I would be dreading the new set of exercises, but I'm very much looking forward to them. There are 11 exercises in all, including the new ones and a few of the old ones that were kept or modified. They'll take a little longer, because one requires lying on the floor for about half an hour. I would usually rather be DOING than not doing, so this is always a tough one for me to follow through on. It will make me feel better, though, so I'll just turn up the music and relax into it.

This blog is sponsored by Tapir and Friends Animal Store.

Egoscue Method, Day 5: Keep Moving, Part 2

2010-11-03T09:19:00.000-07:00

Astoria, Oregon ~ November 3, 2010

If you read yesterday's post, you know that I was reading all evening instead of moving around in physical space. I had done my Egoscue exercises right before bedtime, then slept on it. This should not have been a problem, but since work was slow and I was still engrossed in the book I was devouring, I didn't get out of bed until 11:00 a.m. Do I even have to say this is very strange behavior for me? Anyway, I was stiff and sore when I got up, so I was not feeling as much benefit from the excercises as I would have if I'd been behaving normally.

The morning threw me off, but I became more active as the day went on. Despite some interruptions in the routine, I did my exercises more slowly and took a few breaks, getting in the 10 different ones over a period of several hours. And the pinch in my back while doing the two I mentioned yesterday was better. Doing them this way should make me feel more normal tomorrow. And I am still amazed at how much better I'm walking.

I'm not planning to keep up and day by day account, but I have already experienced so much benefit, that I'll note the signposts as I think of them. I have another appointment on Friday. The appointments are once a week at first, then spaced farther apart as you need fewer changes in the routine. At first the progress is very rapid, and the routine quickly becomes in need of updating. I can alreay feel "minor" (though not so minor if you've had to live with them) changes here and there, both internally and unexpected, and externally and more expected. The fear I have to get past now is that it's not all going to go away, or (worse) that it will come back. But I'm changing the very basis of how I stand and move, and these are the things that have created the pain. I look forward to the day I'll be taking long walks again and NOT have crippling back pain. I've lived with that one for almost 9 years with only minor respites and have slogged my way through it, taking long walks and hikes anyway; so it's hard to get over the feeling that it's with me for life. But the changes I feel already tell me this should not be the case.

Today's photo: Although it's more expensive, I've begun to shop more at the co-op this year. I started last May, really, because I could no longer walk through a big store like Safeway or Fred Meyer without having repercussions to my feet. I rediscovered what food is supposed to taste like, and I like supporting the local community. All health benefits aside, if you think vegetables and fruit taste like cardboard, try buying some real ones. Oh - My - God! What a difference. Even oatmal. It has flavor. And that's just a start.

This blog is sponsored by Tapir and Friends Animal Store.

Egoscue Method, Day 5: Keep Moving

2010-11-02T20:45:00.000-07:00

Warrenton, Oregon ~ November 2, 2010

I did not keep moving, and I'm here to tell you, today it made an unfortunate difference. I'd gone in to Lucy's Books the other day to ask for a book I "couldn't put down." She found one for me: a murder mystery/relationship story called In the Woods by Tana French. I sat in the chair at Starbucks (the photo above was taken as I got out of the car) and read for two hours, then came home and read for many more hours. I'm a slower reader, and I could NOT put it down, so it added up to a lot of hours.

I put my exercises off, but I DID finally do them just before going to sleep. I had waited until so late in the evening that I didn't do them slowly with breaks as I said I was going to. But I had more stamina for them than yesterday and they came easier. Part of this is that I remember how to do each one more and more without reading the instructions, and partly my muscles are being trained. There was a little back pain, and I'm not sure if it's from the original twist in my body or from muscle pain from the exercises. It wasn't bad, just irritating.

So I jumped back into bed and read a bit more before going to sleep. (See next post.)

This blog is sponsored by Tapir and Friends Animal Store.

Egoscue Method, Day 4

2010-11-01T20:00:00.000-07:00

Astoria, Oregon ~ November 1, 2010

The weather came in again, and it poured like crazy. Pouring rain has been alternating with cool and absolutely gorgeous days. But I chose Astoria. I really don't mind the rain. Here's what it looks like, though, serious puddles and no horizon line. I took these pix from the end of Doc's on 12th Street. I drove to the hair appointment that I used to walk to. I'm not pushing it yet. Although I move more easily and smoothly now, it will take some time for my stamina to come back. I've made progress since the end of May, but I'm not nearly there yet. It feels like a miracle because some things changed so fast, but I can't forget - it's still a process. It still seems miraculous, though, because it's happening at all. My condition had become so bad that merely washing my hair in the shower created intense back pain. So here I was, going to simply have my hair washed by someone else. I never thought that would happen, and although I deplore the reason, I am enjoying the luxury. Plus, I like Celestine a lot.

More rain over the edge of the pier. Note the little cormorant in the upper left. It seems quite at home.

It was not hard to convince myself to do the Egoscues today and I threw myself into it much faster, smoother, and without taking the breaks I've taken on the other days. In retrospect, it was a little too fast. I still felt all of the benefits afterwards, except that feeling of tiredness afterwards lasted for the day and I ached more. To be fair, I put in a full day of work, not only at the computer, but tearing up boxes and putting away inventory. It was a good day. I was still walking more smoothly at the end of the day, and I noticed that I didn't limp after emerging from the car or getting up from a chair. This is good. It's fantastic. Tomorrow I'll go slower with the exercises, try to remember to drink more water, and continue to get better. I already know from experience that I will have to push myself to take that 20 minutes to do something repetitive. Eyes on the prize. I'll need to remember that.

At the end of the day I went through the video rental with an unaccustomed freedom from back pain. My feet still have weird sensations in them, but the actual pain was almost gone. Ironically, one of the video guys dropped a DVD on my sandaled toes, and I yelped. My feet are sensitive, but at least the pain had not come from the inside.

This pic is for you, Francisca. I voted :)

This blog is sponsored by Tapir and Friends Animal Store.

Egoscue Method, Day 3: Sunrise

2010-10-31T20:00:00.000-07:00

Astoria, Oregon ~ October 31, 2010

Sometimes the symbolism just bites you. I've been waking up to heavy clouds and rain most mornings, but this morning there was a gorgeous sunrise. I also felt different. I had no pain. At least, on waking I had none. I stretched and still felt good. I got out of bed and was free of the now-familiar pinches and limp. I had a little pain still from the Egoscue exercises I've been doing, but not much. Wow! In only three days.

Here's the sunrise along the river walk. You can see it's been raining hard, and the weather broke for this gorgeous beginning of the day.

Even the puddle was shining, pink, and pretty with the shapes of the fence and the stuff piled against it.

Throughout the day I felt better than I had in awhile. I did have some of both kinds of pain - the original and from the exercises, but both were much, much better. I no longer walk with a limp. I don't hurt as much when I get up from the computer, and even my feet are feeling better. I did not have to coax myself to do the routine. I moved a shelf out of my bedroom so I'd have a big enough space against the wall to put my feet up and not have to then find the right spaces between the furniture for my arms. I did the exercises pretty slowly and felt reasonably good all day. I did not do much of any of the acitivites that have been causing me the worst pain since May and some of it for years. I'm taking this slowly and enjoying it. I think I used the word "miracle" to a couple of people.

This blog is sponsored by Tapir and Friends Animal Store.

"On the Pavement:" Pulling the Plug

2010-10-31T10:23:00.000-07:00

Oxford, England ~ February 18, 2010

Divinity School, Bodleian Library

This is the photo I began with when I started my "On the Pavement" blog. Last week I decided to close it down, and I exported all of the posts (along with their comments) and imported them to Tapirgal's Daily Image. Today I'm actually pulling the plug on the blog and deleting it. In the meantime there had been one post left for anyone visiting:

Come visit Tapirgal's Daily Image.

"On the Pavement" was fun, I still like the concept, and contrary to urban legend, I had not even begun to run out of images of what lies under our feet. I simply did (and still do) have too many blogs. I've imported every post with comments into Tapirgal's Daily Image. For those who visted and left your comments, THANK YOU! You will see "on the pavement" photos fairly often my other blog. I can't help taking them :)

Back in college, in an anthropology class, I learned about lumping and splitting (do you call it a separate species, or lump it with an existing species?). There are people who tend to do one or the other, but I expect that many of us vascillate. I go through distinct periods of lumping and splitting elements of my life. Last spring and summer I split several of my photo categories into individual blogs, and now it seems time to lump several of them back together.

Like any creative project, a blog seems to have a life of its own, a personality. It may be more or less successful both creatively and as something that attracts followers. As I said above, I enjoyed "On the Pavement," but it's time to throw it back into the mix. Today I think I'll begin the same process with "Animal Art Along the Way." These two blogs have been fun for me, but at the moment I don't feel the need to maintain them separately. I had also started a blog last summer of animal photos, but for some reason it was easier to can that one and add it back into "Tapirgal." These other two I have really enjoyed, so the choice was harder.

By the way, the Picasa albums that Google uses to maintain these blogs will remain. You can see the Pavement pictures here.

This blog is sponsored by Tapir and Friends Animal Store.

Egoscue Method, Day 2

2010-10-30T20:00:00.000-07:00

I took no photos today, which is a rarity. I hurt too much and wasn't interested. Some people probably don't have this kind of pain at the beginning of the treatment, but fibromyalgia plays a big part in it for me.

I woke up at around 7:00 am, my muscles screaming in pain from yesterday's exercises, and maybe partly from the long drive. I was thirsty, which never wakes me up. But I didn't feel the usual aches and pains I've become so familiar with. I seems to be working. I expected to feel pain from the exercises, but not this much, and the thirst surprised me. The exercises are not strenuous in terms of cardio, but they use your muscles to pull your bones back into alignment. I believed it with all my heart. I could feel that I was walking differently, and joints that had felt stiff felt more mobile. Most of the pain was around my rib cage, torso, shoulder and hip areas, which were what we were trying to realign. Made sense. Hang in there.

I didn't get dressed, but tried to blot out the pain by keeping my attention online with blogging and web work. I was spacey, which I'd expected, as that, too, is a result of using my muscles when I have a fibro flare. I thought of not doing the exercises today, but I'm in this to get better, and something was telling me it was working. At some point I forced myself to do part of the daily exercise routine they'd given me (it takes about 20 minutes). I did most of them, then took a long break. I took a couple of Naproxen, but I'm not much for pain meds. I drank some Torch, a workout product that helps a lot with muscle soreness and allows me to do more at the same time. I kept drinking water - not pushing it, but drinking more than usual. I even packed up some orders in the store, and while my muscles hurt like hell, I didn't feel much of the original pain.

Amazingly, by afternoon, I felt a lot better and completed the exercises. I worked online with only a little discomfort in my ribs from the crunches.

Enough. I was going to keep this short.

This blog is sponsored by Tapir and Friends Animal Store.

Egoscue Method, Day 1

2010-10-29T19:00:00.000-07:00

Portland, Oregon ~ October 29, 2010

My favorite season in Portland is Fall. We simply don't have the large stands of colorful trees in most places on the coast, so it was a treat to get out of the car and find this all around me.

Here is the building that houses the clinic. I didn't know it yet, but Egoscue Portland is directly ahead - top floor center, facing these beautiful trees with their bank of windows. To make a very long story very short, I was here because I finally knew I had to do something beyond what I was already doing to fix the fibromyalgia and increasingly painful feet. This flare of fibro had started at the end of May, and the foot thing (probably tarsal tunnel syndrome) immediately got much worse than it had ever been. And I finally figured out what it was. After reading Pain Free by Pete Egoscue and trying some of the exercises, I felt that I needed to and owed it to myself to see the professionals. So this was my first visit. I arrived early.

This is the Oregonian building, Western Division. It's right next door. The entire parking area seemed like a fairyland of color.

I'm not going to go into much detail, and I'll talk more about it as the days go by, especially if it helps. But I want to record that everything felt right. It was a good experience, and maybe a great one, all except seeing myself full length from four angles - the weight I've put on during this year mainly through the inability to exercise and the resultant comfort foods did not make me happy. But the people were warm and knowledgeable, the exercises seemed doable, I felt something happening in the way I stood and moved, and I went home after an hour and a half feeling very positive, feeling new possibilities; and when I got out of the car at the end of the two hour drive home, a hip pain I've had for several years did not immediately bother me.

This blog is sponsored by Tapir and Friends Animal Store.

Another River-front Weather Report

2010-10-24T21:39:00.000-07:00

October 24, 2010

I love the light and colors of storms! Today's storm was more about shading than colors. It began early. In fact, the lightning flashed through my eyelids before my eyes were open. The lightning didn't last long, but it came back later. I didn't see any of the strikes, and they were not terribly close, maybe four miles away at the closest.

I've noticed that the seagulls hunker down and look very flat in the rain.

This time it's not rain, but hail.

Heavy hail.

Hail and rain against the side of the workroom window. I thought I was getting the mother and baby stuffed opossum (top of the bins on the left) in the photo, but they aren't visible. They seemed not to mind the crashing hail or the thunder.

Hail outside the window. This is where the lovely tangle of plants lived until last summer. The neighbors tore them out, then got as far as putting in a few big rocks, but no plants I guess until next spring (I hope).

When the downpour stopped, a familiar pattern of clouds emerged. So often, there's this layer of clouds over the river obscuring the hills of Washington. It takes one form or another, but is usually separate from the clouds above. I thought the arrangement today was striking.

And it rained again. As I type this at 9:37 p.m., I've just seen lightning outside the window. I wonder what's in store for tomorrow? The big winds didn't materialize yesterday. The forecast usually gives a hint, but it's usually not spot on.

Web stuff: I finally decided today that I had too many blogs going on, and while I like the theme of all of them, I concluded to integrate "On the Pavement" with Tapirgal's Daily Image. I had very mixed feelings, like ripping up a piece of artwork, but went for it anyway. I also spent some time putting these plastic floating/swimming fish online in a way that people could order them from the site. It turns out that the page on the gift shop blog featuring these fish was by far the most popular of all my pages, but since I didn't have them online in the store, people had to order them by phone. Here's the new set-up. Let's see if they're as popular as I think they'll be.

This blog is sponsored by Tapir and Friends Animal Store.

Rain and Boats

2010-10-23T20:52:00.000-07:00

October 23, 2010

9:47 a.m.: The National Geographic boat Sea Bird comes in to dock at the Maritime Museum.

10:43 a.m.: It doesn't look like much of a day for sailing, but this boat was headed in the direction of the bar with all hands in gear for heavy weather. The spots in the foreground are seagulls, also hunkered down for the rain. We had a high wind warning for the day, but the really strong winds didn't materialize. All we had were buckets of rain.

This blog is sponsored by Tapir and Friends Animal Store.

End of the End-of-the-Day Office?

2010-10-22T20:00:00.000-07:00

This is the office I use at the end of the day - the best seat in Starbucks. I'm not sure how I'm going to give up that cold, ice-crunchy, sweet, chocholaty frappuccino, but I feel a change coming on. We'll see. Now that I've described the frap, I really don't know how I'm going to give it up. The end of the day is when I kick back, read something that isn't digital, and answer a few e-mails and calls if the mood strikes. If it were not for the calories and the checkbook, I'd have no problem with this scenario, especially as the evening afterwards often includes more work at the computer. As I said . . . we will see.

By the way, I won't say A History of Iowa is a gripping read, but it's interesting as research for this project that I've been working on.

This blog is sponsored by Tapir and Friends Animal Store.

Today's Colors on the River

2010-10-20T01:12:00.000-07:00

Astoria, Oregon ~ October 20, 2010

I'm still astonished when I look out the window and see something like this, and sadly, I still have not been able to get it right - to show how dazzling these ships really are when the morning sun catches them full force on a clear day.

This may be a better example, but it doesn't have the GLOW of the way it looks in real life. "Pan Bright" is the name of this vessel, and the "bright" part is certainly fitting.

In this case, the camera actually heightens the color. I wanted to capture the green of that anomalous fern on the concrete tower base; it came out well, and the water seems bluer than it is in real life.

I love the old "feet" of the radio tower. I may be sorry if they ever paint them.

This blog is sponsored by Tapir and Friends Animal Store.

Just One of Those Yellow Kinds of Days

2010-10-18T20:00:00.000-07:00

October 18, 2010

Clear, clean, and cold. The brilliant yellow boat caught my attention, but ufortunately the closeup was totally fuzzy, because I was trying to take the pic before the camera focused.

Toward the end of the day, this bit of yellow caught my eye. I don't know if the city is just parking their "No Parking" signboards here or whether they thought WOW would actually pick up something at the "cardboard only" dumpster that wasn't made of cardboard. In any event, they are adding some color to the scene.

In the background are broken pieces of marble columns. Sadly, a couple of the carved columns for the Chinese Heritage Park didn't make it unscathed. Many more columns are inside the old Englund Marine building on the River Walk just waiting for opening day. After being displayed there, they'll be installed at their permanet home in the park at Astor and 9th Streets. Meanwhile, it's nice to have activity and something to look at in my neighborhood. This is the same building where Goonies' Headquarters saw a lot of action this past spring.

This blog is sponsored by Tapir and Friends Animal Store.

Salmon Fish Wheel for eBay

2010-10-05T21:44:00.000-07:00

My mom sent me a few things to put on eBay. It's been awhile since I've sold anything there, and I have to say, I like the seller tool improvements. Hopefully the integration with PayPal won't be as awkward and time-consuming as it used to be. This thing is a small model fish wheel we bought on a family trip to Alaska. I don't remember the year exactly, but it was about 1965, I think. I have some other things, but I thought I'd get my feet wet (as it were) again with this one thing. It looks pretty cool and the wheel turns. For the next 7 days, it will be here.

Note on October 22: It seems this fish wheel will be going to a school district in Fairbanks. It makes me happy that it may be helping to teach people about the culture of their area. And for the record about eBay - it was a total waste for cheap things (same as I concluded before) - but good for really unique or more expensive items. I was happy with the sale of the fish wheel and my old camera, but not so much with things from the shop. Also, eBay now takes a huge cut, between the high percentage they take of the sale and the smaller (but significant) fee taken by PayPal. It's also time-consuming and a contributes to my feeling of having a bunch of loose ends out of control. It wouldn't be so bad if I didn't have enough of those already, or if selling eBay were my main focus.

This blog is sponsored by Tapir and Friends Animal Store.

HJ Project: Working with Old Archives with New Technology

2010-10-03T21:53:00.000-07:00

I spent some time again posting some of the old letters and journal entries from N.C. Hudson. One of his letters to Helen was written on a page with this engraving at the top. I've already given this to the Sioux City Public Museum, so I made the scan from a xerox and was working from my previously transcribed text. I'm really enjoying finding time for this project again, doing the research and making the stuff available at long last. (I didn't see this engraving anywhere else online, although it could be hidden somewhere.) I hope to have the time to continue.

Technology and the Internet are still astonishing to me, when I remember what it took only a few years ago to publish anything like this. The xerox I scanned the engraving from is so much inferior to the scan of the original I could have made now, but at least I was able copy and paste the digital text from a Word doc, and not have to resort to scanning from an old typewriter (the work I did in the 1980s) or primary or secondary handwritten transcripts. That will come soon enough as I get further into the material. In such a relatively few years, the ability to present historical documents has gone miles. I find myself wishing I could have the originals back again to make good scans, and one of these days I may be able to visit their repositories and do that if I still have the interest. But I'm not just moaning. I'm glorying in what can be done. I remember writing "the dream target book," for those few who know what that is, back in the 1980s, and wishing like crazy at the time that there was something like hyperlinks. Well, now they exist, and someday I may put that project online. With the links I only imagined.

Here's the link for the letter and engraving on the Hudson and Joy blog.

This blog is sponsored by Tapir and Friends Animal Store.

Dinosaur Bone Puzzle Day and Some Work on the H/J Blog

2010-09-23T23:43:00.000-07:00

I'd been waiting for these to fill an order for dinosaur skeleton puzzles (models), so I was very happy to see them arrive - but I also thought I was going to have a helper here to sort out the six different dinosaur types (Pteranodon, Stegosaurus, Velociraptor, Tyrannosaurus, Triceratops, and - oh, yes - that famous dinosaur, Woolly Mammoth). It's great when you get to do this stuff and call it "work." Anyway, as it turned out, I was able to get them sorted and re-boxed myself, although it took most of what I had to put into it today. The re-boxing is because I am only shipping out part of what came in, and they need to be specific quantities of each dino. It seemed like a lot more stuff than you see here, and actually several packed boxes are already outside the photo area. I didn't exactly need the fan today, as it poured for most of 12 hours or so.

The inflatable dinosaur (which is not part of this project) stayed around to help keep an eye on the process.

This is not quite as exciting an image, but it was also a lot of fun, and -YES! - I begin to feel like I'm accomplishing something on this new direction of the Hudson/Joy project. I spent a lot of time last week organizing the blog better, and tonight I spent a lot of time transferring journal entries and scans and also figuring out how to work with the 1800s dates in blog format so that it doesn't take forever to put the posts together. With the exception of one love letter and marriage proposal (which is truly amazing and romantic), most of the entries are not that much fun to read yet. Some aren't bad, but I had to start somewhere, and that was really hard to decide.

After posting some material from 1856 when Hudson was already in Iowa, I decided to go back and make my starting point the marriage proposal linked above. After that, without an answer, Hudson goes west to Iowa, and the history begins to get interesting, because the state was really just getting settled, and then also on the home front, his letters with Helen start heating up. This is a good place to begin a long stretch of the historic and romantic material, but I also love the earlier years. I really had to think about it, but there is a certain momentum that tells a story beginning in 1855. Eventually I'll go back and fill in, but much of that is already in the chapters I've had printed. After a certain point in 1856, it will all be new.

This blog is sponsored by Tapir and Friends Animal Store.

Posters from the Rock Club "The Bank" (Torrance, CA, 1968) in Last Hours of Online Auction

2010-09-19T10:24:00.000-07:00

Photo copyright The HeART of Rock and Roll

Poster art by Robert A. Wilson

Six posters drawn by my first husband and tapir collaborator, Bob Wilson of Claremont, California (signature = the sign of the buffalo), are in their last hours at auction on The HeART of Rock and Roll. You'll have to type in the word "bank" in the search box at the top of the page. I've always liked the Moby Grape poster above with the drawing of the painting of Marat in the bathtub and the big, fat hippie lettering in the dark space above. Can you believe it? Some of the more famous posters are at $6,000.00 and $7,000.00 (not The Bank posters), but some of the others. This is a fun site to check out even if you're not bidding. P.S. The colors on the posters are vibrant and beautiful, not the washed-out colors you see in the photos.

This blog is sponsored by Tapir and Friends Animal Store.

Stuffed Baby Cheetah - Finally Online

2010-09-16T22:00:00.000-07:00

I spent a chunk of the afternoon putting this little guy online in the gift shop. It all takes awhile, but I have finally had time and resources to get back to it. It's fun. I've loved web work since the day back in 1996 when Andy told me you can turn text into bold with a simple code (that I can't seem to render on the blog without it activating). That one spark of info really lit the fire. There's still so much to do here to get organized and things cleaned up and filed, but (Yay!) I am again having the time and energy for it. The cleared out space and ease of finding things is such a pleasure. Getting the stuff online in the gift shop that I've had around for awhile but have not put up yet is only part of it, and I'm on a roll. Over the past few days I've also put up the new cuttlefish and changed out the photo of the earthworm (do not ask me why they painted stupid white bands on it; it was nice when it was all one color with the bands being formed only by the change in texture). Before that, I put up the new larger plastic ammonite.

This blog is sponsored by Tapir and Friends Animal Store.

Helicopter Transfer

2010-09-15T21:58:00.000-07:00

Even though the day was rainy and the photos don't look nice, there's something interesting going on here. Usually the ships are pretty quiet out on the water, but today I heard the unmistakable sound of a helicopter as the ship was passing. I kept looking into the cloudy sky, so it took me a minute to realize that the Coast Guard 'copter was on top of the ship.

Here a Coast Guard boat is following in their wake.

The pilot boat was alongside but hanging back.

The camera didn't want to focus at this distance, but there is someone in the doorway.

It looks like one guy is still in the door of the helicopter and another guy is on the pole (or whatever you call it; are they still called masts even on a ship like this?) of the ship.

Speaking of poles, the name of this ship is Pole.

This blog is sponsored by Tapir and Friends Animal Store.

Without Paint

2010-09-13T10:07:00.000-07:00

"Alfred Orders the Number 7 Entree"

by Sheryl Todd (tapirgal)

Collage on paper

September 13, 2003

I submitted my first collage to Scrapiteria. When I found the collabortative collage blog site many months (or years?) ago, I realized I had stumbled into a nest of kindred spirits. I understood the medium. I understood the humor. I laughed a lot. I added their link to my blog sidebar and visited often. I've been making collages since 1967 or 1968 (few are posted here, and that's another project for "when I have some time,") but mine are usually made with paint and often some kind of drawing or scribbling included. Scrapiteria's format is strictly cut and paste with paper. I thought of making one without paint or scribbles to submit, but I had also stopped making them for a number of years during this past decade while my business was growing and I was focused on other things. Too bad. I love making collages. So, with encouragement from several friends, I pitched back in. When, recently, I noticed that Scrapiteria was now open to guest submissions, I found a weekly theme I wanted to try and here is the result. My mother (why do I think of her at times like this?) would never understand Scrapitiria, but it's definitely my cup of oysters.

Originally I intended to caption the collage, "Alfred concluded that what the menu lacked in refinement, it made up for in attention to the particular sensibilities of the saurischian palate," but I think the short title is just fine.

This blog is sponsored by Tapir and Friends Animal Store.

A Blast from the Past: Posters for Auction from "The Bank" Rock Club in Torrance

2010-09-10T16:05:00.000-07:00

Photo credit: The HeART of Rock and Roll

It's a blast from the past because my first husband, Robert A. Wilson, drew this poster along with a number of others in 1968. They have now become collectors' items and there is an auction running right this minute that includes six of the posters. (Just type "bank" in the keyword search.) The photo is not great, but the seller probably doesn't want anyone making excellent prints from it. Five other posters from The Bank are also in this auction. I don't have the typing capacity at the moment to rattle on about experiences from The Bank when we'd go each week to take the posters and see the shows, but I've typed them to several people in the past, and there are some web sites around that have included my input or comments. Here's one TAPIR STORY on my web site that includes Jerry Garcia of The Grateful Dead from those crazy times at The Bank!

Other sites:

. Rock Prosopography 101 (1)
. Rock Prosopography 101 (2)
. Rock Prosopography 101 (3)

This blog is sponsored by Tapir and Friends Animal Store.

About My Blogs, and Fun with Stats

2010-09-05T15:39:00.001-07:00

From my Animal Photos blog (now merged)

Both of these pix have appeared on my other blogs, but today I combined two blogs and wanted to mention it. I wasn't enjoying the animal photos blog very much. I'm not sure if it's because 1) I don't have that many good animal photos, or 2) they felt like the needed to be integrated rather than separate, or 3) I was making it too boring and too much like work by feeling responsible for figuring out the species and linking it to good information, or 4) all of the above. Anyway, the animals seemed like they needed to be integrated with Tapirgal's Daily Image, so that's what I did. Blogs should either be fun or part of my job, and the animal one turned out to be neither, exactly.

From my Tapirgal's Daily Image blog

After messing around with individual transfers, I realized I could just export the whole animal pix blog and import it into Tapirgal's Daily. Wow! Too cool! And fast.

So now I have 8 blogs, and I'm considering starting two more. It's really not insane. OK, it is addicting, but not insane. Beyond the "different subjects" reason and the "search engine optimization (SEO) for business" reasons, it's just a fun way to work with photos and the occasional thought.

I don't know if the stats on Blogger are new or if I just found them, but I was astonished at the hits some of my blogs are getting. Here they are, the brief justification for their existence, and the number of hits they each got in August. In no particular order:

. My Personal Journal in Pictures: (The one you're reading.) A lot of pix, but not that personal. Although the name keeps changing, it's the same blog I started with: my first, and I consider it my "basic" blog. It's a long chronology and fun, but is never up to date, and never will be as long as I keep taking photos and have things to do besides sitting a the computer (868 hits in August, which is not bad considering I haven't worked on it lately, but it does have a lot of subjects).

. Tapirgal's Daily Image: A random image each day from my archives. Very satisfying for some reason (561 hits in August).

. On the Pavement: I realized I was taking a lot of photos of things we walk on every day. It turns out, it's fun to see them in one place (254 hits in August, pretty good for a new blog without much PR and an esoteric topic).

. Animal Art Along the Way: Fun, and long overdue. I realized I take pictures of animal art everywhere I go without really thinking about it (386 hits in August, still pretty new; many more than I expected from the few Facebook fans it has).

. Astoria, Oregon, Daily Photo: Just what it says. Part of the City Daily Photo family (4,253 hits in August, quite a surprise; even though there are 880 fans on Facebook as of today, this number was beyond expectations).

. Tapir and Friends Animal Store: The offical blog for the Tapir Preservation Fund's animal-themed online store (4,588 hits in August, another big surprise; this blog lies fallow a lot of the time, but Lee has been helping with daily posts lately, showing real animals and not just the toys and replicas I usually blog about).

. Tapir Preservation Fund (TPF): The official blog of the Tapir Preservation Fund (491 hits in August; this surprised me as being on the low side, but I have not done much with the blog in any consistent way; I intend to fix that now that I feel like I have more time and focus for it, and some other things have become organized).

. Hudson and Joy: A History in Letters: This is specifically for posting letters, documents and information found in an attic and a basement. I haven't done much besides setting up the format and posting a few letters. This will become a really interesting resource as time permits - hopefully soon (82 hits in August; actually, more than I expected).

And what are the two upcoming new blogs? Stay tuned :) One is about rainforest conservation and one is a fun thing about tapirs and travel.

This blog is sponsored by Tapir and Friends Animal Store.

Surreal Bovine Choreography

2010-08-22T21:23:00.000-07:00

Found on Facebook. Thanks, Chuck Hillestad!

This blog is sponsored by Tapir and Friends Animal Store.

Ships and Geese

2010-08-21T12:36:00.000-07:00

The marine layer is still in, keeping the air nice and cool. It's always a pleasure to see the bright Tokyo Marine ships in the morning - this time in a ray of sun against the clouds. The ship's name is Argent Aster, and I don't recall seeing that name before.

The pilot boat coming in.

Seeing Canada geese around Astoria is nothing novel, although I always enjoy them, but what is unusual is seeing them swim past my deck. I see them most often west of here.

Swimming. . . .

This blog is sponsored by Tapir and Friends Animal Store.

Hot and Cold on Regatta Day

2010-08-14T18:00:00.000-07:00

Astoria's annual Regatta parade took place on one of the hottest days of the year, that being 90 degrees - possibly in the sun, not the proverbial shade. I might not have gone out exept that I wanted to take a few pix for Astoria Daily Photo. The heat had me lying pretty low, but I loaded up a plastic bottle with ice and blended fresh fruit and crossed the street to this bit of shaded park in the median between Commercial and Marine.

Looking back at the home front, Marty had arranged with the guys resurfacing the pilots' place to resurface the front of 1490. I'm partial to the old gray, but I guess this helps keep the property in shape. I accidentally walked on it, but found out from Marty that (surprisingly) Windex takes out the marks left on the carpet by your shoes.

It was hot all the way until the end of the parade, then something happened that I just love our area for. The marine layer came in. Right on the river, it actually became cold. The cloud itself is not the marine layer, but the marine layer either creates clouds or pushes them along underneath.

. . . A lacy insect inside the porch alcove.

As I drove out to Warrenton, I was so invigorated by the cold air, I stopped and walked out to take photos of the low clouds. It's amazing what this burst of cool air did for my state of mind. I parked along Marine Drive and walked out to the water - probably farther than I've been able to walk in some time. Welcome signs of recovery, be they ever so slow.

Walking back to the car - the Suomi Hall and the graceful curve of the bridge.

A giddy view. I like the tree in front of the pier.

More giddiness, now facing the onramp.

New design and new purple paint. I like it.

I took this one without looking, since I was driving over the bridge. The marine layer is growing.

By the time I got back to Astoria, this event was taking place just on the other side of Englund Marine. Every year they do a simulated rescue as part of Regatta.

Up . . . I like the piece of a ship in this one.

You can see the spray tossed up by the 'copter.

Back on the west side of Englund Marine, there were more boats coming to the event on the other side of the building, which now I couldn't see.

Guys on the boat.

I'm not sure what the Port Authority is doing here, although they're also on their way to the Event. It would probably have been more fun before it got foggy and cold.

This blog is sponsored by Tapir and Friends Animal Store.

"Among Papers #1"

2010-08-14T10:40:00.000-07:00

Among Papers 1
by Sheryl Todd
Collage on Paper with Paint
August 14, 2010 ~ Astoria, Oregon

Peace of stories
With dust in the air
Through the glass
Witness to all you did
Perforated
Complex questions
You depart the day
All magnificent
In Piraeus
Or formal prayer
Along a jungle river
And
Out of the herd

(The poem is an experiment. I like the way it came out.)

This blog is sponsored by Tapir and Friends Animal Store.

A Drizzly Day on the Columbia

2010-08-03T23:01:00.000-07:00

This is another of my "weather report" photos. Nothing special, except that looking out over the river is always special. It's been drizzly, and it's the most wintery summer I've seen here. People are starting to complain about it. I'm not bothered by it yet, but it is a little weird to be wearing a sweatshirt every day in August and still feeling cold. This is the only photo I took today.

This blog is sponsored by Tapir and Friends Animal Store.

Sun on the Jin Ping

2010-08-02T17:00:00.000-07:00

I love the way the sun shone on the Jin Ping this morning.

This blog is sponsored by Tapir and Friends Animal Store.

Collage: Fighting the Box

2010-07-24T20:30:00.000-07:00

This is the first collage I've done since maybe 2004. I'm still not letting it (whatever it is) go, or letting it out, but at least I'm addressing that fact, finally. I used to do collages all the time, and they are good for my mental health and sense of self. After awhile, they get less intense - usually. I did them especially when I was anxious or tense. I often did three in a row. The first was either too controlled or all over the map. The second often had something to say that was readable, and was usually the one with any artistic merit (if any of them was going to have artistic merit). By the third one, I was usually over whatever it was, and there wasn't much left to transfer to the image.

Today I felt I was in none of those three categories, but I felt that whatever it was, the lid was still on; my inside was boiling. It was frightened to have the lid even be lifted with any chance of the content escaping. Partially, the lid was on because I don't know where to go with it. And, I'm censoring. And I'm doing that partly because I have enjoyed blogging photos and images, and I thought I might blog whatever came out. But this did not feel safe, and it felt like an imposition on anyone who might see it, but I also felt that I wanted to put it in blog format so I could see it that way and add some text. It feels journaled and more complete.

Making the collage felt good and bad. There's a reason I've been resisting. I was tense by the time it was done, but quite relaxed an hour later [and the typing didn't affect my hands badly as it usually does these days]. The image is more or less the same as many of my more emotional but less elucidating old collages, but there was something new and liberating in the visceral aspect today, maybe because I hadn't felt quite that in such a long time. I need to do this. Taking and posting photos may be more fun for people to look at, but it doesn't do much for the stuff that's locked up. Without the art side of it, just blogging photos probably helps keep the lid in place, because it makes me think I'm having a dialogue with the inside, when I'm barely whispering.

I wonder how much of fibromyalgia is trying to keep the inside stuff inside. That, for sure, is stressful.

I noticed that in today's collage there is no humor and no real place of safety. Many of my collages have those elements, so maybe they will come back over time.

This blog is sponsored by Tapir and Friends Animal Store.

The Fort George Incident

2010-06-20T08:53:00.000-07:00

So I walk into this bar and Shorty stuffs a Goldfish in my mouth. Not just ANY goldfish. Note the captial "G." It's a Brand Name cracker, and he was good, too. Shorty, I mean. He caught the action, made the grab, and WHOMP. Right in the kisser. The Goldfish wasn't bad, either.

One for me, several for Shorty.

Yeah, I know. This one is out of focus, but I needed pix for my story. You can see how deftly Shorty (Teagan) handles pieces of food. In this case, I think it was bread. Speaking of "right in the kisser," the kid had had a little accident with a bathtub and a mat the night before. The doc said all was fine, but he still had a bit of a fat lip. Gave it to himself. He seems to be entering one of those stages.

I think we all cherished these moments. It wasn't long before Wiggle Worm was outa there and Mommy and Daddy had to put down their burritos and play herd dog.

The classic shoe phone - always in style.

Byeeeeeeeee! See ya around, Kid.

This blog is sponsored by Tapir and Friends Animal Store.

A Gorgeous Day

2010-06-12T12:09:00.000-07:00

The day dawned spectacularly blue and balmy.

I took this one mainly to record the name of one more ship. This is the Jin Yue. Although I didn't get any further info, ships can usually be found online these days. By the way, on the left is the new, colorful cap to the railing improvements on the pilots' building.

The other end of the Jin Yue.

I thought I'd drive to Astoria Health Foods to pick up some NADH instead of walking, just because I was feeling so tired, but it seems everyone was visiting the coast on this beautiful day, and the parking spots were all taken. I ended up walking about as far as I would have anyway. It was a nice day to be out. This bench seems to be new. I'm noticing new benches and planters all over downtown Astoria.

My first thought was just to capture the old Art Deco tile in the unused entrance to the Astor Hotel ballroom on Commercial Street, then I noticed the strange "flower" growing the pot. Later I noticed the blue glove on the window ledge. Since they're working on the ballroom, and since people leave their trash in inappropriate places, there's no mystery or story at all, but simply visually I thought it was a kind of fun '30s-style mystery image. No?

This is no mystery, it's the front of Amazing Stories. See today's Astoria, Oregon, Daily Photo.

I liked the way the light was playing on the curtains, but you have to click to enlarge in order to see the effect of the old glass.

Coming back, I was struck by the color of the center building, although it doesn't show as well in the photo. Still, I like the image.

This is the sign for Amazing Stories. I'll capture it someday it better light. I think it's one of Astoria's nicer business signs, and the Deco certainly goes with the building.

Here's another bench I hadn't noticed before.

I'm always a little surprised to see kayakers out. There's a kayak rental place on Pier 39, but it's not every day I see them on the water down here. I'm sure there will be more as the weather actually turns into summer.

Evening on the old Englund Marine building. I always love this view, and the pilings are so green right now.

This evening shadow of the deck railings above me always catches my attention, but it doesn't photograph very well. The lines are not sharp. Maybe someday I'll get it.

This blog is sponsored by Tapir and Friends Animal Store.

Sunset Glow

2010-06-07T20:39:00.000-07:00

As I looked out the window, I was struck by the magnificent effect of the sunlight reflecting off the vertical parts of this ship below. But once I got onto the deck, I realized I'd have to be quick to catch the more subtle backlighting on the pilot boat. Tricks of the light often take my breath away, and this was one of those times. You may have to click on the photo to see it.

The ship was moving fast, and once I got it into the frame and focused, I'd already lost some of the drama of reflected light.

But it was gorgous. The timing was perfect. It's such an exciting moment to glance outside river and catch something like this.

This blog is sponsored by Tapir and Friends Animal Store.

A Cardinal at Breakfast

2010-05-08T13:25:00.000-07:00

Napili, Maui, Hawaii ~ May 8, 2010

This Northern Cardinal male (Cardinalis cardinalis) was a total delight to find by the porch outside our room.

This blog is sponsored by Tapir and Friends Animal Store.

Dad's Burial Place in Prescott

2010-04-08T22:38:00.000-07:00

On April 8th as he was driving from Phoenix to Tuba City for the last part of his Amizade Adventure, Lee detoured to Prescott to take photos for me of the mausoleum where Dad's ashes are interred. I've been there, but he wanted to take some photos for me. I couldn't remember the exact location, although I knew what the place looked like, so I found it on Google Earth and directed Lee there by phone. It was a fun way to find it.

The trees and plants have gotten bigger since I was there last, although it still looks bare to me. Lee talked with the pastors (both women), and Pastor Carol said they'd look into tidying the place up and making it look more cared-for. She said there had been a wind-storm recently, but the fountain looked abandoned, etc.

The mausoleum is between the two church buildings, and this side is facing the street.

Dad's plaque is the third one from the left (2nd row down).

This photo was taken from the church walkway on the 2nd level.

From the other side. Across South Summit Avenue is the historical park.

The United Methodist Church, Prescott, Arizona.

The church entrance is on the parking lot, while the back of the church faces the street across from the park.

Springtime.

A view of the park from the garden with the mausoleum.

This blog is sponsored by Tapir and Friends Animal Store.

Boats and Rain

2010-03-25T22:00:00.000-07:00

This morning the tugboat Betsy-L passed by my deck in good lighting for a photo that shows some detail, if it's not dramatic. She's the same tug that posed in this dramatic lighting and ended up on my Astoria, Oregon, Daily Photo blog.

Six minutes later, at 12:13, the storm had come in.

After work, I drove over to Warrenton to Starbucks and sat in the parking lot for awhile talking on the phone. I became interested in the way the rain on the windshield broke up the sign pole into jagged fragments.

I also especially liked the shape of the bare, damaged tree to the left of the pole and the way the street rippled.

It wasn't all that long before there was blue sky again.

This blog is sponsored by Tapir and Friends Animal Store.

White

2010-01-12T01:45:00.000-08:00

Astoria, Oregon ~ January 12, 2010

This blog is sponsored by Tapir and Friends Animal Store.

Jan 4, Astoria: Vessels in the Rain

2010-01-04T17:00:00.000-08:00

The air was so filled with rain today that my camera didn't even want to focus. The pilot boat Arrow 2 is hard at work with its lights on.

Here the Carl Oldendorff rests at anchor in the Columbia River beyond the radio tower. My close-up was so fuzzy, I could barely make out the name of the ship, and I'm not sure which orange ship that is beyond Carl. It was interesting looking up the Carl Oldendorff online, because I was able to see the ship as it appeared on clearer days here in Astoria as well as in New Orleans, Portugal, and somewhere in northern Germany or one of the Scandinavian countries. I've seen in in the river before, but I don't have a photo posted.

This blog is sponsored by Tapir and Friends Animal Store.

Dec 31, Part 2 - Bend: Snow day

2009-12-31T16:11:00.000-08:00

It snowed during the night. For reasons not quite known, I woke up and 4:30 and didn't go back to sleep. No doubt, it has to do with helping Lee pack for his trip. We muscled and coaxed all of the stuff he wanted to take into a backpack and one smallish carry-on. It felt like a sustained effort in puzzle-solving. The trip is four months long, and he's going to be in quite an array of different places with who-knows-what requirements. We were both a little stressed afterwards, but I was thrilled with how well it all fit together, including some bulky things we thought we might have to leave out. I should have taken a few pix of the process, but I was focused mentally, and not with the lens. I'm sure I'll have pictures of the bags before he leaves on Sunday.

It was still snowing when we left for Starbucks.

And it was also reasonably early - and dark from the weather. I like the way the light glowed as we pulled out of the garage.

Snowing. . . .

At the Starbucks parking lot in Bend. I love the colors provided by the guitar van.

From inside Starbucks with reflection. I posted it here also.

By the time we left Starbucks, the world had progressed a bit more in its transformation.

This was our view from inside the Pathfinder. Snow during coffee = a little more build-up.

Home again, and the street is buried a little further. They said it could snow an inch an hour today for much of the day. As it turned out, precipitation was lighter than predicted, but it was fun to watch, and we opted not to drive to Portland today, which was the original plan. Freezing rain is supposed to follow the snow around noonish today. The Christmas lights that were on in the first picture are now off.

The bird feeder looks bleak, and snow blows from the rooftops as it continues to fall from the sky.

I upped the shutter speed to show the flakes.

It isn't really that cold. Snow is melting off the kitchen window.

Finches (?) at the feeder. This is a male with his red head.

I didn't get many chances to get a good pic of the female. They were inclined to scatter when they saw me.

Nice finch. Thank you. He'd take a seed from the feeding tray behind the tube, then poke his head out this side and spit out the shell, or at least that appeared to be the process.

Dec 31, Part 1 - Bend, Oregon: Weekend Reflections, "Warm Inside"

2009-12-31T10:33:00.000-08:00

We were supposed to drive to Portland today (three hours, crossing the high desert and the pass over Mt. Hood), but a snow storm started early with anticipated freezing rain still to come, making today one of the worst driving days all year if it pans out. I took this photo at Starbucks around 8:00 a.m, while we were still discussing whether or not to hit the road. Now at 10:48, I'm home, still watching the flakes turn into inches. We'll put off the drive to Portland until tomorrow. The photo? Nothing special, just a reflection of the day, but I've always liked these hanging orange lamps.

See more Weekend Reflections here . . . but I'm a day early. You may have to wait until Saturday.

Dec 28, Bend: Cold and warm

2009-12-28T12:46:00.000-08:00

The wall across the street that retains the ground for the church and its parking lot finally looked interesting today with snow emphasizing its lines.

Usually Safeway is one of the coldest places in town, but today it seemed positively warm in contrast with the outdoors, and the colors felt warm compared to the outside black and white winterland.

Some apples and eggs. Let's just ignore the M&Ms and Reese's Bars. We've been snacking on cookies this season already. Mmmmmm.

Safeway from the outside. Cold.

Toward evening we went out again. I thought the antennae on this truck were amusing. Someone adapted it rather creatively to hold pipes.

This is Paul's building. It's just been painted. I like the colors and I like the lights.

Speaking of lights, I haven't taken that many photos this year with Christmas lights (nor in any other year, but I've taken a lot more photos this year, so it would seem that I'd have more of lights, too). I think it's been cold both here and Astoria, and not very tempting to stand outside and try to get exposures right. Inside this rug store, I thought I'd take a pic of this funky reindeer. Kinda cute. He has personality, anyway.

Dec 26, Bend: Splashes of color in a black and white world

2009-12-26T14:08:00.000-08:00

We drove into Bend last night in the dark, and weren't able to see the fairy kingdom made by frozen fog on trees and bushes until this morning. I took all of the photos in this post in color, and I didn't change the color in Photoshop. A few of the photos came out really well. Others are included to help me remember the day.

There was only a dusting of frost on the ground - no snow - but every branch and needle were covered in lacy white, making the green of the trees look more black than green by contrast. After this week, I won't be back to Bend for a number of months, so I've included a lot of photos in today's post. It was magical being out in these conditions.

First stop, Starbucks, where the papers were full of the news of the fizzled "device on Flight 253. This is when I realized what an entirely different feel the day would have had if the thing had gone off - not only for family and friends of the passengers, but for everyone. Of course, the news continued to be filled with bits about airport security failures, failures to make use of information in databases, etc. The consequences will not be over at the end of the day, even though (thankfully), the passengers touched down safely.

We stopped in a parking lot, because we wanted to take photos of various plants we'd seen along the roadside. There were a few colorful leaves on this dark green bush.

This one came out really well. It may help to enlarge it.

I took this because I liked the shape of the small trees. When I saw it, I liked the color in the otherwise-monochromatic scheme.

Heh. Iced mocha today? Actually, I've been getting cold coffee drinks lately, but not at McDonald's.

Aesthetically, I could have left this one out, but I like the variety of trees covered in frost.

Approaching the traffic circle.

This is one of the things I wanted to photograph. I like the deer in the wreath and the feathery white background. Bend has sculptures of one sort or another in every traffic circle in town, or nearly all of them. Some are realistic and some are not. I think the city has done a nice job trying to beautify the sterile new streets.

The exposure isn't quite right here, but I liked the sun glow on the trees that were painted on the door to Pine Mountain Sports. It looked very nice as we entered.

We stopped at Strictly Organic for some breakfast burritos, and this was the view out the window in front of the counter where you can sit down to eat. I've had their coffee before, and I think it's the worst I've ever had anywhere. In fact, after much consideration, I threw it out. But their burritos were fantastic.

The bell-shaped lights are reflections from inside Strictly Organic.

The "numbers" they give you that correspond with your order aren't numbers at all, but countries. Funny that we got Tanzania, because Lee will be there on his upcoming trip, so he was able to show me his route and where he'd be staying. I'm certainly looking forward to the photos.

More reflections, more frost. I like the shape of the arch in the bricks, too.

I took this out the other window. I like a number of the elments here, but the first thing that caught my eye was the unusual coloring of the trim.

Again from the cafe window: red, red, nice shapes of the bike rack, and a square within a square.

In the corner of the room behind us as we were eating, was this nice tree painted on the wall.

The counter where we ate was cool. I think it must be palm wood in laminated rectangles. The next photo shows what nature can do in Creative Design class.

Isn't that wonderful? The smaller dots look like a jaguar's coat.

I'm not sure why I included this one. It was just part of the moment.

Strictly Organic supplies water for dogs. But today a dog would need an ice pick.

Frosty bike. Cool bike rack design.

I've taken pictures of these grates before and liked the color better without the frost, but this time I noticed the type: It says, "Bend, Oregon - Est. 1905."

Oak leaves. I love the pale brown.

This is one of my favorite pix of the day. I took it through the windshield of the car, looking at the lacy white-on-white trees on the right, but it turned into a nice composition, and and love the colored sign, too. We were almost home.

Dec 6, Astoria: Cold today

2009-12-06T23:30:00.000-08:00

I took surprisingly few photos today - in fact, only this scene. The tides have been big: high highs, and low lows. And the river was rough, but I didn't hang around to catch white-capped waves under the radio tower, because it was already in the 30s near sundown. For here, that's pretty cold and I wasn't prepared. Wind had been shaking the building, and something underneath was thumping against the pilings in the high tide. As I write this just before bed (at 1:30 in the morning of December 7, although I'm posting it to December 6), it's only 30 degrees out. I've been working all day and all evening, and even though the heater's been on, the room is cold. Clearly, it's time to turn in!

Dec 1, Portland: Another day at OHSU

2009-12-01T22:00:00.000-08:00

I wanted to remember breakfast. This image was stronger when I was back further and the perspective was greater, but we were walking, and I didn't take time to direct the scene. Most of the pix in this post are of that type - on the fly. Memories.

The contrasts caught my attention in the parking lot as we walked back to Jane's condo to get ready to go in to OHSU (Oregon Health Science University: the hospital) for the day. My job was to be moral support, but of course I did it because I wanted to be there.

Moss along the paved sidewalk, and a red curb.

A beautiful old live oak. I'm sure it was once happier without the pavement. Its better angle is from the right in this image, but we were walking and I missed it.

Beautiful fall trees still have their leaves despite rain and wind. This is at Jane's condo in Lake Oswego (Portland).

The drive up the hill. Trees. Talking about the 70% chance of success, hoping it will be within the 70%, and what does that really mean. What does it mean to think positive? But it doesn't hurt, and we were doing our best to think positive even though the procedure was already said to be very tricky.

Yellow autumn leaves still glowing in the morning sun.

Oddly, I like blurry photos along the road. This is so Oregon, even in the midst of the city.

The tram at OHSU was under construction for so long, and now it faithfully carries people from their cars parked at the base of the hill up to the buildings where they work or visit the hospital and other buildings. It's massive, and is built with interesting shapes and colors. We opted for parking in the lot on top.

Into the maw.

More modern shapes and contrasts. If you have to have something done at a hospital, it may as well be an interesting one.

More angles at OHSU.

Tram top and covered walkway.

More new construction.

Shapes and reflections.

From inside the 9th floor hallway, I tried to get a shot of this deco design through tinted glass as we waited.

The halls have some nice paintings. This is in the 9th floor waiting area. Strange. A woman in a wheelchair needed a signature from someone not in her own family and not on the hospital staff. They were to sign a form witnessing that the woman had signed a document. I offered. The lady was grateful, but "She doesn't know who I say I am," she said. "That doesn't matter," said the staff member. I signed. Of course, I didn't have to show I.D. either. Weird.

Traveling Wilburys . . . out of the closet and I can't stop listening

2009-11-22T21:34:00.000-08:00

Just a disclaimer. I didn't take any of these photos :) But probably nobody will mind, since I'm linking everthing to their official site. If you've heard them, you'll probably want to listen again. If you haven't heard them, you're in for a big treat. I was excited today to find a link to super-high-quality videos of End of the Line and Handle With Care. There are more, but these are my two favorites. (There is no arrow, just click on the photo when you get to their site.) If you think you haven't heard of the group, take a look at the faces. It's only a few friends having fun making music: Bob Dylan, Jeff Lynne, Tom Petty, Roy Orbison, and George Harrison.

I remember the day in the late 1980s when I first encountered them. I had no idea, but I couldn't believe what I'd just heard on the radio, and I couldn't believe there was "some group" out there so remarkably gifted and this was only their first record. I called the radio station and dutifully wrote down "T-r-a-v-e-l-i-n-g-W-i-l-b-u-r-y-s." Then I scraped up a few bucks and went to find their music in the store. I had those two cassette tapes for a long time, and when I began replacing tapes with CDs, I was distressed to learn that the group was not on disc. In fact, they'd been out of print for quite some time. But by that time I was getting the idea that sooner or later everything would be available on CD, it might just be a matter of waiting. (There's actually one obscure tape I'm still waiting for, but it wasn't very popular.)

Well, times have changed. Identities have been revealed. I bought the double CD with the DVD and fell in love with the sound all over again. The video was fantastic. I pulled it off the shelf again the other night after watching a horrible DVD of Cream's farewell concert at Albert Hall. I love Cream, I love their sound, but this DVD had not captured the sound I loved, and the visual was old and almost unwatchable. The thing it seems to have captured best was Jack Bruce's bad complexion, and I could have done without that information. So what that has to do with the Wilburys is basically nothing except that I wanted to end the evening on a better note, and I knew this video would do it for me. I could not stop hitting the replay button. Tonight for laughs I looked them up online and found that the videos have been made available online. With a computer, speakers, and a mouse, you don't even have to pay for it. I love this turn of events, but I'm still trying to figure out how one little room could hold so much genius. And the varied talents blend so perfectly. There's a video included that tells the story, and it's delightful and amazing to watch. And . . . they were having fun, which is so gladdening to feel part of, which is what happens to you. It's 100% infectious. And as Sue said, no egos. I guess I've said all I know how to. Just listen. Enjoy.

A gift of tapirs

2009-10-29T15:56:00.000-07:00

I did not take this photo, but I feel lucky that my work is such that people send me things like this! There were four photos in all. For the full story and three more photos, please visit my tapir blog.

Oct 10, Bend: Morning colors and things on the tops of buildings

2009-10-10T21:26:00.000-07:00

There are always unusual things to take pictures of in Bend, Oregon. On the way to a garage sale this morning, I spied this found-metal fish on top of someone's garage. Very Bend.

Down the street was more garage art. What the heck is this horse doing on the point of the garage roof? Who knows. Maybe they couldn't part with it after it wore out. Anyway, it's something a little different.

Of course, this is also the time to be enchanted by trees turning colors. Some turn faster than others, and they turn such a variety of colors.

It's also a good time to find native high-desert plants in flower - at least, I think this is a native sage.

The trees on Wall Street near Revere were screaming red.

Here's a closer-up view of the same trees.

And more sagebrush, also on Wall Street near the highway entrance.

The flowers on the brush are subtle, and so pretty this time of year.

Flowers with more of the sage. The dusty colors complement each other perfectly.

I also like the gratings around the young trees in this part of town.

Here's one with a touch of Autumn showing.

These leaves are more withered than showing the natural trend of the season. The colors are here, but they are also fading rather than glowing as brightly as they otherwise would. A freak early snowstorm on October 4th (seen here on Lee's Bend, Oregon, Daily Photo blog) zapped the life (or part of it) right out of many of the plants here.

I left this photo in mainly to remind me that I want to go back and photograph some of the old buildings in this area. They are definitely frontier era, and quite charming, even though sometimes hard to photograph between the cars and behind the power lines. This one is on Revere Avenue and Division Street.

Today is Laurel's birthday. Happy 28th!!! We called, but were sorry we weren't there to help celebrate. Laurel, if you read this, I or we will be bringing something to Astoria for you by Wednesday or before. See you then :)

Sep 21, Astoria: Ships, bananas, raccoons

2009-09-21T22:00:00.000-07:00

It was gorgeous this morning, with wind on the river churning up whitecaps and cooling the air. We're supposed to have a warm day today (low 80s) and a hot day tomorrow (88 degrees). Anyway, it was wonderful out when I took this photo. It's always interesting to find out what the various ships and boats are about that pass by here - there are so many, and they come in such variety. The boat in this photo is the Hickson, "Portland District's ocean going survey vessel home ported at Astoria, Oregon." It carries state-of-the-art equipment for surveying the bottom of rivers and bays along the Oregon coast i the "dynamically acrtive reaches of the navigation channels." You can read more details about it in this PDF file.

Choppy water, nice breeze.

This next ship is the Essayons. The lettering on it says, "Essayons, Corps of Engineers, U.S. Army."

It looks like it's fitted out to do some heavy-duty work. I guess it should, it's a dredge. Here's another photo of it from above. Interesting. It has a helipad at the back. Along with the Yaquina, it's one of two hopper dredges that keep the Columbia River shipping channel open. On a web page that was updated in 2005, it says, "The Dredge Essayons is the latest dredge to be built for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Delivered to the Portland District in 1983, the Essayons helps to maintain the entrance bars and harbors on the coasts of California, Oregon, Hawaii and Alaska." It has a crew of 23, who work one week on and one week off. A lot of the operation of the ship (such as the engine room) is automated. Well, OK. I learned something :)

It was nice on the back deck last night, so I went out there with my camera, fiddling with the flash and nighttime exposure. It would help if I read about it, but I can't seem to learn much from the pamphlet that comes with the camera. I should really figure it out. It just seems so obtusely written. The spot of light under the catwalk is from a window of the pilots' building. The tide is way out, and that's probably mud, but it's close to where the water line was at the time.

Yes, there is something here. If you click on it, you'll see boards and an old tire in the mud. And a banana I dropped. I'm glad it wasn't my cell phone. I think about that a lot when I'm standing near a rail and talking. They used to have hand straps on phones, but no, now you can't get them that way. They're made slick and shiny and SLIPPERY. Why, I don't know. I'm surprised I haven't dropped mine more than I have. Knock on wood. I do try to be careful, but . . . you know? Things happen. Just try to find a case with a stap on it. Not happening.

I promise, the banana looked much better before I dropped it. And no, I didn't try to get it back. I hoped maybe the raccoons would come by and eat it. I hear them sometimes at low tide, and I've seen them on occasion. Apparenlty they dig for clams and dig worms out of the pilings. A couple of times lately after dark when the tide has been out, I've heard a wave crashing in, caused by the wake of the pilot boat or a ship maybe, and simultaneously the screeches of several surprised and angry raccoons. I wonder if I could see them at work if I got the right kind of light? Or would it require infra-red?

Here's the deck at night.

Mysteries and reflections

2009-09-20T20:00:00.000-07:00

In the comment section of my Astoria, Oregon, Daily Photo blog, Vogon Poet of my adopted sister city, Livorno, asked which ships were in the reflecton below. Today (actually, the day of that photo, since I'm writing this on October 4) there were at least five big ships anchored in the river. The two on the left can be seen reflected in the windows of Baked Alaska's lounge (see next photo below). I took the picture above from Waterfront Park (14th Street Pier), so at this time, Baked Alaska was one block behind me. I didn't take close-ups of the ships today to get their names, but the third photo appears to show that the second from left is the (Something) Wind, rather than the similar-looking Bungo Spirit, which was on the river a few days later. I seem to remember seeing a ship by the name (Something) Wind (possibly Celestial Wind), so I think I have it right. It's hard to read in the distorted reflection. One of the mysteries to me is how the ships appear so large in the windows. They were not moved, since these first two photos were taken only five minutes apart. I've left the top photo large when you click on it, but it's impossible to read the names of the ships.

Leaving aside the explanation for the size of the reflections, I think the picture is simply lyrical. In fact, the mystery and distortion just enhance this effect. The photo below was taken from a different spot on the 14th Street Pier. It was taken 32 minutes after the photo in Baked Alaska's windows. I had wandered around town and again passed the pier on my way back. Below, the reflection is in the waterside windows of the U.S. Customs building.

I've left this photo large, so if you click on it, you can barely make out the name of the ship on the left. The various shipping lines send quite a few different ships through the river. They look similar until you pay attention to the details. Hopefully, I'm going to find more time soon to keep my personal blog up to date. I do love noting the identities of the vessels that move up and down the river, and sometimes stay for a few days.

Sept 13, Astoria: Old technology, found while cleaning

2009-09-13T14:25:00.000-07:00

I've been reorganizing my office this weekend to make it easier to reach things in storage boxes. Quitting Market America has opened up a few file drawers and bins, and that's probably what got me started on this particular Augean stable. So far, I'm liking it. I've been thinking of the various projects I want to work on over the next few years, and all of them entail easier access to the materials stored in boxes and files that have been essentially out of reach for awhile. There are also boxes of old files that have run their 7-year IRS mandate and can be gotten rid of (once reachable :)

Anyway, in the process I found this bit of old printout from an order of a number of years ago. It brought back the old days when I had so few orders and less sophisticated technology. A customer would place their order online, and I had to then e-mail them the total cost and the shipping amount. They would have to OK it and e-mail me back. Then I could ship the order. In the earliest years before that, I actually had to pack up the order and take it to the post office to get a mailing cost, then contact the customer! Back then, if I had a few boxes in a week, it was a lot. Now, of course, it comes in already approved by the credit card company and the customer has selected their shipping method, with the total right there for them to look at.

Blogs merged: "Theodore J. (Ted) Todd (1923-2003)" added to this blog

2009-09-10T17:06:00.000-07:00

Today I merged the blog I'd started about Dad into my personal blog. Especially when I get to the photos, it's hard to decide which blog they should go on. You can find the posts about him using the link to his name somewhere on the right side bar or click on the keywords at the bottom of this post. Here is some text I wrote for the sidebar of his blog:

"My father liked puns, liked history, science and invention. He loved his family. He was easy-going and had many, many friends, acquaintances and business associates. He was on more boards of directors than I could count, and he actually attended meetings and made things happen. He almost went into politics. I wonder how that would have turned out. He was as honorable as they come, so maybe it's a good thing he didn't. He was always curious about the world, and adored travel and fishing. I'm going to have to look up some dates, but Dad married our mother (Betty) about 1946. I was born in 1949, Kathy in 1951, and Gary in 1954. When I was 30, our parents divorced and he married Lois, with whom he lived until his death in 2003. I'll keep posting pictures and stories. If you would like to contribute, please add a comment to any post or send e-mail. Thanks! Read more about Ted's life."

I had also put this note at the top of his blog:

"In memory of Ted Todd, born in San Francisco, California, January 11, 1923; died in Prescott, Arizona, March 14, 2003. He spent most of his long, active, and inventive life in the home town of his ancestors, Corona, California (before it got so big, and while the trees were still there). In later years he and Lois lived in Prescott, Arizona."

I think it will be easier to post more regularly when I don't have to make artificial separations depending on who is in the photo. I also found where I'd stored the notebook I began about his life, so there are a few things there I'll be adding soon. Remember, you can use the labels below.

Brattcat finds our Townshend ancestral home

2009-09-10T11:39:00.000-07:00

Please check out the Brattleoro blog written by Brattcat for the source of the photo above. Brattcat researched the location of the William Howe and Hetty Leonard Joy home in Townshend, Vermont, and this became her photo for the day. More bits about the ancestors who lived there can be found in the comments section of her blog. Meanwhile, we sometimes just have to get back to work, and now is one of those times. I'm thrilled and grateful to Brattcat for sharing this photo!

Sept 6, Astoria: Wet

2009-09-06T09:20:00.000-07:00

I wonder how many people will show up for the last Sunday Market of the year today? It could happen. After the squall, the sun came out and people are walking the streets again, although the weather man shows T-storms and rain all day. On the river, the colors are indescribable, where you get the clouds, dark background, green water glowing in the sun highlighting a buoy, a stretch of the river, the green bridge. And then it changes in the blink of an eye. It should be interesting for viewers, but maybe not so for those having to set up tents with all their carefully hand-made or homegrown products . . . and keep them from getting wet or blowing away!

This photo shows a bit of the river walk outside of the Animal Store facing east toward the Maritime Museum, Custard King, and the park where I was bitten by fleas.

Aug 26, Astoria to Bend: On the Road

2009-08-26T20:00:00.000-07:00

Thus begins a mini-adventure. Not that we expected anything to be difficult, but it would be the first time Laurel and I and Teagan would travel from Astoria to Bend to see Lee, aka Dad and Grandpa. First stop, Coffee Girl on Pier 39. I couldn't help but take a photo in this setting. I was a bit sorry to be leaving our wonderful weather and the coast I so love for dry and possibly hot parts inland.

My first glimpse of Teagan for the day was in the dark cave of the SUV. Dark because we're parked inside of the Pier 39 building.

Ooooh. Micky, Minnie, and Donald. I hadn't liked them so much as a child, but it seems they've morphed with modern technology into educational animals rather than ones that simply get caught in stupid situations and make impossible contortions with their bodies to get out of trouble. The colors are nice. As long as Teagan can't see the road from his car seat, he can learn about angles and the formation ducks fly in. I'm wondering if his first words will be, " . . . two sides of the triangle."

Same-old, same-old in a sense, but always different, and always worth a picture. I love being able to see the ships just about every day.

A few hours later and nearing Mount Hood, the clouds were interesting. In this case, the white thing on the left is INSIDE the car. Oh, well. I just like taking the photos.

More cloud formations nearing the mountain.

You get only a few good camera-worthy glimpses of Mount Hood as you skirt the old volcano. Today the glaciers are pared down to a bare minimum from where they were a decade or two ago.

Nice cloud formation, beautiful Mount Hood. Skirting the mountain by road.

Here's an underpass with pedestrian overpass adjacent to the mountain. It's attractive, with each design element featuring an animal or image. I hoped to get an animal in the camera sights as the car swooped past, but I think I got toboggans. On another trip, I believe I got a fish.

The small town of Government Camp is just off the main road. We stopped at the part of Government Camp that sits alongside the highway to use the facilities and take a break. As we pulled into a parking spot, a small animal (apparently a vole) scampered out of the weeds and stopped still. I didn't want to scare it, and my first photos were from farther away - as close as I could get with the optical zoom. After awhile, as it hadn't moved, I crept closer. It still didn't move, and I began to get the feeling it wasn't going to. "How weird," we both said, "It just crawled out of the grass right in front of our eyes and DIED, or what?"

Apparently so. This is my close-up of the cute little vole, but now it's a cute dead vole. I didn't touch it, but I did stomp on the ground a mere foot from the animal now baking in the sun at the top of the pass. Too bad. How strange. I wonder if it had been poisoned.

This is the view of Mt. Hood and the ski lift from the road at Government Camp. It looks beautiful, and today it was hot - about 95 degrees.

Here's another view of Mount Hood. For the record, this is the end of August, 2009, and the snow and ice is certainly depleted.

Laurel and Teagan get some exercise. I'd already checked to see about brain freezes or smoothies, but the place was out of ice cream and their freezer was broken. Hot coffee? Not today, thanks.

We had expected to see a lot of this, but there really wasn't much, so it didn't slow us down too much. Another two hours to go. Everything was going fine.

Past Mount Hood, down the slope and onto the high desert plains. It was August tan, gold and brown, and also hazy from fires. This particular short stretch is one of my favorites. It's in a slight draw with a marsh at the bottom. The branches of the marsh plants turn red and other interesting colors in most seasons. At one time it burned, and I always like the contrast of the tortured dark trees in front of Mount Jefferson, but unless one stops, there's only a fraction of a second to get a good photo from a moving car, and this time I didn't. In order to walk to a good photo stop, you need to park off the rise and walk on the narrow siding. That wasn't happening today, so I'm happy with the memory-book photo I did get.

Another photo of Mount Jefferson as we passed it, and then I put the camera aside for awhile even though there are wonderful rock formations between here and Bend.

I came up with one last photo, which I just love, in the valley at Warm Springs. I wouldn't know how to describe this feathery image with its subtle color and perfectly-formed shadow, so I'll simply say, I really like this one.

And on to Bend.

Aug 26, Astoria: A hazy heron morning on the river

2009-08-26T14:04:00.000-07:00

Amazing. It's wonderful to be greeted first thing in the morning by a sight like this. It's rather unusual, too. Although there are quite a few herons on the river, they don't usually fly into my little bay beneath the radio tower. I think this is the second one I've seen this month, but before that it had been quite some time.

Why do they always look like they want to get back at you for something you did? I knew this heron wouldn't be staying long, so I took its photo as quickly and quietly as possible through the mud-splashed window.

I was right. I figured that this is about what I'd see when the heron caught any movement through the window.

I've tried so many times to get the brilliant yellow-gold of the wood chips, and they usually turn out gray. The light was better this time. I love the way they look in the green barges, although I always think about all the trees it took to make them.

Here's the pilot boat Arrow 2 alongside the Belle Nautica. I'll seriously miss mornings like this if I ever have to move.

Aug 9, Bend, Part 1: Sunday Morning

2009-08-09T23:00:00.000-07:00

We decided to go out for coffee, but wait . . . there's something red and shiny in the driveway.

Ashley? Adam? ???

So I got out while they were moving their car. Time to smell the flowers, or at least look at them. They're beautiful right now, and they are spreading. Lee says he only planted one. They now surround the base of the spruce tree, and they've begun their descent down the terracing.

The closer you get, the better they look. I remember when they were planted.

They're called "gaillardia," but I don't know what species they are.

Nice.

A couple more.

Colorado blue spruce by the garage door. It was moved here when Paul extended the bedroom.

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Aug 9, Bend, Part 2: Starbuck's

2009-08-09T22:00:00.000-07:00

En route to Starbuck's. Why did they build something this ugly, when they could have designed a more pleasing exterior? Its selling point is that it's an energy-efficient design. We went inside one of the models a few months ago, and it felt like being inside something that should have been sitting on a shipping pallet. I don't mind industrial at all, and in fact, I've enjoyed living in industrial neighborhoods, but I failed to find the charm in this home. And they don't seem to be selling, but maybe that's the market. Looking at one is sort of entertaining. I can only imagine what it will look like when this corner is filled with these horrible brown boxes.

The entrance to Starbuck's. Just clicking the shutter for the memory book. It was nice outside.

Just out front of Starbuck's in the landscaping. A tripod is needed here, so it's not sharp, but I like the purple flower with this background. It was nice to look at, and it's nice to remember.

More purple blowing in the weeds and the breeze outside Starbuck's. Natural landscaping. I like it.

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